Chapter 82
Rhys woke to the feel of a mouth on his cock and hands roving over his stomach. “Talk about breakfast in bed,” he said.
Mel lifted their head and laughed. They went right back down on him. Alfie slid his mouth up over Rhys’s chest, licking one nipple before closing his teeth over his collarbone. Rhys arched up into the touch even as Alfie’s tongue soothed the bite.
They both drove him out of his mind before finally taking him apart. As he came back down, Mel curled up on one side of him, head on his shoulder. Alfie slipped in behind him, arms around his waist. He thought they would drift to sleep that way.
He still floated there when Mel disentangled from him. Rhys let out a little groan, but they kissed his shoulder. “Not going far,” they said. “I will be back.”
Alfie nuzzled at his throat, but his words weren’t at all sexy. “We need to head over to the clubhouse soon.”
He’d enjoyed the easy start to the morning, even more the fact Alfie’s arms were wrapped around him. They couldn’t stay like this forever.
He groaned and stretched. And caught Alfie watching him with a gleam in his eyes.
He wanted to lie there and soak it in. He also didn’t want to cause them to be late for practice.
Turner would not appreciate that. If he wanted to prove the team was right for not sending him away, he couldn’t be doing that.
You don’t have to keep proving your worth.
Yeah, he doubted that was true.
Mel came back out of the bathroom as he pulled on his jeans. They gave him the same look Alfie had, and he couldn’t help but groan. “The two of you are hell on my willpower.”
Mel stepped over to him, putting a hand to the back of his neck before tugging his head down for a long kiss. “I’ll go start coffee and throw something together to eat.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I know,” they said. “I want to. Let me take care of you, Rhys.”
“Pretty sure you already did that this morning.”
Mel gave him another kiss. They disappeared into the kitchen.
Alfie brushed by him as he reached for his own jeans, pulling them on in silence.
It wasn’t like the other morning afters.
Alfie didn’t act like he couldn’t wait to get out of there.
He set a hand on Rhys’s back as they walked out of the bedroom together.
Like when he’d woken up with him the other morning.
This couldn’t last forever, could it? Rhys would really have to take advantage before it all ended.
Mel slid plates of scrambled eggs and toast in front of both of them and poured cups of coffee before joining them. Rhys’s hand found theirs as they ate, and Alfie’s arm brushed against his side. It all felt so good, so damn right.
Why did he feel like a wrecking ball was about to crash down on him? He shoved that thought away as he gathered up the plates and dumped them in the sink when the three of them finished.
“We don’t have a car here,” Rhys said, the realization just hitting him.
“Mine is still at the bar,” Alfie said.
Rhys had ridden there with Alfie, then they’d come here in the rideshare with Mel.
“I’m heading over to the center,” Mel said. “I could drop you at the clubhouse on the way there. Unless you need something from your apartments?”
“We really don’t.” he glanced at Alfie, “I can take you to get your car after the game. Unless you want it before that.”
Alfie shook his head. “That will be fine.”
Rhys opened the door and stepped outside, blinking against the glare of the sun.
He was distracted by Alfie stepping out beside him, leaning in so their faces were so close together.
Rhys was sure Alfie was going to kiss him.
Mel was right there, leaning in as well.
Their presence overwhelmed his senses, making him feel almost giddy.
A flash from the other side of the street pulled them apart. Mel stepped back, looking up at him, and the camera went off again.
“God damn it.” Rhys moved Mel behind him. Too late though. It was all too damn late.
He strode across the street before the spots cleared from his eyes. “What the hell blog are you from?”
“Careful, Rhys,” Craig said. “That temper of yours always has gotten you in trouble.”
“What the hell are you doing here? I’ve already told you to leave me alone. You really are following me now?”
“Don’t think so highly of yourself. You aren’t that hard to find.”
He wasn’t trying to be. “Why don’t you just go home? I told you I can’t help.”
“Mom’s sick. The least you could do is help a little. That’s what family is supposed to do.”
Rhys flinched. “The Lowrys were never my family.”
“That’s bullshit.” Craig took a step toward him. “They took you in. Gave you shelter, tried to keep you on the right path, even though you were determined to remain a degenerate.” His gaze moved past Rhys. “Obviously that hasn’t changed.”
“That’s not a family.” His voice sounded distant, as if he was suddenly surrounded by a cloud. “They didn’t care what happened to me. They washed their hands of me.”
“They should have let me keep pounding on you until it knocked this sickness out of you.”
Rhys had always known Craig would have kept hitting him until he died if he’d had his way. “I was fifteen.” He still felt detached from his voice. “I didn’t deserve that.”
“You deserved a lot more than that. Mom deserves more from you. Dad died last year. Now she’s dying. I’m not losing the last member of my family just because you can’t see beyond yourself.”
“I spent three years in a group home because they said I was troubled, when all I did was kiss a boy. I don’t owe them, or you, anything.
” He wished he could put more force into his voice.
Instead, he was back to feeling like that too scrawny, too sensitive, too everything, kid he’d been.
“If you’re still so close to her, why don’t you take care of it? ”
“Because I’m not the big shot baseball player,” Craig shot back at him. “I don’t have that kind of money.” He held up the camera. “I will when I sell these photos to a tabloid. And the ones I took when you got here last night. Still so depraved, Rhys.”
The clouds cleared a bit. “You have to be kidding,” Rhys said.
Craig shook the camera. “Does this look like I’m kidding? Everyone’s going to know how depraved—”
“Yeah, yeah. You already used that word. Come up with another one if you want it to be effective. You’ve ground me down enough.
I live in a one-bedroom apartment. You think I make the big bucks?
You might want to look into the difference between the minors and major league before you come up with some blackmail scheme.
All I was doing was leaving a friend’s house.
” He nearly winced at referring to Mel that way, but it’s not like they’d labeled whatever it was they were.
Especially with adding Alfie to the mix.
“I don’t know what you think you have on me. ”
“That’s not what it’s going to look like with two people coming out with you. Friends, right.” His face twisted. “Can’t you ever be satisfied with anything? You just have to take more.”
Alfie came up behind him, putting a hand on Rhys’s back and leaning close. He could feel Mel there, too, right beside him. Craig’s face twisted even more. “Daniel and Katherine would be disappointed in you.”
“That’s not the insult you think it is.” Rhys soaked in the touch from both his lovers, knowing he would lose it soon. Especially when they realized what Rhys had gotten them into. “Considering they couldn’t pray hard enough to make me straight again.”
“I don’t even know why I bothered coming to you first. You always have been worthless.”
Rhys kept his legs locked in place as Craig walked away. When it was just the three of them, he felt his knees give way. Alfie put a steadying hand on Rhys’s shoulder.
“Who was that asshole?” Mel asked.
Rhys’s throat was too dry to answer. Still, he could hear Alfie and Mel speaking around him. “Foster brother. He won’t leave Rhys alone.”
“What did he want?”
Rhys needed to tell them, but he couldn’t get his voice to work.
You always have been worthless. Worthless. Worthless.
He barely felt himself walking to Mel’s car, but he buckled up by rote and turned to stare out the window.
What the hell was he supposed to do now?