5. Chapter 2
Chapter 2
T en minutes. Ten sweltering, beige-colored minutes and Lex was losing it. The heat of the office wrapped around him like a straitjacket. He could practically see the damn air particles, could taste the plastic-covered furniture.
Hell, he almost missed being in the living room. That had been tight, sure, but not unbearable .
Outside? Would’ve been great—he loved the fall, so no problem there.
But this? This godforsaken room with its beige walls, beige rugs, beige wood—it was pushing him to the edge.
“Shouldn’t mom be here with us?” he asked, directing his question to the desk instead of Morgan’s face.
Why did he still expect an answer?
Lex’s urge to throw a chair out the window wasn’t only because of the office or the color scheme.
No.
It was the fact that Morgan didn’t seem fazed that the room was attempting to bake them alive. The faint sheen of sweat told Lex they were both enduring this misery but… damn, say something now and again.
Look over and start a conversation .
Morgan shifted in the chair beside him, adjusting his jacket as he crossed one leg over the other.
Sitting in silence wasn’t some art form, it was punishment for kindergartners.
His phone was burning a hole in his pocket.
When Morgan’s eyes skated by him for the hundredth time, paying him less attention than the literal furniture, Lex couldn’t take it anymore.
“You can’t even say hi? Ask how I’m doing?” he snapped, the sound of his own voice too loud.
Of course, Morgan didn’t respond. Instead, he glanced at his watch like there was somewhere much more important he’d rather be then looked out the window, indifferent as ever .
Lex’s leg started bouncing—beyond his control—the floorboards creak more irritating than calming.
This didn’t have to be so difficult. He didn’t expect them to be best friends, for fuck’s sake. Just civil. Normal . Barely functional adults would’ve been great.
“When did you get married?” he asked when he could hear the leaves rustling around outside. “You couldn’t have invited me to the wedding? An invitation..? Sound familiar? We’re family. You said it .”
“I never mentioned I was married. You assumed that.”
Lex rolled his eyes. “I saw the ring, Morgan. Come on.”
It was common sense. Kate had a ring, and she couldn’t keep her hands off Morgan—what else was he supposed to think?
Morgan turned in the chair to face him and propped his elbow on the armrest like he had all the time in the world.
It was so damn sudden.
One second, bitterness was eating him alive from the inside out, and the next, Morgan was staring him down so hard he couldn’t breathe. Lex’s face burned, the heat crawling up his neck and settling on his ears. Morgan wasn’t even saying anything.
And then, just like that, it clicked. He felt like a fucking idiot.
“You’re engaged,” Lex mumbled.
“That didn’t take as long as I thought it would.”
“Could you, I don’t know, stop acting like you’re better than me for one minute? I’d like for us to get along.”
“I am better than you,” Morgan said firmly, dabbing the sweat from his forehead .
This was the longest conversation they’d ever had, and Lex was stuck somewhere between humiliation and the urge to keep going. Didn’t say a whole lot about him as a person, as much as he hated to admit it.
But he did have a trump card. Screw Morgan’s holier-than-thou act.
“No,” Lex started, measuring the words carefully, “you’re not.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, fingers trembling so much he nearly fumbled it, but he managed to get to his videos. He turned the phone around, holding it up to Morgan’s face, and pushed play.
The sound of uneven sobs spilled into the room, jarring in the quiet. Lex didn’t need to see the screen to know what was on it. He had memorized every single clip, every single look, every single word that Morgan had said.
He expected a reaction. Anger. Embarrassment. Maybe even Morgan smashing his phone. He had already braced for it.
What he did not expect were the same hands wrapped around someone’s throat on the grainy footage to reach out, but not for the phone. They covered Lex’s own, steadying the shaking screen.
Lex froze.
Morgan’s expression… it wasn’t Morgan anymore.
Not the Morgan he knew.
The indifference, the detachment—it was gone. Replaced by something strange, almost soft. Morgan’s pupils were blown wide, his lips parted, and part of Lex wondered if he was even aware of how he looked.
Morgan wasn’t pissed. He wasn’t ashamed .
He looked like he was turned on, like he was watching an old lover. Intimate in a way no one else could understand.
Cold irritation settled in Lex’s chest. Not even irritation—no. Envy. He should have shut the video off. He should have shoved the phone back in his pocket and never brought it up again.
But he couldn’t move.
This was what that version of Morgan looked like, up close. Raw and unfiltered.
And god, Lex liked it. A hell of a lot more than he should.
“Why do you enjoy doing it?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
The words hung in the air, and the moment they left his mouth, he regretted them.
Morgan’s eyes snapped up to him as if he remembered he existed. For a split second, the silence was so loaded that Lex could have fucking slapped himself.
Dropping his gaze back to the screen, Morgan’s words came out clipped.
“It’s fun.”
“Hurting people weaker than you?” Lex cleared his throat, trying to sound more casual than he actually felt. “Seems boring if I’m being honest, Morgan.”
“If you think you can do better, you’re welcome to try.”
That was one challenge Lex hadn’t thought he’d hear.
Watching it had been one thing. Watching was safe. Watching meant he didn’t have to deal with the consequences. But participating? That was another thing altogether .
He wasn’t sure if he could do better—wasn’t sure if he wanted to— but the chance to be reason Morgan looked like that? To experience it a whole different way? To feel it?
Fuck.
Lex swallowed hard but before he could open his mouth, the sound of hurried footsteps broke through his thoughts.
The lawyer’s voice followed, offering up a string of apologies, and he shut the video off.
Pocketing his phone was easier than quieting the pounding in his chest.
Paying attention wasn’t his strong suit. On a normal day, he couldn’t focus if his life depended on it—legal jargon just made it worse. He tapped his fingers against his thigh, leg still bouncing.
This was not a normal day.
What was he supposed to do? Pick up the letter opener and start screwing with it so he could get his mind to stay in one place?
Instead, he found his eyes wandering back to Morgan more often than not. What did “you’re welcome to try” mean? That was vague as hell.
How did it start ?
Back then, he’d always lost track of Morgan at one point, no matter how closely he tried to follow without being caught. Was it sudden? How did Morgan get someone to go with him to the middle of nowhere ?
If it was just a straight-up fight, maybe he’d stand a chance. He was a little taller, so he might have some sort of advantage. Even if the only fight he’d ever been in was with a girl.
But if it was something bigger—something like a chase? That sounded like a goddamn nightmare. Lex couldn’t run worth shit. Not since he’d screwed up his ankle and knee and had to say goodbye to his dance dreams before he even turned eighteen.
How did it end?
That was another important question. The crying and pleading got to him after a while—annoying, really. It pulled him out of that happy, floating headspace he enjoyed.
His thoughts were going a mile a minute and the lawyer’s voice turned into a low drone that occasionally shuffled papers.
When his leg stopped moving out of nowhere, he glanced down to see Morgan’s hand resting there.
It took a second for his brain to catch up.
Morgan’s hand. On his leg.
There was a moment of what the fuck before Morgan’s fingers were digging in.
The pain was immediate. Sharp. He could feel it through his jeans and muscles, clawing all the way down to bone. Biting his tongue was the only way to not embarrass the hell out of himself.
Five seconds. That’s all it took for Morgan’s hand to vanish, leaving behind a lingering ache that felt like fire. He rubbed his hand over the spot, shooting him a glare, but Morgan wasn’t looking at him.
That’s when he heard the lawyer .
“I think I’ve covered everything. I’m sorry for going quiet on you two. I had to make sure. Are there any other questions? Mr. Whitlock?”
Oh.
Oh shit .
Lex blinked, scrambling to put his thoughts back together. Great time for him to space out. He hadn’t heard one word of the reading.
“No. No, I’m good,” he muttered, swallowing the self-loathing. “Can you leave me a copy? In case I want to look over it on my own.”
“Of course. I’m more than happy to do that.”
As soon as the lawyer left the room, Morgan started in on him.
“Why don’t you do me a favor and cave now instead of later? I have no intention of dealing with this. I’ll even give you some of the money as a parting gift.”
What money?
Lex flipped through the folder, scanning for anything that might explain what the hell Morgan was talking about. It didn’t take long to find it.
And that… that was a whole lot of zeros. More than he’d ever seen in real life.
But there was fine print: the inheritance was tied to the business. Six months. He had to drop his life for six months to run this consultancy firm before he could sell, and if he didn’t? The money funneled back in.
Morgan’s father had split the business down the middle between them.
It was the biggest load of bullshit Lex had ever seen .
“You want me to give up $800,000?” he spat, unable to stop from laughing. “Forget it.”
“You couldn’t even pay attention for half an hour. You’re incompetent. Tell me you understand that.”
“Morgan. $800,000 .”
“I can read,” Morgan muttered, standing up to snatch the folder off the desk. “I can also listen.”
He paused. Sweat slid down his temples but he didn’t bother to wipe it away this time. “Give me your half. It’s mine anyway. I’ll run it with Kate.”
“Like hell .”
Morgan perched on the edge of the desk, too elegant in all this heat, and let the folder drop into Lex’s lap. It wasn’t just a drop. It felt condescending, derogatory , worse than any of his other snarky remarks.
Lex didn’t move. He wasn’t going to let Morgan get the best of him again. Instead, he held Morgan’s gaze, letting the folder tip over and spill papers onto the floor.
When Morgan leaned back—a small, cold smile on his lips—Lex didn’t want to know the next words coming out of his mouth.
“I have a proposal.”
This screamed bad idea .
“Oh, Jesus… alright. What is it?”
“You sound so upset, little brother. Don’t you want my attention? ”
The way Morgan said it—light, happy, almost curious—made Lex’s skin crawl .
Of course , he wanted Morgan’s attention. That was the problem. He’d wanted it for so damn long that hearing it thrown in his face made him feel like his entire body had cracked open. Pathetic as hell. Childish .
“Just spit it out, Morgan.”
“We make it into a game. If one of us can convince the other to sell before six months, that person wins. All the inheritance, not just your own. You think $800,000 is a lot of money? What would you do with well over a million?”
A million dollars.
Lex couldn’t even picture that kind of money. Hell, he’d never had more than a couple thousand to his name at one time, and most of that went straight to bills. A million dollars… what would he do with that?
“Think of the time we’d get to spend together,” Morgan continued in that dreamy, teasing lilt he’d never heard in person. “You and I, learning things about the business. Side-by-side. Isn’t that something you want?”
Lex’s throat tightened, his thoughts stuck there like a lump he couldn’t get past.
Time together .
If he had to be here regardless… if he got to spend time with Morgan…
This was such a bad idea.
“What’s your definition of ‘win?’” he mumbled after a minute, his mouth suddenly dry.
“If you last six months or piss me off before then, you win. If I can convince you to give up or outright break you,” Morgan leaned toward him, the smile sharper than before. “I win. And I already have plans for that money.”
No. No, no, no.
He’d moved past all that. He’d gotten over that.
Don’t start now.
“What are the rules?”
Morgan shrugged. “Rules bore me to tears. Let’s leave it at two very simple ones: no contacting the authorities and no killing each other… accidental or not.”
“That means everything else…”
“Is fair play.”
Lex’s brain kicked into overdrive, too fast to keep up.
There were no limits . That left room for too many possibilities. Too many things he didn’t want to unravel. The lack of rules was far more terrifying than any of the ones he could have come up with on his own.
“Don’t think so hard,” Morgan murmured. He stepped off the desk and onto the papers but his eyes stayed locked on Lex. “You’ll fold long before then.”
None of this felt real.
Between Lex’s racing pulse and the heat in his face, the possibility of passing out if he moved too quickly was on the table.
“One more thing,” Lex said, though his voice sounded distant like it belonged to someone else entirely. “If I win, I release the videos I have. All of them. And I have a lot , Morgan.”
The muscle in Morgan’s jaw ticked, but that was it. There was no other tell Lex could latch onto .
Part of him wanted Morgan to look away, to stop staring a hole through him. The other part? He didn’t want to think about the other part.
Time felt fucked up. Distorted.
Lex could hear the pendulum swinging in the grandfather clock, the people outside the door, the leaves… it was all too loud. Too present . He rubbed his sweaty palms against his jeans, his heart pounding harder every second Morgan didn’t speak.
Finally, Morgan cocked his head to the side and his expression softened like he’d thought of something amusing.
“I like it. That’ll give us equal stakes.”
Fair play. No rules. No limits.
Lex wasn’t sure if he was scared or something way, way worse.