I narrowed my eyes. “What is your problem tonight?”

“Who’s Theo?” he asked instead.

My breath stuttered. “Rhys—”

“Ren might be a dick, but he brought up a good point. He knows you better than I do, and if we’re really going to sell this, you need to start telling me shit that’s real. Like who’s Theo?”

“Ren is not a dick.”

“Parker.”

Hearing the warning in Rhys’s voice, I looked at him in surprise. He hadn’t used that tone with me since before we signed our contract.

Cursing Ren to hell, I let out a shaky breath. How could I put much-needed distance between me and Rhys if I confided deep, emotional history to him? “It’s not relevant.”

“I think it is, if your boy is making such a big deal about it. My guess … Theo is some rich little fucker who screwed you over. Is that why you don’t have a man? You don’t trust guys ’cause of a first love gone bad?”

The memory of Theo still caused a deep ache in my chest, and Rhys’s supposition left a bad taste in my mouth. “He died,” I blurted out. “He was my childhood sweetheart. We grew up in the same town, started dating when we were twelve. He was my first everything.” I turned toward him as he drew to a halt beside me. “I loved him in a way I thought I would get to for the rest of my life. Until one night when we were seventeen, he walked home from a friend’s party, drunk, on a dark country road, and a car hit him. And they left him there to die by the side of the road.” Tears burned in my eyes, but I fought them back. “He was my best friend … and then he was just gone.”

“Jesus, fuck …” Rhys suddenly pulled me into his arms, and I didn’t stop to think before I rested my head on his chest and slid my arms around his back. “Tink, I’m so sorry.”

We were silent a while, just holding each other in the middle of the street, until I felt his arms tighten. His voice carried softly down to me. “My best friend died too.” The words sounded torn from him. “I watched him die in a bout. Jake. We grew up together. He was like a brother to me. And … there was nothing I could do. One minute he was alive … and the next, I watched the light go out of his eyes.”

He shuddered against me and I dug my fingers into his shoulder blades, wishing I could dig the pain right out of him. I tilted my head back and the agony I saw behind all the cocky charm and humor in his eyes made my heart squeeze.

“Rhys,” I whispered, hating to see someone so big, capable, and strong filled with so much grief.