Page 89

“She’s worried about you, too.”

Jackson shook his head and finished his drink, the glass clinking as it hit the tabletop. “If your fiancée has something to say to me, she can say it herself.”

His tone put Beckett on edge, the back of his neck tingling with awareness. This was not going the way he’d hoped.

“Don’t,” Beckett warned.

“We’re brothers, man. What happened to having my back?”

“I do have your back.”

“Not when Kat’s trying to make a buck off of us.”

“Watch it.”

“What changed? She finally let you get your dick wet—”

Beckett rocketed off his perch on the desk, grabbing a fistful of Jackson’s shirt and hauling him close. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

His brother laughed—laughed! “Guess that answers that question.”

Beckett shoved him away, prowling across the room to put some distance between them. Jackson always knew exactly how to get under his skin, how to needle him until all he could see was red. But he refused to let his brother control his emotions that way. He saw it now for what it was—a diversion tactic, a way to get Beckett so wound up about something else that he dropped the original conversation. How many times had he fallen for it over the years?

“You have a problem, Jackie.”

Jackson straightened his shirt, making a big show of smoothing out the wrinkled fabric from where Beckett had grabbed him. “Yeah. You’re so pussy whipped you forgot about your family.”

He swallowed down the spike of anger, the urge to shake his brother until he took it back. Jackson wanted to provoke him, so Beckett would remain calm. He’d be the calmest he’d ever been. His brother wasn’t avoiding this conversation again. Not this time.

“Lots of people struggle with addiction. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Beckett continued despite Jackson’s theatrical eye rolls and muttering. “We can get you help. Counseling—”

“You think I’m crazy now?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Jackson shook his head. “Fuck you, man. You come in here all high and mighty, acting like my life’s a mess. Your life’s a mess. Goddamn delusional asshole. You’re the one pretending to be engaged to a woman who couldn’t be bothered to even talk to you for a fucking decade.”

Beckett’s gut twisted, intestines tying themselves into thousands of knots as his brother continued to pace, spewing vitriol at him. Cold reality slithered through his veins, coiling in his stomach, raising prickles of pain along the scars on his knee and thigh. He wasn’t sure what he had thought was going to happen—that he’d come in here and lay his cards on the table and his brother would collapse into his arms, thank him for his concern, agree to get the help he so clearly needed? Maybe he was as delusional as his brother accused him of being.

“Jackie, please.”

“Get out.” His twin’s voice was cold, so unlike the brother he’d known for forty-one years.

“If you won’t get help… I can’t keep cleaning up your messes.”

“Get the fuck out!” Jackson roared, grabbing the empty bottle and hurtling it at the wall. It shattered, glass spraying across the room.

It wasn’t until Beckett closed the door behind himself that he realized he was shaking.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Kat watched from one of the Executive Suites high above the Cleveland arena floor as the crew finished constructing the rigging for that night’s show. She checked her watch. They were running three minutes ahead of schedule. She didn’t usually watch this part of the pre-show set up, but something about the rhythmic precision of it, the well-ordered chaos, calmed her nerves, slowed her heart rate.

Watching all those people operate like a finely tuned bit of clockwork to bring the show to life gave her a burst of quiet pride—subdued in the face of her inevitable dressing down at the hands of the label, but pride all the same. For months she’d kept this tour humming along on schedule, everyone in their place. That was something to be proud of, no matter what else happened. Wasn’t it?

She turned her attention back to the laptop balanced on her knees, adding the finishing touches to her presentation deck. She wasn’t sure if she’d get a chance to use it, but if she did, she’d be ready, armed with meticulous research and years of personal experience. She might not be able to salvage her bonus, but she might be able to at least save her job.

“What are you doing up here?” Beckett’s gravelly voice pulled her attention from her screen as he entered the Executive Suite, the door closing behind him with a soft snick. “Been looking everywhere for you,” he said.