Page 97 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I blink. “Uh… I’m looking for Brendon?”

There’s a beat of silence, then a low chuckle that makes something in Luca’s face shift immediately into recognition. “You are looking for him,” the man says. “That’s cute.”

I squint at the phone. “Who the fuck is this?”

That gets an actual laugh from the other end. It’s deep, smooth, infuriatingly calm. “Who the fuck are you?”

I open my mouth and then shut it because Luca has just mouthed something that looks suspiciously like Volkov? at me.

Before I can answer, there’s muffled movement on the other end, and then Brendon’s voice comes through, anxious and alarmed. “Give that to me! Why are you answering my damn phone like you’re the butler?”

“I said residence, not manor, Little Sin,” the other man replies, now farther from the receiver.

“Go away. You’re impossible.” Then there’s a scuffle, a muttered curse, and finally Brendon comes on properly, breath a little uneven. “Eli?”

“Yeah,” I say, and some awful mix of relief and grief hits me all at once because it really is him—same voice, same flat little edge he gets when he’s trying not to show too much. “Hey.”

There’s a pause. Not awkward, more like surprise finding its footing. “Hey. I wasn’t expecting your call.”

“No,” I admit. “I’m guessing not.”

He’s quiet for another second, and I can practically hear him bracing. “What’s wrong?” he asks.

The fact that he goes there first, to what’s wrong, tells me more than I want to know.

“Nothing new,” I say quickly, then immediately grimace because that sounds terrible. “I mean—something is wrong, obviously. My parents were just here, and my father said something about your parents. About you.” I drag a hand through my hair. “I only found out five minutes ago, Bren. I swear to God, I didn’t know.”

“Oh,” he says quietly.

The quickness of that “oh” makes my throat tighten. It hurts in its own way because it means somewhere in the middle of everything he was cut off from, he still gave me the benefit of the doubt I’m not sure I deserved.

“I’m sorry,” I say anyway.

“Don’t be,” he answers. “You didn’t do it.”

“Yeah, but still.” I close my eyes briefly. “What exactly happened?”

There’s a little rustle on his end, as if he’s shifting position or sitting down somewhere more firmly. “My parents found out I’m gay because someone sent them a video,” he says, and the words come out flatter than I remember from him. Not emotionless but controlled so tightly it’s obvious there’s a reason.

My eyes snap open. “A video of what?”

“Of me… with him,” he says, then he sighs. “I basically got revenge porned.”

My stomach twists as I think about Brendon in all the stiff, tightly wound little snapshots I have of him over the years. Good grades. Church clothes. The sort of man who apologized to the furniture he bumped into. The idea of someone filming him in an intimate moment and sending it to his parents feels so violating that I actually have to grit my teeth.

“Do you know who sent it?” I ask.

“I… it’s been taken care of.” I can hear the bitterness creeping in now. “But it doesn’t matter because my parents got the video before I got the chance to come out to them. Not that they would have accepted me either way, but I would have liked to prepare myself first, you know?”

I can’t help but sigh at that. “Yeah, I know. Did they do this over the phone, or… ?

“They both came to Lakehaven and confronted me in my office, then told me they were cutting me off when I told them I wouldn’t take their offer to be ‘fixed,’” he says, and I hear the sound of fingers tapping on a counter. “Being a pastor apparently means he knows people in conversion camps, which honestly tracks for him.”

I look down at my hands and feel the room tilt slightly around the edges. Fixed… as if there’s something wrong with him.

“They just…” I stop because there’s no word in the language for how obscene it is that parents can do this so clinically. “I’m so sorry, Bren.”

This time when I say it, he doesn’t brush past it. “Yeah,” he says again, softer now. “Me too.”