“You fucker.”
It was like the old days. Only Carter wasn’t handicapped by bullet wounds anymore and Beckett hadn’t slept in three days.
“You’re such an idiot,” Carter said conversationally as they sparred back and forth. “You’re in love with this girl and you put her on a god damn platter for someone else.”
“I thought it was for the best,” Beckett grunted, driving his fist into Carter’s face.
Carter shook off the blow. “Like I said. An idiot.”
They sweated out another fast exchange of fists with Carter finally dancing out of his reach.
“It’s my business,” Beckett wheezed. It was his business that he’d colossally fucked up and now it was up to him to fix it.
“So what are you going to do?” Carter’s fist flew into his line of vision, glancing off his jaw.
Beckett stumbled back a step. “I’m gonna fight.”
He didn’t go down in a blaze of glory. It was more like a soupy splatter on the mat. But damned if he didn’t go down swinging. And smiling.
Jax crawled back in with water and more towels and the three men lay on their backs staring up at the fluorescent lights.
“Feel better?” Carter asked, his breath coming fast and shallow.
Beckett swiped blood off his forehead with the towel. He did. He really did.
A good fight was exactly the primer he needed for an even bigger fight. Gianna didn’t belong with Paul, she belonged with him. She deserved more than what that skinny “hey man” musician could give and he was going to see that she got it.
“Ever think about patenting this as some kind of therapy?” he asked.
If one more stupid person mentioned Beckett Pierce’s name to her without attaching the words “is an asshole” she was going to give up on her heavy bag and just start decking people in town, Gia decided.
Blue Moon was obviously Team Beckett.
Ever since the breakup she’d heard nothing but “I’m so sorry to hear about you and Beckett. He’s such an amazing blah blah blah.”
After some kind of login glitch with the gossip group, she was granted access again only to read the brief, terse post on Facebook about their breakup. It was the only mention of them before the group had started singing Beckett’s praises.
She thought this town had been rooting for them. But she’d been wrong.
For Throwback Thursday, someone had posted a picture of Beckett rescuing a kitten from a porch roof. Another Mooner had posted video of Beckett’s speech at the women in enterprise luncheon.
Oh, and she didn’t want to forget to talk about how “great” it was to see Beckett treating Paul and Aurora to dinner at Peace of Pizza. Gia didn’t even want to know how that came about. Beckett was probably offering to officiate their second wedding.
She knew he was Blue Moon’s fearless leader and all, but didn’t anyone care that the man had just given up and walked away from their relationship on a stupid misunderstanding?
Team Gia was feeling very lonely. And excessively angry. Between the “yay Beckett” from the entire town and the fact that Paul was driving her insane at home, she was afraid she was going to develop a rage problem. Especially since she wasn’t about to give Beckett the satisfaction of seeing her head to the shed to beat out some problems.
Not that he was looking in the backyard. He’d made it clear he was done. Done with her and done with them. Just making way for Paul.
The thought that she would take Paul back was laughable. To both her and Paul. The entire reason for his visit was to sign the guardianship papers, which they had done with Ellery in Gia’s kitchen two days ago. Beckett clearly had no interest in helping with the process anymore. And now Paul was just killing time before his new gig started in Brooklyn.
Every time his phone rang, Gia prayed it was the band telling him the timeline moved up. She didn’t want to cheat the kids out of time with their father, but she also didn’t want to murder him in front of them. She was spending every spare moment of the day with Summer on the magazine just to avoid being around Paul or in Beckett’s backyard.
As Thrive took shape online, Gia felt like everything else was spinning out of control. Her only safe place was the desk in Summer’s office.
Things with Paul were exactly the same as when they split up. Gia cooked, cleaned, and worked. He brokered deals and played video games and told everyone exciting stories about life on the road.
Between her rage at Beckett and Paul’s all-night first person shooter video game marathons on the couch outside her bedroom, she wasn’t sleeping well. And an unrested Gia was an even more distracted one.
Evan went to school with no socks today because she hadn’t switched the laundry over to the dryer. The glue sticks she’d promised Aurora’s art teacher were still at the store because she forgot to buy them. Again.