Page 50 of My Bodyguard’s The Boss

“I’m gonna hang up,” Austin threatened.

“Okay, god!” Levi grimaced. “So, you haven’t seen the article that’s just started circulating on cutiecelebcircuit.com?”

“Stop going on that website,” Austin said. “It’s not flattering when they post photos of you getting a smoothie. It’s just weird.”

“It’s not about me,” Levi said.

“So, it’s about me? Do tell.” Austin tucked his hands behind his head, his mind still lost in all the fun things Dominic was going to do to him when he got home. Then the implications sank in, and Austin’s smile faded.

“Wait,” he said. “Did they get something incriminating about me and Dominic? We haven’t even talked about how we’d handle that. And I know he’s the kind of guy who would want to talk about it. He probably has, like, color-coded folders and shit on the stuff we’re allowed to do in public.”

Levi’s silence was answer enough.

Austin groaned, thinking about how good it had felt getting railed in that bar bathroom. Dominic was never going to do that again after this.

“How bad is it?” he asked.

“Pretty bad,” Levi said slowly. “It’s… um. Just read this.”

A link popped up in his messages. Austin clicked it.

BODYGUARD IN BOXERS ON ACTION STAR’S BALCONY, the headline read. There was a photo underneath it, an appallingly low-resolution picture of Dominic in all his boxer-clad, hairy glory.

Austin blinked. Then he sat up and glared at the aforementioned balcony attached to his bedroom.

“Those fuckers have been climbing trees again,” he said. “I thought we stopped that! Dominic had the gardeners cut down all the low-hanging branches! What the fuck did they do, bring grappling hooks?”

“Are you reading it?” Levi asked.

“I’m reading, I’m reading, shut up.” Austin settled back down against the bed and started scrolling.

Dominic Sheath, 36, has been positively identified as the mystery man on action star Austin Wayne’s balcony. He is also Austin’s bodyguard of two years.

“One year,” Austin said. “These guys never fact-check. You know they fired their copy editors? It really shows.”

“Would you just read it?” Levi demanded.

Austin rolled his eyes and got back to it.

The article continued: Sheath was heard saying that he needs to break things off with the star.

“So, I’m getting broken up with,” Austin said, ignoring the dread squirming in his stomach. “Great. What else are they saying? Is it because I’m too intimidating? Do I invite people over for fireball hockey, and it freaked him out? I actually liked that story. We should actually do that.”

“That fake story ended with someone fake going to hospital,” Levi said, rushed. “But sure, yeah, whatever.”

Austin stretched his arm up over his head, doing his best to look unaffected. “Do I need to keep reading? Or does⁠—”

“There’s a video.”

Austin froze. Pictures could be twisted to mean anything. A video was much harder to deny.

He scrolled down. There was a video embedded in the middle of the article. A pop-up ad blinked into view as he tried to click on it. Austin swiped it away and stabbed the play button.

Dominic’s voice drifted through the room, tinny and far away. The paparazzi were obviously climbing different trees nowadays; this was a terrible vantage point.

“I need to quit,” came Dominic’s voice, soft and cautious.

Austin’s heart dropped. There was a pause, and he watched Video-Dominic glance back toward the balcony doors, which he had closed. Couldn’t let Austin hear his conversation, of course.