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Ben rubbed his stubbled chin. He’d caught an errant speck of dried blood in it this morning and couldn’t stop touching it. The last thing they needed was for Levi to pass out on the plane heading to Alaska.

“There’s still paperwork to go through before ownership is officially transferred,” Ben admitted, thinking about all the goddamn emails he’d had to answer after Amber agreed to take over the gym, effective immediately. She hadn’t even seemed that surprised. Which had been a shock to Ben, who wasn’t exactly an impulsive person. Had he seemed so sick of owning the gym that everybody thought he’d foist it on her at a moment’s notice? It was a relief, sure. But if he had another choice, he would have eased Amber into it instead of shoving her into the deep end and immediately leaving the state. He had offered to help Amber once he got back from his indefinite holiday, but Amber had sounded all too happy to take it off his hands without any further assistance.

“But I can do that over email,” Ben continued. “Even the signature. Who knew you could sign something on a screen?”

Dominic gave Ben a flat look. He’d been the one to teach Ben how to sign a PDF on his laptop. He’d tried to do it on Ben’s phone, but that had nearly ended in blows.

“At least you’re finally rid of it,” Dominic said, adjusting his tie. “I thought you would limp along with it for the next year, at least.”

Ben snorted. “I would’ve done it eventually. As soon as I had something to move on to.”

“You do. Security.” Dominic smiled. He’d been doing that a hell of a lot more since shacking up with his movie star boyfriend.

Ben dug his elbow into Dominic’s side. Dominic didn’t even block him, just rocked with the impact with a tired chuckle. Dominic had been up all night helping to organize a team to track down the activist group targeting Levi. He wasn’t the guy in charge—they were going to leave that up to a bigshot who did this shit for a living—but he was one of the higher-ups. He would be the one keeping Ben in the know via radio when they were in Alaska.

The last bag was loaded into the cargo hold. The crew closed the door, looking utterly nonplussed by the number of bags they’d had to load into a private plane that was carrying two people. They probably had to deal with this shit all the time.

Austin emerged into the hangar with Levi trailing him. Levi wore a thick coat that contrasted hugely with the useless gauzy scarf covering his neck. They were too far away for Ben to hear their conversation, but they were clearly pretending not to be worried. For some reason, Levi was doing a better job than his professional actor brother. Something about the way Levi held himself made it impossible to look away. Or maybe it was the way he moved. He was effortless and glamorous, and often looked bored. He was wearing dark eyeliner, which made his blue eyes stand out against his pale skin even more than usual. He looked a little like a vampire from those movies everyone used to like. Ben refused to let himself be attracted to a vampire lookalike, no matter how captivating his eyes were, especially not a client.

Dominic asked, “How’s your knee?”

Ben didn’t startle. He was a bodyguard now; he didn’t forget his surroundings just because his client was annoyingly alluring.

“Fine,” Ben said. He flexed it, irritated when it twinged. His knee was swollen, and it had a low throb that wouldn’t go away. The intense Alaskan cold wasn’t going to make that any better. But he’d survive.

Levi hugged Austin, who gave him a manly back-clap which turned into something so close to clinging that Ben looked away. Clinging was something you did when one of you was gravely injured. He and Dominic had done their share of clinging in the army. It looked out of place outside of a battlefield. His old therapist’s voice chimed in to remind him that he was doing that thing that made his father die a lonely old man, which Ben could grudgingly understand, so he made himself watch the brothers as they pulled back.

“You said it was just a few weeks,” Ben said as they watched Levi climb into the private plane. “Right? A month, tops. Those activists aren’t trained professionals; they’re passionate idiots who lucked into getting funded by people who are pulling out once they realize the optics aren’t good.”

“We eventually expect them to crumble internally,” Dominic agreed. “But until that happens, they’re gunning for Levi. We’re hopeful to have you back before spring.”

Ben sighed. He hated not having a clear timeline. But that was just how life was sometimes. “See you before spring.”

Dominic nodded. After a pause that Ben tried not to think about, they both moved in for a hug. It was short and sensible and ended with back slaps, the way Ben had been taught to hug. Not that he’d had much in the way of training. Which was fine by him. Still, he was appalled to notice a faint thread of admiration, disgust, and jealousy as he remembered how the brothers had clung to each other, even though no one was bleeding out.

The seats were so roomy and soft that Ben had to stop himself from swearing at them, as he sometimes did when he unexpectedly experienced something nice. If Ben were the kind of man who relaxed, he would have sunk into them. But he wasn’t that sort of man. And he was on a job. A job that was bound to be long and boring. One thing about working in security, Dom had told him, is that once all the perimeters had been secured, you spent a lot of time standing around while you waited for a threat.

Then again, Ben reminded himself as Levi got up from his seat across the aisle, boredom was better than the alternative.

Levi plopped himself into the seat next to Ben’s. They had more room than Ben had ever experienced on an airplane, and yet Levi chose to drape his arm over Ben’s armrest and lean into his space.

“I get scared during takeoff,” Levi said coyly. “Do you mind if I hold onto you?”

To Ben’s shock, he had to bite his cheek to stop himself from laughing. What the hell? Levi wasn’t funny. Levi was a spoiled little shit who thought he could have anything he wanted. Which apparently included Ben. Ben couldn’t tell if he was flattered. Levi seemed like the kind of guy who flirted with anything that moved. He’d probably flirt with whoever was sitting next to him. For some reason, this pissed Ben off.

Levi took Ben’s silence as acceptance and reached for Ben’s hand.

“If you touch me,” Ben said, “I’ll make those bruises even worse.”

Levi sat back with a surprised huff, toying with the light scarf that covered his neck. “I thought you weren’t into breathplay?”

He wound the soft scarf through his fingers. They were long and dextrous, and he found himself wondering if Levi did hand modeling. That was a thing, right?

Ben glanced out the plane window to see Dominic and Austin holding hands and chatting. Levi leaned around Ben to watch with him. “They’re so ridiculous. Can’t even stop touching each other when they’re waving me goodbye.”

He grinned. He was so close Ben could smell his cologne. Or maybe perfume. It smelled too sweet to be cologne. Or maybe Ben just didn’t know shit about cologne.

Ben pushed him back into his seat with a hand against his chest.