Chapter 19
NINETEEN
Theo Pembroke
I cut my study group short, eager for my planned conversation with Beckett, but found only emptiness when I unlocked our apartment door.
Something felt off. I moved from room to room, each vacant space confirming what the hollow quiet had already told me—no one was home.
Since I’d been the first one out this morning, I had no idea where either of them might be. Beckett knew about my study group, but he hadn’t mentioned any plans of his own. Neither had Asher.
I had no right to expect a detailed itinerary of their comings and goings. On paper, we shared rent and utilities, nothing more. Adults with separate bedrooms and separate lives who happened to split the cost of an apartment.
Yet my heart raced as I stood in our empty apartment.
We never kept secrets from each other—not about where we were going or who we were with.
The silence of my phone screen stared back at me, no explanations, no quick text messages.
Had they left together? Were they avoiding me?
The questions multiplied with each passing minute.
I didn’t have to wait long for an answer.
The slam of the door jolted me from my thoughts.
I rushed out of my bedroom to find Beckett in the living room, his feet wearing a path in the carpet as he paced back and forth.
When he turned, I caught sight of his face—eyes hollow with pain and a crimson handprint blooming across his cheek.
A dozen possibilities raced through my mind at once.
None of them were good.
Did he get into a fight with someone? Did he get into a fight with Asher?
The thought of them fighting made my stomach twist. After everything we’d built together, a setback like that would devastate me. In my mind, we were on a clear path forward—the three of us becoming something real, something whole. I couldn’t bear to imagine any other outcome.
“Beckett?” I questioned, my voice soft and calm as I took a few steps toward him.
His pain was a physical thing between us, and I couldn’t stand seeing him like this—not when I’d spent years memorizing the geography of his smiles, cataloging his laughs, holding his hurts like they were my own.
Beckett froze mid-step when he saw me, his eyes like windows to an empty house where someone had been hurt.
“Theo,” my name fell from his lips like the last word before a confession.
Then he crossed the room in quick strides and wrapped his arms around me, crushing me against his chest. My arms were pinned at my sides, his grip desperate, like if he let go I might slip through his fingers.
“My mom…” His voice cracked, and I already knew I wasn’t going to like whatever came next. I had never trusted anyone in his family. “She slapped me. She really chose my dad over her kids. Ian and I went to visit her.”
He sounded stunned, as if the words didn’t belong to him, as if he were still waiting for someone to tell him it hadn’t actually happened.
I wasn’t surprised.
Women like her never surprise me. They had children the way some people bought heirloom furniture: for legacy, for appearances, for something to point to and call mine. Love was optional. Motherhood was just a title they wore like jewelry.
Care was outsourced. Birthdays forgotten. Park trips replaced by staff schedules and excuses.
Their children learned early that affection was something you earned, not something you were given.
Beckett’s mother had always chosen her husband.
Her husband wanted heirs.
Together, they had built a family that looked perfect in photographs and rotted everywhere else.
His arms loosened slightly, as if he were running out of strength.
I cupped his face and forced him to look at me. His skin was warm, his eyes glassy, his mouth trembling in a way he was trying very hard to hide.
“You’re worthy of love, Beckett,” I said quietly. “You don’t need her acceptance. You don’t need anything from her.”
My thumb brushed under his eye before a tear could fall.
“We’re your family.”
A month ago, I would have said I’m your family.
Now it was we. No one had said it out loud, but it lived in the way we moved around each other, the way dinner plates appeared without asking, the way someone was always there when he came home. We had become something solid. Something steady. A unit.
Everything he needed lived inside this house.
Not her.
She hadn’t called.
Hadn’t checked on him.
Didn’t know he’d changed his major and address, or started sleeping with the hallway light on again.
Didn’t know she’d already lost him.
Beckett nodded his head, my words hopefully seeping in. I held his cheek with my right hand, gently caressing where his mom had hurt him.
He grabbed my face, and I leaned into the touch. It felt more intimate than anything we had ever done.
“I need you,” he whispered.
Words had never been necessary between us.
One look, and I could read the storm in his eyes; one touch, and he could feel the current running beneath my skin.
In this moment, with his pain so raw, I understood exactly what would heal him—the same thing I’d been aching for.
The air between us charged with unspoken desire, a conversation our bodies had been having for years while our mouths remained silent.
This was it—the precipice we’d been standing on for so long.
“You have me,” I whispered, my fingers finding his shirt, gathering the fabric like I was anchoring myself to him, pulling him into my orbit.
After a beat, our lips crashed together in a cataclysmic way.
Time stopped as we fell into the kiss, ravishing each other as we pushed each other down the hallway, never pulling apart.
This wasn’t like our usual encounters—no staged undressing for the camera, no performance for an audience.
Just us, fully clothed, driven by raw need rather than financial opportunity.
A voice in the back of my mind whispered we could be filming this, monetizing our first real time together, but I silenced it. Some moments shouldn’t be commodified.
Years of longing had led to this.
I wanted to memorize every touch, every breath. Someday soon, Asher would join us, completing our circle in the most intimate way possible. But tonight belonged to just us.
Our shirts came off in desperate tugs, discarded somewhere in the hallway like breadcrumbs marking our path. We stumbled into my bedroom, still half-dressed, mouths refusing to part for more than seconds. Fingers fumbled with belt buckles and zippers until nothing remained between us.
We’d barely begun, yet already this felt transcendent—something beyond the choreographed intimacy we’d known before.
Beckett guided me backward until the backs of my knees hit the mattress, and I tumbled onto the bed.
I propped myself up on my elbows, watching as his gaze traveled over every inch of my body.
There was something different in his eyes now—not just the familiar heat I’d seen during our performances, but something desperate and consuming.
A need so raw it seemed to hollow him out from the inside.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted this,” he whispered, his voice rough as he moved toward me, each step deliberate, his arousal evident with every movement as his hard cock swung.
I swallowed hard. “So all this time, you could have had me, but you didn’t make a move?” My voice came out raspy, my eyes locked on the lines of his body; his body was a distraction that brought out my honesty. Horniness clouded my judgment, or else I probably wouldn’t have said anything.
He inched closer until his knees pressed against the mattress’s edge.
“Every time we finished filming, I wanted to pull you back to me.” His voice dropped to a whisper.
“But crossing that line meant admitting something I wasn’t ready to face.
” He knelt down, bringing his face level with mine, his eyes wide and vulnerable.
“I’m falling for you, Theo. Have been for months.
” The back of his finger traced my cheekbone, his touch feather-light, his smile uncertain.
“I’d say I’m falling for you, too, but I’m not,” I said, watching his expression crumble before I could finish my thought. The words had come out all wrong. “Because I fell for you long ago. I’ve loved you a long time, Beckett.”
“Christ, Theo. We could’ve had this a long time ago,” Beckett groaned, his voice sounding as if the idea of missing that time was destroying him. I never expected that kind of reaction from admitting my feelings. Had I known he might’ve returned my feelings, I would’ve said something years ago.
But then we wouldn’t have Asher, and he completes us. We all belong together.
“I have so much time to make up for. I’d better get started now.”
He gripped my thighs and dragged me to the edge, making me gasp. Then, he sank to his knees before me—not what I’d anticipated at all. His face hovered between my legs, his breath warm against my skin.
“What are you doing?” I asked, voice barely audible as he gazed up at me with that knowing look in his eyes.
His voice was low, almost reverent. “Making up for lost time.” Then he guided my legs over his shoulders, his warm hands spreading me open as his mouth found me, his tongue teasing with deliberate, gentle pressure that made my breath catch in my throat.
My fingers clutched at the comforter beneath us, twisting the fabric as sensation overwhelmed me.
This wasn’t what I’d anticipated—despite his comfort with his sexuality, this particular act had never been part of our filmed repertoire.
It felt like crossing a threshold we’d never approached before.