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I watched him while I ate. Bett dropped down on his bed, then stood back up immediately and paced. He sat on his desk chair, took a sip from his water bottle and gagged, then moved to the bed again.

He did this circuit twice before his phone buzzed, and the sound made him jump two feet in the air. But instead of checking it, he pulled it from his pocket and chucked it in the back of his closet before sitting on his bed again and crossing his arms in front of his chest. “So, uh, how was… work?”

I continued to fork the food into my mouth because I was starving, but didn’t take my eyes off him. “Good. Finished up a fork seal job on a Ducati. Guy rode the damned thing till it was basically bleeding out. Oil everywhere. Had to strip the whole front end, replace the seals, flush it, put it back together.”

“Oh? What kind of car was it?”

“A bike,” I corrected with a frown. Even Bett knew that Ducatis were motorcycles. “A Panigale. Expensive as hell, but owned by some rich guy from Atlanta who doesn’t know better. Could have avoided all of it if he’d just brought it in to his local guy sooner.”

“Better for you that he didn’t, though, right?” His eyes rested on the spot on the wall while his chest heaved up and down at a too-slow pace, like he was trying to regulate his breathing and failing.

I nodded. “You gonna tell me what’s going on, or are we going to give the fat elephant sitting on your chest a name?”

Bett’s face started to crumple, though he was fighting so hard to keep from losing it. “I just… no. I…” He pursed his lips and carefully blew out a breath. “I hate my father,” he said in a low voice. “Like, so much it’s…” He swallowed and shook his head. “Can we just not… not talk about it right now?”

I wanted to push, wanted to ask him what exactly had happened today to make him so upset now. It wasn’t like the thing with his father was news. We’d already talked about what a manipulative asshole the guy was.

But Bett was asking me to let him set it aside. And I got the feeling that if I pushed, he might actually break.

“Yeah. Okay,” I said. “We can do that.”

His eyes flicked to me in surprise. “Yeah?”

I smiled at him and nodded. “Yeah.”

His shoulders dropped several inches. I hadn’t even realized how much tension was coiled in his body until he let some of it go.

“Maybe we could… watch a movie or something?” he asked.

I opened my mouth to make fun of him, to make a joke about how, if we were going to avoid talking about serious things, I could think of much better ways to get him out of his head. But I stopped myself.

Bett seemed like he was barely holding it together, and the last thing I wanted was to watch him break apart.

“Yeah, baby. Let’s watch a movie.”

He sniffed and nodded. Then he started pulling off his rumpled game-day suit without a single charged moment of sexual teasing.

I watched him anyway, enjoying the show and studying him for any more clues about what had happened today.

“I promised you a reward if you played well today,” I said, trying to feel him out to see if he just needed to relax first or if he needed me to keep my hands off him all night.

The edge of his lips quirked up as he hung his pants and jacket back in the closet. “I’ll hold you to it, too,” he said. “But maybe the movie is my way of paying you back for all the edging.”

“Ahh,” I said with a grin. “Gonna make me wait for it, is that it?”

He stripped down to his boxer briefs and then pulled a pair of basketball shorts over them before swapping his plain white undershirt for an old Harley T-shirt stacked on a shelf in my closet.

It was big on him—hell, it was big on me, too, after so many years of being stretched out and washed—and the sight of him in it made my dick hard.

I finished my meal and tossed out the takeout container before pulling off my jeans so I was left in only a T-shirt and boxer briefs, too. Then I tilted my head toward my bed. “C’mon, princess. There’s an action movie I’ve been wanting to watch.”

I climbed into bed and pulled out my laptop as Bett moved around the room, turning off all the lights except the tiny lamp on his bedside table. He grabbed his water bottle and placed it next to mine on my bedside table before climbing in next to me and snuggling into my chest.

I propped the laptop on the bedside table and then maneuvered him around until I was spooning him with his head resting on my biceps. Bett reached down, grabbed my hand, and held it to his chest, threading his fingers through mine. His grip was a little tight for comfort, but I got the feeling he needed it. That I was something he could dare hold on to while his world was bumping over uneven pavement.

As the opening credits ended and the main part of the movie began, I felt him begin to relax even further. The edge of my thumb made small arcs across his breastbone until I noticed the rhythmic breathing of sleep.

Eventually, he turned completely around and burrowed face-first into my chest, wrapping his arms around me in a kind of hug and holding on for dear life.