Home and Away (3 page)

Callum barely bit back an offer to spank Rupert. Probably not appropriate right now. Or ever.

“Never let them see your fear.”

Rupert stood straighter, his suit forgotten. “What?”

“Look, it’s none of my fucking business why, but you’re a really skittish dude and it’s totally fucking obvious. Which is…”
Ridiculous. Bizarre
. “…not really ideal around a bunch of guys like that.”
Or hockey players, for that matter.

“I am not
skittish
,” Rupert said, his pride obviously stung in spite of it being the plain fucking truth.

Callum arched an eyebrow and took one quick step in Rupert’s direction.

Rupert jumped back and almost lost his balance in those stupid shoes. Jesus Christ, how did he not know to wear work boots on a construction site? It was a miracle he hadn’t stepped on a nail and given himself tetanus. Yet.

Rupert glared. “You are an insufferable bastard.”

“Well, you’re going to have to find a way to suffer me, because I’m not going anywhere. And while you’re working on that, how about you explain to me how the hell you ended up here, doing
this
job? Because it doesn’t seem to suit you at all.”

Rupert drew himself up to his full height, which left him at eye level with Callum. “I’m very good at my job, thank you very much, and it suits me perfectly. Moreover, I don’t need your approval to do it.”

“Uh, yeah. You do. I own this team.”

“You own one quarter of this team. I assure you, Reese and Garrick understand fully what I bring to this position. Perhaps not all of us are blessed with a burning desire to beat the piss out of other people for fun or money, but that doesn’t mean I can’t manage this team as well or better than anyone else ever has or could.”

The hell of it was, Callum agreed. Management took brains, not brawn, and Rupert had plenty of those. Getting some
balls
sure wouldn’t hurt, though.

Callum was saved from having to come up with something appropriate to say, let alone something that wouldn’t get Rupert’s panties in an even tighter twist, by Jack jogging around the corner. He immediately went to Rupert and put a hand on his arm.

No flinch. In fact, Rupert didn’t seem to mind in the least.
Fucking figures
.

“You okay?”

“Yes, thank you,” Rupert said, prim once again. “Your timing is appreciated.”

“I’m sorry we didn’t get here sooner.”

“It’s quite all right, Jack. I’m fine.”

Jack didn’t look like he believed it, but, being a far more diplomatic person than Callum, refrained from making any comment.

Rupert smiled grimly. “In any case, I think this has proven that my talents are better employed elsewhere. Going forward, I will leave overseeing the construction to the two of you.”

Callum’s brain stuttered. “Uh, what?”

“Normally, Garrick would have done the walk-through with Jack, and then run the meeting this afternoon. I’ll jump in today so you don’t screw up the whole project, but I won’t be available for tomorrow morning’s conference call. Nor Thursday’s team meeting. Think you can handle it?”

Callum glanced at Jack, alarmed to find him staring at Rupert like he was out of his mind. Callum almost laughed. He really had to admire Rupert’s willingness to go right for the throat. Maybe the guy had some balls after all. But if he thought Callum would run back to Denver with his tail between his legs, he was going to be sorely disappointed.

Callum had Jack. He’d have Garrick to call for help once he arrived in Boston. And he’d be damned if he was going to let Rupert Smythe beat him.

Smiling serenely, he shrugged, as if having a multi-million dollar construction project dumped in his lap was no big deal. “Sure, duchess, I can handle it.”

Jack made a strange choking sound.

Rupert’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “
Really?
”

“Really.” Callum made sure his grin was of the shit-eating variety.

Rupert appeared, for fucking once, to be speechless. He spun and stalked off toward his office.

Callum swallowed back another parting shot and silently mouthed
bitch
at Rupert’s back instead, because he was a grown up.

Within a week of Callum’s arrival, Rupert was going out of his mind. By the end of week two, he was just about to lose his shit.

First there was the draft and preparing for the coming season—a ton of work in the best of circumstances, and with the players they’d lost this year and the changes in management, it was nowhere near the best of anything.

Then there was all the extra time he spent babysitting Callum Fucking Golden Boy Morrison, which would be a monumental pain in the arse if Rupert could do it out in the open. But, no. He had to sneak around when Callum wasn’t looking, just so he could reassure himself the stubborn jerk wasn’t fucking things up.

And don’t even get Rupert started on the
duchess
bullshit.

At this point, Rupert wouldn’t blame Jack if he up and quit on them. Callum was Jack’s constant shadow during the day, so Rupert had taken to pestering Jack in the evenings for an update when Callum wasn’t around. When Rupert had stopped by Jack’s apartment at ten o’clock last night, Jack had suggested that if Rupert expected them to spend their nights together, he ought to put a ring on it.

Jack had been joking, obviously, but Rupert had gotten flustered, and Jack had taken one look at his face and cracked up. Rupert wasn’t even certain Jack was gay. Or if Jack knew Rupert was gay. Or, well, whatever. The point was, he and Jack were spending a lot of time together.

Rupert was perfectly aware he was being a control freak. He hadn’t been all over Garrick like this when he’d been in charge of the construction, but Garrick had proven to be an adept businessman and leader. Rupert had no reason to believe that Callum was either of those things.

Except he sort of was.

Within days of his arrival, Callum had charmed everyone at the offices and the arena. Workers, staff, management. Hell, Callum practically had Sheila, the battle-axe who ran the box office and who scared the pants off Rupert, eating out of the palm of his hand. And it wasn’t just her. Rupert had been stunned the first time he’d come out of his office to find a grinning Callum surrounded by half of Rupert’s team, everyone listening raptly as he recounted some practical joke they’d pulled in the Olympic Village.

Until that moment, Rupert hadn’t realized Callum knew how to smile, let alone how it lit up his eyes, framing them with a fan of little lines that absolutely should not have been as attractive as they were.

Callum’s successes weren’t just limited to his people skills, which he remained wholly incapable of employing when Rupert was involved. It was the work he’d accomplished, too. Jack had clearly helped a lot for the first few days, but then Callum had figured out which end was up and slid into the leadership role with an ease that would be admirable, if Rupert were willing to admire anything about Callum Morrison. Which he wasn’t.

So he kept checking on Callum, waiting for him to screw up, and running himself into the ground in the process. He was so out of sorts, he arrived at Jack’s doorstep that night without having warned Jack he was on his way. Marvelous. Rupert was now rude, in addition to a pain in the arse.

This was also Callum’s fault, Rupert decided as he hesitated outside Jack’s door. He supposed the worst Jack could do was tell him to fuck off. Or not be home at all.

The door swung open before Rupert even knocked.

Callum
. And he didn’t seem the least bit surprised to find Rupert loitering on Jack’s doorstep.

“Hello, Rupert.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Visiting with a friend,” he said mildly. “And you?”

Rupert scrambled to come up with an explanation for stopping by Jack’s home at night. There weren’t a lot of believable options that would leave his dignity intact, and Rupert had lost all capacity for bullshit anyway.

“I’m here to check up on you. As I do most evenings,” he announced.

Callum smiled and opened the door wider. “Well, alrighty, then. Come on in.”

Jack greeted him kindly and offered him a drink, as he always did. Rupert normally declined, but somehow he knew Callum expected him to, so for the first time, he accepted a beer.

He tried to relax, to shake off some of the tension from his day, but it was impossible with Callum watching him with one eyebrow lifted in sardonic judgment.

Rupert threw back almost half the bottle on the first go. Unwise, but needed.

“You all right, Rupert?” Jack asked.

Rupert’s face heated, and he hoped they could pretend it was the alcohol and not his embarrassment at feeling so damn frayed at the edges. He liked control. Order. He had lists and he worked his way through them and things got done and that was good.

But this job, the draft, the way his blood pressure soared whenever he found himself surrounded by hockey players or construction workers—which was all the damn time—was taking a toll. And that wasn’t even the
worst
of the shit in his life right now.

His phone rang and he frowned at the screen, discovering it was indeed possible for this day to get even more stressful.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Jack. “I have to take this.”

Jack shrugged and waved him toward the living room. “Go ahead. This can wait.”

This
being tonight’s pile of paperwork for review. Lovely.

Rupert answered his phone, grateful when Nick dispensed with the niceties and got right to the point.

More bad news. Rupert told himself to listen and breathe and sit calmly on the couch, but soon he was leaping to his feet and shouting into his phone. “What do you mean you found Lydia but not Oliver?”

“I’m sorry, Rupert. She’s in Monaco, but she didn’t bring Oliver with her.”

“But he’s only four years old,” he said uselessly. He caught a movement out of the corner of his eye and turned his back to the door. “You said he isn’t with Lydia’s parents. That she hasn’t spoken to them in years. Does she have any other family?”

“Not that I’ve been able to find, no.”

Rupert rubbed his forehead and reminded himself, not for the first time since this ordeal had begun, that panicking wouldn’t help.

Fuck
.

“I can approach her, if you like,” Nick offered.

“Do you think you can do it without tipping our hand?” Rupert would do anything to find Oliver, but he feared letting that gold-digging, conniving bitch know Rupert was onto her would hurt more than help.

“I can try. I don’t exactly have access to the same parties she does. She’s running with a pretty wild crowd, but an exclusive one.”

Rupert’s stomach churned, fearing what that might mean for Oliver. “Okay. Keep me posted.”

“Will do. I’ve still got a guy in London, working on a lead there. If she didn’t bring Oliver along on her party tour, then my guess is he’s somewhere closer to home—and the source of the money.”

By which Nick meant Rupert’s bank. Until he knew Oliver was safe, he couldn’t cut the bitch off.

He sighed. “Contact me the minute you learn anything.”

“Of course.”

Rupert hung up and pressed his phone to his forehead. Hard. He had to keep it together. He would not embarrass himself in front of Jack and Callum.

But what if something had happened? What if Oliver was sick, or hurt…

His head snapped up when a hand touched his elbow.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Callum said gently, nudging him toward the couch and handing him the beer he’d left in the other room.

Rupert studied Callum suspiciously. “Don’t be nice. It’s freaking me out.”

Callum rolled his eyes. “Take it easy, duchess. I promise not to make a habit of it.”

Rupert almost smiled, reassured that there was still order in the universe. Still some things he could count on. Callum Morrison being an arsehole was one of them.

Callum watched Rupert collapse onto Jack’s couch and melt into the cushions, all the starch gone out of him. It was, frankly, alarming.

This wasn’t Rupert. Rupert was stiff upper lips and crisp accents. Callum was sure Rupert had never worn clothes that weren’t tailored exactly to his trim body, left the house with a single silky hair out of place, or chugged half a beer—from the bottle, no less—in his life.

It was only mildly reassuring that the hair and clothes were still just as they should be. The rest of Rupert very clearly wasn’t.

Callum perched on the other end of the sofa, putting as much space between them as possible, even folding his hands non-threateningly in his lap. Jack slid into the arm chair on the other side of the coffee table.

Rupert eyed them both warily.

“What’s going on?” Callum asked, trying to sound neutral.

“Nothing,” Rupert said before taking another slug of beer.

“Who were you just talking to?”

“It’s nothing you need to be concerned with,” Rupert snapped.

“Could you please stop being so fucking uptight for ten seconds? I’m trying to be nice.”

Rupert huffed out a laugh and took another gulp of beer.

Callum took a deep breath and tried again. “I apologize.”

Rupert’s eyes widened comically, obviously mocking him.

“Did something happen at the arena today?” Callum continued, determined not to rise to the bait. He wasn’t really worried about the team. Sometime in the past week, he’d accepted he would never worry about the team with Rupert in charge—a fact that irritated him to no end.

“No, everything is fine.”

“You get that we know you’re lying, right?” Callum asked.

Rupert grimaced, then turned to Jack. “How was your day?”

Jack smiled pleasantly. “If you mean did Callum and I break anything, piss anyone off, or force anything off schedule, then no, and our day was fine, thank you.”

Twin spots of color bloomed high on Rupert’s cheekbones. He smiled was rueful. “I’ve been a bit controlling, haven’t I?”

Jack held his smile, arched a brow, and remained diplomatically silent.

“Yes, well,” Rupert continued, adorably prim as he sat up. “I should go, then.”

“Wait,” Callum blurted, trying to come up with a reason for Rupert to stay. To trust them. He kept hearing how gutted Rupert had sounded when he’d said
but he’s only four years old.

Jack bailed Callum out. “Finish your beer, at least. You do look like you could use it.”

Rupert sat back and closed his eyes. “Okay. Thank you.”

Callum took the rare opportunity to study Rupert. What should have been milk-pale skin under his eyes looked bruised. His normally plush pink lips were pressed in a tight white line.

“You look stressed,” Callum observed, then held up a hand to ward off Rupert’s glare. “I just want to know if there is anything I can do, okay? Don’t go all
duchess
on me.”

Because saying shit like that was definitely going to help. Sometimes Callum wanted to punch himself in the face.

“There is nothing you can do,” Rupert said, resigned, then appeared to change his mind. “Actually, I may need to go out of town at some point. To London. So, yes,” he conceded, “I take it back. I may need your help.”

It obviously killed Rupert to admit it. Callum decided to be an adult and not point out Rupert was still being super pissy.

“Garrick, Jack, and I can cover whatever you need,” Callum said with more confidence than he felt. Rupert was covering all the player trade negotiations
and
the logistics for next season. Callum had no fucking idea how to do that, but whatever, he’d figure it out. “Will you be gone long?”

Rupert sighed and ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I don’t even know if I’m going. I’ve—well, if you must know, I’ve lost my brother.”

Callum’s heart stopped and he sent Jack a helpless look.

“Lost?” Jack asked carefully.

“Oh, no!” Rupert said, bolting upright, clearly horrified. “Not that. Not dead. Dear god, no.” If Rupert got any paler, he’d be transparent. “Oliver, my brother—well, half-brother technically—is just four years old, and his mother appears to have left him behind while she parties her way across Europe. But I don’t know where he is. Or who is looking after him. And I haven’t been able to reach him—or his mother—for months.”

Callum recalled Rupert missing a handful of meetings. “Weren’t you over there a few weeks ago?”

“Yes. The investigator I’ve hired thought he had a solid lead, but it turned out that we were either too late or it was the wrong child. We never figured it out for certain.”

Callum would be tearing his hair out if one of his siblings went missing, and they were all grown adults. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Because of that whole thing where you’ve been an insufferable bastard?”

Jack let out a startled laugh.

Callum threw up his hands. “And why do you suppose
that
is?”

“I haven’t the foggiest idea, Callum. Maybe because I’m not what you pictured in a team manager. Or because I’ve never played hockey. Because I’m British, perhaps? What is it you call me? Duchess? Or maybe it’s because I’m a better dresser than you. Or gay, or—”

“What the fuck!” Callum leapt to his feet, appalled and furious, arms flailing as if he could ward off Rupert’s accusation. “Fuck that.
Fuck
you.
I’m an asshole, but I’m not a bigot, and if I’ve given you a hard time it’s because
you’re
an asshole. Not because you’re gay, for Christ’s sweet sake. So really, fuck you. Fuck you
a lot
.”

Callum stopped to catch his breath while Jack and Rupert stared at him, agape.

Rupert was the first to recover. “I apologize,” he said, and he actually sounded sincere.

Callum gifted him with the same wide-eyed surprise Rupert had mocked him with earlier. Rupert acknowledged it with a nod and something that almost passed for a smile.

For one crazy moment, Callum felt the urge to blurt out the truth. He sat down until the feeling went away, scowling at Rupert the whole time.

Eventually he muttered, “I didn’t even know you were gay.”

Rupert sent him an extremely skeptical look.

Callum rolled his eyes. “Fine. It’s not like you…errr…hide your light under a bushel.”

Jack clapped a hand over his face and shook his head.