13. Travis
TRAVIS
A s soon as I closed and locked the apartment door, Beau grabbed us each a bottle of water. When he held mine out to me, I drained half of it in one go. I hadn’t realized how thirsty I was.
We sat on the couch, and he turned to face me. “I want to know exactly what happened tonight.”
“Lance didn’t tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”
“Are you going to trust what I say, or will you need Dax’s verification?”
Beau glared at me. “Tell me what happened and why. There’s background you know that we don’t.”
“You trust the Theriots completely? All of them?”
“To have our backs on this? Absolutely.”
“On other things?”
“I’d be very careful what I promised them.”
I thought about the way I’d promised Dax anything he wanted. Would he really take me up on that, or had he just been crazed from seeing me in danger? Did I want his feelings for me to be real?
It only took me a second to be certain. I wanted—needed—the feelings between me and Dax to be real, but if they were, I was going to have to open up to Beau about what had really happened five years ago.
If I was going to have a new start, I needed everything out in the open—or at least the parts of it that affected Beau.
“Rob was working for LePlatt.”
“And the asshole who came after you works for LePlatt too?”
“Right. Rob couldn’t meet the sales quota LePlatt expected.
He was struggling to move the product. From what I’ve heard it was because Rob had gotten a reputation for selling doctored shit.
Rob stole some cash to make up the difference in what he owed, but that wasn’t good enough for LePlatt.
He seemed to think it fucked with his reputation if he couldn’t corner the market. ”
Beau snorted. “Fucking son of a bitch. He wanted Rob to push it on kids, didn’t he?”
“Yeah, and Rob tried, but he couldn’t gain their trust.”
“Were you selling this shit too?”
I shook my head. “There’s a lot about the situation with Rob that I’ve never told you. Rob didn’t like to let me out in public unless I was the entertainment. He thought I was too stupid to be a salesman, and he didn’t want to risk me finding someone else to be my sugar daddy.”
Beau’s expression grew murderous. “What do you mean he didn’t let you out?”
“It was part of the agreement when I moved in with him. I did what he said, and he provided for me, except… He never made good on most of his promises.”
“Travis, why didn’t you?—”
“Don’t ask me why I didn’t leave. Surely you can understand that.”
Beau nodded. “I won’t ask more now, but we’re going to talk about this later. Right now, I want you to finish telling me about tonight. What happened here, and how are you mixed up in it?”
“I’m only mixed up in it because I was Rob’s plaything, and LePlatt thinks Rob passed information to me. He thinks I was in deeper than I ever was. Rob didn’t tell me shit, and even if he had, I’m not interested in telling anybody else. I just want to pretend I never knew these people.”
“If Rob fucked this up so badly, how did he manage to stay alive?”
“Apparently, he had some information on LePlatt, something the asshole didn’t want getting around. Rob threatened him, then walked away. The bastard thought he was so smart. He thought that would be the end of it.”
“But Guidry killed him, not LePlatt.”
“Right. Rob went into hiding, headed somewhere out west. I still don’t know what brought him back here.”
“He didn’t take you with him?”
“No, he told me he didn’t ever want to see me again after I…
after you… He was done with me. He took me out into the middle of the bayou.
I thought he was going to kill me.” I’d begged and pleaded with him on the drive.
I’d reminded him I’d done what he asked.
It made my stomach churn to think of it now.
My chest constricted, and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.
“Here. Sit down.” Beau guided me to the couch. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed you.”
Those unexpected words were enough to anchor me, to keep the memories from pulling me back into the past. I tried to speak, but Beau laid his hand on mine. “Take a few minutes. We have plenty of time.”
“But you need to know so we can?—”
“Dax will find out what we need to know, and we have Corbin and the rest of their family to help us.”
That really did bring me back to the present moment because my brother had never been willing to rely on anyone else, not even me.
He’d taken on running our household when I was just a toddler.
He always believed that if something was going to be done right, he was going to be the one to do it. “Corbin really has changed you.”
Beau grinned. “He has, but the rest of my crew here has made an impact too. Sam especially. It took me a while to learn to trust them and accept that I can’t run this place by myself, but I’m finally there.”
“I’d like to help you too.”
Beau squeezed my hand. “What did Rob do to you, Travis?”
“I can’t tell it all at once. I don’t even know how much of it I can say out loud, but please just believe me when I say that once I was with him, I couldn’t leave, not without consequences I wasn’t going to accept.
If I hadn’t followed his plan to set you up, he would have had you killed.
I didn’t want you to go to prison, but at least it gave you a chance. ”
Tears shimmered in Beau’s eyes. I’d never seen my brother cry, not even when our grandma died. “I should have?—”
“No.” I pulled Beau into a hug. “I chose to go with him.”
“He manipulated you.”
“Yeah, and I was stupid enough to fall for it.”
“So was I.”
“No. You thought I chose him over you.”
Beau shook his head. “I thought he was my friend. I trusted him. I knew he was spending a lot of time with you, but I… I saw what I wanted to.”
“It’s easier to be angry at your brother than at your best friend.”
Beau scrubbed a hand over his face.
“If he were still alive, I’d fucking kill him right now or hold him down so you could have the pleasure.”
I gave him a weak smile. “Thanks. Can we just talk about Jean-Charles now? It’s going to take some time before I can tell you more about Rob.”
“Yes, and you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”
“You believe me?”
“Of course I fucking believe you.”
“And you…” I squeezed my eyes shut willing the tears to stay put. “You forgive me?”
“Yes.” He folded me in his arms. “Do you forgive me?”
“You didn’t?—”
“I could have come after you. I could have taken you away from him. I could have known better than to think you would betray me that way. You’d yell at me, tell me off, defy me, yes, but… I knew something was wrong.”
“You are completely forgiven. I just want… I just want you to love me again.”
“Travis, I always loved you. Why the hell do you think I tracked you down and forced you to stay in the family shack… or at least tried to?”
“You’re lucky I didn’t listen.”
“That time, maybe.”
“I thought you just wanted information from me.”
“That’s what I said, but I also wanted to keep you safe, even if I didn’t want to admit it. I had guys from the old crew watching over you the whole time.”
“What?”
“Yeah. They were already there when you called me for backup. I wasn’t going to leave you in the middle of the bayou unprotected.”
We hugged each other for a long time, and I allowed myself a few moments to enjoy the idea that Beau and I could truly put our relationship back together. That this was more than him just having me here out of duty.
Corbin came in just as Beau released me. “Wow, I didn’t think things would move this fast, but thank God you two got right with each other. We’ve got some assholes to catch, and that’s what we need to focus on.”
“If we’re going to make plans, I need some coffee,” Beau said.
I nodded. “Same.”
Corbin grinned. “Make some for me too. A lot of shit has come out tonight. I assume you two talked about Rob and what a completely fucking useless excuse of a human being he was.”
Corbin glanced at me, and I was sure then he knew about me and Dax. Why had I left my fucking underwear on the floor?
While Beau made coffee, I took a shower to clean off the grease and dirt and dried cum. I couldn’t believe we’d really fucked right there in the garage. A few moments later, Beau, Corbin, and I sat down with mugs in our hands.
I explained what I knew about Jean-Charles and gave them more details about the threats I’d received so far.
Corbin headed off another round of Beau arguing with me about why I didn’t tell him when I got the first threats. “You hadn’t spoken to each other in years. Why would he come to you?”
Beau shook his head. “Fine but promise from now on you’ll tell me everything.”
Corbin pressed his lips together, and I knew he was trying not to laugh.
Thank God Beau was looking at me and not him. “If anybody from LePlatt’s organization, or anyone else who’s a former associate of Rob’s, contacts me or comes after me, I promise to tell you.”
“Damn right,” Beau said.
Corbin winked at me, and I had to look away. This situation was spiraling out of control quickly. Beau and I might’ve just repaired things between us, but if he found out I was fucking Dax, what would that do to the peace we’d found?
A knock on the door made me jump.
“It’s ok. It’s Dax,” Corbin said.
“How do you know?”
“I know his footsteps and his knock.”
As sure as he sounded, he still went to the door with a gun in his hand.