13. Nate

THIRTEEN

Beckett puthis hands on his hips while a frown contorted his face. "What the fuck happened to you?"

I turned away from him, sauntering from the front door to the nearest armchair in the living room. Wearing pajamas from two nights ago and cloaked in a bathrobe, I knew I wasn't the prettiest sight. "Don't make me regret buzzing you in."

My nephew shut the door and followed me into the living room. "I would have called the cops if you hadn't."

I extended my arm to the plain, glass coffee table to pick up my half-finished drink. I'd waited until five in the afternoon to pour myself the first one. Admittedly, I hadn't left the bed since last night except when the delivery of Chinese takeout had arrived. "What do you want, Beckett?"

He stood in the middle of the living room, in front of me, with the piano a little further behind his back. My nephew was a tall young man, taller still when he did that trick of inflating his chest and straightening his back.

If he was trying to intimidate me, it was laughable.

"I wanted to know why you're missing work," he said in a worried tone before sighing. "But now I'm more concerned about the bruise on your face, Uncle."

I swirled my whiskey in the glass. The ice had melted long ago, and I couldn't be bothered to fetch some more. "Get me some ice, could you?" I handed him my glass.

"Get your own ice," he snapped. "Or, better yet, stop drinking that shit. It reeks in here."

I moved my gaze over the large window where the darkness of the night ate all the light from the world. The faint orange glow of lights far below my apartment was barely noticeable. "Fine. I don't need the ice."

Beckett rubbed his face. "I gotta call Caden," he said in a huff. "I can't deal with this shit alone." As he stepped to pass by me and move into the hallway, I caught his wrist and looked up at him.

Beckett shot me a questioning frown.

I didn't want to ask for favors, but I absolutely didn't want Caden to see me like this. Someday, that kid would be part of our family, and unless I tripped down a flight of stairs very soon, I would have to look into his eyes and be reminded of the state in which he'd found me here. As if it wasn't bad enough that Beckett was inside. Had he not been leaning against the doorbell for five minutes straight, I wouldn't have let him in.

"Can you…wait?" I asked in a low murmur.

Beckett's expression didn't change. "If you can't talk to me, I need him to lecture you."

I closed my eyes. "Beckett, I can't…" I went quiet, releasing his wrist, but my nephew remained where he was.

The silence dragged on for a while. I opened my eyes and directed my hollow gaze at the piano just to let him know I hadn't fallen asleep in the middle of the sentence. I wished I had. I wished I could sleep for a whole year until the worst of it passed.

"If you don't want Caden seeing you like this, then you'll give me that glass," Beckett said. "Nothing's gonna happen until you do that."

"I'm not…drunk," I said. I was tipsy, admittedly, but I had some self-control. It was simply that I didn't care enough to get drunk. Or, to be precise, I didn't care about numbing my feelings like that. Just now, it felt disloyal to pour all the booze into myself and forget what it felt like to break that young man's heart.

I needed to feel it as sharply as I could take it, but I couldn't take it completely sober, either. It was a fine line I had to walk.

"Give it," Beckett said without leaving any room for compromise.

I thrust the glass to him, and he pried it from my fingers.

"It's like raising a goddamn child with a midlife crisis," he muttered as he walked away from me.

I exhaled in frustration and got up from my armchair. Scratching the two-day stubble that had a few too many gray hairs on my chin, I decidedly avoided looking in the mirror as I followed Beckett into the kitchen.

By the time I got there, he had already cursed several times about the smashed guitar pieces and the overturned chair in the middle of the room. Empty food containers littered the kitchen island.

Beckett sloshed the whiskey down the drain and picked up the containers from the countertop. He tossed them into the trash can and put water to boil. He didn't look at me or the mess on my side of the kitchen island. Instead, Beckett went through the cabinets until he found a jar of instant coffee and a mug. He put more powder into the mug than was advisable, but I understood what he was trying to accomplish.

"I'm not drunk," I said, barely louder than a whisper.

"You're drinking it," Beckett said without looking over his shoulder. He poured the boiling water over the coffee powder and stirred roughly, spilling some over the counter before bringing the mug to the marble surface of the island. His body seemed all taut with tension. He looked me over and shook his head. "What happened, Uncle?"

"This? It's nothing," I said, waving over the bruise. It barely even throbbed. It was hardly hot. It would go away.

"For a moment, I thought you had one of your I'm-getting-old fits, got drunk, fell somewhere. But that can't be true. Not with the king of cut you have. And not with Carter's smashed guitar on your kitchen floor." He crossed his arms on his chest.

My heart hammered as if panic was about to give me a heart attack. I wouldn't have minded one just about now. I stared at the mug. "How did you…?"

"The rainbow strap," Beckett said tightly. "You have no idea what kind of things are going through my head, Uncle. Did he rob you? Did he punch you? He's a kid, and you're a grown-ass man with over twenty years of conditioning and exercise."

"He's not a kid," I said grimly. He wasn't a kid, but he was still too young to have his future wrecked. No matter which industry he chose, he couldn't break through with a stain like this on his resume. What else could I have done? I didn't doubt Carter's ability to still play music and work on making his dreams come true. He would get there. And he would get there sooner without the burden of a sex scandal.

"So, what happened?" Beckett asked. "You can drink that."

I shot him a frustrated look and picked up the coffee. It was so bitter that it sobered me up just by firing my defense systems. I swallowed a few sips, burning my tongue in the process. "Nobody robbed me, Beckett."

His expression was unchanged, and I realized he had floated that idea simply to force me to speak. It was too ridiculous to be even close to the truth, but now that I had denied one option, I had to continue.

"It's something I can't talk about," I said, careful not to slur any of my words. "Not with you. And not with Caden." It was over. I just had to crawl out of this hole somehow, and nobody needed to know a thing. We'd kept it a secret for months. And if I told the truth now, what was the goddamn point of giving him up?

Beckett put his hands on the marble countertop and leaned in slightly. "Uncle, if you think I'm going to accept that, you're insulting me. I thought we finished with these mood swings last summer. I thought you were doing better." He shook his head hurriedly. "I even thought you were enjoying coaching."

I had been. Briefly.

"You're going to tell me the whole truth, or I'll leave," he said. His tone was so threat-laden that I didn't dare call his bluff. If he had only meant that he would leave now and let me work through this on my own, I would have leaped at the opportunity. But we both knew how serious he was. He would leave for good. He would give me up.

You're all the family I've got, I thought as the remains of my heart clenched hard in my chest. A growl rose from my throat, and my eyes stung. I would have preferred doing this part drunk. "Beckett, if you really mean that, it makes no difference whether I tell you or not. Son, I'm asking you to let go. Just once."

"The truth's so bad that it'll make me abandon you, huh?" The sarcasm in his voice was unmistakable. "Maybe you should let me be the judge of that, Uncle."

I met his face with my cold, tired stare. "What if I told you I've been living a lie my whole life?" I shuddered as I came close to admitting the truth. A year ago, Beckett had stood before me, trying not to tremble, and lifted his chin bravely, expecting me to disown him for kissing another guy after winning a big game. He'd expected everything to change that night, and he'd still been brave enough to take what he wanted the most. But we stood on the opposite ends of the equation now. And I didn't have anything to gain by telling the truth. And lying to him his entire life — especially since he'd come out to me — was far worse than a young adult fearing his uncle's reaction.

"Go on," Beckett said carefully.

I rubbed my forehead and slurped more of this terrible coffee. "Beckett, I lied to you. To everyone. I've been hiding the truth because my career depended on it. The clues are there, son, if you want to put them together. Nearly forty, never married, never dated. Hell, kid, half the trashy magazines had already written about it."

Beckett closed his eyes. "You've gotta be kidding me," he whispered.

"I'm not kidding, Beck. I've been hiding it since I was a teen." I'd had to escape that crappy small town. I'd had to see the world and become the person I had dreamed of being. I'd always thought the rest would come naturally, but the reality of my life had been far different. The closer I was to making my dreams come true, the lesser my chances were to have a family and be myself. So I watched from the sidelines as men, young and old, married their partners, adopted kids and pets, and lived the life I could never have. "I'm gay."

Beckett looked at me, the expressions shifting on his face from hurt to angry to welcoming. He couldn't settle on one, so he moved back and forth between them. "Uncle Nate, I don't…know…" He expelled a frustrated breath of air. "I don't know how to…" Inhaling, he held his breath now as if he was counting to ten. When he spoke again, he pushed himself away from the island and leaned against the counter behind his back. "Did you really think that would make a difference? To me? I'm in a serious relationship with a dude. How did you…? You know what? You're an asshole for thinking I would flip, which makes me flip anyway, making you right all along." He put his hands on his face and cleared his throat. "Alright. First things first, I love you."

My chin quivered. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you."

"That's the second thing. Fuck you for not trusting me," Beckett said, but his tone was not severe. It was the gentlest fuck you I'd gotten in a long time.

Despite all the mess I was in, I couldn't restrain the chuckle that erupted from me. Relief? It felt ever so slightly like it. "The longer I hid it, the harder it was to tell you."

Beckett looked me over and let himself smile a little. "Does Mom know?"

I shrugged. "I think she suspected, but she decided it didn't matter." Beckett's mother had dropped a few hints now and again, a long time ago, that I could talk to her about anything. It had been so subtle that it might have meant anything.

"That's Mom for you," Beckett mused, a note of pride making me uncomfortable with myself. He had no reason to be that proud of me, my nephew. "Look, Uncle, I'm not angry. I'm not hurt. I think…mostly, I'm sad. That you didn't tell me, yeah, but also that you didn't have the chance I did. It's not fair."

I shook my head. You live your life in the closet, the closet becomes your home. I didn't know any different. "I should have trusted you and your mother, Beck. You're my family."

"Yeah," Beckett said without any trace of grudge. "But I understand." He put his hands together and rubbed them slowly. "Uh…still, being gay doesn't cause random face punches. Not around here, at least. Or smashed guitars."

I shuddered. If I'd thought I had done the hard part, I was mistaken. But when I looked at Beckett, a great deal of the story was obviously already fitting into place in his head. Inhaled a deep, painful breath of air, I told my nephew the whole wretched story. I made him swear to never tell anyone a thing for Carter's sake. I told him about Carter's flirting and the gym encounter, about the confrontations and admissions, about the night he performed in the bar where Beckett and Caden had dragged me, and about the trip to Chicago. One after another, I admitted everything to my nephew, never finding it even a little easier to look him in the eyes as my story unfolded. If anything, it was harder now the closer I was to the way things ended.

The hardest thing of all was poring over the fresh memories of Carter and keeping myself convinced that this was a good deal. His future was worth more than a heartbreak. He was young, I told myself, and he would get over it. And me? I was getting old, older than my years, and a heartbreak I would carry for the rest of my life was fine with me. I could do that much for him. If I felt anything good and wonderful about Carter Prince, I could carry this with me for as long as I breathed.

"Christ, Beck, but he made me feel young," I said, rubbing the healthy side of my face and scratching the stubble. "He made me feel alive."

Beckett was staring at me. "And you chose yourself? Your reputation?"

I closed my eyes and slouched. I hadn't told him what I had been thinking the other night. I had only told him, in short, what had gone down.

"Let me get this straight, Uncle," my nephew said, anger unchecked. "You spent over two months having the greatest love affair of your life, never once thinking about the worth of your brand, and suddenly, that's more important to you when some asshole threatens you with talking to the press? You must be crazy if you think I'll believe that."

"But it's my name," I growled. "And it's your name, too."

"Don't you dare," he snapped, his hands slapping against the top of the island. "Don't you dare tell me I'm the reason. I don't want to be the reason, Uncle. And it doesn't bother me what someone might think. All my life, I've been trying to be my own person, to earn things based on merit and not the fact I share your name. So don't tell me how it's different now. It's not."

"It's his future, then," I all but shouted. "If the press flocks when I lose my job, if they discover it's all because I was sleeping with a freshman, a player on my team, do you really think they'll leave him out of it? Haven't you seen how ready they are to take someone down? When the tabloids start digging through my past, do you really think they'll have the decency to stop there?"

"That's it," Beckett said as if he scored some win, his grin spilling immediately. "That's the truth, Uncle."

"What is?" I asked, hands shaking even as I gripped the edge of the counter.

Beckett's grin faded and was replaced by a gentle smile. "You love him."

My heart leaped before crashing again.

"You love Carter, and you don't want him to get caught in the crossfire. I get it, Uncle, but…is that choice really yours to make?" He frowned in thought, but his lips still curled a little at the edges. He looked deep into my eyes when I met his gaze. "I mean this in the most loving way possible, Uncle Nate. You are an idiot."

The rusty cogs in my brain ground and turned. My heart fluttered. More regrets than I could face suddenly poured into my consciousness, and a sense of urgency made my stomach tingle.

Had I made a mistake?

Had I made the wrong decision?

Had I broken his heart for nothing?