MM Contemporary gay romantic mystery. Ollie is an ex-model turned private investigator, but he can’t do it alone and someone is gunning for him. Kade left the Marines a broken man, but hopes to find a home with Ollie. Can this duo survive when secrets begin to unravel from both their pasts?
A commonly asked question is when/if Model Exposure will be released in audiobook form. As of this moment, there is no date or plans to release the fourth in audiobook. I apologize. Should that change I’ll send a notice via Newsletter first.
Model Citizen
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Reality TV caught a murder on camera, but not the killer.
Shattered by the death of his brother, Ollie is struggling. He takes over his brother’s business as a private investigator, even though he doesn’t have a license. His first case: a childhood friend has become a reality TV star and was injured on set. But others haven’t been as lucky. Some have died.
Ollie’s brother’s best friend, Kade, has arrived to take over the job. He’s got a license, a gun, and is a former Marine. But Ollie refuses to step aside. The business is his, the case involves his friend, and even when the bullets start flying, he’s determined to find the killer.
But Kade isn’t willing to put Ollie in danger, even if that means stepping in and taking the shot to save Ollie’s life.
Irotated my wrist in a circle to try to relieve the cramping and numbness forming, but they kept pushing more pages at me to initial, sign, and date. Hard to believe I, Oliver Petroskovic, had given them a check for over a million dollars for a home with “beautiful city views, Victorian bones, and a large private yard.” The place was a dump with crumbling walls, torn wallpaper, no appliances, and missing copper plumbing. However, it was going to be home for generations of Petroskovics. If there was anything Jacob, my ex-boyfriend, had taught me with his betrayal, it was that blood truly was thicker than water.
Now all I needed was for my older brother Nathan to find some pretty girl to settle down with and have babies. I would be the proud uncle, spoiling the kids, watching them grow, and being easily coaxed into free babysitting when I wasn’t walking a runway in Paris or Milan. A few more years of modeling, and I could retire wealthy enough to take care of the whole family no matter how many kids Nathan had.
I’d have to retire soon, anyway. Models didn’t often last beyond twenty-two, and I was already pushing twenty-three. I thanked God every day for blessing me with flawless skin and the feminine figure that made my teenage years miserable but my modeling so lucrative.
I never would have dreamt at fifteen that seven years later I’d be traveling the world, speaking a half-dozen languages, and studying the high-pressure venue of fashion. No, that skinny kid was all knees and elbows and endlessly teased for never being enough of a man. But the money I made taking off my clothes and dressing femininely paid for the house in full. A house others could only dream of in the expensive Pacific Heights area of San Francisco, California, where multimillion-dollar houses congregated in beautiful rows of Victorian architecture. Sure, the house needed work, but no mortgage was a good thing. I wouldn’t have to worry about maintaining the high-buck jobs I fought so hard for now. And Nathan would help with the renovations, make it our home.
We had looked at over a hundred places. Some immaculate, which appealed to my laziness, but not to Nathan’s need to improve. And I debated with my agent on the price so many times, unwilling to pay so much for spaces too small for the effort of moving. The studio apartment Nathan and I had shared for the past three years worked well only when I was traveling. The flat was just too small, though it was blocks from the building Nathan used as an office for his investigations business. An easy walk to public transportation, shops, and endless restaurants made the rent sky-high. Buying was more economical. And finding a fixer with potential sweat equity was what Nathan had convinced me we needed.
The three-thousand square foot, three-story layout would give us plenty of space to not always be bumping into each other, and yet keep us close enough we wouldn’t have to go far to find the other. Nathan had been looking after me for years. Warned me about Jacob. My house search had actually begun as a way to find a home for Jacob and me to be together. But I should have listened to Nathan.
Jacob Elias was a rock star—with a voice like a god and an amazing ass in leather pants. He’d even won a couple Grammys and was featured on magazines everywhere. Which meant my face was plastered across every rag from here to Timbuktu. A year of my life I’d wasted, listening to him tell me all the stories about him cheating were untrue. Until I caught him in bed with another man. Nathan was there with a hug instead of an I-told-you-so.
A million dollars didn’t seem like that much in the larger scope of things, though it had been the bulk of my savings. I’d rather have Nathan close at hand than money, anyway. He was all I had, and I couldn’t wait to rush home and hand him the keys.
“Just one last signature, Mr. Petroskovic.” The guy slaughtered my last name again. He’d been corrected a half-dozen times. “That ad you did in Esquire was phenomenal.” He adjusted his tie and smiled, winking at me.
I sighed, signed the last page, and shoved my mirrored sunglasses down to cover my eyes, giving the man a slight smile. “Thanks.”
Not interested, move along.
“Where are you from?” he tried again, apparently not getting my not-so-subtle hint the first time.
“Oakland,” I replied and turned toward my real estate agent, effectively turning off the conversation. The man was probably shocked by my origins. But Nathan and I had come a long way from neighborhoods filled with gangs, drugs, and never-ending violence. I couldn’t count the number of times people had offered to pay me for sex while I walked home from school. Nathan saved my ass often when some wannabe something thought the pretty blond kid with a hard-to-pronounce last name was worth stirring up trouble. We’d survived. Worked hard to make ourselves better. Nathan had enlisted at seventeen, only to be called home six years later when our parents died. He refused to let the state separate us and instead left the Marines to take over as my guardian. I was twelve, and he became my life.
The rest was history. What we had now was the future. And I could finally give back to the man who’d given me everything he could. I fingered the keys as they made copies of the paperwork for me. Nathan was going to be so excited to start working on the house. When he wasn’t tracking down cheating spouses and white-collar criminals, he was building something. I couldn’t wait to see what he’d make of the house. The attic space would be mine. The giant wall of windows with sparkling glimpses of the ocean in the far distance called to me. The unfinished space was three times the size of our studio and would be solely mine.
My realtor handed me a folder filled with papers. He was probably thrilled to get rid of me. Over a year of searching and a dozen fruitless bids had finally brought us to this day. He held out his hand, and I took it to shake. “Congratulations, Oliver.”
I grinned at him. It was done. The house was ours. “Thank you for your patience, Mr. Frost.” I grabbed up my bag, shoved the folder in it, and headed for the door. Since I was downtown, I could walk home instead of calling a cab, but I wanted to get to Nathan so bad. He’d be at work, of course. But he would look up, smile, tell me he was proud of me, and maybe I could convince him to close up for the day to celebrate.
Tall, dark, and handsome waited for me in the lobby.
It was Will, my brother’s best friend, my best friend’s husband, and San Francisco PD. “What are you doing here?” I had to ask him. His lack of uniform meant he was off-duty, but he wore everything well with strong shoulders and lean hips. Even in jeans and a polo, no one would mistake him for anything other than a cop. He was my first crush. I’d been sixteen when he’d appeared back in Nathan’s life. A fellow Marine, he and Nathan were close. And when Nathan wasn’t around, Will usually was.
“Came to pick you up and take you to a congratulatory lunch. Britney planned it but had a last-minute client. So you’re stuck with me. How’s donuts sound?” He was always making cop jokes at his own expense.
I laughed. Britney was Will’s wife and my best friend. I could imagine how she had begged her husband, likely promising sexual favors, just to get Will to show up. He’d have come anyway, but I knew for a fact Will loved playing negotiator with Britney. Since I couldn’t have him, I was pretty happy my best friend had gotten him. “And ruin my girlish figure? You know I don’t eat that stuff.”
“Tofu and air it is,” Will teased as he led the way to his Suburban.
“Fish. No tofu.” I scrunched up my face in distaste. “Even I have standards. But let’s go get Nathan first.” I waved the new keys around and got in the truck. “I want to give him the keys to the house since I’m leaving for Milan tomorrow.”
Will backed the truck out of the lot. “PHI it is, then. Maybe you can convince that workaholic brother of yours to actually go to lunch with us. You know he’ll make some excuse about having work to do.”
Yeah, that was Nathan. He worked more than I did, often banking eighty or more hours a week. Sadly the fruits of his labor would never be enough to afford us a house large enough to live comfortably. The million-dollar dream house was a thank-you from me to Nathan. I owed him so much. He’d paid for private school and attended all of those early modeling sessions to protect me from predators. Lots of people wanted to take advantage of the kid who suddenly began making thousands of dollars for taking off his clothes. I learned very quickly to be comfortable in nothing but my skin, but to also be wary of the world, as everyone wanted something from me.
“Business appears to be booming as usual,” Will snarked as he pulled into the lot in front of the PHI building and parked the truck. Other than Nathan’s battered Honda, the lot was empty.
“He’s probably at the computer doing background checks.” Whenever I wasn’t modeling, it was what I did. My college degree had been achieved with the idea that someday I’d be assisting Nathan full-time at PHI. But since I was off signing my life away for a house this morning, that left the boring computer work and answering phones to Nathan, who hated it.
I slid out of the truck and trudged to the front door, giving it a hard yank. It was locked. That was weird. I fished my key ring out of my pocket and flipped through them until I found the one for the door, and unlocked it. “Maybe he’s taking a break?”
Will frowned but pulled the door open and held it for me. “Not really something your brother does without coaxing. Did he say anything about having a meeting today?”
I shook my head. I was the one who arranged Nathan’s schedule and couldn’t recall anything being lined up for today. “It would have had to be something last minute,” I told Will as I stepped inside. The office smelled. Metallic and something more unpleasant. “What’s that smell?” It couldn’t be a gas leak; the office was electric. In fact, Nathan had installed solar panels on the roof last year, taking it mostly off the grid. Costs to stay in San Francisco were sky-high as it was, so we tried to stay green and cheap all at once.
Maybe the bathroom was backed up. “Nathan?” I called.
Will grabbed my arm and dragged me away from the door to Nathan’s office. “Go out to the car, Ollie.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed. “Got a possible DB,” he told the person who answered and rattled off the address.
I blinked at him in confusion for a moment. DB. Dead body? My heart flip-flopped and bile filled my throat. What about Nathan? I tried to loosen Will’s grip so I could get to Nathan’s office. The door was closed. Nathan rarely closed the door, always said something about an open-door showing trust. Will’s arm wrapped around my waist, lifting me with the ease of a grown-up lifting a child, and carried me outside.
“Let me go. Nathan might be in there. He could be hurt.”
“Right, ’cause you have medical training that can help? Whatever’s in there, you don’t need to see. And help is on the way.” His grip was like iron around me no matter how hard I struggled. The sound of sirens wailed in the distance, coming closer. Nathan had always said it was good to be close to downtown, the hospital, the police, and the fire station all only minutes away.
An unmarked arrived first and parked beside Will’s truck. The officer who got out greeted Will respectfully by nodding his head. “Forrester.”
“We need to do a welfare check on the owner,” Will told the cop. “Main office.” His eyes flicked to me. “Owner’s brother and I arrived together, else I would have done it already.”
The officer nodded and headed inside. He was back a minute later, just as an ambulance and a half-dozen other cops showed up. The cop shook his head at Will.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “Where’s Nathan? Is he hurt?”
Will guided me over to one of the police cars. “Sit here until I can go check. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“Let me come with you,” I begged. If that was Nathan in there…
“No,” Will said firmly. He opened the door to the back of the squad car and shoved me inside. The door closed and I realized there was no way to get out, as there were no handles and a barrier between the front and back seats.
“Dammit!” I pounded on the window trying to get Will to come back, but he walked toward the building with a handful of other cops and medics who arrived and disappeared inside a moment later. My heart wouldn’t stop pounding. It hurt as it raced in my chest, rattling my ribs like it wasn’t really attached to my body. What if it was Nathan? Who would hurt him? Everyone liked him. Except for the occasional client whom he’d caught cheating. Why weren’t the EMTs coming out with him? How bad was he hurt?
Will was back a moment later. Instead of letting me out of the car, he slid into the backseat beside me and closed the door. The other officers congregated away from the car, giving us privacy. I could feel tears running down my cheeks before I even knew exactly what Will was going to say.
“Did someone hurt Nathan? Is he okay? Tell me, Will.”
Will’s expression said it all, the tightness in his jaw and the watery edges of his eyes. “It looks like Nathan hurt Nathan.”
What? That made no sense. What was he saying? “Was there an accident?”
“I’m sorry, Ollie. He’s gone. Looks like he put a gun in his mouth.”
It took a few moments for the words to register. “What? No! He wouldn’t. I don’t understand. Let me out. I have to see him.” I threw myself at the opposite door, willing to break the window if I had to in order to get out and get to Nathan. “It’s not him. You’ve got it wrong, Will. It can’t be him. He wouldn’t leave me. I closed on our house today. We were going to raise his family there. He was going to paint and remodel to make it our dream home.”
Will wrapped me up into his arms, locking my body against his though I tried to struggle free. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Stay here with me, Ollie. You don’t need that memory. Just remember him how he was. God, kid. I’m so sorry.”
“It’s wrong. You’re wrong. It can’t be him. Let me go. I have to see him. He needs me.” But Will wouldn’t let me go, and my world swirled in a crazy whirl of flashing lights and disjointed sound bites carrying me into a future where I was all alone.
Model Bodyguard
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When a rock star is marked for murder, he demands a bodyguard.
After a decade in the Marine Corps, Kade thought he’d be ready for anything. Assigned to guard Ollie’s ex-boyfriend and rock star, Jacob, is a test of his willpower. Minor threats and blackmail turn quickly to murder and extortion when money is on the line.
Jacob wants to hang up his career, or at least the family controlling his life, but the death of his assistant unearths a long list of secrets, lies, and long-term abuse. Kade is determined to not let Jacob back into their lives, but realizes the safest place to hide him from a would-be killer is in their own house. An opportunity Jacob sees as a chance to get back into Ollie’s good graces.
Can Kade find and stop the killer before he is forced to put Jacob out of all of their misery?
“Ifeel different sizes today,” I remarked to Nathan, who sat beside my bed.
“You look the same size,” he replied.
But I felt different in my skin. Always light-headed and floating with pain just on the edge of my reality. “I’m not quite sure who I am either. I’ve become Alice.”
“You’re not Alice. You’re the Mad Hatter.”
I frowned at him, though it made sense somehow. “Am I mad?”
“Aren’t we all?”
I stared at him, thinking hard. He was fuzzy around the edges, but still solid in the center. His dark blond hair was brushed back from his face, shoulders and chest thick in a snug T-shirt, and eyes just a little more green than I remembered. Ollie had eyes like Nathan. Or maybe Nathan had eyes like Ollie. I couldn’t think deeply enough to know for sure or why it even mattered.
“I don’t want to be mad,” I told him. “Can I go home?” The bland gray walls and giant windowless room made my heart ache. I missed my days sleeping on Nathan’s couch, reading stories to Ollie, or making them meals. I couldn’t remember why I was in the hospital, but I felt okay, other than floaty. They should let me go home. “I’m not sick, am I?”
“We’re all a little sick,” was all he said. “Should I read to you a while longer?”
But that wasn’t right. Nathan never read to me. Nathan hated reading. Even to Ollie. The task had fallen to me because the rapt attention and joy on Ollie’s face had always made my day. “Where’s Ollie?” I had to know. Something was odd about Nathan being here and Ollie not.
“You’ll need to take care of him now.”
The words warmed my heart, but also confused me. I could vaguely recall a fight in which Nathan had specifically told me to stay away from his little brother. Now he wanted me to take care of him like he was going somewhere. “Are you leaving? Stay, please. It’s so lonely here.” And I wasn’t crazy. Not like they thought I was.
Nathan’s smile was tense, but he didn’t speak.
“Is Ollie here?” I wanted to know, because rarely were they apart. Something tickled the back of my brain in memory of a news article and a big breakup. Some guy had treated him bad. “He needs friends now. I get it.” That made so much more sense. “I think I’m still a little out of it. Is that because I’m sick?”
“You said you were changing sizes. I’m sure they’re working to fix that.”
That too made sense, in a weird, disjointed way. “I’m on some pretty good drugs, yeah?”
“Yes.”
I tried to reach for his hand, which rested on the bed beside me, but met with resistance in lifting it. Just how badly was I injured? I tried with the other arm but couldn’t raise that one either. “Nathan?” I asked, unable to keep the worry from my voice. It was then I remembered the explosion: heat and pain. Had I lost both arms? Maybe all my limbs? I couldn’t see my body. Just the white of the blanket and everything else was like wool wrapped around my brain. Too much focus and the pain began to edge back in. I swallowed back the panic. “Nathan?” I pleaded, unsure what exactly I was asking for.
Only he was gone. I blinked away tears, and swung my head side to side to try to find Nathan in the room. There was a nurse beside my equipment, and my father standing at the end of the bed. His dark eyes glared at me, anger stretched across his face, his hands clenched in fists. When I’d been younger I’d never thought it was odd that we looked nothing alike. I had my mother’s pale brown, almost blond, hair—with a tight and coarse curl that had to come from my father’s side—brown eyes and ivory skin. Years serving under the scorching sun had covered me in freckles and tans that quickly faded. My father was a dark-skinned black man with a shaved and shining head. His eyes were dark and always grim. I couldn’t recall ever seeing him smile at me, or even look in my direction with kindness. Not like he did my siblings.
He threw a newspaper down on my chest. “Your boyfriend’s dead,” he told me. “This all stops here.”
Boyfriend? I didn’t have one. Dead? What stops here? I was too fuzzy. The confusion on my face must have been obvious because he stalked to the head of the bed, picked up the paper and tilted it to show me the picture. An obituary. For Nathan.
“No,” I denied, tried to reach for the paper to tear it to shreds, but my arms were bound. I was strapped to the bed in leather cuffs. I struggled against them. “Let me go. He’s not dead, damn you. Let me go! I need to see him. He was just here.”
“No more, Kade. This endless rebellion of yours is over. Your military career is over. I let you stay because I thought it would make you a man. I was wrong. So we’ll just have to do it another way.” My father nodded to the nurse who picked up a needle off a tray.
“No! Let me go.” Tears welled up in my eyes and my chest hurt. He couldn’t be gone. He was just here. He’d been talking to me. And if Nathan was gone, who would take care of Ollie? Oh my God. Ollie. The drugs began to yank me back down into a floating haze. I didn’t want to be here, but was powerless to move. Without Nathan how would I get free? Who would care for Ollie? Who would remind me that I was more than just a toy soldier for the world to manipulate?
Darkness closed in and once again I was small and helpless.
Model Investigator
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Kidnapped, and imprisoned by wealth and power, his sanity is on the line.
Plagued by PTSD nightmares, and coming unraveled, Kade is no longer whole. His family has taken control of his life and is determined to hide him away from the world. Ollie clings to the hope of putting Kade back together.
With Jacob’s help, Ollie digs into the destructive past of Kade’s manipulative family to drag the truth out of decades of lies, and bring back the man he loves. But Kade’s father is determined to keep it all buried, even if that means killing Ollie before he can bring the past to light.
Can they save Kade before all of them are lost under a tidal wave of corruption and murder?
Ollie
It all happened so fast. Everyone said that sort of thing after a traumatizing event, but it was true. It had all happened so fast. Levi hit me in the head and disarmed me. Jacob was bound. Kade was then shot with my Taser, then his own gun.
Kade, the love of my life, bleeding.
A gun pointed at my head with an order to drive. Kade trying to reassure me while he bled out fifteen feet away. The cops chasing us first with sirens blaring and then just in a silent flash of red and blue. Everything else was lost in soundless bursts of memories until the blockade.
A police car in the road, and Kade shouting my name as Levi came at me. I swerved and slammed on the brakes. Then we were spinning, and my already pounding head hit the steering wheel, dropping me into darkness.
The steady beep of a machine woke me from the reoccurring nightmare. I couldn’t remember ever being so tired, groggy, and light-headed. The hospital was familiar, but I expected to wake up to find Kade by my side, only it was Jacob, my ex-lover, a rock star, and perpetual pain in my ass, not Kade, who sat dozing in the chair next to the bed. My heart raced as I remembered the blood pouring from Kade and the sound of his pained scream.
Jacob jerked awake like he’d ripped himself out of his own nightmare. Maybe about the very same event. He glanced at me and sat up. His headphones were back on. Jacob’s hearing had been damaged by a bomb planted in an amp before a show. If he was wearing the headphones, he was still experiencing pain from a burst eardrum. He held up a finger and bolted to the door. Hope filled me. Maybe Kade had just stepped out a minute to get something to eat or some air. Maybe it had all been a nightmare. Maybe he wasn’t hurt and it hadn’t been his blood I kept seeing creep across the floor of the tour bus toward me.
Only it was Will, San Francisco Police Officer and my elder brother’s best friend, who appeared in the doorway a few seconds later. His handsome face set in a serious frown and his salt-and-pepper hair askew like he’d been running his hands through it.
“Where’s Kade?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking even though my voice sounded like I hadn’t spoken in weeks.
“You should rest,” Will told me.
My blood turned icy. “Will…”
He shifted Jacob’s chair away so he could hold my hand and still be at eye level if I turned my head. “You really should rest more first. One too many hits to the head.”
He was trying to be funny to distract me and failing miserably. There was no tube in my nose or throat. No catheter. Just the IV in my arm. So I couldn’t have been that badly hurt. Even if my head still hurt, I could see okay, ignoring the little sparkles of light on the edges of my vision, and while I ached a little, it seemed to only be bruising. “Tell me,” I demanded.
Jacob returned and stood at the end of the bed, notepad in hand. He’s gone, he wrote.
I frowned and shook my head, at first thinking the worst but knowing it couldn’t be true. “He’s not dead…”
“No. Not dead,” Will assured me, holding my hand tightly and glaring at Jacob. “Missing.”
“Missing? We were all on the same bus, Jacob’s tour bus, how can he be missing? Levi shot him through the leg. His injured leg!” Kade’s right leg had been badly damaged in a roadside bomb over a year ago. He had trouble with it ever since. The sound of the shot and Kade’s pain made my gut churn, and it was only a fading memory. Then the gun had been pointed at me, and I couldn’t do anything. Didn’t do anything. Just did as I was told and drove. I could have hit Levi, lunged for the gun, tried to shield Kade. Something…
“It wasn’t your fault,” Will whispered like he could somehow see inside my head. “You were in shock. In fact, I think you’re still in shock. Why don’t you rest some more, and then we’ll talk about this?”
“No,” I snapped at him, coming back into the present, though a panic attack was beginning to make my lungs heavy and my chest ache. “Tell me.”
Will let me go and sat down in the chair Jacob had vacated, making it creak under his weight. “He was already gone by the time I arrived. When I started asking about both of you, the hospital staff got all bitchy. Apparently the closest place to the crash was some tiny Catholic hospital. Shouldn’t have been an issue, but when I brought up that you were each other’s emergency contact, they got stony. I ended up calling Ty in. They wouldn’t even answer any questions about you.” He let out a long sigh. Will must have been desperate if he’d gone to Tyler for help. He and Tyler didn’t get along on a good day. But Tyler was another one of my ex-boyfriends, only he also happened to be a powerful attorney. “By the time I got in to see you, made sure you were okay, Kade was gone. The hospital claims they released him to his family.”
“I’m his family,” I growled, struggling to sit up. I was so going to hurt someone for taking him away from me. “We’re his family. We have all the documents in place and tied so tightly together we might as well be married. And he was shot. How can a hospital release a badly injured man to anyone?”
Jacob held up both his hands and waved at me to indicate I shouldn’t get up and shook his head.
Will just put a heavy hand on my shoulder and shoved me back onto the bed, which actually really hurt. I sucked in several deep gulps of air as the room spun. The left side of my temple began to ache with a rising dull throb.
“You’re not going anywhere yet. Concussion and a couple broken ribs. Your doctor is most worried about the concussion. There will be tests. Lots of tests,” Will assured me.
“I can’t just sit here. Do you have any idea what his family did to him the last time?” Just the idea of them putting him in another mental institution and loading him with drugs to convince him he was crazy made me nauseous. I had to get to him before it was too late.
“Probably better than you do,” Will said quietly. He had been the one to save Kade the last time. No one should have to be rescued from their biological family. “We’re looking, Ollie. I promise we’re looking. Britney and I, Ty and Tomas, even Jacob’s got people searching.” He glanced up at the rock star, who still lingered at the end of the bed.
“They won’t use his name,” I told Will. “They’re smarter than that.”
“I know.”
“You’ll have to search by other factors. I have everything on file. His DNA, blood type, medical records, dental records, everything. Hell, even the serial numbers for the pieces in his leg and hip.” Kade had been amused by my need to know so much, but he’d complied. “I have everything on my computer.” Which had been in my car. I hoped they’d recovered it from the scene.
Will patted the back of my hand. “We’re looking. We’ll find him.”
“I should get up and help.” It was just a bump on the head and a few broken ribs. I could function with those. Maybe, probably.
“You are going down for a head scan in a little bit,” Will told me. “Jacob is your escort.” He glanced out the open door to several men dressed in suits with their backs to the door. “And his guards.”
“You’re going to look for Kade?”
“Of course,” Will said like I was slow. “I’m sure by the time you’re ready to get out of here, we’ll have him back.”
But my heart hurt, and fear lodged itself in my throat. Kade had been badly injured. I remembered the mess of bone and tissue that had been his damaged right leg. The horrible stink of burned flesh. Apparently the Taser and his replacement pieces didn’t mesh well. How would he recover if his family was too busy fucking with his head?
Model Exposure
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His brother’s death may not have been suicide. It might have been murder.
Ollie’s world unraveled the day his brother died, and he’s been trying to recover ever since. Entrenched in his brother’s business, his new relationship with Kade, and a whirlwind of crazy cases, he hasn’t had to face the grim past. Except now things are coming to light that expose his childhood as one big lie.
Nathan’s death might have been murder—possibly by someone close to him. A betrayal that sent Nathan into a spiral, and Kade is on the same path, losing his grip on reality. Ollie is desperate to find answers, for his past, the lies of his youth, the loss of his brother, and a way to save Kade.
Can Ollie put together the pieces of the mystery in time to keep Kade from self-destructing?
“It’s PTSD, Kade,” Jolanda, reaffirmed. “The depression and anxiety are just symptoms of the larger problem.”
Every day for more than half a year, I had watched my lover, Ollie, suffer from depression and anxiety, thinking I understood. I’d been so wrong. Now after two months of constant appointments and several medications, I was still unable to shake the overwhelming feeling of dread. Never mind that I’d told Jolanda, my therapist, every last bit I could remember from my days being held captive by my father. Sometimes my brain just took over for me, shutting down or switching to autopilot. This last time, unlike the many times of my youth, it wasn’t about my sexuality. Instead he’d just tried to convince me Ollie was dead and it was all my fault. I often woke in a cold sweat, terrified, until I found Ollie beside me, alive and safe.
“And not going away,” I told her. Or letting up. Sometimes the smallest thing could have me fighting tears or so overwhelmed with sadness I could barely breathe. It was terrifying just how much I worried about stupid things. Like where Ollie was every second of the day, even when I knew he was home or with Britney or Sophie or just in the other room. Or if someone was watching me, waiting to swoop in and abduct me again. “I’m not normal.”
“Is anyone?” Jolanda asked.
“Not normal for me.” It was getting harder to hide it from Ollie.
“You’ve been through a lot, Kade. How about giving yourself some time to heal?”
“Shouldn’t I have gotten this from serving?”
“Did you ever feel as helpless while serving? Have as much to lose?”
I hated the way she volleyed questions back at me when she already knew the answers. “No.” The truth was, while I’d been serving my country, I’d had nothing to return home to. Now I had so much.
“Give it time.”
“Ollie needs me.” He was healing from a major stroke. He had blackouts, memory loss, and sometimes a complete bipolar change of his emotions. He needed me to be solid so he could heal.
“There’s no reason you can’t be there for Ollie while you’re healing. You both need to take it slow,” Jolanda said.
“He needs me to be solid. His rock.”
“And you need him to be yours. Why can’t it be an exchange? Don’t you trust him?”
Of course I trusted him. The only time I could breathe anymore was when he was in the room with me. It was irrational and I knew it was irrational. I just needed to figure out how to set aside this horrible dread. Moving beyond the depression, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion seemed impossible. Like the weight of an elephant on my chest, it never let up.
“Have you told him how you feel? Your fears?”
“No.” Ollie knew I had PTSD, but not how badly I struggled with it.
“Because you’re worried how he’ll react?”
“His brother killed himself because of PTSD. You don’t get how that messed him up.” Only she did, because she treated him too. I sighed. “Sorry. You get it. I know you do.”
“Nathan Petroskovic died from an illness,” she pointed out. “The means are irrelevant.”
I swallowed back bile at the thought. He’d died because he hadn’t been strong enough to keep fighting. What if I couldn’t handle the weight of it anymore? It had only been a few months. What if this continued for years? I wasn’t sure I was strong enough. Fuck.
She let me stew a little longer before saying, “You come to me for help. A cure. An instant fix. You know I can’t give you any of those things.”
I knew I had to work for those, and they were all intangible things, which made it so much harder. “So I’m stuck?”
“I will always be here for you. But maybe it’s not me you need.”
“I can’t talk to Ollie about this.” He’s not strong enough.
Fuck. Where had that thought come from? He was the strongest person I knew. He’d been living with this god-be-damned monster of depression and anxiety on his back his whole life. What did that say for me that I couldn’t handle it for a few months?
“What do you fear he’ll do if you tell him just how bad off you are right now?”
Leave me. Oh God, I’d really fall apart. I was only holding it together because I went home to him every day, curled up on the chaise with him, cuddled on the couch with him and our cat, Newt. Ollie’s smile, the subtle turn of his head, the way he canted his hips when he leaned against the counter to talk to me…
“How about a challenge for this week?”
No. I wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not to tell him.
“Tell him one hard truth each day.” She put her hand up when I began to protest. “Doesn’t have to be about him, or even about you. It could be: Climate change is fucking us up right now. Or you hate the color orange. Just one hard truth. Each one should be easier to say than the last.”
“I need him,” I whispered.
“I know. So start small. Tell him you’re worried. Or that you hate a pair of shoes. Just talk to him. Shutting down is not going to benefit either of you. I think a lot of your anxiety about him leaving is simply because you’re not talking to him.”
“Okay.” It sounded easier than I was sure it was. “I just wish…” That I’d been born to a different family. That my head hadn’t been fucked with by my father and a chemical cocktail. That I could see into the future to know that admitting I was broken to Ollie wasn’t going to tip him over the edge.
“Baby steps.”
“Okay,” I agreed. It was somewhere to start.