BECKETT CHANGES THE GAME
Beckett hadn’t slept in his own bed for a week, and with Rhys home and being so affectionate, he didn’t expect to see much of his own apartment in his future. But he needed to check on his plants, and he had work, so he’d have to leave eventually. He woke with that on his mind and stretched out to find the other half of the bed empty. He could tell by the dim light in the room that it was early, but Rhys wasn’t one to sleep in.
Beckett kicked off the blankets and padded into the kitchen, where he found Rhys sitting at the counter with a Bloody Mary and a frown.
“Are you sure you’re happy to be home?” Beckett asked, his voice still tired from sleep.
At the sound of his voice, Rhys’s entire face softened and he turned, beckoning him closer. Beckett slotted himself between Rhys’s spread thighs and kissed the corner of his mouth.
“I’m very glad to be home.” Rhys’s expression flickered back toward the frown. “I just have a lot that needs to get done now.”
“All part of your master plan?” He worked his way out of Rhys’s hold to go into the kitchen and pour himself some coffee. It was all fine and well if vodka was Rhys’s morning poison, but Beckett needed some caffeine to get his eyes open. “Do you want to talk about it? About what happened?”
Beckett knew there would always be things about Rhys’s life that he didn’t understand. He’d never lived in a world where parents had the kind of control that Sebastian and Rhys’s dad had over them. He couldn’t imagine what it would even be like to have had someone be that overbearing or that involved in his life. He wondered what his own parents would have been like if he’d given them a chance. Would they have loved him or controlled him? As a kid, Beckett had been so caught up in himself. His troublemaking and his penchant for alcohol as a teenager had all but ensured the canyon between him and his parents would become unbridgeable. They’d cut him out long before his sister did. And after Jessica had sent him off to California…
“I’ve told you about Callahan,” Rhys mumbled, and Beckett could tell it wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have. “Obviously not details.”
“Thank you for that.”
Rhys smirked and swirled a celery stick around his drink. “I was…unnecessarily cruel to him, I think. In hindsight.”
“That tracks, because he’s not a fan of yours,” Beckett said.
“The things I wanted for my life back then…” Rhys paused, like he was unsure of the words he wanted to use. “They were different than now. I was very focused and driven by money.”
“That’s different?”
“Quite.”
Beckett carried his coffee around to the other side of the kitchen island and patted Rhys on the knee. “Let’s go talk about this someplace more comfortable than bar stools.”
He went into the living room, took one look at that miserable leather couch, and went back into the bedroom. He climbed under the sheets and raised his knees, using them as a table for his coffee. Rhys crawled in after him, adjusting the pillows behind his back so he could sit upright.
“I learned from my father,” Rhys picked up where he’d left off. “The bad and the good, and as I’ve gotten older, watching Sebastian fall in love the way he did…There’s more than money, isn’t there?”
“A lot more.”
“My father made me break things off with Callahan. He would have taken my whole life from me if…” Rhys looked like he was in agony. The muscles in his neck were tight, bulging with every heartbeat, and his jaw was clenched so hard, Beckett worried his teeth would shatter.
“I’m sorry,” Beckett whispered.
Rhys turned toward him with a quick jerk of his head. “Why are you sorry?”
“Because that hurt you.” He took a drink of his coffee, still hot. “It’s apparent how much you loved Callahan, how much you still do.”
“I loveyou,” Rhys interrupted.
“I know you do.” He gave Rhys a sympathetic smile. “But part of you loves him too, and that’s fine. You have a history together and I would be a fool to try and erase that.”
“I don’t love him anymore,” Rhys said. “I thought for a while I did, but now that I love you, I know it’s not the same.”
Beckett’s heart did a somersault behind his ribs.
“I’m getting off topic.” Rhys cleared his throat. “My father would have taken my whole life from me if I stayed with Callahan, and I know that Callahan probably could have talked me into giving everything up and I didn’t want that. I didn’t love him more than I loved the idea of what my life was meant to be. So, I broke up with him. I was callous about it because, if I wasn’t…”
“He would have fought you.”
“I told him last year that I would have married him.” Rhys stopped, like he wished he hadn’t said it out loud, and he watched Beckett with a worried eye.
