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Old timer. At forty-one. He didn’t have time for this.

“Have you seen my brother?” he asked.

“Jackson’s here, too? Where?” The kid spun around, his drink sloshing over the rim of his cup and dribbling down his hand. Not that he seemed to notice.

“Becks.” Kat pulled his attention away from the drunk reality TV star and tilted her chin towards the other end of the room.

Beckett’s stomach sank as he watched Nico and Jackson emerge around a bend in the staircase. His brother’s arm was draped over Nico’s shoulder, his weight leaning heavily on their bandmate. Nico supported him with an arm around his waist and steadied them both with a firm grip on the railing. Jackson’s shirt was missing, and Beckett was pretty sure that was lip gloss smeared across his chest, a sparkly, sticky pink. His eyes were barely open, and his face flickered between a too-wide grin and a slack, blank expression.

Beckett elbowed his way through the crowd, Kat close on his heels, meeting Nico and his brother when they descended the last step. He slid his shoulder beneath Jackson’s other arm. Fire shot from his knee down his calf at the added weight and he grunted at the sharp spike of pain.

“I had to wake him up,” Nico said. “I couldn’t find his shirt.”

Kat’s phone rang, and she stepped away as she answered. Who the hell was calling her this late? And why was she answering?

“Beckett,” Jackson said, drawing out each syllable with a crooked smile. “When did you get here?”

Thank God he was still in the happy drunk phase. But Beckett knew it was only a matter of time before happy faded into the kind of inconsolable sadness that only went away with sleeping it off.

“Come on, Jackie,” he said gently, ignoring the question. “Time to go.”

“We can’t.” Kat’s phone was pressed to her ear, the color drained from her face. “Photographers have surrounded the car.”

Beckett swore and shifted his weight to take some of the pressure off his aching knee. Kat’s eyes snapped to the movement. How did she always know?

“We can’t stay here all night. The paparazzi on the front lawn aren’t budging,” Nico said.

“Let ‘em take my picture if they want it so bad,” Jackson slurred. Then, as though he’d only just realized he was half naked, “Did I have a shirt when I got here?”

“There has to be another way out,” Beckett said. “Have Ray circle the block. No car, no story. The paps will get bored and then we can leave.”

Kat shook her head miserably. “They found the hole in the hedge. They’re sticking their cameras through.”

“They know if they come through themselves they’ll get sued for trespassing,” Nico said. “They’re not going to give up their only window in.”

“We need a distraction. Something big enough to draw the photographers by the car back to the front of the property,” Kat said.

“I’ll go out the front. You guys take Jacks out the back,” Nico offered. He started to move away from Jackson. Beckett, now supporting his drunk brother on his own, stumbled. Nico steadied them both and, with an apologetic grimace, resumed his position beneath Jackson’s arm, gently alleviating Beckett of any extra weight.

“We need you to stay with Jackson,” Kat said, reaffirming what they all knew. Beckett couldn’t carry his brother out of the party, not with his knee already pushed past its limit for the day. “There has to be a way,” she muttered to herself, eyes darting around the room.

He studied Kat, the determined set of her jaw and defiant upturn of the end of her nose, and then—there. A slight tremor in her hand, the flick of her fingers as she pushed her hair behind her ears. No one else would notice, not with the calm exterior she always maintained, but Beckett knew this woman better than she liked to admit. With the restless way she shifted her weight from one foot to the other, he knew—she was panicking.

A plan began to form.

She would hate it. Would hate him for it—though he was pretty sure she hated him already. And if it got Jackson out of there without another tabloid-induced downward spiral, if it got rid of the trapped-animal look in Kat’s eyes and made sure she got the bonus she’d worked so hard for—it would be worth it.

“I have a plan.” Beckett fully stepped away from Jackson, giving up any illusion that he was helping to hold him up. He locked eyes with Kat. “You trust me, Luna?”

Kat’s eyes sparked at the name, and she hesitated a little too long before nodding her assent, but he’d take what he could get. It might be the last time she trusted him at all.

“Take him out the back, but don’t go through the hedge until the photographers leave,” Beckett instructed Nico.

“You got it. Come on, Jacks. Time to go.”

They watched until Nico and Jackson disappeared into the crowd at the edge of the room. Beckett’s gut twisted. It should have been him staying with his brother, taking care of him, just like he’d done since they were children.

“What’s the plan?” Kat asked.