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His heart stopped. Another slow pass of his thumb over her lip as he tried to process what she was saying. “I—I don’t—” He broke off, blinking, and dropped his hand.
She caught it, pressed her lips to the center of his palm, closed his fingers over it as if it would seal in her kiss. “He has to be ready. He has to want it for himself.”
“How long have you known?”
A pitying look flashed across her face and she shrugged. “How long have you?”
His chest cracked open, his body engulfed in a tingling sensation, like the blood in his veins had sped up, like rain falling on his skin, cool and crisp, relief in the dark. He dug his hands into her hair, cradling her face. “I wanted to tell you. I wanted— I didn’t know how.”
“Tell me something now,” she said. “Anything.”
Before he could process what he was saying, words tumbled loose, words he hadn’t even realized he’d been waiting to say.
“Jackson’s always been everyone’s favorite. The fans. Our friends. Our parents.”
She pushed herself to sitting, all of her attention trained on him as he spoke, as words poured forth like some kind of dam inside his chest had broken.
“He was better at everything that counted when you’re a kid. A better athlete, a better dancer, a better musician. He made friends easier. He was everyone’s favorite,” he repeated. “Dad made sure I knew it. Jackson was the good one. The most like him. The son he wanted.”
She caught his hand, tracing her fingertips over his palm, the inside of his wrist, drawing soothing patterns on his skin, tracing the flowers on his arm. It loosened something inside him, muscles unknotting, bones cracking open as the words poured out of him like blood from a wound he hadn’t realized he had.
“One time when we were around twelve, Dad got really mad at me. I don’t remember what I did. Some stupid kid shit probably. But he’d been drinking.” He swallowed down the lump that rose in his throat and threatened to suffocate his words. “He was always drinking. Dad was a mean drunk. Angry. Jackson and Dad have a lot in common, but not that. Never that.”
He could feel Kat’s eyes on him, her calm attention a steadying force, but he couldn’t look at her, not if he was going to get through this.
“Dad said I was too soft. I liked to read. I liked history and art. Boys weren’t supposed to want to spend the day reading books. We were supposed to be outside playing sports. Like Jackson. Mom was—” He paused, reaching back through the memory, navigating the old, single-story house he’d grown up in as if it were a video game. “I don’t know where she was. She worked a lot back then. An alcoholic husband with a gambling addiction is expensive,” he said with a sick sort of chuckle. “Anyway, she wasn’t home. And Dad was in one of his moods. That’s what Mom called it when he was angry like that. ‘Dad’s in one of his moods, boys. Go play at Zach’s house.’”
“I bet the three of you terrorized the town when you were kids,” she offered.
He nodded, using his free hand to stroke her hair, soothing himself with the silk and water feel of it moving through his fingers. “But Mom wasn’t home and Zach wasn’t around and Dad was mad that Mom had given me money for the school book fair. He started by breaking things—glasses, Mom’s favorite vase, whatever he could smash. There was glass everywhere. And then he was ripping up the books, tearing off the covers, just fucking shredding them. I was screaming and crying and he kept laughing. The bastard laughed. I tried to grab his arm. I just wanted him to stop.”
She’d gone still beside him, her face white. He closed his eyes, barreling ahead. If he stopped now, he’d never say it all.
“And then Jackson was there. Screaming at Dad to stop, pounding his fists on his back. He distracted him enough that Dad forgot about the books, and he must have been really drunk because he fell. Knees in the broken glass. God, how he screamed. Jackson grabbed my hand and we ran all the way to Zach’s. We told Zach’s parents our Dad wasn’t feeling well. Asked if we could stay there until Mom got home. And when we went home the next morning, everything was cleaned up. No more broken glass. My books were taped back together and sitting on my bed. Mom tried to say Dad did it, that he was sorry. But I knew it was her.”
He sat up straighter, needing to look her in the eyes for this part. To make sure she understood the point of all this. “Jackson’s not like our dad. He’s not mean. He doesn’t hurt people. He—” He broke off, his words knotting together.
“I know,” she said, scooting closer. Her hands were everywhere, on his cheek, under his eyes, grounding him with the pressure of her touch on his chest. “I know.”
“He stood up to Dad over and over. Put himself between me and him. He took care of me then,” Beckett said. “I have to take care of him now.”
“Okay.” She wrapped her arms around him, stroking the back of his head as hot tears slid down his cheeks into her hair. “We’ll take care of him together.”
He pulled her into his lap, burying his face in her neck as she rubbed his back, murmuring soothing nothings. And when the tightness in his throat eased, the searing burn of wrenching the words free after decades of burying them beneath layers of scar tissue melting to the dull ache of long-unused muscles, he pressed his lips to the underside of her jaw. A small offering of gratitude for being there.
She held him tighter, as if she could take away the memory with the strength of her embrace. Maybe she could.
In the dark of their Kansas hotel room, in the middle of a night fractured by the things he no longer knew how to contain, she held him close, her heart pressed to his heart, and whispered, “You’re my favorite.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was morning by the time Kat woke again, tucked against Beckett’s chest as he slept. Even in sleep his arms around her were strong, thick biceps and corded forearms holding her against him as though he was afraid she’d slip away. She closed her eyes and breathed in the smoke and vanilla scent of him.
Softened in sleep, his face looked so much younger, so much like the man she’d met in a Vegas casino when she was twenty-two and too naïve to know better than to fall for one of the world’s biggest pop stars. But last night he hadn’t been like that man at all. He’d cracked himself open for her, told her things he’d never mentioned in all their time together back then, let her see something ugly. Something real.
And now, in the light of day—what now? Would he regret it? Would he pretend it never happened? Did she want him to?
No. She wanted more—more pieces of him he hadn’t shared with anyone, including her. Wanted to give him pieces of herself in return. But that wasn’t what they were supposed to be doing here. That didn’t fit into the rules they’d agreed to at the start.
