Code Red by N.R. Walker

Chapter Five

The boys went straightinto rehearsals as soon as we arrived at the stadium. There were long lines of people outside already, and many had been there since late last night, apparently. Maddox never spared me another glance for a few hours, and I had to wonder if I’d imagined the whole incident in the car. But I swear I could still feel the burn of his hand on my thigh and see the shine of his dark eyes so close to mine . . .

I didn’t imagine that.

But we got busy doing a hundred things, so I put it out of my mind and got to work. It was just hours before the concert, after all.

This was the final dress rehearsal to make sure jackets and pants were fine with the dance routines and not likely to split or tear on stage. They danced pretty hard—they were famous for it—and their clothes needed to stretch and move with their bodies accordingly. Of course, the wardrobe team had everything perfected.

And when I say perfect, I was referring to their pants in particular.

Made of some black latex denim worthy of a Spiderman suit, they looked like jeans but they fit . . . well, they fit like a second skin. They allowed the boys to move and dance, run and kick, flip and sit while looking like streetwear. They cost a fortune, of course, but they were worth every cent.

Those pants showed every thigh muscle, every curve, every line, every bulge.

Like I said. Perfection.

“I heard Maddox talking about his new guitar,” Amber said, nodding to where the boys were now walking off the stage. I hadn’t heard her come over. God, did she catch me staring again? Had I been staring?

“Yeah, he got the one he wanted. There were a few customs in store and one that suited him perfectly, so he got to take it today and he doesn’t have to wait, so he was stoked. How did it go for you guys?”

“Good. We left before the crowd started to get too big.”

I nodded. “How’s Blake’s knee?”

“Yeah, he said it feels good. But we’ll see how long that lasts.”

I checked my watch. It was two hours till showtime. “We better make sure these boys eat.”

Catering always offered a range of carbs and proteins before a concert, and the boys knew by now how much to eat. But it was our job to make sure they wanted or needed nothing else before, during, and after a concert.

It was summer in the US. The tour was planned to optimize the good weather. But that meant we had to contend with heat. Even when the concerts were held at night, dehydration was a real concern. Not just for the boys on stage—who would come off stage drenched with sweat—but for the staff who ran themselves ragged behind the scenes.

So while the five boys ate and were supposed to rest before the make-up and wardrobe teams moved in, Amber, Ryan, and I went through our lists twice to make sure we were good to go. “Water, energy gels, tubs of ice,” I said, double-checking the supplies off the list. “Ice packs, towels, cans of oxygen.”

We had last minute meetings with the security teams, with the sound teams and the stage crew. Everything was good to go. Everyone was pumped for the tour to officially begin. When the opening act went on, the noise of the crowd in the stadium was deafening, the excitement was contagious.

When we walked back into the main dressing room, they were all in various stages of undress. Maddox’s shirt was undone, Blake wasn’t wearing a shirt at all. Jeremy was pulling his pants up, thank God. And Wes had his pants and shirt on, no socks or shoes, and Luke was the only one who appeared fully dressed.

Wardrobe people fussed around them, trying to get them dressed, much like helpless parents with five toddlers. But the five of them were too busy looking at something on their phones, laughing and talking excitedly . . . and then they saw me.

“Here he is,” Blake said, grinning. “The man of the hour.”

“You trying to take Maddox’s title?” Wes asked. “Well, he’s no longer the sexiest man alive, and you’re part of the band now, apparently.”

“Can you even sing?” Jeremy joked.

“We should get him fitted for these pants,” Luke said with a laugh.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I asked, not entirely sure I wanted to know. “And that’s a definite no to both the singing and the pants, just so you know.”

Maddox turned his phone around for me to see. There was a photo of me escorting him into the guitar shop under the title, And the sexiest manager award goes to . . .

The what?

“The sexiest manager?” I scoffed. “Is that some spoof newspaper? What’s it called? The Onion?”

“Oh no,” Blake said cheerfully. “You’re on every website, and you’re all over TikTok.” He pointed his chin to the TV on the wall. “Entertainment Tonight even had footage.”

What the actual fuck?

“Of me?”

Wes nodded. “The reporter wanted to know if you’re related to the Hemsworths.”

“Oh Christ,” I grumbled. I took my phone out and found dozens of hits in half a second. Amber and Ryan had their phones out too, scrolling and reading.

This wasn’t good.

“You know,” Maddox said casually, “I don’t mind one bit. It means they’re leaving me alone.”

I looked up at him then, to find he was buttoning up his shirt with a sexy-as-hell smirk on his face. But this wasn’t funny. This was just another hassle we didn’t have time to deal with.

I went back to my phone, scrolling through the pics. Someone had obviously taken photos of us when we were in the guitar store. It was after Maddox was told he could have the guitar and we went back out into the showroom. The crowd had begun to gather, and while they kept a respectable distance, they obviously took photos.

Everyone with a damn phone was a paparazzi these days.

The images were kinda grainy but clear enough to see who it was. Maddox Kershaw inside the shop with me. With his hand on my arm, with him grinning, laughing. Me smiling back at him. Me standing beside him while he paid at the counter, us talking, his hand on my back . . .

Did he always touch me like that?

Did I really look at him like that?

Then there were photos of us leaving. Maddox was waving. I had my hand on his back, ushering him into the van and following close behind him.

The headlines were all variations of the same. Maddox’s hot manager. Manager or boyfriend? Sexiest men alive.

The grab lines weren’t much better.

Maddox Kershaw was seen at Iver Rigby’s custom guitar store today ahead of their first LA concert looking very cozy with his manager.

Just who is Roscoe Hall, and how is he sexier than Maddox Kershaw?

I read the beginning of one article on an entertainment site.

Given he’s six foot tall with sandy blond hair, rugged good looks, and has the body of Thor, you might be mistaken to think this is footage of Chris Hemsworth with superstar Maddox Kershaw today in LA. But long-time fans of the supergroup Atrous know him as Roscoe Hall, Maddox’s personal manager . . .

Christ all-fucking-mighty.

“Wait, wait, this one’s my favorite,” Luke said, standing up and reading off his phone. “‘The hottest bodyguard hall of fame just got another inductee.’”

They all laughed.

“Bodyguard?” Wes asked. “Does Steve know?”

I resisted the urge to swear. Barely. I’m glad they could laugh. I turned to Ryan. “Where’s Ambrose?”

“He was with the concert director. Said he’ll be back to see the boys before it was time.”

“And we’re trending on Twitter,” Jeremy called out. “From what I can see, it’s a mix of the concert, all of us going out in public this morning, and hashtag Roscoe.”

“Pretty sure it’s the polo shirt, Roscoe,” Luke added. “It shows off your Thor body.”

Maddox grinned right at me, broad and beautiful. “Hashtag Roscoe. I like it.”

“It’s not funny,” I said.

“Mm,” Amber said beside me. “Well, it is a little bit.”

I stared at her like she’d lost her mind. “Until Ambrose decides it’s not. Like he has time to deal with this right now.”

“You’ve heard of ‘all publicity is good publicity,’ right?” Ryan said.

Yeah, well, I wasn’t convinced.

Why was no one else concerned? Worst of all, why did they think it was funny?

Maddox came over to me. “You know, I honestly don’t mind,” he said. “If the world thinks you’re sexier than me. They wouldn’t be wrong.”

Christ. Both Amber and Ryan heard that.

“It’s not that,” I replied, running my hand through my hair. “You’re already a big enough target, and I just made that worse.”

Maddox had an oh-shit moment before he frowned at me. “You didn’t do anything. The media did it; the people with cameras and ridiculous headlines and tweets did this. Not you.”

I withheld a sigh and remembered the time and place. He didn’t need this right now. “You should finish getting ready,” I said. “I’ll go find Ambrose and we’ll get this mess cleaned up. You just focus on you.” I made a point of showing him my watch. “T minus thirty.”

Thirty minutes until they walked on.

I left them and went in search of my boss. There were people running everywhere, talking into earpieces and walkie-talkies, and despite the concert chaos, I knew where to look. Ambrose would be in the thick of it.

Sure enough, he was under the stage surrounded by no less than five people, giving orders and instructions. His assistants, a stage crew manager and a logistics guy, and a stadium official were trying to talk over the sound of the opening act on the stage above us.

Ambrose saw me and gave me a nod, so I waited for him to finish. When he came over, we began the walk back to the main room where the boys were, hopefully, now ready to perform. Fully dressed would be a good start.

“What’s up?” he asked as he walked. “Everything okay?”

He really was an organizational machine. The reason why he was the manager of the biggest boy band in the world was because he was incredibly good at it. He’d been with Atrous for five years, and his skills for managing them expanded with their fame.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. There was some media hype this afternoon I wanted to give you a head’s up about.”

“The sexiest bodyguard bullshit?”

Of course he knew about it already.

“Yep.”

“I saw it.” He stopped walking as we got to the door. “Look, Roscoe. It’s harmless hype at the moment, and quite frankly, getting the band on every entertainment site and social media platform two hours before kick-off wasn’t a bad play at all.”

“Ambrose,” I began.

He put his hand up. “I know what you’re thinking. I said it’s harmless, at the moment. Let’s just see what comes of it. You know how this industry is. It’ll be about someone different tomorrow.”

“And if it’s not?”

“Then we deal with it.”

I gave a nod. “Good.”

“How’s our boy, anyway?”

Our boy . . .  God, I really hated how Maddox was singled out by everyone, from the media, his fans, to his own management.

“They’re pumped,” I said, including all five members of the band.

Ambrose was about to say something, but before he could, I said, “We’ve got twelve minutes.” I opened the door and stood aside.

Ambrose walked in, all excitement and confidence, offering words of support and gratitude for everyone’s hard work. The thing was, I liked Ambrose, and the boys respected him. They’d been together a long time, especially in this industry, and there was a deep level of trust.

There had to be.

And Ambrose worked hard, no one could dispute that. But at the end of the day, he was the right hand of Arlo Kim, the boss of Platinum Entertainment, and these five boys were a product of the company.

Did Arlo treat them well? Yes.

Did Atrous make Arlo Kim a fuckton of money? Yes. Did they put his company at the forefront of entertainment management on a global scale? Also yes.

It was a symbiotic relationship of sorts. Platinum Entertainment started small and moved heaven and earth to give Atrous the exposure they deserved. Atrous took the world by storm by putting in grueling hours and dedication, and in doing so, made Platinum Entertainment the success it was.

One couldn’t have done it without the other. And Arlo Kim did respect the band. I knew that. But sometimes I just felt like these boys were the hamsters running the treadmill that made the whole hamster factory work. Platinum Entertainment owned these boys. They were just kids when they signed, with no idea of the success that lay before them. No one could have known.

They also couldn’t have known how tied up their lives would be in those contracts. Were they happy ninety-nine percent of the time? Yes. Did the boys have creative control over their music? Mostly. Did Platinum Entertainment dictate their personal lives in the name of their public image? Yep.

But it wasn’t just that.

Maybe I was cynical. Maybe I was biased. Maybe I saw Maddox work until he dropped all too often. I saw him stress. I saw him carry the burden of the whole band—and therefore the whole company—when no one else did. The reputation, the responsibility, the reason.

Maddox was the golden boy. Everything he wrote, everything he sang, everything he said turned to gold. Maddox bore the weight of Platinum Entertainment’s expectations.

But at what cost?

So yeah, maybe I felt a little overprotective. And maybe Ambrose calling him “our boy” rankled me more than it should because Maddox wasn’t his boy.

Maddox was mine.

I was there with him, there for him, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, for years. My entire life revolved around him.

I understood him. Like very few people did.

We had something. A professional relationship, yes. But underneath that, there was friendship and empathy. And until very recently, I would have said what we had was a very platonic, very close professional rapport.

Until recently.

Until the hand-holding and the lingering looks, and the suggestive lip-licking and sultry smiles. The innuendos, his hands on my thigh, the way he said he wouldn’t stop me if I kissed him . . .

That was all new. There had been a change in the last six months, and even now, knowing it would likely cost me my job, I just couldn’t seem to stop myself.

So while Ambrose gave his epic spiel of encouragement, I watched Maddox. He was fully dressed now, his earpiece was fitted. His make-up and hair were perfection, and those pants . . . the way they fit him, hugged him in all the right places. Christ.

When I looked back up to his face, he was watching me, smiling. Actually, it was more of a smirk that told me he’d caught me checking him out.

I met his gaze and held it until Jeremy nudged him to get his attention. They did that thing they did at the beginning of every concert, where they stood in a circle, right hands in the center. “First concert of the tour,” Jeremy said. “Let’s give ’em their money’s worth.”

“Atrous,” they all crowed in unison.

“Let’s do this!”

We all clapped as they walked out, the stage director ushering them along. And it was only then that the whole room let out a collective sigh. Our job was done. The next two and a half hours were up to them.

We had a few moments to grab something quick to eat and begin packing up, and we knew the second the boys had walked out on stage because the whole stadium rumbled with applause and cheering.

We watched them on the live feed. We would meet them under the stage when they came off for a set break and outfit change, but for the first few songs, we got a front-row view.

They danced their asses off. They sang their hearts out. Choreography was perfect, the vocals were too. The veins in their necks stood out when they sang, and their sweat soaked hair and drenched shirts just added to their sex appeal.

The entire audience sang with them, cheered, danced, and screamed.

The huge screens to the sides of the stage showed close ups, the lights and laser shows were on point. They had the crowd sing with them, they involved them, they spoke to them, made them laugh. Twenty-six songs, three outfit changes, and an energy that was out of this world.

They held the audience of eighty-something thousand people in the palms of their hands.

It was a privilege to watch.

When they came off the stage for the last time that night, the five of them dragging, sweating, panting, they all but collapsed onto the couches. They barely had the fuel in their tanks to high five each other.

I didn’t even mind the film crew catching this side of them. Let the fans see what each performance took out of them.

But then the wardrobe crew moved in, pulling shirts off, leaving the five of them shirtless and very sweaty. They toweled off and we fed them more energy gels and water, and I did everything in my willpower to not stare at shirtless-Maddox, or his muscular body, or his damn sleeve of tattoos . . .

And the film crew filmed that too.

When it came time to peel off those stage pants, I walked over to the film crew and put my clipboard in front of the camera. One of them looked ready to say something, but I cut her off. “If Ambrose has a problem with this, tell him to come find me.”

That earned me a few smirks from the boys, but Maddox had his pants undone, fly open, still shirtless, so I made myself busy packing up shit that needed packing with my back turned. Sure, I’d seen them all undressed over the years—never fully naked, thank god—but this was different.

Now I wanted to look.

And that wasn’t good. Maybe the lines could blur in the car or in a hotel room, but this was work. He’d done his job, now he needed me to do mine.

So I fetched him his bag and cleaned up all his mess, helping Amber and Ryan with anything that needed to be done. And before too long, we were in the van and heading back to the hotel.

Maddox slid into his seat, tired but happy.

“You guys killed it tonight,” I said.

“It was good,” he agreed. “Hit all my notes. Didn’t fuck up any dance steps.”

“You hungry?”

He nodded. “Yeah.”

“Dinner’s been ordered for all of you back at the hotel.”

“Mm, dinner and a shower. Sounds great.” He was quiet for a bit. I tried not to think of him in the shower, and I was grateful it was dark in the van. The passing streetlights were like a strobe effect, pulsing in time with my heart. “You can join me if you want.”

“You boys always eat together after a concert—”

“I wasn’t talking about dinner.”

My gaze shot to his. He was sitting low in his seat, his legs spread wide, his hand resting on his belly, sliding lower . . .

Fucking hell.

“Maddox,” I warned.

He laughed, as if he was just joking. But he wasn’t, and we both knew it. He sat up straight, then leaned a little closer to me. “I saw you checking me out earlier,” he whispered like it was all just some game.

I looked away because I sure as hell couldn’t look at him when I lied. “No I wasn’t.”

He laughed again. “Oh, Roscoe.” When it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything, he changed topics. “So, what did Ambrose say about the sexiest bodyguard media frenzy?”

God, I’d almost forgotten about that.

“He wasn’t too concerned,” I replied. “Yet.”

“I thought it was funny. I mean, I get why you didn’t. When you said it made me a bigger target . . .  Well, I didn’t think of it like that.”

I sighed. “You don’t need anything to shine another spotlight on you, especially from me. I’m supposed to make your life easier, not harder.”

“Hey.”

I looked at him then.

“You do make my life easier. You make it bearable, Roscoe,” he said gently. “They’re just gonna write whatever they want, regardless of the truth or who they hurt in the process. You can’t control it. You just have to let it go. Ignore it.”

Wait up. “I make your life bearable?”

His jaw bulged and he looked out the window, narrowing his gaze at the passing city. “Yeah.”

Christ.

“Maddox,” I whispered.

It took him a second to look at me. When he did, his guard was up again. His eyes were black steel. I said nothing, just held out my hand, palm up.

He looked at it for a long second before he slid his hand into mine. We didn’t speak again for the rest of the drive to the hotel, but his grip on my hand was a fraction too firm, as if he was scared I was going to let go.

Or just scared. I wasn’t sure. So I held on just as tight.

My phone beepedat 11:37 pm with a message from Maddox.

Can you come here please?

I was ready for bed. Everyone had gone to their rooms after a late meal. Concert nights were always late, but I’d had enough time to shower and change into my pajamas. We had to be up early in the morning . . .

I knocked on his door, and after a few seconds, it swung inwards. He stood there in some sleep shorts and an old T-shirt, his head down like he was embarrassed. I walked in, enough steps for him to close the door. “What’s up?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” he murmured. “I’m so tired. Can you . . . can you stay for a bit?”

There was no playfulness now. There was no heat, no smirk.

Just sadness.

It made my heart ache. “Sure.”

He lifted his gaze then, and he made a face when he saw the shirt I was wearing. “Really? Bruins? You’re a Boston Bruins fan?”

“Shut up. You want me to stay or not?”

He gave me a tired smile and trudged over to the bed, climbed in, and pulled the blankets up. “I like the air conditioning on and lots of blankets,” he mumbled and folded his arm up under the pillow. He patted the other side of the bed. “’S comfier than the chairs.”

Fuck. Was I just supposed to occupy the same bed as him? To what? Sleep? How long was I supposed to stay for?

I sat on the farthest edge I could without falling off, sitting against the headboard, and shoved the pillow at my lower back. The TV was on, the volume barely audible. Some old western was playing, and I chuckled at the thought of him choosing this. But after watching five minutes of it, of the horse riding, the old saloon bars, the costumes, and the low-slung gun holsters and the corny lines, I had to admit, it was kinda cool.

“Never picked you for a John Wayne fan,” I murmured.

But Maddox never replied. When I looked, he was fast asleep.