Jameson sighed again. There was nothing like having your own parents die during filming to make a guy sentimental about a dry sheet cake and a few balloons.
“Justin!” one of his old tutors hollered. “You taking off?”
Jameson held up the watch that had been chosen for the event, tapping it. “Long ride home,” he said. “Lance in college this year?”
“Penn,” the man answered. “Have a good one, yeah?”
Jameson nodded, then headed outside. He just couldn’t keep up the act any longer that night, couldn’t play Justin Sweet for one more minute. It happened that way sometimes, all at once, like the weight of it got to be too much and his honest self needed to stretch, to be free again.
Stepping into the back of the car, with the privacy window already rolled up, Jameson threw himself across the seat with a dramatic sigh.
He might just have been holed up in a mansion, but at least there, he didn’t have to pretend.
Gray
Gray stoodoutside the big white gate, surrounded by wooded hillside as the road curved along. Between the bars of the entrance, he could see a sprawling lawn, but the driveway disappeared down a bend before any glimpse of the mansion inside was visible.
He kicked the pavement. For how many times he’d jumped the fence at a place like this, it felt weird as hell to come in through the front door. After another couple of minutes of waffling and debating how upset his uncle would be if he backed out, Gray finally punched in the code he’d been given, hopped back in his car, and rolled toward the new job.
Justin fucking Sweet.
He still couldn’t believe it. The star of theBroken Dragonfranchise, some of the best action movies of all time. Gray still remembered the first time he’d seen Justin Sweet’s face on a magazine: “Hollywood’s youngest action star,” the “hero for a new generation.” He’d saved the world three different times before he could legally drink at the bar.
Seeing Justin back then had always sparked something in Gray. At eighteen and nineteen, Justin was too young for Gray’s interest, but Gray still couldn’t help but notice how tempting and full his lips were or the curve of his bubble butt when he jumped from one helicopter to another. It made him feel complicated things, things he was trying not to feel again as he parked his car by a detached garage, then hopped out to assess his new digs.
And okay, maybe Gray had fantasized about steering those helicopters with Justin and fighting alongside the Broken Dragon. Didn’t everyone?
The house was sleek and modern. It looked like someone had taken three slices out of the hill Gray was looking at, then filled the holes in with glass, brick, and wood panels. There were wide porches jutting out at sharp angles, and in the center, a pool of water sat perfectly still. Behind it, thick trees and a small pond made the property secluded enough so you could practically forget the outside world was around the corner at all.
“Damn,” Gray muttered. “The Broken Dragon did pretty good for himself.”
Just as he took a step forward to approach the mansion, a shrill, sharp bark cut through the yard. Gray jumped backward with a start as a large dog with a heavy white coat and beady eyes charged his way. Panic shot up Gray’s spine so fast, he yelped and leapt backward, throwing himself onto the hood of the car while the beast plowed forward.
“Pickles!” a voice called out. “Stop that right now!”
The dog fell silent at the front of the car, then plopped to the ground. Gray stared down, his heart pounding, while the dog panted and rolled to the side.
“What the hell, Pickles,” Gray muttered, trying to compose himself. “Blowing up my game here.”
Which was when he looked up and saw Justin Sweet. Justin Sweet! He was standing there, a few feet down the driveway, with that exact same look Gray had seen a million times before, all over the television when that annoying show was still on and then the movie screens and the gossip rags. He had this perfectly confident, natural smile on his face. It made the smooth angles of his jaw and the soft curves of his cheeks even more perfect.
And it made Gray even more horrified that he’d just nearly pissed himself over a dog.
Gray tried to not to stare like an obsessed fan. Now that he was a little bit older, Justin was undeniably hot. He wasn’t quite as muscled as when he was an action star, but there was still a solid strength to his body. His eyes sparkled with some kind of icy green shine, and his dark hair was tousled casually, nearly long enough to fall over his eyes. And even though the jeans he wore weren’t tight, they still hugged his thighs enough that Gray was suddenly desperate to catch a glance of his ass and see if it was as legendary as he remembered.
“Oh hey,” he said, finally sliding down the hood, then hopping to his feet. “Gray, I’m the new security guard.” He stuck out his hand. “Cute dog.”
The superstar’s smile actually flickered for a second, like there was a whole different smile waiting behind it, but it returned to normal when Justin took Gray’s hand with a firm, measured squeeze. “Sorry about that. It’s funny—she’s supposed to be a guard dog, but she almost never actually does her job. I don’t know what it is about you that got her attention, but she came running straight out here.” He bent down, then scratched the back of Pickles’s head. “Now why can’t you do that when there’s paparazzi hopping the fence, huh?”
“That’s what I’m for, I guess,” Gray said, then grabbed his backpack from the passenger seat in the car. “You want to show me around this place?”
“Oh sure,” Justin said, rising back up to full height. “As my assistant would have explained, you’ll have your own residence in the back here. If you’ll follow me, I can show you there first.”
Gray followed as Justin brought him to a little stone path around the house. He only managed to halfway listen as the actor explained the layout of the property, all information that Declan had made him memorize during “security boot camp,” as he called it.
Nodding along, Gray grunted every now and then to show his attention, but in his mind, he was starting to fixate on this scene in the third and finalBroken Dragonmovie, where Justin rode his horse into the battle for the last time, jumping it across the tops of skyscrapers.
Iconic. And hard to believe that the little twink from the movies was now grown up and standing there, gesturing to a little white cabin by the pond.
