Page 17 of Painted

As far as he knew, Early still hadn’t gone home, or even had contact with their parents. For the last few days, they’d worn clothes that Rebecca had told him had come from the clothes room upstairs. Rhys liked that, too, for some reason. He’d always felt like Early’s own clothes weren’t right for them. They were too conservative and respectable for the person he knew Early to be.

Not that he’d really known Early before, as he was beginning to discover. Living with someone really helped you to get to know them.

Rhys cleared his throat as he filled the kettle, then set it on its stand to boil. He couldn’t really say that he and Early were living together. Not like that. Not at all.

Though he couldn’t deny a part of him fancied the idea of Early being a real fixture in his life. Not sleeping on the couch. As nice as it was to wake Early up every morning, it would be even nicer to sleep with them in his arms each?—

“What the bloody hell are you thinking?” he muttered to himself as he fetched milk from the fridge for cereal. “You can’t go there.”

He brought the milk to the table and set it down with a thunk just as the shower started running in the bathroom. He glanced toward the bathroom door with a frown, not for Early, but for himself.

Life wasn’t a game that you could play with abandon, making choices that would hurt people if things went wrong. He could be their champion and protector, but he had a responsibilityto guide Early to make the right decisions. That didn’t involve indulging in the impossible with a man more than ten years older than him. Not while they were so confused about who they were.

“Oh, stop being such an old fuddy-duddy,” Raina’s voice seemed to shoot at him from somewhere beyond. “You fancy them, they fancy you, both of you are adults. What could be the harm in letting them explore with you instead of just around you?”

Rhys’s frown darkened into a scowl as he fetched boxes of cereal from the cupboard and plunked them on the table as well, just before the kettle clicked off. He returned to the counter to make his tea.

The harm was if things went wrong and Early ended up damaged or hating him. It would be awkward for everyone. They might even quit if any sort of fling turned into a major disaster.

“And if it didn’t?” Raina’s voice pestered him. “What if it worked and you two are right for each other?”

If it worked and they fell in love and were happy, some other fool who had had one too many might come careening out of nowhere and take Early away from him, too.

“Bloody fuck,” Rhys growled, furious with himself for opening that door of vulnerability inside him and letting that thought creep out. It wasn’t rational. It wasn’t reasonable or likely. It was just another trauma response because of that night, because of the way Raina had looked at him for just a moment before dying in Nick’s arms by the side of the road. Because he should have been the one behind the wheel.

He huffed at himself and slumped into a seat at the table as the shower went off. Residual grief and the ways it messed people up were understandable, but he was tired of feeling every negative emotion known to man. He wanted to get on with hislife, focus on his art, get the damn landscape painting to work so his life would make sense again.

He was too restless to just sit there and let everything get the better of him. Without bothering with the cereal, he took his cup of tea and stood.

“Hey, I’m going to head down to the studio to try to get some work done before classes this morning,” he called through the bathroom door.

“Oh, okay,” Early’s uncertain voice called back, followed by a bit of thumping, like they were stumbling around in there.

“Cereal is on the table and the water in the kettle is hot,” he called out as he turned to go. “Don’t forget to put the milk away.”

“Don’t forget you have that meeting about the fundraiser at nine,” Early reminded him as he started to walk away.

Rhys hissed out a breath. “Shit,” he muttered, then called back, “Thanks. I won’t.”

He wished he could forget. As he left his flat and made his way down to the ground floor, he called his parents every name he could think of for doing something as callous as bringing the brother of the woman who was responsible for Raina’s death into their house, let alone actually planning a party with him.

It wasn’t fair, though. His attitude about the fundraiser completely wasn’t fair and he knew it. Rationally, he could see the benefit in something like a fundraiser for CADD. He could see how working with Martin Flint would be cathartic for his parents, maybe for the rest of the family, too.

But not for him. Raina was gone because Flint’s sister got behind the wheel when she absolutely should have known better, and she’d taken a piece of his soul with her.

He knew that painting wasn’t going to happen that morning, regardless of the stretch of time he had to sit and work. Instead of heading to his studio, he left his half-empty teacup in theoffice just as Rebecca opened it up for the day, then headed outside for a walk.

The grounds of Hawthorne House were one of the best things about the estate. Ever since the deal had been signed with Silver Productions to film outdoor scenes at various spots around the grounds, a lot of effort had gone into landscaping and making certain the estate’s natural beauty shone through. Even though it was well into autumn and things weren’t as green as they were in the summer, Hawthorne House’s gardens were on point.

Rhys walked around to his and Raina’s favorite bit of the garden, which was right under the windows to his and a few other studios. It had once been the private garden of the third or fourth Countess of Felcourt, he couldn’t remember which. The reason he and Raina had liked it so much was because of the old stone bench tucked into a secluded nook that sat on just enough of a rise that it provided the perfect view of the rolling hills beyond.

He had a seat, resting his back against the wall of the house, and closed his eyes. If he could just stop the world from moving on too fast and moving away from that blip of time when everyone was still there and his family was still whole, he would absolutely do it, whatever sacrifice it took.

Except then you’d have to go back to a time before Early was in your life.

Rhys sucked in a breath and let it out on a growl, then opened his eyes and stared out at the overcast morning. There were always decisions, always pluses and minuses. The only constant was change.

That didn’t mean he had to like it.

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