she doesn't know what she'd expected upon breaking into his place, but this wasn't it.
the building isn't anything special. too-narrow hallways in various states of disrepair. but entering his place is like some sort of narnia-esque magic trick, as though it doesn't quite belong in this building, on this street, in this part of the city. it's open, and bright, and so many things in contrast to who he is as a person, to who she's come to know him to be. rio - or christopher, she doesn't know which is real, if either of them are - is closed, and dark, and as much as this apartment seems ill-fitted to the neighborhood, he seems ill-fitted to it.
but maybe he's not dark. maybe it's the darkness in her that he encourages, brings out, seems proud of. and maybe he's not closed off, she's just not as good at reading him as he is of her - in that infuriating way that feels as though he's peeling back the layers of her skin to see what makes her tick, even though he wears a smirk that says he already knows.
the apartment is pristine in a way that she only dreams of for her own house, a way that's impossible with four kids. beth wonders if he pays for a cleaning service - she's sure he can afford one - but puts the thought out of her mind once she enters his closet. it's too personal, she thinks, for a maid to fold and organize his t-shirts. but then, beth has never had the money to hire someone to clean for her, so maybe she's wrong.
her hands press against the soft material of the shirts, and for just a moment she lets herself feel - beyond the task of searching, beyond this little breaking and entering she's risking to find a key, to get a body back, to be free. the material is soft, and her mind flits back to her fingers gripping the hem of a similar shirt, sliding beneath it, dancing over his overheated skin as he lifted it over his head.
only a moment. she doesn't have time to go there.
there are photos everywhere, on top of furniture crafted from reclaimed wood, surrounded by art that's probably far more expensive than the stuff she picks up at target on a whim. beth tries not to let herself overthink the fact that the photos are all of rio and his son, either together or separate, and that none of them include a woman. she doesn't have time to go there, either.
she spares a glance to the room made up for his son, and a soft smile touches her lips at the sight of it. like the rest of the place, it's in pristine shape, not a thing out of place.
when she makes it to his room, she doesn't look at the bed, pointedly avoids it with her gaze because she can't think about it - about what he looks like laying there, about how it might feel to be pressed back into the mattress, about waking up in this apartment, greeted by the sun with nothing but tangled sheets and limbs between them. she'd swear she's not thinking of any of that as she goes through his nightstand, picking key after key off its loop and comparing it to the one from her own keychain. she'd swear it even harder when he speaks and breaks her from her search - his voice too loud in the space, echoing off of the walls in a floor plan so open it seems to ricochet back and hit her in the gut.
her voice is also too loud when she speaks her response, but somehow - despite the way she startled at his words - steady. she lowers the volume for her second no, and stands her ground as he stalks closer.
and he's pissed, she can see it underneath that cheshire smile, but not surprised, and maybe - absurdly - a little bit amused.
he's made up half of the distance between them when their little game begins, and beth wants to laugh in his face because she's not about to give him the answers, and - apparently - she's not going to get any either. but there's something in the way he smiles when she says christopher that makes her second guess all of it. she's still not convinced it's a real name. maybe none of it is real. but she can play too. mocking his little countdown, and he meets her tit for tat by mocking her use of his name. so around and around it goes.
maybe this is part of the pull, she thinks. this back and forth challenge that they've always got going between them. he challenges her - but she challenges him too, and she thinks he likes it, at least a little bit. maybe that smile comes from a place of amused cruelty, maybe he's laughing at her in that way he always does. but maybe - maybe he's a little bit impressed with her presence in his bedroom, and that she'd decided not to take this little blackmail plot of his lying down.
she definitely doesn't think to glance at the bed on the tail end of that thought. but maybe she's losing a bit of her composure.
he stands there smirking at her, counting down the questions, and she can't hold them in any longer because they're filling her to the brim. and somewhere deep down she knows that it won't matter, that she can explode with all of them, demand answers, and never get a single one.
"eight," he says casually once she's done with her little tirade, and the amusement is only growing on his lips, in his eyes, and she's infuriated, she is, but she's also very aware of how close he is and how he's still moving closer, and the way her mouth goes dry the moment she catches the scent of his cologne. "you're supposed to answer, though, aren't you? why aren't you answering?" that's two more questions, beth knows, but she can't seem to keep her mouth shut and he doesn't miss a damn thing. "why are you talking so much?" he counters, and it's almost soft, almost like they're old friends and he's teasing her like oh, that elizabeth, just rambling on like always.
she finds some sense of calm, somewhere, somehow even though he's close enough to touch, and he's still silently laughing at her, and there's something hard beneath her tone when she finally says "it'll take a lifetime to wash all that money."
"yeah, that's kinda the point," he says, and he's smiling big but she thinks this time it's not quite sparking into his eyes. it surprises her, too, because she doesn't want to think about what that means - about why he wants her on the hook for a lifetime, especially considering the way they'd left things a few weeks ago. his warning notwithstanding, ruby and annie's screw-up set aside, that much cash is more than just payment for the drugs, or payback for her cold dismissal. or maybe it isn't, maybe it's exactly what he feels he's owed - a lifetime of servitude from one elizabeth boland, a punishment for thinking she could step into and out of this life like it's just another committee.
she wants to say she's sorry - because she is, a little bit, dean had forced her hand and she'd panicked - but she's too mad to offer apologies, too focused on keeping her mask in place while he stands so close his breath disrupts the hair at her temple. "why are you doing this?" she asks instead, eyes searching his for anything - anything that might give him away, show her his motives, make her stop feeling like she's drowning in a million questions to which she'll never have answers.
"i mean you came to me way back when, right?" he asks, and she internally shrinks back because yeah, she did, and she doesn't necessarily regret it, but she also hadn't foreseen the part where her kids would be taken from her as a result. her gaze slips - it's only a fraction of a second - to his lips and she thinks he missed it, thinks he's too busy telling her the way it is to notice the way she's barely holding it together. "askin' to be a part of it, now you a part of it," he finishes, and she catches his gaze drop too, and there's something there - a tension that underlies everything they're talking about, and it's so thick she thinks it might drag her under like quicksand.
"when does it end?" her voice isn't so firm anymore, it's soft and on the verge of breaking but somehow remains steady nonetheless. maybe later she'd pat herself on the back for her own resolve, but not now. now she's just searching his eyes again, countless questions reflected back from hers beyond just that one - but that one seems the most important, especially because if she's being honest with herself, there are parts of it that she doesn't want to end.
so he touches her, and it's achingly familiar by now - the way he drags one finger down her skin and her whole body wants to react. she's looking at his lips again, but when she looks up, he's looking at hers too, and she thinks maybe they can answer all of these unanswered questions without any words at all. "one question left," he says as his hand falls away and he breaks her from her thoughts. of course he hasn't answered hers but this game stopped being about answers before it had ever started. "you want it?"
beth has to wrack her brain for a second to understand what he means. that's the problem - she wants. she wants a life that's more fulfilling than being dean boland's wife and leading PTA meetings and baking for class parties and cooking and cleaning and getting barely a word of thanks once it's all said and done. she wants to revel in how good she is at this other life - how good she's getting, at least - and how good it feels to be a part of it. she's standing here looking for a way out but all she really wants is for him to pull her back in because she wants this, she wants him, she wants.
when he steps closer, she straightens automatically, lips parting, eyes closed, and there isn't a single part of her that doesn't believe he's about to kiss her and that all of this will culminate in them leaving his pristinely made bed in a disheveled mess before the day is done.
he doesn't touch her again, not with his hands, not with his lips, but his breath kisses her mouth when he asks her to leave, and beth is left reeling. it takes some superhuman strength beth hadn't known she possessed for her to step back and away from him, and she's not exactly steady on her feet at first, still trying to make her limbs catch up with the disappointment, the shock, the understanding of what had just happened.
she doesn't look back, not there, not now. but she's not going back to normal - she's already made that decision, made it before that agonizing caress, before his dismissal, she just hadn't realized it yet.