Me:Going in. If I don’t text back in five minutes, tell my mother I love her, but tell Noah he still owes me twenty bucks.
I toss my phone onto his bed and slip into the closet. It’s massive. Rows of crisp white shirts that smell faintly of cedar and his expensive cologne. I start sliding hangers along the rack, looking for… I don’t know. A leather jacket? A hidden compartment? Evidence that he’s actually human and not some perfectly engineered specimen sent to ruin me.
I’m currently elbow-deep in a stack of perfectly folded sweaters when a voice rumbles from behind me.
“Find what you’re looking for?”
I let out a yelp, spinning around so fast I nearly take out a row of slacks. Beckett is leaning against the doorframe, looking entirely too smug.
“I… uh,” I start, smoothing my hair. “I just wanted to make sure you weren’t a serial killer.”
He raises a dark eyebrow. “And the consensus?”
I brush past him, trying to reclaim my dignity. “You’re good so far, Doc. No jars of eyeballs yet, but I haven’t checked the freezer.”
As I pass, he delivers a sharp, stinging slap to my ass that makes me jump.
“Hey!”
He grins at me. “Get in the kitchen. I’ve got work to do.”
I follow him, my heart doing that stupid little skip-hop again. He drops the bag on the counter and starts pulling out eggs, thick-cut bacon, and a loaf of sourdough. Before I can offer to help—which would be a lie, since I’d just burn it—he reaches out, grabs mywaist, and hoists me onto the counter.
I let out a squeal as my legs dangle. “I can sit in a chair like a civilized person, you know.”
“I like you right here.” He steps between my knees. “Where I can keep an eye on you.”
“You’re just afraid I’ll find your secret lair,” I mutter, though my hands are already finding their way to his shoulders.
“Maybe.” He turns to the stove, where the bacon is beginning to sizzle. “Since you’ve been through my closet, I think I’ve earned some answers. What was it like growing up with the Callahan crew? Did you like having so many siblings?”
I snort. “It was never boring, if that’s what you mean. Noah was born with a clipboard and a list of rules. He once held a performance review for my chores when I was seven. I got a ‘needs improvement’ on my bed-making. I didn’t speak to him for a week.”
Beckett laughs. “And your sisters? Piper and Rowan? You guys seem close.”
“We are.” I watch him flip the bacon and slice some sourdough into the toaster.
“And your parents? Still married? Still presiding over the performance reviews?”
He’s trying to ask gently. I can hear the shift in his tone, the way he’s navigating the minefield of my personal life. But my internal wiring doesn’t do gentle. I’ve spent years being the guardian of the Callahan family secrets, and I haven’t learned how to lower the gate just because a man makes a mean breakfast.
“Yes,” I say, the lie—or the half-truth—feeling like a stone in my throat. “Still married. Still a unit. And yours?”
The corner of his mouth twitches, but his smilefades just enough to make the air in the room feel thin. “They were happily married for over twenty years.” He clears his throat. “My father died sixteen years ago. Car accident.”
I see the way his jaw hitches and the micro-tension in his shoulders.
“Beckett, I’m so—”
The toast pops.
The sound is as loud as a gunshot in the quiet apartment. His eyes close for a fraction of a second, a shutter falling over a memory he wasn’t prepared to air out in the kitchen. He doesn’t let the silence linger. He can’t. He’s a trauma doctor; he knows that if you don’t stop the bleeding immediately, you lose the patient.
“It was a long time ago,” he says, his voice flat as he reaches for the bread.
“What about you? Was it lonely being an only child?” I ask, wanting to change the direction of this conversation just to remove that look from his eyes.
“No,” he admits. “I spent a lot of my childhood taking things apart. Toasters, clocks, the lawnmower once. By the time I was ten, my parents had stopped buying me electronics. I just wanted to see how the wires worked.”
