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Author: Guede Mazaka
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Luís Figo/Adrian Mutu, Deco/Giuly, Van Nistelrooy/J. A. Reyes, Lehmann/Van Persie. Implied C. Ronaldo/Van Nistelrooy, C. Ronaldo/G. Heinze.
Feedback: Good lines, typos, etc.
Disclaimer: This is absolutely fiction and not real and I don’t know these people at all. Any resemblance to any real-life record company is completely accidental.
Notes: Dedicated to nieninque121 for her indefatigable rounding-up of youtube videos and photos. Titled after the song by Linkin Park.
Summary: Memory changes as you get older.
***
One Month Ago
“Look, I just want an update when he’s better. A phone call, takes you five minutes, nothing—”
The nurse finally dragged her eyes from the clipboard. The fluorescent light was unkind to the sagging flesh beneath her eyes, but she mustered a flicker of weary sympathy. “Sir, there are privacy laws. I can’t give out information unless you’re a close relative or—”
Something rattled by and Luís glanced over to see the gurney being wheeled away, sheets still flapping with the occasional kicking foot visible. He cursed and took a step towards it, then spun back. Almost thought before sighing. “Significant other.”
“What?”
“Oh, for…look, it’s after midnight, I just--found him like that and I have no idea—” who he is and Luís Figo shut up now before this gets really sorry “—and can you work with me here? I’ll leave you my phone number, now can you just…”
Wide-eyed now, the nurse bit her lip and clutched her clipboard to her chest. “God, I’m so sorry. I—it’s late, and it’s been a hell of a day…but never mind, I’m just running on. Of course. Let me just fix the paperwork, and…do you want to see him?”
“What? No, I’m just leaving my number. I just want a call to know what’s wrong with him—er, listen, it’s complicated and I don’t want him to know that I—”
“No, I meant before he’s knocked out. You got maybe five minutes before the drugs get to him…I have to change this, don’t need that form…” The nurse glanced up, then jerked her chin at the hall. “When you’re back, it’ll all be done and we can do it like you want. Okay?”
She didn’t wait for Luís to answer, but just disappeared behind her desk. When Luís lifted a hand, her hand flashed up to slap shut the Plexiglas window between them. Luís looked at its dingy scrapes, then shut his mouth and turned around. He rubbed at his nose, giving his commonsense enough time to turn in for the night, and then went down the hall.
A doctor and a nurse were chatting outside the door, but neither of them even looked up as Luís slipped into the room. He stopped there, blinking at the tubing and stainless steel till a loud beep made him start. His heel hit the wall as he stepped back and he grimaced, then looked down at his foot. Then he gave himself a shake and reached for the doorknob, only to jerk away his hand when something clattered. Luís glanced outside, but the people there didn’t seem to have heard it. Then the rattle came again and he hesitated a little longer before whirling just as the man in bed tried a third time to wrench off his wrist restraints. “Stop that. You’re going to hurt yourself—okay, okay, I’ll stay over here.”
The man’s bleary eyes stayed on him for a moment. Then the hands went down and Luís…waited. When he saw the blankets rise, he lunged for the bed and just managed to pin the man’s hands before the idiot tried to pull up the railings. The man wasn’t very strong but he was desperate, thrashing his head and feet and whatever else he could. He was trying to speak as well, and it was making froth come up around the tubes in his nose and the mask over his mouth.
And making him choke, Luís abruptly realized. He bore down harder on the man’s arms, then twisted his head around—it was noisy enough, so why the hell weren’t the doctors coming in? “No—no, stop it, stop it, stop. You’re making it worse, so—you’ll be okay if you stop it, all right? Stop. It’s okay now, you’re okay now, you don’t have to fight, so…” Luís paused as the man slowed his struggles, then decided he had no idea if the man was worn out or actually listening “…stop. It’s all right. It’ll stop hurting, but you have to stop. You’re making it hurt. All right? You—can you even hear me?”
After a last weak flail, the man flopped back against the bed, his head lolling so far back that Luís nearly lost his balance trying to lean to follow it. Then he realized what he was doing and grabbed the railing for support. He eased back till his feet were flat on the floor, then looked up again. The man was staring fearfully at him, eyes wide and sunken against waxen white skin.
Luís pursed his lips a few times, debating how much more stupid he was going to be tonight, before finally putting out a hand. He hesitated as the man flinched, then flicked off a few strands of hair that had been clinging to the man’s clammy forehead. “It’s okay. Just let them take care of you, all right? It’s okay.”
The man stared up at Luís, breathing made raspy and loud by the echo in the tubing. Then, very slowly, he nodded—something hurt him in the middle of that and he jerked his head to the side, grimacing. A wet, harsh sound came from him before his head turned further, away from Luís’ hand: Luís took it as a flinch and moved back, only to realize then that the man had passed out. He sucked in his breath and reached forward again.
“Oh, no, don’t do—I’m sorry, sir, but I need you to go back to the waiting room.” The doctor was in, and about time. “They’ll let you know what—”
“I know, I know, she was telling me.” Luís stepped back to let the doctor get to the bed, then watched as the woman checked the machines. When she didn’t seem to find anything disturbing, he took another step back, and then he turned around and went out the door. He took a deep breath, then shook his head again. God, he knew better, and he still couldn’t help himself.
* * *
Now
Cesc knocked on the door, then leaned his shoulder against the jamb. “José? It’s me. I got an icepack, and Raúl’s all the way down in the kitchen, so…”
The door creaked open, an eye showed in the crack, and then José stepped back so Cesc could nudge the door the rest of the way. He took the icepack with a muttered thank-you and began to put it up to his eye, only to freeze when he’d raised his head far enough to see the rest of the hall. Then he turned sharply on Cesc, who flinched before visibly bracing himself—and José’s shoulders abruptly slumped as he just sighed. “Nice to see you don’t change too much.”
“You didn’t ask where he was, and—look, you needed an icepack. And…I’m going to get out of the way now,” Cesc said, glancing quickly back and forth. Though for all that, he was rather slow about actually moving. “By the way, the kitchen’s still pretty close.”
“I’ll keep my voice down,” Ruud replied. He knew Cesc meant well, and in fact approved of the man’s caution, but at the same time he couldn’t help the trace of sarcasm.
Cesc got very near to rolling his eyes before he finally left, and Ruud watched to make sure that the man did go instead of just hiding around the corner. Then a little longer, because he wasn’t looking forward to this and he was tired and…and God, he hadn’t even had a phone-call from Lehmann yet. He slouched against the wall and rubbed at his temple, then between his brows, wondering if that was a good or a bad sign.
“I’m sorry.” José flipped the icepack between his hands, staring at it. “I just…I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“I wasn’t going back to him—”
“Then why did you go over in the first place?” José snapped, looking up. He stared at Ruud for a moment, apparently just as surprised at the outburst, before abruptly collapsing in on himself. The icepack ended up smooshed against his elbow as he put his head against the doorway, eyes closed. “I’m sorry. Just forget I said that.”
Ruud paused, his lips still parted. Then he swallowed that initial comment and sighed, pulling his tie loose. When José looked up, Ruud took the icepack from him, then put it to the darkening bruise on José’s jaw while the other man was still trying to look at his now-empty hand. José flinched, then tried to turn his head away and Ruud had to put up his other hand to stop the man, cupping José’s cheek with his fingers.
“I’m sorry,” José mumbled. He wasn’t struggling now, but because he was resigned to it and not because he’d accepted it. “It’s just…he’d been showing up a lot. He just stands in the corner, and…and…”
‘A lot’ was more like every night for the past five nights Ruud had had business in Premier, and those weren’t consecutive nights. It’d gotten to the point that he’d had to phone Robin and know for sure that yes, Cristiano was only showing up on his nights. “I know. José, I saw him too and—”
“…it’s just I’m sick of it. Sick of him walking around and thinking that it’s all about you, and I’m there too and it’s like I don’t—no, I know I don’t matter to him. I’m not there. He doesn’t even—even act like you’re with somebody, and that just pisses me off. It’s like my damn family all over again,” José blurted out, the words coming in a sudden, ferocious torrent. Then he stopped, his hand lashing out to grab the jamb. His eyes closed, and then he turned his head to rub at his temple. “Well, except that my family, they at least thought I was around. They just thought I was somebody else.”
He bumped into Ruud’s hand with his knuckles, knocking the icepack half-off his jaw. Ruud absently plumped it back up, then moved it down when José winced. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—this is going to sound awful, but I didn’t realize it bothered you so much. I’ve been just trying to ignore him. He used to do this, and I guess he still does it, trying to irritate you into paying attention to him…and I’m sorry, I should know better than to let that happen.”
José blinked, then glanced up so his jaw pressed back into Ruud’s palm. Then he smiled, oddly amused, and shook his head. He put his hand on Ruud’s shoulder, then on Ruud’s arm. “No, no, I know it bothers you. That’s why…I don’t want you to do everything. I mean, I don’t think you should. I…I want this—I want you, and if I want something, then I should start…fighting…for it, like my cousins do. You know? It’s just I was thinking, ‘Nando had the hardest time believing that I wanted you and it was because I never acted like it.”
“You don’t have—”
“No, I do. I do,” José insisted, eyes suddenly flashing. It was a shaky, fleeting sort of passion, and the next moment had him ducking his head in embarrassment, but it was still a good deal more intensity than Ruud usually saw from him. “It’s like, if I’m with you, then I shouldn’t feel like I have to apologize about it. I’m tired of apologizing.” He flicked his gaze up to Ruud, then dropped it again as he rubbed at his jaw. “Though I’m really sorry that it…that I lost my temper. I was just meaning to tell him…I don’t know, stop staring or something.”
After a moment, Ruud took away the icepack. He wadded it up in his hand, then bent and by the time his lips touched the side of José’s jaw, his palm had already gone numb. But he ignored that, and kissed José’s bruise, and then José’s lips. Then he leaned back, letting the other man slide up against him. “Well, believe me, I can understand if he said something that made you change your plans.”
José chuckled wanly, but then looked up with concern in his eyes. “How much trouble are you going to be in with the label?”
“Oh, I have no idea. I don’t know what Lehmann’s doing with Cristiano these days, to be honest,” Ruud said. Probably a touch too hastily, not thinking about it in any depth because he disliked the subject that much. But he regretted his breeziness when he looked down to see José’s expression. “You’ll be fine. You hit Heinze, not Cris, and anyway…anyway, however it comes out, it’ll basically be treated as me hitting him, not you. I work for them and you don’t.”
At first José reacted like Ruud had just slapped him, recoiling with terror in his face, but then he clutched at Ruud again. He shuddered once, then worked up a ghost of a smile. “That’s what you really think. No sugar-coating.”
“No. I did that too much before, and I want this, too.” Ruud bounced the icepack, which was slipping through his fingers, to get a better grip before laying it against José’s jaw again. He let his fingertips drift onto José’s cheek. “It’s all right. The way it’s been going, if you hadn’t done something I probably would have, and I really don’t think it’ll get me worse than I’ve already been through. I’m organizing too much right now for Lehmann to completely pull me.”
“…still sorry,” José mumbled, though he was slowly relaxing against Ruud. He took a deep breath, then rested his head against Ruud’s shoulder.
It really was fine, Ruud thought. Any moment now his damn phone was going to ring and that would be it for his evening, and then possibly for his free time for the whole week, depending on whether Lehmann had gotten laid before the fight had happened, but he could deal with it. He didn’t like it, and didn’t want to, but he could do it. And then he’d go home, and José would be there, and he’d be able to calm down and not think about all the shit that came with his job because even angry—and jealous, and Ruud couldn’t help being bemused over that—José still didn’t make Ruud’s gut cramp and his mind haze over with fits of near-insanity. He just wasn’t that…difficult.
“But what about that other man?” José asked. He looked up, then repeated the question when he saw that Ruud hadn’t really heard him. “I heard somebody say he was pretty famous in music, though I thought I knew everybody…”
“Oh.” And there went that hard twist in Ruud’s gut. He almost dropped his hand to it, but caught himself and instead put his free arm around José’s waist as a reminder. “That was Luís Figo, the magazine—you do know him, it’s just he doesn’t do the nightclub circuit these days. I don’t know what Cris was doing with him, but whatever it was…well, Figo is not one for playing people for the sake of playing, but he’s also not very…you don’t earn the respect of our legal department by being a nice person, put it that way.”
José nodded. He didn’t look like he quite understood everything Ruud was saying, but he seemed to understand its importance enough to memorize it. Later he’d probably ask Cesc or Ruud for a better explanation, which was good enough. “Are you worried about Cristiano?”
“Oh.” Ruud started to look away, but then changed his mind and stared straight at José. After a moment, he breathed out and kissed the other man lightly on the forehead. “He has to learn,” Ruud muttered, then pressed his cheek against José’s temple. “And that’ll go through FC too, so don’t worry about that. I won’t be worrying about it—Figo is not my problem.”
* * *
“What do you mean, it’s not your problem?” Cristiano threw up his arms with such force that they made him swing around. His left hand almost hit Heinze, who was half-blinded by the icepack against one eye, but Cristiano of course didn’t notice as he stomped towards the door, then wheeled back to glower at Deco. “You’re my agent! And I didn’t do anything this time—I came straight here, didn’t talk to the press, didn’t call Lehmann or anybody else!”
“You got in a fight with Ruud, and believe me, every damn insider knows you two fucked at this point, and—” Old habits didn’t just die hard, but were bigger pains in the ass than anything else, Deco irritably thought. He gave himself a shake, then grimaced and grabbed at his injured shoulder, only to have his IV tube keep his hand from getting that far over. After another grimace, he slumped back into his bed. “Wait. Why am I talking? I don’t care.”
Heinze made some noise, maybe about to jump in, but Cristiano came stalking back before it came to anything. Good, because if Deco wasn’t in the mood to deal with the principal, then he sure as hell wasn’t in the mood to deal with the goddamn assistant he hadn’t wanted to let Cristiano hire in the first place.
“Look, I know, it was a fuck-up, but it wasn’t my fault this time. You’ll see when you look at the CCTV tapes: I was just there and Ruud came over, and then that Spanish shit he’s with came and tried to hit me, only he got Gaby instead—”
“And you conveniently leave out Figo,” Deco muttered. He rubbed his forehead, then looked up to find Cristiano staring at him with a mixture of chagrin and irritation. The man was waiting, Deco suddenly realized, and so Deco slouched a little further beneath his blankets. He started to sneak his hand over to the call-button at the side. “Not that I’m interested, but it’s already hit the late-night news. Somebody saw you two talking before Ruud came over.”
Cristiano crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his chest, doing his best to brazen it out. “Talking.”
“Whatever.” Deco rolled his eyes and hit the button at the same time, so Cristiano would be too annoyed to notice what he was doing. And that was how it played out, with the other man taking an angry step forward before Deco shook his head. “Look. I emailed a notice. I’ll be signing a formal letter tomorrow when they take down my dosage enough for it to legally stick.”
And Cristiano…blinked. Folded up his lip, though behind him Heinze’s eyes had gone wide and the other man had nearly jumped off his chair in shock. “Huh?” Cristiano said.
Goddamn it, where was the nurse? Or those damn bodyguards who’d been standing at the door round the clock, and never mind silly little things like visiting hours, and God, Deco didn’t want to deal with that now. Actually, he almost wished he was still too drugged up to know what was going on, even though that wouldn’t get rid of Cristiano. “I. Quit.”
Cristiano stared at him.
“As in, I refuse to continue as your agent. And shut up, don’t even start—go have your assistant look up my contract, he still has one good eye, and he can find the clause that says that I can opt out if I acquire a medical condition that would seriously interfere with my ability to—” Deco choked a little and it wasn’t because his throat was parched from the dry hospital air “—serve your needs. I’ve got some nerve damage, and the doctor says I’ll need physical therapy to regain full use of my arm. That’s serious enough.”
“You don’t sign things with that hand,” Cristiano finally spat out. He kept bobbing forward, like he was about to explode with disbelief.
Deco…wondered how he’d ever lasted this long in the first place. He did remember—dimly, the way he remembered his childhood in Brazil—that once he’d thought Cristiano was simply brash the way all young, naïve people were brash, and would eventually grow out of it. Of course, that was completely wrong. Cristiano did have much more backbone than Deco had given him credit for, but the brat was still…a fucking brat. And Deco didn’t put up with brats.
Well, he’d told himself he hadn’t. Really he’d slipped into his old pattern of taking the money and the shit that came with it instead of playing smarter, like he’d vowed to after he’d had to leave Brazil. He’d thought he could do better, but right now, lying in this damn bed with tubes stuck into him, he was thinking an addiction was an addiction, and managing it was just bullshit that counselors used to prop up fragile egos. The truth was, you either could take it or you couldn’t. And if you couldn’t, you should stop kidding yourself about how good you were, because you just weren’t. “Cristiano. This is not about you. I’m going to say that again: this is not about you. This is about me. Me. I don’t want to be your agent. So I quit.”
“You can’t quit.” Shaking his head, Cristiano took a step forward, then one back. He lifted his hand but didn’t seem to have anything for it to do, so finally he started messing with his hair. “You’re…but you said. You said it was about me—about the money I bring in, anyway, because you don’t give a shit about anything else. You just want me to do well so you have a good track record.”
“I—right. I did say that.” Funnily enough, Deco even thought he’d meant it at the time. He leaned back against his pillow, vaguely amused that he’d ever been that…shallow. Then he saw a flicker of triumph cross Cristiano’s face and just stopped himself from rolling his eyes. That would be the sensible response, but if he acted that way, Cristiano would just think he was annoyed like always. And he wasn’t. He was done. “I changed my mind. I’ve had a life-changing event, whatever you want to call it, and it’s not enough for me to make a lot of money and have a good track record.”
Cristiano sort of gaped at Deco. It was an odd expression on him, with his shoulders still thrown back and his chin jutting out, but dropped down so Deco could get a good look at those white teeth. Which, Deco suddenly realized, were a touch small compared to the whole size of Cristiano’s mouth. Mouse-like, almost.
“Bullshit,” Cristiano said firmly.
Deco half-closed his eyes. This time, he held his thumb down on the button. “You know, Cristiano, one of your strengths—and I really mean this, I’m not being sarcastic—is that you never give up. But this is non-negotiable, so please at least pretend you understand, even though I know you have no idea what I’m talking about: I give up. You’re too much.”
“You can’t just leave him hanging—” Heinze winced as something thudded in the hall, then glared at Deco.
But he was still nervous about whatever he’d heard and so he came off more like a bluffing dog, and anyway Heinze was no longer anywhere near the list of things that worried Deco. “I’m not leaving him hanging. I’m leaving him, period. Congratulations, Cris. You win. Now get out of my room.”
“That’s such bullshit!” Then Heinze winced and looked at Cristiano, but the other man was just staring at Deco, eyes wide, face curiously blank. After a moment, Heinze shrugged and went snarling back at Deco. “Look, I’m not new to this business. I know agents, and you just want more money. Or more power, or whatever. But you need Cris more than he needs you, and—”
“Actually, I don’t. I don’t need his shit, I don’t want it and…well, where the hell have you been? You give my nurse all sorts of trouble when she’s coming by with my pain medication, but you’re gone when this idiot’s about to assault me?” Deco snapped, sitting up. He looked at the Frenchman who’d just stumbled in, then finally did roll his eyes because on his so-called bodyguard’s cheek was a big smear of lipstick. “Oh, my God.”
“He’s—Gaby was not. We’re—we’re leaving,” Cristiano abruptly said. Though he looked back and forth between Deco and the guard like he was waiting for a signal from them.
The bodyguard attempted to straighten his clothes, but then gave up on that and just looked intimidating. He did better at that, thanks to his all-black suit with admittedly razor-sharp tailoring, and Cristiano seemed to think the better of whatever had gone through his eyes just then. Cristiano glanced at Deco a last time, then slowly turned. He looked at Gaby, who was shaking his head and basically pleading with his eyes to be allowed to get into something with the Frenchman, then shoved back a shoulder and walked towards the door.
Something skewed Cristiano’s stride and he actually went on a diagonal that would’ve led him into the wall about a meter to the right of the door, but at the last moment he corrected himself. Shook his head and shoulders, and then went out without another word. A puzzled, equally silent Gaby hurried after him.
“I’m sorry, sir. But the paparazzi—” the Frenchman started.
“What? Oh.” Well, of course, Deco thought. In fact, he even thought he’d heard something in the news reports about him, and a very long time ago that would’ve made him grin, and more recently it would’ve driven him up the wall, but now he just sighed. And moved his hand so he was pushing the button for more painkillers. “Whatever. Where the hell is he?”
Blank Gallic look. “Who?” “
You know who, and if you don’t call him right now, I’m going to scream till somebody fucking comes in here and lets me sign myself out.” A touch of fuzziness made things a little blurry, and then the meds started to smooth out, so for a little while Deco would be able to relax. After that, he had no idea—but at least he wouldn’t hate himself. “I know hospitals. More importantly, I know publicity and I can get a lot of that in about two seconds if I want to.”
“I don’t…wait, no, I’ll try. I’ll try, all right? But he’s very busy right now,” the bodyguard hastily said, getting out his phone. “Look, I’ll call. But I don’t know what he’ll say.”
Deco blinked, then grinned sourly. “Oh, I know. And I’m sympathetic, but you still make that goddamn call. You can do that much.”
* * *
“All right, where are we? What’s the latest word?” Then Luís put up his hand before any of the wild-eyed, ragged-haired people around the table could start screeching. “No, I meant what’s the latest reliable word?”
Everybody blinked, took a breath, and shoved their noses back into their fistfuls of papers, coffees, and God knew what else. The sound of frantic rustling filled the air.
“Um,” Silva said. And then he looked up and about and everywhere, absolutely terrified that somebody might’ve heard him when they were all too busy with themselves to pay attention.
He ducked his head before he got to Luís, who just slouched in his seat and wondered where the—the door banged open and Luís sat hopefully up, but it turned out to just be Victor. Not that that stopped the other man from dropping an armful of smeared, blurry glossy sheets on the table; Bojan eeped and fell off the edge of his seat, disappearing beneath the table.
“The printers are fucking pissed,” Victor announced. “They had to stop the run.”
“Well, I’m trying to figure out if one of our damn lead stories has to be changed about six hours before the whole copy has to go to print, so that’s not surprising,” Luís drawled. He and Victor stared for a couple seconds before Luís threw up his hands and sent some paperclips flying. “People! This is an emergency! It’s a goddamn load of shit six hours before the deadline! “ Pause. “It’s happened, it’s not the first time, you all know it’s not the first time because all of you have caused this kind of fuck-up at some point. Except for Silva and Krkić because their job duties end way before this and so they don’t even have to be here, and for the love of God, just do your job. You’ve done it before and it’s been fine. All right?”
Big, big eyes that oh-so-gradually filled with comprehension and determination and a tiny little bit of commonsense. Or at least Luís was praying that that was commonsense, and not just the caffeine swelling the little veins in the whites of people’s eyes. He waited another moment, then nodded as he began to get up. Then he paused because the door had opened again.
“Oh,” Adrian said. He made to back out, but then grabbed the door-knob again and hung onto it as he squared up his shoulders against the curious stares. “Your phone…you, er, left it in your office, and it’s been going off like crazy.”
Then he held up the offending object just as it went off again, startling Adrian into losing his grip on it. Fortunately his reflexes were good and he got hold of it after a bit of juggling, then tossed it when Luís lifted a hand. Adrian lingered a moment longer, obviously debating whether or not to pass along some message.
“What about a recap of recent career crashes?” somebody said.
Luís glanced up from checking his callerID, then noticed the uneasy murmur that was going around the room. Then he heard a scraping and looked over to see a red-faced Adrian trying to hunch quietly out of the room.
“Like Dinamo?” Villa asked. He could’ve seen Adrian from where he was sitting, but he just raised a disgusted eyebrow at Guti like he hadn’t even noticed the other man. “I don’t know about you, but I didn’t notice any big waves in the music world when their lead singer dropped off the face of the earth. We’re trying to get a fucking story here, not filler.”
Guti blinked a few times, pursing his mouth. He was perceptive enough to realize what Villa was trying to pull, but sometimes he could let his pride get the better of him…and this was one of those times. “Well, that fucking story’s right behind you.”
“That’s not a story,” Luís interrupted. Then he looked up: his office phone was going off now.
Bojan, who had finally hooked an arm over the table edge and pulled himself up, looked confused while raising his hand. “Um, isn’t it? Mutu just sort of vanished, and then his bandmates all said really nasty things and his agent said—said—”
“—he was a nymphomaniac who wanted to be Kurt Cobain, only he had the drugs and no talent?” Guti filled in.
Adrian had frozen in the doorway. While he’d made it clear he didn’t understand Victor’s Catalan, he obviously knew enough Spanish to follow the conversation. His blush was gone and instead he looked like he was going to drop dead except for a jaw that was going to snap from how hard he was clenching it. He glanced absently down as his grip on the knob made it creak, then looked back up as somebody coughed. Then he saw Luís, and the crystallized rage in his eyes suddenly dissolved, leaving behind shame and terror—and the sort of resignation that was usually reserved for those about to be executed. He pried his hand off the knob, glancing at Luís, then began to edge out again with his head down.
“Villa, Guti, you two are assholes. I pay for your writing, I don’t pay for your dickheadedness, and I certainly don’t pay to watch you try your damnedest to convince me that mankind’s fucking worthless these days and I should just join that monastery near my hometown.” Luís took a moment to check his callerID: printer, lawyer, printer, printer—Iker? He frowned, then looked up to find everyone staring at him again. “Adi’s staying with me. He’s off-limits. And don’t fucking wave your little fridge-magnet list of journalist ethics in front of me. I pay for your lawyers, too.”
“Oh, crap!” Bojan yelped. He finally saw Adrian, then fell beneath the table again as his spazz-attack made him lose his balance. “Figo, I didn’t—”
“I know you didn’t see, and you were just trying to help, and I’m sure Adi’s fine with your apology. So go answer my damn office phone and keep the printers on the line so they don’t tie up my cell, would you?” After he’d heard Bojan stumble off, Luís cocked his head and listened very carefully. He waited till he’d counted off ten in his head, but didn’t hear a single muttered word of protest. Or a single breath, for that matter. So he needed to say something, if only because he at least needed Silva and the poor kid probably had stopped breathing when Adrian had walked in. “Villa. What.”
For all his casual attitude towards things like diplomacy and not mauling the hand that fed him, Villa tended to have a very good sense of the undercurrents in a room. He also didn’t waste any time getting to the point. “Like I said, that was a stupid idea anyway. Also, I almost cut loose about five reliable sources tonight because they insisted you and Mutu were right there and I couldn’t believe it.”
Luís suppressed his urge to roll his eyes and instead checked when Iker’s call had been, and if there’d been any message left. Which was a no, and when Luís looked up again, he saw that the doorway was empty. But he could hear somebody moving outside, so he started to push himself back from the table. “We were because I was covering for Victor’s blog assignment that he didn’t do. I spoke to Cristiano, but I went home before the fight, so are we all clear on that? Greet. Now look, Cristiano’s at least not the cover story. So if his tour’s not off—”
“It’s not off, it’s not off!” Iker burst into the room so forcefully that he skidded into the end of the table, right between Victor and Oleguer. He seemed to take a hit to the gut and folded over, but then jerked up before Oleguer had done more than reach for his shoulder. “Cristiano. Portugal. Tour. Still. On.”
“I guess you’d—”
Before Luís could open his mouth, Iker whipped on Guti so furiously that Guti’s designer sunglasses—which the idiot was wearing indoors—fell off the man’s nose as he jerked back in his chair. Iker stared at him, breathing hard, before shaking his head. “You say one fucking thing and I’ll punch you in the face. Okay? Okay. Now I’m going home. To bed. I did my piece, both my boyfriends are upset, and I need to get them make-up sex. Okay?”
“Okay,” Luís said in an agreeable tone. He shrugged at the suspicious look Iker gave him, then waved the other man towards the door. “Great. So never mind about replacing the article, we just need to add an amending insert and rearrange the newsflash section. Bye, Iker.”
“So why am I here? My article’s—”
“Too long now, and also I’m still pissed off about the number of times you’ve thrown up on my couch this month, Victor. Cut out a hundred words.” Luís put away his phone and picked up the article list. “Villa, two hundred words off or you can write the five-hundred word insert—”
Villa’s glower could’ve fried flies at a hundred paces. “Insert.”
“Fine. Guti, two hundred words off. Silva, make sure neither of them writes anything that’ll result in a lawsuit. Oleguer, two hundred off and redo the news section. You can grab Bojan for that when he comes back. Albelda, reformatting. And I’ve got to get back to the lawyers, so get to work.” After putting the list back on the table, Luís picked up a pen. Then he looked up, one brow arched. “What?”
Everyone immediately scattered…except for Victor, and that was probably Villa lingering outside of the door. Victor bounced on his feet a few times. “Figo, listen…Iker wouldn’t fuck with us, obviously, but that’s got to be—”
“News first, analysis in the next issue. We’ve got no fall-out to work with yet, and in case you’ve forgotten, it’s six hours to deadline. Cristiano’s tour going on is what lets us keep his interview, so FC’s party-line is fine right now.” Luís wrote down the changes he’d just announced as Victor sighed and left, then shook his head at the other man. Fondly, he thought half-irritably, because for all his whiny snobbery about films, Victor did genuinely care and that was why he nagged Luís about that sort of practical politicking. Even when it wasn’t in his field.
All of them were like that, despite their idiotic moments. And their asshole moments, and everyone was like that at some point and what really mattered was what they were like after they’d gotten an actual asshole freshly torn into them. It’d taken a hell of a long time for Luís to put together a whole magazine staff that measured up to that standard, and he did appreciate it.
And that also meant they could take care of themselves for about a half-hour. Luís stuck the list and a few other papers under his arm, then walked out to go find Adrian.
* * *
“I’m not pouting,” Robin grumbled, typing furiously. He shot Jens a sideways glance, then grabbed his laptop, lifted it, slouched lower under it and then put it back on his lap. “Okay. Maybe I am. But it’s past two in the morning and I’m listening to you argue in French instead of getting your cock in me and it’s all because fucking Cristiano Ronaldo still can’t deal with his break-up with Ruud. For the millionth time. And I’m pouting but I’m not actually exaggerating.”
Jens simply nodded. To be honest, he wasn’t even annoyed anymore. He’d gone past that through blinding rage and gallows humor and now he was somewhere he didn’t think he’d actually been to before. Over a decade and a half of fighting with Kahn, FC’s board, MU, various gangsters—all that and it was a cocksure Portuguese brat who actually drove him to plain incredulity. It was almost impressive. “Ludo? You’d better be back. I don’t like being on hold and at this hour I could drive over in less than fifteen minutes.”
*Here,* the other man said. Unusually curt for him, but then, Giuly had been rather strange ever since his attempted assassination. Strange for him, anyway. *Can’t talk, sunshine. Something’s come up.*
“I know. I just checked my email.” Right then something beeped and Jens looked over, but Robin flapped his hand to signal it wasn’t anything Jens needed to see. So Jens set the phone to ‘speaker,’ put it on the coffeetable and then picked up his PDA to finish his email to Pirès and Màrquez. “Ludo?”
It didn’t sound like Giuly was in his restaurant: the background noises were all scrapes and grunts, with the occasional stifled French swear. *What?*
Originally Jens had allowed Larsson to practice a little of his former job out of a lack of other options, but he had to admit that the urge to continue for the sake of convenience was extremely tempting. “You’re the one in a hurry. You tell me.”
*Tell you about what? You called me,* Giuly snapped. Then he said something about a shovel and…and goddamn it, he was burying someone.
Jens pinched the bridge of his nose as he elbowed Robin. “Wipe this call after I’m done,” he hissed, putting his hand over the phone. Then, email sent, he swapped his PDA for his phone and leaned back against the couch. “Look, I know I agreed to let you handle this, but that ends where my legitimate business begins. And whatever the hell you’re doing with Deco, he’s still on my payroll. So—”
*What?* All background noises suddenly ceased. *What are you talking about? Did he say something to you?*
It might have been the hour, or the fact that Jens had only gotten home an hour and a half ago, or Robin muttering nastily in Dutch next to him, but Jens really thought Giuly sounded unusually strained. Almost frantic. But as crazy as Giuly was, he was one man who didn’t lose his head. Nobody who’d lasted as long as he had in the French underworld could afford that sort of ill-discipline.
On the other hand…Jens reached out and tilted his PDA towards him, then thumbed up that email again. He listened to the silence on the other end of the line for a few more seconds. “Giuly. I just got an email from Deco saying he’s resigning, effective immediately. It says he’ll have the official forms filed as soon as his lawyer gets to the hospital. Now, are you about to tell me that this is part of some stupid plan to protect my star’s Portugal tour from getting spill-over from your gangland war?”
*He what?* Well, that had been a genuine screech. If Jens’ hearing hadn’t been certain about it, then the confused French queries starting up afterward would’ve settled it. *No, I didn’t—I don’t—I will call you back. Call you, not the other way around.*
And then Giuly hung up. And no ‘sunshine,’ and Jens stared at his phone for a good minutes.
“Not…good?” Robin asked, tone tentative. He flinched when Jens looked at him, grabbing at his laptop screen like he was going to hoist it as a shield. Then he got hold of himself and started typing like mad. “Okay, okay, erasing that call…want me to pull files?”
“No. No…there are no files yet, I don’t know what I’ve got till the morning.” The phone beeped, reminding Jens that he hadn’t disconnected his end. He did so, then flipped the cell open and shut a few times. Then he sighed and flipped it open to hit speed-dial. “Just finish what you’re doing. I’m calling Ruud to tell him to keep his head down, then Philippe to get Cristiano to the airport early, and then we’re going back to bed.”
The typing sounds stopped. When Jens looked up, Robin was staring at him like Jens had grown an extra mouth in his forehead. “You’re…you’re serious? You’re not going back to the office? Not going to rip off somebody’s—”
“Robin, believe it or not, but I don’t always think that having a raging fit is going to solve the problem,” Jens said. He glanced at his phone, then cursed and hit the ‘end’ button since he’d dialed Ruud’s office phone. Then he redialed for the man’s cell, ignoring the strong vibes of disbelief emanating from beside him. “And yes, I’m tired of Cristiano, and since it looks like nobody’s in imminent danger of being killed, hospitalized or sued, I think I can at least sleep on what to do.”
“Cristiano and Ruud fighting in public isn’t really fresh news, so as long as nothing new comes out, it’ll die fast on its own. And also Cesc said Figo was there and you let Cesc feed Figo some info, so you think Figo’ll keep down the bad press,” Robin said after a moment. He started to grin, but then wiped that off his face when Jens looked at him.
Somebody answered the phone, but then they turned it off—accidentally, judging by the snippet Jens heard. He sucked in a breath, then decided it wasn’t worth it and waited for Ruud to call him back. “Almost. Figo might run Duende, but having say in the world of print and in the world of video is not the same thing. But at the least, that’s his lawyers working on it too, and he does have good ones.” Jens glanced at Robin again, then snorted and flicked at a bruise on Robin’s jaw. “Stop smirking. I am upset, even if I’m choosing to be reasonable right now.”
“Yeah, I can tell.” Robin’s eyes half-closed and he rubbed his cheek against Jens’ hand as he hit a key. After watching some numbers on his screen change, he shut his laptop and then leaned over, nuzzling at Jens’ shoulder. One of his hands began feeling up Jens’ thigh. “Does ‘reasonable’ want to let off a little steam, just so you can work up a fresh boil in the morning?”
“That is a terrible metaphor, and—oh, Ruud. I’ve seen the news…no, I don’t want a meeting now, but…wait a moment—” Jens slapped his hand over the phone and glared at Robin “—get your hand off that or I’ll throw you over the couch.”
Bad wording, and Jens really did need to sleep: Robin’s eyes positively lit up, and then of course he ducked his head into Jens’ lap just as Ruud said something. Jens bit his lip and grabbed Robin’s shoulder, then had to stop to listen to Ruud again. And—damn it, he was going to lose his temper. Right after he finished his damn phone calls, and then God help everyone in the morning.
* * *
“I’m going, I’m going. Look, I know how to get on a plane, so get off. Unless you want to go too? No, I didn’t think so. Got to stay here and do things for your boss…” After dusting off his arm where Philippe had grabbed it, Cristiano stalked down the ramp. His left foot hit a slight rise in it and he stumbled, then kicked sharply at the spot. Then he kept going.
It was such late notice that the stewardesses didn’t get out of their little kitchen in time to greet him, so Cristiano could just breeze on by them. Thank God, because he didn’t feel like being nice to anyone, and actually, if everybody could all just fuck off for a while, that would be great. Maybe till they got to Lisbon. Maybe later. Maybe for the rest of his life.
Cristiano kicked out again, then sucked in his breath as he hit something head-on with his toes. He limped a couple times, hissing, before glancing over his shoulder. Didn’t see anybody right behind him, but there was that awkward silence where people were watching and pretending not to, and he of all people should be able to recognize that right away. And—and he really just fucking wanted to be alone. Okay, he wasn’t being all that mature, and he was showing it, and he knew what everybody was thinking about it, but he’d tried and tried to be mature and still nothing had gone right. And anyway, he was a star. He got to be immature sometimes, didn’t he? It practically was a mandatory part of the job.
His life fucking sucked, he thought, and then Cristiano flopped into the nearest chair and stared straight ahead of himself.
People did stuff around him. Somebody walked by him, slowing when they were level with his seat and then skittering quickly away. There were voices in the back, then a crackle on the intercom followed by no words. Eventually the plane started to move, and then Cristiano jerked back his arms and yanked them out of his jacket. He tossed that aside and it never hit the floor. “Oh, would you stop bothering? I don’t care. I know it doesn’t mean anything but the damn paycheck you get from me.”
“It’s a nice jacket,” Gaby said after a moment. Sort of a low, toneless voice.
Cristiano closed his eyes, then opened them and twisted around to find Gaby putting the jacket away in a cupboard. He let his head fall against the seat and stared at its expensive white leather covering. Wondered if the stewardess would give him a bottle of juice for him to pour all over it, then wondered if that would make Lehmann really—and realized what he was doing, and pushed out his legs till he heard a knee pop. The really annoying part of it all, he thought, was that he’d spent so much time trying to be better that hey, turned out he’d actually changed. Once upon a time he didn’t even have to work at throwing a hissy-fit, and now he couldn’t think about it without thinking about how stupid he’d used to be. Those just didn’t work, aside from making him feel better with how much he annoyed people with them, but right now the people he wanted to annoy were…were refusing to be annoyed, so there wasn’t even that.
“Cris? Did you want anything to drink?”
“No.” After a moment, Cristiano turned over and pulled himself up. He rocked a bit as the plane bumped over something, then leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees. Then he ran his hands back over his hair. “No, just…are you even thirsty? Or are you just getting something because—”
“I’m thirsty.” Gaby was staring at Cristiano when Cristiano checked, but the man looked away almost immediately to take his cup of orange juice from the stewardess. He waved her off before she could turn towards Cristiano, then put the cup to his lips with both hands like a kid, sneaking peeks over the rim. “It’s dry in here.”
It was, and now that Cristiano was thinking about it, he could’ve used something himself. He put back a hand against the chair, then thought the better of it and just reached for the built-in cooler at the side. Yeah, they’d remembered to stock it with mineral water, and that would be fine. He—he wasn’t going to get drunk, for God’s sake.
“That was really shitty of—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cristiano snapped. He rubbed his forehead, then glanced at Gaby, and just then they passed a bright light that flashed on Gaby’s face. Cristiano grimaced, then twisted off the top of his bottle and took a good swig from it. “How’s your eye?”
“Huh? Oh, it’s a bruise.” Gaby shrugged, then drained his cup and tapped at his eyelid with a finger. His brows twitched, but he didn’t wince. “I get worse keeping back fans at your private gigs—shit, sorry.”
Cristiano blinked, then rolled his eyes and flopped back. “Why? They are that bad.”
Now Gaby looked really confused. He opened and shut his mouth a few times, then coughed awkwardly into one hand. Then he looked back at Cristiano like he was going to say something, but his lips just went straight and thin.
“It’s fine. The tour’s all set up, you have the info for that, and Lehmann can’t bitch that much when I’m not in town to blab to reporters. And he’s definitely not going to give me any choice in who my new agent is, so I don’t need to worry about that,” Cristiano muttered. He drank more water, then idly swung the bottle from his fingers. “I miss anything?”
“Cris…” Gaby tucked in his chin, uncomfortable, but then jutted out his jaw “…why aren’t you fighting? Look, it’s bad press, but it was just a scuffle. It’s not much of a scandal, and you’ve got a lot more leverage these days—”
“Because I don’t feel like it! Okay?” Exhaling, Cristiano slammed his head back into the head-rest. Hard enough to make his teeth click together pretty painfully, and for a moment he just sat there thinking about stupidity. Then he closed his eyes again, took a deep breath, and—fucking dealt. It wasn’t a long flight but he and Gaby were still stuck in the damn plane for a while, and even throwing a fit couldn’t change that. “I…Gaby, look, everybody keeps telling me I’m bad at this part. And you know what? I am. I’m not a politician. I’m a singer, I make songs. And I’m going to do that my way, and I need Lehmann to agree to that and so whatever, he can pick my agent. I’m just…I’m just not even going to bother anymore. I work how I work, and I’m not going to change that. And the rest of it can go to hell.”
Across the way, Gaby breathed pretty deeply himself. His feet shuffled a little. “Okay.”
Fuck, Cristiano thought. “Gaby, do you even like me? No, wait—I want the truth. And I can’t fire you, okay? Lehmann said if I did anything out of line, even just changed my hair stylist, before he says so, he’d kill me.”
“Cris—”
“Me,” Cristiano said. He squeezed at the seat cushions, then jerked his hands off them and opened his eyes. “Not Cristiano on all the magazines. Me. The guy who has you get him lattes at three in the morning and throws up on your shoes, and…and gets you punched in the jaw by his ex-boyfriend’s fucking—”
“I get the picture, Cris.” Gaby paused, looking closely at Cristiano. Then he shrugged again and dropped his head, but not before his teeth glinted in a slight smile. He shook his head a few times, then swept back his bangs with one hand and he was still smiling under all those floppy strands. “You really want to know? Well, I met you before you were famous, remember? Back when you were…were just kind of a brat instead of kind of a superstar brat, and we were still friends, right up till Ruud told me off of you.”
Cristiano jiggled his leg. “So…what? What does that mean?”
“So it means yeah, I’ve seen you at your worst, and I’m still here. And it’s not the money. Deco—that asshole—he had that much right,” Gaby said. He glanced at Cristiano again, then sighed and folded his hands together. “All right, you pay me a lot, but Cris, I could earn a hell of a lot more feeding info to the tabloids like half the personal assistants I know. I don’t do that. I don’t even backstab you when I’m talking to other people, because I love you, ok—oh, shit.”
Actually, Cristiano had missed it, his mind just pasting in the ‘like you’ as it ran ahead of where Gaby was going, but it skidded to a stop at Gaby’s sudden, forceful cursing. He looked up, saw the other man’s panicked eyes, and flashed back through the conversation till he got to what Gaby had actually said. And then he got stuck there. He just—he kind of—he just really had had too much tonight. He couldn’t take it in.
“Cris, Cris, listen, I’m sorry, I—”
“Are you going to take that back?” Cristiano asked sharply. He stared right at Gaby’s eyes so the other man couldn’t look away, but when Gaby slowly shook his head, looking like it was killing him, Cristiano couldn’t keep it up. He looked to the side, then put his head back. Thumped it against the wall, then put his hand up to rub at it. “Oh…okay. I…I…Gaby, I’m taking a nap. Wake me up when we get there, would you?”
“Cris…”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” Cristiano closed his eyes. “What, are you leaving now?”
After a long, long time—so long Cristiano actually found himself tensing up—Gaby managed a soft, “No.” He breathed in harshly. “I—okay, I’ll wake you up.”
“Great,” Cristiano muttered. “Great.”
* * *
Thankfully, Adrian hadn’t gone any farther than Luís’ office. Oleguer must’ve already gotten Bojan, since Adrian was the only one in the room, and organizing again. When he looked up, he had a fistful of paperclips and another of those stupid complimentary pens Luís ended up bringing back from publishing conferences. “Oh. Sorry, what did you need—”
Luís closed the door behind him, then leaned against it so he could take off his shoes. He glanced out its window as he wriggled off the first, then dropped that shoe and pulled down the shades with his free hand. “Adi…you mind if I call you that? It sort of slipped out.”
“What? No, it’s fine. It’s my nickname anyway, with the—”
He realized before Luís had finished opening his mouth, but Luís went ahead anyway. “Adi, I didn’t hear anything in there that I didn’t already know about.”
“So they really are going to kill my story, huh?” Adrian said. His eyebrows were up like he was trying to be clever, but his eyes were a little red and his lips were trembling even as he pressed them together. Then he looked down again, fiddling with his pens and clips. “Or you’ll make them regret it.”
“Oh—I threaten them like that a lot, but I usually don’t follow through. Because they don’t often make me, because they’re a pretty good bunch, even though they can be assholes. But everybody can.” Luís tossed down his other shoe, then walked across the room. He started pulling pens from Adrian’s hand. “They won’t do it because they like me, and they like me because I take care of them when they fuck up. And they do.”
Adrian glanced up again, but almost immediately moved his gaze to the left of Luís. “It’s all true, though. It—”
“I checked you into rehab. I’m the reason you went missing—no, don’t apologize, I know you don’t mean it. You don’t blame me for that and I don’t blame me, frankly. So forget about it.” Good God, did Luís really have that many pens? He didn’t even remember some of the conferences lettered on their sides. “Just be straight with me. And don’t fuck up again.”
“This isn’t going to win you a lot of friends. I mean, I’m not that well-liked,” Adrian said after a moment. He frowned, then tried to fight off Luís’ attempt at the clips. “And your staff—”
Luís slapped the back of Adrian’s hand, then bit back a curse at himself when the other man immediately opened his fingers so the clips scattered all over the floor. But then Adrian went after them, and Luís had his hands full grabbing the man’s shoulders and making Adrian stay up. “Oh, for God’s sake—Adi. I’m Portuguese, in case you haven’t noticed. I run Duende, which is a Spanish institution right up there with Real Madrid-Barcelona. I already haven’t won over a lot of people. But that’s fine, because those aren’t real friends anyway, and then I don’t feel guilty when I have to screw them over for the sake of the magazine.”
Adrian just wouldn’t keep his damn head up, dropping his chin and then trying to shove it to the side of Luís’ head when Luís finally pulled them too close together for chin-tucking. He stiffened when he finally banged their cheekbones together, an apology spurting half-out of him before it died and he just grabbed at Luís’ arms, tugging hard. “But I really did—”
“I know.”
“It’d be a good story, you should use it if you think it’ll be worth—”
“Adrian, I run a critical magazine with a gossip section. I don’t run a gossip magazine. That’s why I have a shelf of journalism awards and some damn good lawyers,” Luís said. He gave Adrian a light shake, then put up one hand to prop the underside of Adrian’s chin on its knuckles, keeping the other man’s head up. “We ran a two-line blurb on you last issue. You haven’t done anything shocking since, and a lot of other people have.”
For a couple seconds Adrian stared at Luís. His chin pressed down hard on Luís’ hand, then lifted a little as Adrian briefly closed his eyes. One side of his mouth turned up wryly. “Except well, meet your model ex-wife.”
“And sleep with me, but I’m never news. That was a house rule before you showed up, and if you had just vanished after finishing rehab instead of stalking me, I’d still kill the story. Because of me, not you. And I’d still yell at Villa and Guti because an emergency rewrite is not the time to be having a personal spat.” After another moment, Luís uncurled his hand to cup Adrian’s jaw with his fingers. He ran his thumb along the line of it till it was resting just under the other man’s mouth. “I’m an asshole, all right? I kick asses because that’s what it takes to keep together a good staff and put out a magazine these days. You don’t change that.”
That hint of a smile whipped off Adrian’s face, leaving behind a deadly serious expression. He tipped his head, then shivered hard, his fingers digging into Luís’ arms, his eyes glinting bright and wet.
“Good. I really like you this way,” Adrian said, and then he sucked in his breath and pushed forward. He kissed raggedly, still shaking, but he rapidly settled when Luís slung an arm around him. His right hand slid up and down Luís’ arm, then ran across Luís’ back as he hooked his elbow behind Luís’ neck, rising a little so Luís could taste the deeper parts of his mouth.
Those goddamn clips interrupted a few minutes later because Luís was in his socks and they were pointy, but by then Adrian had a few shirtbuttons undone and was looking a lot better, not so nervous and twitchy. He grinned when he figured out what had happened, letting Luís twist them around so Luís could sit down in the chair and get his feet off the ground. Then Adrian grabbed the chair-arms and hoisted himself up so he was straddling Luís, his knees wedged between Luís’ thighs and the sides of the chair, and damn it, Helen had been right. The extra width was worth importing the damn thing from Sweden.
Of course, then somebody said something outside and Adrian glanced that way, faltering. “Er…”
“I’ve got fifteen minutes before I have to scream at somebody again. If you’re not going to do anything with this, I’m going to put the back down and take a nap,” Luís said.
Adrian twisted forward, head cocked and expression faintly incredulous. Then he snorted and made himself comfortable, tugging idly at Luís’ shirt as he rubbed his ass around Luís’ lap, trying to find a good spot. “Asshole. Right.”
“Stop organizing my things. They’re used to seeing it messy—if it’s clean, then they’ll really think I’ve lost my mind,” Luís added.
That earned him another look from Adrian, though the other man just refrained from shaking his head. Then Adrian slowed again, tipping his head so most of his face wasn’t visible. “Luís? I…you know, I’ve been trying to figure out if I dreamed something, or…if it was the drugs, or…”
For a moment, Luís really considered lying. But then he remembered how bad he was at it, and anyway, he was too old to fake in private. Even if he’d really gone insane and suddenly decided he liked doing that. “I have no idea why, all right? I just couldn’t leave you. Helen says that’s me being sentimental, but I’m pretty damn sure sentimental and stupid are two different things.”
“You said I’d be fine,” Adrian abruptly said. His hands seized fistfuls of Luís’ shirt and he sank down hard. “You…that was you there. You…said that.”
“Yes, I did,” Luís sighed. On the other hand, one could be sentimental and stupid at the same time.
He looked around Adrian at the door, then back at the other man. Then he lifted his hand and Adrian pressed his cheek against it, eyes closing tightly. Adrian took a deep, slow breath before sliding his head down Luís’ arm onto Luís’ shoulder. He let it rest there for a few seconds, till Luís’ shirt was just beginning to stick to his skin, and then he lifted his head. His mouth brushed the side of Luís’ throat, then across Luís’ jaw. Then touched Luís’ mouth, and his hands dropped to Luís’ waist and Luís gave up and put his arms around Adrian. Well, whatever it was, he had said that. And he hadn’t been bullshitting, either.
* * *
Ludovic eventually got on the other line, but only stayed long enough to tell the bodyguard to tell Deco he’d come to visit. Which was fine, since Deco had thought about it a little more and also the nurse had come in so he could get her to hand him his PDA, which the bodyguard had refused to do. Then he’d chatted with her so the guard couldn’t take it back without making a scene. Of course as soon as she’d left, the PDA had gone back on the table.
Whatever. Right at six, Deco’s lawyer showed up, and at six-thirty, Ludovic walked in while Deco was doing up the last button of his shirt. He took a look at all the arguing people in the room, then strolled over to Deco. “Having a party already?”
“No, I’m checking out.” Deco dropped his hands and looked up. “I’m done, Ludo. I’m walking out, and if you come after me, then you’ll have to be a better shot than the one who did my shoulder. Because I’m not putting up with it, and I’m not going to let you make me try to. I’m done.”
***