Chapter 12

"Please, don"t worry about that," Kim pleaded as he took a plate from Beasty"s hands.

In a rare bout of domesticity, Atlas had made tacos, and even though we'd never eat together, we all ate at the same time.

Kim and Beasty had been at the table while I stood at the counter. Atlas hadn"t even needed to make a plate. He was the worst at eating while cooking.

Lake had taken his plate to his room, working out the details to some connection he wanted to make.

"It"s okay, Kim. I need to do something to help out." She tried to jerk the plate back, but Kim held on.

"No, really. We didn"t bring you here to make you our maid." Kim"s tone was low, and there was an air of anguish I"d never heard in his voice before.

"Kim, I need to do this, I–"

"Really, Beasty. It's not–"

Somehow, the plate slipped from both their hands and all four of us watched it fall.

No one moved to catch it, although there was shit all I could have done from the kitchen.

Time slowed just before the plate crashed. The sound exploded, cracking through the room like the warning notes of thunder, seconds before the plate seemed to break into a hundred pieces.

As shards flew across the floor, Beasty crouched down. "Oh no!"

"Stop. Stop!" Kim grabbed onto her shoulders and tugged her up. "You"re going to cut your hands and your feet."

Her face turned red as her gaze darted to every piece of cheap porcelain that she could see. Kim gave her a soft shake.

"Hey."

She tilted her head to the side and cut her gaze at him. I turned to hide my smirk.

This wasn"t funny. Beasty wasn"t settling in with us, and she had a bunch of numb nuts who didn"t know how to act around her.

Her anxiety was so smothering, I was damn near choking on it.

And still, how she glanced at Kim, like she was about to punch him in the gut instead of the contrition I knew she felt, was hilarious.

"Carry Beasty out of here. Joaquin will clean it up." Atlas jerked his chin toward the hallway.

"Fucking excuse you?" I pushed his shoulder and he grinned.

"I cooked. You can clean up the mess. It won"t hurt you to clean up after Beasty either." Beasty stiffened and Atlas didn"t even see it.

"What the fuck is your problem?" I slapped both of his shoulders this time and his lower back hit the counter.

"Take Beasty out, Kim," Atlas called while keeping his gaze locked on me. He was being an asshole and from Kim"s frown and Beasty"s ducked head, everyone knew it except for him.

"Come on Beasty." Taking her elbows, Kim used his fingertips to pull her arms away from her body. He was probably trying to figure out how to pick her up with the least amount of touch. Actually...

I turned to face them.

It was a miracle he was even touching her like this.

She yelped as he bent down, hugged her under her ass and lifted her in the air with a low grunt.

Atlas glanced over his shoulder at the sound, a dark smile curling his lips. "I didn"t know Kim was that strong."

I thought I heard Kim muttering under his breath, but they were already around the corner and out of sight from the kitchen.

"You dick." I shoved Atlas again because I needed to do something with my anger. If I didn"t get it out this way, I"d turn around and punch the wall. Atlas deserved the hurt more.

Except, it didn"t hurt him. He just laughed.

I opened my mouth to tell him every which way he was an ass, but he grabbed my face and roughly pulled me to him as he slammed his mouth down on mine. I bit his lip, and he laughed harder, his body shaking as he dug his fingers into my cheeks.

Using his brute strength, he walked me backward until I hit the wall, molding his body to mine. Knowing exactly what pushed my buttons, he rubbed his hard cock against mine, pressing so deep into me I fought to breathe.

For a second, I forgot about his remarks and reveled in the feel of him. Of all the partners I"d had, no one compared to Atlas. No fucking one.

He smelled like home, but spicy like a thrill of betting large, knowing there was every chance I would lose huge and doing it anyway.

Atlas was everything to me.

Except, he wasn"t.

The other guys mattered.

More than that. Beasty mattered. She was more important than all of them, and he"d just made her feel like an irrelevant shit. Nice to have, but not important.

Using all my strength, I shoved him away. He grunted as he stumbled back a few steps, using the back of one hand to wipe his mouth.

The bright, fluorescent lights overhead washed out his gorgeous skin and cast long shadows over his face. But that didn"t take away from any of his beauty.

Asshole.

"Do you know what you just did!" I whisper-shouted, injecting every ounce of disgust I could in my voice as I pointed toward the back of the apartment.

His lips twisted to one side before his smile soured. "I gave Kim a reason to be alone with Beasty. Isn"t that what we wanted? To give him a chance to get closer to her."

He was on crack. There was no other way he"d find what he did an acceptable reason for spewing the shit he did.

Flaring my nostrils, I took two steps forward, getting in his face. "The way you taunted Beasty...You didn"t see the way she deflated. You made her feel terrible. Like she"s a klutz or something."

For a second, he wavered, but then any bit of remorse disappeared. "Kim will fix it. This is the opportunity he"s been looking for." Atlas turned away and moved his plate to the sink. "Are you going to clean that up?"

I peeled back my top lip and fisted my hands at my side. What had gotten into him tonight?

"What"s going on, and what did you do to Joaquin?" Lake asked drolly as he brought his own plate back.

He never fucking did that. Just like all of us, we were trying to catch a glimpse of Beasty without being in her face.

"Beasty and Kim dropped a plate. I told Joaquin to clean it up." Atlas rounded the counter and headed out of the kitchen, carefully stepping to avoid getting porcelain in the soles of his shoes. "You"re more than welcome to clean it up too. I cooked so you all are on your own."

"That"s not what happened," I seethed. It didn"t do a damned bit of good. Atlas was gone, and Lake sighed as he left and reappeared with a broom and dustpan. Where both Kim and Atlas tried not to track shards through the house, Lake was barefoot and didn"t seem like he gave a fuck if he shredded his feet or not.

"I can clean that up. That wasn"t the point."

Lake raised one brow as he crouched. "Then what is the point?"

"Beasty isn"t settling in. Atlas isn"t making it easier." I hesitated. I could share what he"d said, but we didn"t need Lake in Atlas" shit. He enjoyed stirring trouble too much.

"This is just a new change for her," Lake said as we swept up the last of the plate. Except, he missed several pieces around the edges of the room. Once he stood up and dumped it, I took the broom from him and started collecting all the stray bits.

"It"s not just that it"s new. She doesn"t like being here with us." I punished the floor with hard strokes of the broom.

"She likes it just fine," he argued and I stopped, dropping my forehead onto the end of the handle.

Lake could be just as thick-headed, but in a different way from Atlas. It was no wonder I went out most nights to drink.

"How? Tell me how she likes it just fine here when she"s depressed and antsy all the time." I resumed cleanup as Lake crouched down and held the dustpan for me.

I brushed the last pieces into it as his jaw worked and he studied the floor.

"It takes time. She"s been with us just a few weeks."

Yeah, and in those weeks we"d taken her out a handful of times and she hated it. The people in the fashion industry weren"t for the faint of heart. They were scheming, narcissistic, petty asses. Coming up through foster care, I"d–like the rest of the guys–thought she"d understand that they didn"t matter.

Their opinions were shit. They weren"t worth the air she breathed.

She"d never admit it, but they bothered her.

"You remember how it was when Kim and Atlas first started working. It was a shitshow. This life takes an adjustment period." Lake raised his gaze, confident that he finally had a good answer.

But he forgot I knew his tells. It took him way too long to come up with that answer for me to believe it as truth.

"It sucked balls for me and you. And we eventually found our place. What"s Beasty going to do? The best way for her to settle in is to find a purpose. She"s not going to be our fucking maid," I griped, but it was lost on Lake. He hadn"t been here for that conversation.

"She is our purpose."

That was it. He and Atlas were hitting the hard stuff when I wasn"t looking.

"I can"t with you right now." I propped the broom against the wall as Lake dumped the last bit of porcelain in the trash.

Walking through the empty living room, I headed for the room I shared with Atlas.

He was reckless kissing me earlier. Beasty could have come out. It wasn"t that I cared about her knowing we fucked. I wasn"t sure she"d understand it.

We grew up in West Virginia for fuck"s sake. They had even less tolerance for gay men than for people who didn"t look like them.

It wasn"t blatant, more of a subtle behind the scenes kind of intolerance. It was in their looks and backhanded comments.

Beasty wasn"t like that. Most kids who grew up how we did knew there was more to the world than that. But some of it could have still rubbed off on her without her even knowing.

We just needed her to be here a little longer before we sprung it on her. And Atlas was trying to fuck it all up.

We were supposed to make Beasty"s life easier. Lake was right in that was what this was all about, but Atlas was trying to make her fit us instead of the other way around.

I needed to go out for a few hours. That was it. Play a few hands of whatever game table was open. I wasn"t picky.

If it included cards, I loved it.

Our bedroom door was shut. We kept it that way. Beasty would have questions on why there was only one bed, but she had no reason to be in here, and she wasn"t a snoop.

Inside, Atlas had the air return cover pulled out of the wall and he laid on his back with his head next to it. He was the image of relaxation. His eyes were closed and his hands were threaded over his chest.

But this wasn"t an isolated image.

He was spying.

Cracking open an eye when I walked closer, he scrunched up his nose like I was the fucking problem.

All of those heated emotions that had started to calm, swelled right back up to the point that I ached to just shove my dick in his mouth to keep him from talking bullshit.

That was what he wanted, so I refrained.

"What are you doing?" I mouthed as I got down to my hands and knees.

I wasn"t above spying either when opportunities were handed to me on a silver platter.

Atlas had been worse here than before when we were kids. It was like those years apart broke him, and now he was a stalker on steroids. At least she"d never know.

He placed a finger to his lips and gestured toward the hole with his head.

Leaning down, I breathed as quietly as possible and listened.

"I"m not sure this is the place for me." Beasty wasn"t sad, or angry. But she was resolute.

Panic sparked in my chest.

"That"s not true, Beasty. If I belong here, so do you. Where we don"t belong is in a small town where people look down on us." Kim"s hushed whisper was almost unintelligible. It was probably only from years of living with him that I knew what he said.

"You belong here because you"re beautiful," she sighed and her defeat had my fingers curling tight into the carpet. "I"m not, and they do look down on me."

"Okay, I know exactly what you"re talking about with the people here. I had that too. Consider it a type of hazing where they test to see if you have staying power, but..." he trailed off.

Was he not going to address her putting herself down? Even Atlas stiffened.

"Did you say you"re not beautiful?" Kim asked with a hint of a growl.

I grinned. He couldn"t muster up a true growl if it slapped him in the face.

Next to me, Atlas tipped his head back and scowled at the hole, his nose crinkled up in disgust.

"Kim." She sounded peeved. Exasperated. Especially when it was followed by a chuff of air.

"Beasty." He returned her same energy and I grinned. This was what I wanted for her.

I was stupid jealous of Kim, but this easy conversation was miles better than the uptight girl in the kitchen.

"My nickname is even Beasty." I imagined her rolling her eyes. "I don"t care. Beauty isn"t all it"s cracked up to be. I realize it causes more problems than it helps, but..."

"Stop that," Kim snapped.

"What? It"s true. If I was pretty, who knows what would have happened when I was growing up."

There was a pause. Did she shiver? Was she gazing at him or was she turned away to hide herself?

Shit, my palms started sweating, and little beads gathered at the base of my neck. This must be a tiny taste of that compulsion Atlas lived with.

"You"re being–" I bet Kim was going to say stupid, but he stopped himself. "If no one touched you, that"s a blessing. It doesn"t have anything to do with how you look."

She snorted. "Kim, I don"t care. I really don"t. I"m just pointing out, it makes me stand out in a bad way."

"You"re interesting, Beasty. You give off a fuck you vibe to people who don"t know you. And that makes them fear you. I promise. Your name? I love it. It"s who you are. Not what you look like." Kim started talking faster, his tone rising. "I don"t want to hear you put yourself down anymore."

"I wasn"t," she deadpanned. "I was stating facts."

"I don"t care. I don"t like it." His heavy breathing echoed through the wall.

Something rustled. Clothes? Them? Who fucking knew. I shoved my face a little deeper into the hole. Maybe I could see through the vent on the other side.

Atlas yanked me back by the shirt and I sneered at him.

"Okay, Kim. I"m sorry. I won"t say anything like that again."

When I glanced down, Atlas snickered. Beasty was humoring Kim so he didn"t get upset.

"Want to watch a movie with me in the living room?" Kim was back to being bashful.

There was only about a two-second pause. Then, "Sure." She was also shy.

It was cute that they were circling each other and didn"t have any fucking clue what they were doing.

Good. I wanted that for them. For them to be the firsts for each other.

Their footsteps padded away, and then the sound of Beasty"s door shutting came both from the hole and the hallway.

I picked up the return cover and fixed it back.

Sitting on my ass, I steadied my breathing, forcing myself to let go of all the anger and jealousy. It was pointless, but I tried.

Then Atlas opened his fat mouth.

"Joaquin, did yo–"

I didn"t give a shit what he was going to say. It wasn"t important. And it would just fire me up. That was what Atlas did and who he was.

I loved him, but fucking hell, did he get on my nerves.

Slamming his shoulder back into the floor, I worked my pants down and he grinned. Atlas needed his face fucked, and Beasty would never hear.