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Dante met with the first of the volunteers separately, and Tango went along with them. Lonnie was talking to Travis, who looked upset, so Sel inched his way closer to overhear.
“I’m not letting you go, Lonnie.”
“I’m not one of the volunteers, Travis. I’m one of those groups that will be close to grab them if the GPS tells us they’re not where they’re supposed to be.”
“Which is still too close!”
Sel hadn’t thought of being in the group that would watch over the volunteers, but he already knew Dante would never let him.
When Indio emerged from the trailer after the meeting with Dante, Sel wanted to go to him, tell him he was sorry for what he’d said and wish him luck, but he didn’t. Instead, he stared at the man while Indio conferred with Eight.
Mal came over to him, throwing an arm around his neck. “He’s going to be first. He says he wants twelve-hour shifts.”
“So he doesn’t have to be around me.”
“I think so, but I don’t think it’s why you think it is. I think he’s genuinely attracted to you, but…guys like that, they don’t love easily, Sel. At all. I know. I fell for one of them. He didn’t make it easy.”
“I don’t need things to come easily, Mal. In fact, maybe I finally need to work for something. Not saying I want him.”
“Nooo, of course not. You’re not staring at him for that reason.”
He walked away before Sel could argue, and Sel couldn’t help himself. He stared at Indio again.
Dante surprised him by calling him into the trailer. He was alone with his two uncles and was shocked to learn from Dante that Bennie was one of the volunteers. “He wants to do this. He’s unattached. His last girlfriend broke up with him a month before he started watching you. He’s not happy being a bodyguard, Sel, and that probably is because you try so hard to not like him.”
“I’m sorry, Uncle! I didn’t mean anything by it. It’s not him as much as having one at all.”
“I have one! We all do!”
Blaine quieted his husband, as only Blaine could. “Dante, hear him out. You know how you felt as a young man, always watched over? You had a terrible bodyguard, remember? He was in on trying to hurt me. It took a long time for you to trust anyone again in that position.”
“Still, Blaine, this is different.”
“Only because this isn’t you. It’s someone else, someone you love.”
“For now, Uncle, I’m surrounded at that house. I have almost no privacy, except they gave me my own room. Can I just…if I promise to hang close to everyone, be without security?”
Blaine set his hand over Dante’s mouth. “Do you swear to always hang with the men in that house? Never wandering alone?”
“I do,” he hurried to repeat. “Never alone!”
Blaine took his hand away, and Dante pretended to bite it. “I can’t ever win with you two!”
“You win all the time, my love,” Blaine said, then kissed his cheek while winking at Sel.
“Thanks, Uncle Dante. I swear, never. I’ll never go alone.”
“Fine. I really hate you two.”
Sel was overjoyed, but cautious. When they all got back to the farmhouse, Dallas, Ruben, and Marius went off by themselves to their room while Sel, Mal, and Prince were gathered in the kitchen with Binx. “I have a feeling Marius is going to be in a lot of trouble,” Mal said to his friends.
“I don’t blame them,” Sel said.
“Talk! What’s happening?” Binx demanded.
He was already working on lunch for the crowd, but he turned the burners down on the stove to lean on the island across from them.
Mal started, “Well, they want volunteers to go out into the woods alone, with just their trackers. All the bikers did, and all the…”
