Chapter 6
Beckham
“Walk me through exactly what happened,” Everett Vaughn, the owner of my record label, sighs, massaging his temples with one hand. “After you left the girl’s hospital room.”
“I told her crazy mom, ‘maybe’,” I mumble, crossing my arms over my chest.
The dark shades I’m wearing, despite being indoors, hide the dark circles underneath my eyes. The result of a night of drinking myself into a stupor, alone in the master suite of my new penthouse apartment.
Eli wanted to talk, but I wasn’t in the goddamn fucking mood. Not after he lost his shit in Andi’s hospital room.
Leo wanted to talk too, and I was more tempted, but I don’t think I could’ve handled it.
Ever since I presented as an omega, I’ve had all these emotions swirling inside of me, fucking eating me up inside, with no real framework to deal with them. Back when I thought I was a beta, I never had to deal with my emotions this much.
And what sucks the most? Everyone can fucking tell how I’m feeling because of my goddamn perfume. Eli—and even Leo, with his beta nose—have gotten so good at distinguishing what subtle changes in my scent mean that sometimes they can tell how I’m feeling before I even realize it.
But there’s no need to wonder why I’m feeling so crappy right now. This whole situation with Andi has been eating me alive.
I can’t get her expression—the pure, unadulterated terror written plainly across her delicate face—out of my head.
We put that look there. With my na?ve stupidity, Leo’s unpreparedness, and most importantly, Eli’s inability to keep his head on straight when he perceives something as a threat.
I’ll never understand how he could’ve perceived that omega, lying broken in her hospital bed, as a threat.
“Which was a stupid fucking thing to do,” Eli snaps from his chair.
Everett has the three of us seated across from him like naughty schoolboys in the principal’s office. He probably feels that way, too, considering he has a decade and a half on us age-wise.
“You should shut up,” I snap, clenching my jaw as I stare at him. “Maybe if you’d kept your mouth shut, she wouldn’t have felt the need to push back. I know if I’d just gotten assaulted and was alone in a fucking hospital room with three meatheads I didn’t know, I’d be freaking the hell out too.”
“That’s enough bickering,” Everett snaps at the two of us, his whiskey scent swirling in the air.
Everett Vaughn is the kind of person who needs to be in control. It was obvious from the first video call we had after he reached out to me when a cover of mine went viral. And right now, I’m sure we’re annoying the hell out of him.
Which is bad, because if I actually did want to help Andi, I’d need his approval.
I’m lucky that Everett’s record label got to me first. The more time I’ve spent here in Hollywood, the more I’ve started to understand its dangerous underbelly.
Like having an alpha boyfriend who assaults you in the bathroom at the Grammys with no one to protect you.
I have a good circle of people around me.
Hell, Eli and Leo moved with me to LA to make sure I had people at my back that I could trust when dealing with all this shit.
Seeing Andi all alone in a room full of people after one of the worst nights of her life is something I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
“Why, exactly, did you say maybe, Beck?” Everett asks, taking a swig of his black coffee like he’s wishing it were something harder, despite it only being eleven thirty in the morning.
“Because Andi has no one,” I mumble, my eyes darting around Everett’s fancy corner office.
The floor-to-ceiling windows have a view of downtown LA, the city that I thought would only really live in my dreams before we moved down here.
“And she said if this whole fake relationship plan her mom wants to happen doesn’t, that she’d be forced to get back with her ex. Isn’t that insane?”
“Do you think she was lying?” Everett’s expression is unreadable as he strokes his salt and pepper beard.
It’s not necessarily accusatory, like the question may have been from Eli, but it still rubs me the wrong way.
“Why would she lie?”
“Plenty of people lie. And this is a big ask.”
“Is it really?”
“Of course. Fake relationships are a dime a dozen in this industry, but if we really wanted to put you in a fake relationship for media purposes, we’d have our pick of the litter with your current popularity,” Everett says plainly. “She would be far from my first choice.”
“Why?” I shake my head. I don’t understand why he’s bringing up other people when the situation at hand has to do with her.
“Because it would mean involvement with Gina Sterling, and frankly, I spend too much time and money keeping you safe from the fame-hungry hands of people like her to serve you up on a silver platter.”
“I don’t disagree that her mom seems clinically insane. But that doesn’t mean Andi was lying. I honestly think that’s a bigger sign that Andi was telling us the truth. So are we just going to sit there and let her get sucked back into an unsafe situation if we can do something about it?”
Everett’s expression flickers for a split second. He’s a private guy, but I know the basics of why he’s so protective of me in the first place.
His entire family is made up of omegas. His mom was a single mother raising three kids, and his two younger sisters both ended up presenting as omegas.
That’s the angle I should push if I want his support.
“She’s alone, Everett. I’m lucky enough to have you and Eli and Leo, but she has no one. And she just got fucking assaulted by her boyfriend, and I’m pretty sure we cared more about how she was doing than anyone in her hospital room. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Everett takes a deep breath, pursing his thin lips together.
“Even if she was telling the truth about being forced back into a relationship with the motherfucker who beat her, it was still manipulative of her to threaten to essentially blackmail you. Blackmail us,” Eli grunts.
“But is that by choice or by necessity? From the looks of things, we’re her last hope.”
I feel like I’ve been transported to an alternative universe. I truly don’t understand why they all seem so hesitant to help another omega in need. They would spare no expense in money or time, or effort, to help me.
Andi’s just as special as I am. I know I don’t really know her yet, but it’s the principle of the thing.
“What if the Sterlings’ beta PR guy had a point? About my image? Maybe a fake relationship would help?”
“The untouchable image you have is on purpose,” Everett cuts in.
“It’s a feature, not a bug. Sometimes, not even being an alpha can save you from those who have more money and power than you can even dream about.
There’s nothing wrong with your designation, but understand how much worse it could be because you’re an omega. ”
“Well, guess who else is an omega?”
Everett lets out another soft sigh.
“You’re not going to drop this, are you?”
I rip off my glasses so I meet his gaze head-on.
“No.”
“What if we agree, but keep things on our terms?” Leo cuts in, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“They sign our contracts. Our rules, our playing field. That way we can limit the hold Gina Sterling and her team have on any decisions that could make things more difficult for Beck?”
“Yes! What about that?” My heart flutters in my chest, and my burnt caramel scent practically explodes out from me with excitement. “And then maybe that also means limiting the control Gina Sterling has on Andi too!”
“Our contracts should have an ironclad NDA,” Eli grunts.
I should talk to him. He seems to have a one-track mind when it comes to hiding what happened between us in that alleyway.
It leaves a bitter taste in my mouth. Is it protection? Or is it something different? Something like embarrassment.
“Most contracts for arrangements like this have ironclad NDA’s on both sides,” Everett says. He draws his gaze back to me. “I understand this means a lot to you, Beck. We’ll make this happen.”
“Really? Thank you, Everett, thank you so much.”
“I need to meet her. Bring her to the studio. Publicly. We’ll arrange for some paparazzi to snap some photos of the two of you going in.”
“Wait, what?” I blink, the lack of sleep and sudden change in attitude from Everett give me whiplash. “That seems super serious.”
My head moves on a swivel, glancing at Leo and Eli.
“That sounds super serious, right?”
“Serious is the point. At least the image of it.” Everett nods. “You don’t actually have to show her any of your music if you don’t want to. But if we’re doing this, we need to actually do this in a way that will still protect you, Beck.”
“So making him seem super off the market has a similar effect to him having the image of not being on the market at all?” Leo asks.
“Exactly,” Everett answers.
“I don’t like this,” Eli mutters.
“You don’t have to,” I huff. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but this is happening.”
The courage to look him in the eye has to be dragged up from the very depths of my gut. When I do meet his gaze, I’m struck by the elegant curve of his thick, dark lashes and the subtle change in his expression that I’m pretty sure only I can read.
He’s hurt.
God dammit, we seriously do have to talk.
You’d think we’d talk to each other more about this sort of thing, considering we’ve been best friends since we were kids. But maybe it’s because we’ve seen each other grow up that we don’t talk about shit.
I can’t help but feel like Eli knows too much, he’s seen too much, knows too many of the past versions of myself I’d prefer to stay dead and buried. I know it’s the same with him.
“We’ll talk about this later,” I say, my hand clenching into a fist on my lap to prevent myself from reaching over and grabbing his. The six inches between our two chairs feels like the Grand fucking Canyon.
Eli just offers me a shrug.
My eyes fall shut before I grab my sunglasses and shove them back onto my face.
I have no hope of actually hiding my feelings—my disappointment and frustration and desperation to figure out how to make things go back to normal between us—because of my scent.
But I need as many barriers between the people around me and my heart right now.
“I think I could probably get her number from her team,” Leo says, flicking a business card onto the table in front of Everett.
“How’d you get that?”
“The PR manager gave me his card after you said maybe,” he shrugs. “Thought it could come in handy.”
“Let me call legal and have them start drafting up contracts,” Everett nods.
“I want to be the one to tell her,” I cut in.
“I mean, her mom’s team is probably going to be the one to tell her—” Leo’s head is tilted as he watches me.
“No,” I say, interrupting Leo. “I want to be the one to tell her. Write that into the first contract or something if you have to. Get me her number. I’ll do it.”
She asked me. So I want to be the one to give her my answer.
“I’ll try to get her number for you before we tell her mom’s team that we agree,” Leo nods.
“Thanks, man.”
For the first time since Andi, bloody and bruised, collapsed into my arms, I relax. It’s like all the stabilizing muscles in my torso lose their ability to hold me up and I slump down into the leather chair behind me.
“You have a big heart, Beck,” Everett says, his eyes going soft as he looks at me.
“You say that like that’s a bad thing.”
“Bad? No. But a big heart means more opportunity for you to get hurt.”
“Who gives a shit? I’ll just write you the best album you’ve ever heard if that happens,” I shrug, my fingers drumming anxiously against my legs.
Everett throws his head back in laughter. “I’m going to hold you to that.”