Breaking the Mold (Club Rapture: Risk Aware #3)

Chapter 1

SMITH

Ihadn’t thought about Lincoln sexually since the last—and first—time we had sex, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about how much I regretted not sobering up enough to convince him to top me.

Not that I particularly wanted to fuck Lincoln, because I didn’t, but I trusted him and I knew he’d be careful with me.

He’d take it easy and he’d stop if I wanted him to, and…

No, Smith.

That’s the wrong train of thought to have about your brother’s boyfriend and your other brother’s boyfriend’s best friend.

Jesus, that was complicated. Lincoln was Lincoln, and he was also my friend too.

Obviously, we weren’t as close as he and Silas were, but we were getting there.

I talked to him more than I talked to Carter, the front office guy at my job that I got lunch with at least twice a week, and I talked to him more now than I talked to Asha, my best friend from college I sometimes talked to once or twice a month if our schedules allowed.

Life after graduation had hit me like a truck full of bricks, and I was still adjusting to what it was like to have a real job and a real paycheck.

I was also adjusting to what it meant to be real lonely.

Which was ironic, considering I had four brothers—that I knew about—and a decent enough sized friend group, even if I kept them at a reasonable distance.

Admittedly, I hadn’t been very happy with life lately.

I was very happy for Marshall’s finding someone to be with.

He deserved that kind of partnership, and he deserved that sort of pleasure from life.

And I liked Silas. He was my age, he was smart, and he was career driven…

all things important to my brother. The two of them were a great pair, and through Silas I’d met Lincoln, which had been really great.

But then my other brother Hunter had also met Lincoln, and then it was half of my brothers going from bachelorhood to commitment in less than a year.

The change in our relationship was shocking.

Even though we maintained Friday dinners as a family event, the conversation shifted, the duration shortened.

Everything was changing.

I was not a fan of change.

In fact, I wanted a break from it.

I didn’t even find relief in being at home anymore, something I wasn’t sure a fresh coat of paint could fix.

My rental was on Larchmont between Beverly and Wilshire, and what it lacked in width, it made up for in height.

A loft bedroom area overlooking a small living area and open kitchen, a bathroom tucked into the corner and out of sight.

One level down, a ground level room I used for drafting and design on account of it being the only room big enough to accommodate my table.

For as much as I paid, or my father paid, rather, there should have been more space.

But LA was LA, and until I sat down and looked at the money in my trust fund and my savings and decided where I wanted to live forever, it was this rental or bust.

Even though I could afford to buy something—modest—I wasn’t sure what part of LA I wanted to land in.

I hadn’t even been sure if I wanted to keep my job, working as a historic preservation architect alongside the Greater Los Angeles Preservation Society, considering design was only something I’d gotten into in the first place because it was what Marshall did.

It was no secret amongst the Covington men that I idolized my oldest brother, and I did very much enjoy my work.

I just wasn’t sure how much of it I enjoyed because I really liked it or because it made me feel like I was growing up to be a man like Marshall.

A few months before, I’d tossed around the idea of quitting my job, but I didn’t have a single clue of what I’d want to do if not preservation, so I never went through with it.

I had also thought before about leaving Los Angeles, something my brothers would be horrified to learn, but I sometimes wondered if it was the only way to get a breath of fresh air.

Since graduation, I’d really felt like I was drowning most days.

Hard to breathe, hard to see, hard to do anything except focusing on making it through each day.

In an attempt to break myself out of the suffocating fog that had become my life, I’d started taking walks around my neighborhood.

When I’d seen everything there was to see for a ten-block radius, I’d started driving to other neighborhoods and doing the same.

It was on those walks I learned to fall in love with my job again.

The history and the architecture of Los Angeles were unmatched, and it was also on those walks that I knew I never wanted to leave the city.

It was on one of these walks on a Saturday around Silverlake that I stumbled across an old apartment building with some of the most unique character I’d seen, and considering how much walking I’d been doing, that was saying a lot.

The building was white stucco, as most of LA was these days, but the original elements were still clearly visible and very well maintained.

The paint was crisp, the flowers in the garden bloomed, and standing in front of the building was almost like going back in time.

There was a tattoo studio next door and a liquor store and deli around the corner, but other than that, street was mostly residential.

Rock music drifted out from the propped-open door of the tattoo shop, the only giveaway I hadn’t entered a portal and zapped myself back to 1939.

The aggressive growl of a motorcycle engine grew louder, a sleek black bike zipping around the corner with no concern for any of the four stop signs that flanked the intersection.

The rider of the bike cruised up to the curb in front of the tattoo shop, and before they could take off their helmet, I turned and headed around the block, back toward my car.

It was getting late in the day, and I probably needed to get something to eat.

There was that deli behind me, but I was already halfway back to my car, so instead of turning around, I made the decision to drive to my favorite Thai restaurant in Hollywood.

Parking sucked, as usual, but the smell of lemongrass and coconut was enough to make anything worth bearing.

Thaitally Yours was small, with four tables and not enough room for anyone else to breathe, let alone order at the counter.

Everyone seemed to make do because the food was very much worth the squishing and the wait.

“Smith?” A familiar voice rang out as soon as the door closed behind me, and I was more than shocked to see Asha sitting at one of the small tables, a bowl of soup in front of her, her dark hair tied back into a barely contained braid.

“Hey.” I gave her a smile and a weak wave. “What are the odds?”

“I know, right?” She laughed, setting down her spoon. “Do you want to join me or were you getting to-go?”

I wasn’t planning to eat in, but there was no pressing reason for me to take my dinner home beyond the fact I’d walked three miles and was looking forward to taking off my shoes.

“Yeah,” I said. “Let me just order, and I’ll grab a seat.”

At the counter, I put in an order for a bowl of Tom Kha Gai because Asha’s smelled and looked delicious, then I wedged myself into the empty seat at her table, my back practically pressed up against the condiment station and the soda machine.

“I haven’t seen you in forever.” She slid her food to the side and steepled her fingers in front of her chin. “You’re horrible about returning phone calls.”

“I know,” I agreed, cheeks burning. “How have you been? Catch me up?”

She straightened her shoulders and wiggled a little bit in her seat.

The pride rolled off of her in waves, and I knew whatever Asha was about to tell me was going to be good news.

She was one of the most talented people in our graduating class, and any firm that picked her up would be lucky to have her.

Last I checked, she’d been working for a new group downtown, but that had been…

It had been awhile.

“I left Waterman and Haverty,” she said. “I’m working for a guy from New York named Cory Callahan. He’s real big on sustainable design and innovation. I’ve been learning a lot from him.”

The name dug into my brain, but I couldn’t place it. The concepts, though, were familiar.

“My brother’s boyfriend is an architect too. He’s super into that. He just had an article in the LA Design Digest earlier this year.”

Asha’s eyes brightened. “What’s his name? Maybe I know him.”

In any other industry, it would have been a far-fetched suggestion, but in design, the ranks were tight.

“Silas Ayres.”

Before I’d even finished saying his name, her eyes went wide and she clapped her hands together.

“I work with him!” she shouted, covering her mouth with her hands. “He’s so sweet. Did you know he went to school with us?”

“I knew.”

“I didn’t picture Hunter with a guy like him,” she rambled on, head cocked to the side. “Or is he with Finn?”

“While I appreciate the graciousness you’re showing here, he’s dating Marshall.”

Asha waggled her eyebrows at me. “So Silas likes older men, very good to know.”

I rolled my eyes, grateful my soup arrived before I had to address the age gap between my oldest brother and his boyfriend.

I’d never really taken issue with Marshall dating someone my age, mostly because I didn’t think of myself as a child, and I didn’t think of Marshall as being old enough to be worthy of any age-related scorn.

“What about you?” I asked her. “Are you dating anyone?”

She laughed. “No one worth mentioning.”

“I still want to hear about it,” I told her, lifting my spoon to my mouth.

I wanted to hear about Asha’s relationships because I didn’t want her to ask about mine.

I didn’t want to think about mine. There was still too much to unpack for me, about the way my interest in women was sometimes more than my interest in men.

The way I hadn’t even been able to fully experience being with a man to know if I liked it or not.

I did enjoy being on top, and I knew it would be very much okay if that was something I did exclusively.

I also knew it would be okay if I wanted to be in relationships that didn’t involve sex at all.

There was no wrong way to have sex, as long as everyone involved wanted it.

The wrongness only existed in my brain because my own sexuality wasn’t something I could categorize yet.

Maybe that was the whole problem. The root of the unrest.

Thankfully, Asha took the bait, launching into a conversation about the three people she’d been dating for the last six months. One woman and two men, dating them separately but not really wanting to break things off with any of them.

“Why can’t I get serious with all of them?” she asked me earnestly.

I traded my spoon for chopsticks, plucking some chicken out of the bowl so I didn’t fill up on the rich broth.

“I don’t know,” I said after I swallowed. “Why can’t you?”

The corner of her eye twitched.

“Do they all know about each other?” I asked.

“Yes.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you proposing polyamory?”

I shrugged. That hadn’t been where my mind went, but if that’s where hers went, there was obviously something there she was interested in.

“I think that’s a conversation for you and your partners to have.”

Asha made a thoughtful sound, nodding like she agreed with me.

“It’s not for everyone,” I went on, but I knew she already knew that. “But if you want something, who says you shouldn’t have it?”

“That’s surprisingly hedonistic of you,” she said.

“Big word,” I teased.

“You were always so to the letter of things in school.” Asha worked her jaw back and forth, studying me like I was made of bricks and mortar myself. “Have you finally started to loosen up?”

“Hey!” I lifted my hands in offense, even playful. “I’m loose.”

“You are the opposite of loose,” she countered. “You’re like your oldest brother trapped in the body of a twenty-five year-old.”

“I’m almost twenty-six.”

“Even worse!” She threw her head back and laughed, curling her fingers around the edge of the table before leaning forward conspiratorially. “What are you doing tonight, Smith?”

I swallowed hard, not daring to admit to her my plans had been to go home and read design magazines until it was impossible for me to keep my eyes open.

“Hadn’t thought about it,” I lied, voice cracking.

“Do you want to come out tonight?” Asha checked the time on her phone, swiping through the screen and keying out a text message.

“Where?” I asked.

“Jacob and I were going to a club in Pasadena,” she said. “Very cool place. Great architecture and the people there are very open-minded.”

I twisted my mouth up at the corner, narrowing my eyes at her. “What do you mean open-minded? Is it like a swingers club or something?”

“Jesus.” Her cheeks flushed. “Polyamory and swinging in the same conversation? What have you done with Smith Covington.”

“I’m the same as I’ve always been, Asha,” I whispered, realizing for the first time there was so much inside of me I kept hidden, so many things and wants and interests that I buried deep because I was scared of what it would mean to give them air.

My attraction to men being one of those things, but being with Lincoln had cracked the top right off of that can of worms.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But no, it’s not a swingers club.”

“What is it then?”

Her eyes twinkled. “It’s a BDSM club, Smith. It’s called Rapture.”