Page 67 of Home Coming

Yes, he wanted news from home but not quite this much. Of course it was all from Josie.

He had no doubt he’d have double the number of texts than he had emails. Even though after all these years she should know well enough to email when he was overseas, he knew she’d do both.

She’d cover all the bases even though his phone wouldn’t work here and he hadn’t been allowed to bring it anyway. Having a trackable civilian cell phone kind of defeated the purpose of classified troop movements to countries no one knew had a US base under construction.

He scrolled back through the messages and skimmed snippets of the emails from Josie.

It was like seeing inside his sister’s mind, reading her stream of consciousness. After doing so, he could say his sister’s mind was a weird and chaotic place. A hamster wheel of thoughts.

The messages contained more exclamation points than any human should use but he ignored those and devoured every word once again because it was the only way he had to find out what was happening—what had been happening the whole time he was gone—with Bailey.

After rereading them all, he leaned back.

So, according to Josie, there was a police officer stationed at the house. Bailey was recording an album and—holy shit—she was going on tour across the country?

How could that all have happened so quickly?

He remembered how fast her middle of the night post of her impromptu song had blown up and rescinded that question.

An album meant she’d be recording again at the studio in Manhattan without him there to fight off the photographers.

A tour would be even worse. More than the paparazzi there’d be massive crowds, rabid fans, travel to strange cities in different states, overnight stays in hotels he hadn’t vetted.

Panicked at the thought, he hit reply and decided to employ his sister’s method of typing messages that she felt were urgent—all caps with a few exclamation points of his own.

DOES SHE HAVE SECURITY FOR THE CONCERT TOUR??!!!

He needed assurance she’d be protected on that tour. When the hell was this thing happening anyway?

As he waited for the reply from Josie, which probably wouldn’t come anytime soon given the time difference, he needed to take advantage of what little allotment of time he had left on the one computer they all shared.

Communications could be shitty at best on some ops and this was one of them. He supposed he should count himself lucky to have any way to contact home at all.

While he did have access to the internet, however spotty and slow it could be, he did a quick search, typing inBailey Knowles concert tour with Olivia Rodrigo?

That name which had been so unknown to him just a month ago was becoming increasingly familiar as he saw it everywhere now, thanks to his interest in music and female musicians because of Bailey.

Search results populated the screen. Including photos. He opened one and saw Bailey being accosted by photographers while an older man sporting a gray cropped beard and a bald head held them back.

His pulse raced. Those paparazzi were much too close to her. Closer than he would have allowed had he been her security.

He should be there. He should be protecting her.

There was nothing he could do about that now so he clicked on a result forThe Heartbreak Tourto torture himself some more by seeing where she was and where she would be going without him.

Heartbreak Tour.That seemed fitting, at least for the first song she’d written and recorded about Axel. But now he had to wonder what the other songs on her album were going to be about. It wasn’t too hard to guess the theme of the tour given the title.

Were all of her songs about Axel? He didn’t love that idea. Yeah, he was fine with her hating Axel but he didn’t want her obsessed with that asshole.

Truth was, it bothered him she’d be giving that much time and attention thinking about any man.

Any man that wasn’t him.

Those were not thoughts he could be having. He’d made his decision. He’d done what was best for him and her. For her happiness. For his career. Hell, for her career too if this album and tour were any indication of all the good that came her way after he’d left. Although he couldn’t take any credit. Her success—this album, this tour—certainly wasn’t the results of his leaving. Just a happy coincidence.

Hopefully she was happy because he was having trouble getting there himself. Even with as proud and awed as he was by her.

Going down the rabbit hole reading about the tour cost him a lot of time and he still hadn’t emailed Mark to see what had happened that had him putting a night guard on the house. And he needed to email Xander. Make sure the man knew if anything happened to Bailey because she didn’t have proper security, Quinn was going to hold him personally responsible.

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