if someone’s going to curse at me for no reason, I’m not going to pretend like I still want their business.” Parker offered me a smile before he went on. “It’s one of the few things my dad ever taught me, you know? How to stick up for myself, how there’s a lot more to respect about someone who respects themselves. Sure, it might lose me business with awful people, but that’s the exact kind of business that I love to lose.”
“I don’t…” I stammered yet again, my gaze fixed on Parker’s own. “You’re not what I thought you were, Parker Williams.”
“What did you think I was, Derek Lavine?”
“…Different.”
“Well, I think I am pretty different.” Parker smiled before leaning against the front desk with his elbows. “And if you ever wanted to find out how different, exactly, you could always ask me out to dinner. Or lunch. Or breakfast.”
Yes.
I wanted to take him up on his unstated offer. I wanted to pick his brain and find out more about his shitty dad, how he decided on running a B&B with his brother. I even wanted to hear more horror stories about awful customers and how he’d dealt with them despite their annoying attitude.
I wanted to spend more time with him. I couldn’t deny that Parker was a good-looking man, his bright smile so often the focal point of my attention. He looked like he worked out too, less than me but enough to make me think that he devoted time to jogging or the bike machine at the gym.
But there were two problems with me wanting to spend more time with Parker Williams.
One, he was my client, and I’d made it a rule a long time ago to never, ever get mixed up in a client’s personal life. It was the easiest way to protect us both, since it kept me from getting too close to a client to be useful as their security, my guard perpetually down around them, and it also kept them from getting too comfortable with me, forgetting to keep an eye out for their own sake, trusting me more than they trusted their own senses.
And the second reason I shouldn’t have wanted to spend more time with Parker Williams?
Because I was straight.
Or at least I thought I was.
I’d never been attracted to a guy before Parker, and I’d worked with plenty of guys as their security team before. And yet, Parker was the first one to ever catch my eye like this, making it difficult for me to tear my gaze away from him. Even so, despite the fact that Parker was the first guy I’d ever been attracted to, I wasn’t shaken by the realization. I’d always been a big believer in human sexuality being sort of a spectrum, not always as static as some people believed.
Hell, I was way more worried about the fact that I was attracted to a client than I was worried about my attraction to Parker as another guy.
“Was that a… no?” Parker asked, his focus still on me. “Or just a very delayed yes?”
“Sorry. That’s a line I don’t cross,” I replied. “Even if I wanted to.”
“So, you’re saying that you want to?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m saying that it doesn’t matter, all right? I don’t cross that line with clients. Even if all you wanted to do was hang out as friends, it wouldn’t matter. I’ve heard about other people who work security crossing that line, and it never ends well.”
“Why not?”
“Because once you cross that line from work to pleasure, people start dropping like flies,” I answered. “It’s a distraction that people can rarely afford, even though they buy into it all the time. And I never want someone’s blood on my hands, just because I was too busy trying to chat them up.”
“Jesus. You make it sound so intense.”
“That’s because it could be.” I shrugged. “Anyway, I should do another sweep of the perimeter. Just to make sure. I like to keep my schedule a little irregular anyway just in case someone else is paying attention.”
“Yeah. You should get on that,” Parker murmured. “Sorry for being such a distraction—”
Parker’s words were cut off by the sound of something heavy crashing through the front door.
Instinctively, I dove behind the front desk, tackling Parker to the ground as the sound echoed throughout the lobby.
“Stay down!” I instructed, my hand already reaching for the gun at my side. I hastily pulled it out of its holster, staying