4. Chapter 1
Chapter 1
Part One
T he house looked even bigger than Lex remembered. Dark. Ominous. Uninviting as hell. If someone had splashed a Gothic painting in the middle of the historic part of their city, this would’ve been it. There was even something off-putting about the circular driveway and fountain.
He would’ve rather been anywhere else.
Four years.
It had been four goddamn years since he’d been home.
Once Morgan moved out—and Lex realized he wasn’t ever coming back—there wasn’t a reason to stick around. His mom was too busy with herself to notice the crap going on with him, and Morgan’s father? God, the thought of him made Lex’s skin crawl.
That man tore down his self-worth until there wasn’t anything left. His grades weren’t enough. His hair was too messy. His clothes were ripped. He was out too late. His friends were from the wrong part of town. He wasn’t Morgan .
Perfect Morgan. The one who could do no wrong.
Except when he was in the woods, beating people until they were barely alive.
Leaving had been easier than staying. Even when leaving had been fucking hard .
But now he didn’t have a choice.
The certified letter stashed at the bottom of his bag told him everything he needed to know: Mr. Delacroix was dead and—for whatever reason—he’d written Lex into the will.
At first, Lex thought it was a joke. He wasn’t about to upend his entire damn life and trek back out here just to hear someone posthumously tell him, “gotcha.” But the missed calls from their family lawyer were too insistent to ignore.
If he was being honest, half the reason he agreed to make the trip was to see Morgan again .
Even if it was only for a day or two. Even if Morgan would still act like he barely existed.
Staring at the giant door, all Lex could do was hope that when he opened it, everything inside would have shifted with time. Maybe Morgan would look at him as more than an over-eager kid, excited to have someone to talk to.
It would’ve been so damn nice if things were different.
And oh had things fucking changed .
As soon as Lex was inside, Morgan was there—like right there— wearing a three-piece suit that somehow screamed A-list actor instead of boring businessman and greeting people with the same tense smile he always had. That would have passed for normal.
But the little blonde thing on his arm wasn’t there the last time Lex checked.
“You must be Alexander,” the woman said, extending her manicured hand out to him.
The ring was the first thing that caught his eye.
“Lex,” he corrected automatically.
Did they shake hands? Hug? What was the protocol?
Her hand rested in his for a second before she looped them both around Morgan’s arm.
“My name’s Kate. Morgan has been telling me all about you.”
Lex smirked. “Has he? I bet the stories are awesome .” It was out of his mouth before he even realized how bitter and sarcastic it sounded. She didn’t need to hear about how Morgan hated him. How Lex was positive Morgan hadn’t said a single, solitary thing about him. Ever.
Kate’s face reddened, though she smoothed it over with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said gently. “James was a great man.”
“Not my father, not my circus.”
Kate glanced up at Morgan like she was—what—waiting for his approval to speak? Maybe to breathe. Who the hell knew.
Weird dynamic, but alright.
Lex had his own share of strange crap, he couldn’t exactly judge.
Morgan didn’t look at her, at least not directly. His focus was on the line of people shuffling into the house behind Lex, smiling his polite, mechanical smile. But Lex knew all his tells: the slight downturn of Morgan’s brow, the tension in his shoulders. He was pissed. Or annoyed. Or both.
“It was nice meeting you, Lex—Alexander,” Kate said, her words tumbling out like she couldn’t get away fast enough. “Make yourself at home. This is your house too, after all.”
And just like that, she was waving him along.
Normally, Lex would have asked what was going on. Normally. But nothing about this felt normal.
Morgan had never had a steady girlfriend and now he had a wife ?
Her?
Kate didn’t fit. She didn’t seem like Morgan’s type. Hell, she looked like some fucking fairy . Morgan was—by no means—a large, intimidating guy, but all Kate’s blonde next to his dark hair and sharp angles ?
She just looked… wrong with him.
And it wasn’t as if Lex gave a shit . No way. He got off that boat a long, long time ago.
Still, as he watched Kate float around Morgan, her hand never straying too far from his arm, Lex couldn’t shake the feeling curdling his stomach.
It would’ve been nice if someone told him Morgan got married.
Morgan still hadn’t said anything to him.
No one was listening.
The house was buzzing with low, overlapping conversations, the kind that turned into white noise when Lex shut his ears off.
There were uncles and aunts he hadn’t seen in years, all standing around in groups. Sitting in groups. Talking in groups.
Something smelled like goddamn casserole and he was losing his patience.
He wandered between the people, being drawn into one topic after another, whether he wanted to talk about it or not. Every time he opened his mouth to ask about the will, they’d start in again.
We haven’t seen you in so long, Lex!
How’s your mother doing, Lex?
Did you finish college, Lex?
Lex was going to snap the next time someone said his name. Or change it altogether. Chad. Chad seemed like a decent choice.
All he wanted was an answer .
Two days off. That was what he could spare. The drive back already burned through part of one.
Back at work, there were people who needed him. People who actually appreciated him. He couldn’t waste his time, standing around, waiting to know why he got dragged back here.
So when he spotted Morgan in the kitchen—without the tiny, porcelain wife—he didn’t hesitate.
“When is the lawyer talking to us? Is it today? Tomorrow?”
Morgan, cutting one of those prepackaged supermarket sandwiches in half, didn’t answer. He didn’t even look up . He just kept his eyes on the knife that seemed too sharp for the job.
“Seventeen Sundays from now..?”
Still nothing.
Lex sighed, leaning onto the counter and waving a hand in front of Morgan’s face. “Hello, hi. I’m talking. The least you could do is say something.”
The blade of the knife came down—hard and fast—onto the cutting board and Lex jerked back, his pulse kicking up.
That was way too damn close to his arm.
He didn’t miss the little twitch of Morgan’s lips.
“The least you could do is fake grief for our family,” Morgan finally said as he stacked the sandwich on the waiting plate. “Learn some respect.”
Heat jumped into Lex’s face, embarrassment and irritation crawling up the back of his neck.
One goddamn sentence and he felt like a teenager again. He was three seconds away from saying screw the will and leaving when his brain caught up .
Our family.
Not your family and my family , the way Morgan had always referred to their respective sides. Like Lex was some alien from another planet he wanted nothing to do with.
Our .
The irritation faltered, replaced by something he couldn’t put his finger on—confusion, maybe, or satisfaction. He’d spent years trying to get Morgan to pay attention to him, to notice him, before he left.
Now Morgan wanted to drop that kind of a bomb without even looking over ? Not happening.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
Instead of answering, Morgan pulled up the sleeve of his jacket and eyed his watch. “An hour.”
“An hour for what, Morgan.”
“When the lawyer is talking to us,” Morgan said flatly, picking up the plate of cut sandwiches. He took two steps toward the living room and paused, rocking back on his heel and turning his head.
“You really are sad if you’re still hanging on my every word. Say thank you the next time someone gives you what you want.”
This time, Lex wished he had missed the small smile on Morgan’s lips.
One hour was a ridiculously long time when there was nothing to do. Nothing he wanted to do .
The overstuffed armchair he’d thrown himself into was eating him alive, sucking him down into the scratchy fabric. Every time he looked at the time, he swore the clock hadn’t budged.
He’d blown through all of the games on his phone, texted the two girls he had been seeing, and now he was just pissed. The damn conversation kept replaying in his head, over and over , like a song someone forgot to turn off.
Morgan’s smug face, the way he wouldn’t even look at him when he was speaking, was… horrible. Mean was one thing. Cruel was another. But whatever the fuck happened in the kitchen was in its own realm of evil.
Lex should have left. He should have gotten right back in his car, turned the hell around, and went home. Home was fine. There weren’t people there who acted like Morgan . People actually cared about him there.
God, who the hell did he think he was?
Morgan wasn’t untouchable, no matter how much he thought he was.
Lex knew the deep, dark shit Morgan kept buried. He had dozens of recordings. All different times. All different people. But Morgan’s face was there. Morgan’s voice was there.
He had enough to ruin Morgan’s entire life if he wanted to.
And that? That seemed like a good enough reason to stay.