Page 108 of A Matter of Fact

“I don’t know if I like this new you.” His brother laughed at him. “You’re almost relatable.”

“I’m not a monolith,” he grumbled.

“He’s just a man,” Remington said to Sebastian, even though the comment was clearly meant for them both. “Flawed and perfect in different ways at the same time.”

“That was very kind of you to say, Remington,” Rhys mused. He finished off his lasagna, stomach growling and wanting more. “Did you two get enough to eat?”

“I could eat that lasagna every day for the rest of my life,” Sebastian said. “Did you say Beckett made that?”

Rhys nodded, and stacked their plates in the center of the table. “He wants to be a chef. Own a restaurant.”

“Does he?”

“He could.” Rhys took the plates into the kitchen and returned with a fresh bottle of wine. “Will you two stay awhile? Or did you have elsewhere to be?”

“We can stay,” Remington said. “But these chairs are as miserable as they were when Sebastian lived here.”

Rhys laughed and took the wine into the living room. “I’m moving. We’re moving. I put in an offer on a place by the beach, so Sebastian can sell this one or do whatever he wants with it.”

“How generous.”

He sat down in one of the chairs that faced the couch. “I appreciate you letting me stay. I…”

Rhys wasn’t sure what to say. He thought about Beckett and his sister and the years of radio silence that weighed heavy on Beckett’s shoulders. Rhys tried to imagine what it would be like if Sebastian ever cut him off like that, but he couldn’t. It would be a nightmare.

“I appreciate you never cutting me out of your life,” he said before the words got the better of him. “For not hating me for being the way I was. For the things I did.”

“It’s fine,” Sebastian cut him off. “It’s fine, Rhys.”

“It’s not. It shouldn’t be.”

“It is.” Sebastian gave him a look that brokered no further argument, then he raised his glass. “Now let’s have a toast. To the destruction of our past and the promise of our future.”

“Hear, hear.” Remington raised his glass, clinking it against Sebastian’s. Both of their stares drifted toward Rhys, who raised his in kind.

“To the future,” he whispered. “Hear, hear.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-TWO

BECKETT IS GOOD

Beckett called Jessica again.

It went to voicemail again.

He put his phone away.

Again.

It had been two weeks since he’d tried the first time and two weeks since Callahan called in the loan he had on Rhys’s dad. Two weeks since Rhys’s offer on the beach house was accepted and one week since Rhys talked him into another double date with Sebastian and Remington.

He studied himself in the mirror in his own bedroom, adjusting the collar of the dress shirt he’d caved and let Rhys buy for him earlier in the day. It was a Saturday night, and he’d worked the morning shift, which landed him some substantial tips, but Heather had been acting funny and said something about an all hands meeting the following morning.

“Do you think she’s going to start splitting tips?” Beckett asked.

From behind him on the bed, Rhys looked up, his stare searching out Beckett’s eyes in the mirror.

“I don’t know what that means.”