Page 65 of They Break Beauty

They didn’t know him like I did.

He was just so tormented, in so much pain, and that was how he handled it, by becoming that.

But Lev had a good heart. He did care. A lot.

It was just really fucking sad that Mason couldn’t see it anymore like I still could in him.

His fear of losing control and losing grip on controlling Lev warped so much for him.

I took note of some hardware—wires, connectors, some sort of battery thingy—and went to pick it up to get a closer look.

A sharp slap to the back of my hand had me jerking back. “Ow!”

“I told you, no touching.”

My lips quirked. “Come on, you know how much I like to touch.”

He patted my cheek. “Tone it down, cupcake. I’m already worked up. Not a good idea to throw any kind of provocation my way right now.”

He moved away from me and settled behind his bench, fiddling with some tools I had no clue about as he worked on the connectors and a battery-type of thing.

When it came to my music, I was king. But this sort of stuff, the technical know-how it required—a different kind to my field of interest—it was way beyond me.

“I’ve told you many a time that I can teach you if you give it a chance,” he said, catching me looking on curiously.

“My focus, Lev. It wouldn’t be possible.”

“You’ve done it with your music, with the band.”

“In my better moments, yeah.”

“Nah, more than you realize. I’ve seen you doing it with that duet, your persistence with it, with trying to get it done, the fact you were able to put it together so quickly.”

“I put it together in one of my obsessive, determined modes.”

“Yet, you’re still pursuing it.” He looked up at me, pausing what he was doing. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” He shook his head to himself. “Not surprising when you’re going up against Mason’s intensely controlled and anally streamlined bullshit. Nobody can match that. For the record, not even him.”

I shoved my hand through my mohawk. “Look, I know you’re upset—”

“Don’t defend him to me, Colt.”

“That’s not why I came in here.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

I held up my hand. “Just hear me out before you fly off the handle.”

“Not flying off the handle, working,” he said, focusing on putting together… whatever that hardware in front of him was.

“All right, good,” I said, dropping my hand and leaning against the workbench on the opposite side to him. “Because I think you should just put it out there… whatever your true interest is in Brianna.”

“Hmm, so you’re not defending him, but you’re advocating for me to give him exactly what he wants?” he spoke in that deceptively calm tone of his that really meant there was bubbling anger just beneath the surface, ready to unleash in a full-on tidal wave at any second.

“You’re looking at it the wrong way. The stubborn way—which is something both of you have in common, by the way. This is best for both of you.”

“Cupcake, I get that you’re not normally the strategist amongst us, but this is another level.”

“It’s not. Listen, Lev.”

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