.o0o.
Rebecca
I was still in a hazy fog when Hanna and I sat down at our regular table. I made sure to shift over one seat and sit diagonally from her. She shot me a quizzical look, raising an eyebrow.
Shrugging my shoulders, I said, “Buck might join us.”
Her jaw dropped as she looked around to see if anyone had heard. It was trouble being the friend of the crazy girl at school.
I laughed, “Well, that is what boyfriends do.”
Her eyes grew three sizes then she squealed and jumped in her chair. “Really. I mean are you sure?”
Wow, that hurt. “Thank you,” I said sarcastically. “Of course, I’m sure. What, you think Buck Benson couldn’t be my boyfriend? That I’m not good enough for him? Is that how little you think of me?”
She tilted her head and frowned at me. “Rebecca, a week ago, you would have been shocked he knew your name. Again, I will ask, are you sure and how do you know? I mean, if you’re wrong. It would look really bad.”
My stomach curled in on itself with a warm happiness. “Because he said he was. Or that at least he wanted to be.”
Hanna squealed again. “I saw you guys walk off hand in hand. But I didn’t know about this. I mean, come on. No one could have predicted this.”
“Again, thank you,” I said as I shook my head and focused on my meal.
She frowned and said, “You know what I mean. But if what you say is true …”
“It is,” I said giving her a fierce look. Why was it so impossible for my best friend to believe that Buck could be my boyfriend?
“If that is the case. What about your family? Your Dad?” she asked with a concerned expression.
I took a deep breath then shrugged. “I won’t tell him if you don’t.”
Hanna gaped at me.
“Hey, he said no dating,” I said, referring to my father. “He didn’t say I couldn’t fall in love.”
Hanna gasped then her eyes narrowed as she studied mine closely. “You are. In love with him, I mean?”
I laughed and shook my head. “How couldn’t I be? The guy is big, strong, gorgeous, sweet, kind, funny, and about as perfect as a person could be. Tell me. Honestly. How could I not fall in love with him?”
A cough behind me made my insides shrivel up. I shot Hanna an evil stare for not telling me he was there. Swallowing hard I turned to see Buck standing there with a tray loaded with food. A strange expression on his face.
“Hi, Gorgeous,” he said as he slid in next to me. “I wasn’t going to say anything,” he said, obviously talking about what I had just said. “I mean, we just became an official couple this morning.”
All I wanted to do was find a cave and crawl into it. How could this happen again? Every time I opened my mouth, I couldn’t avoid making an idiot of myself.
He sat down as if he hadn’t heard my declaration. He was good at that, I realized. Pretending he hadn’t heard me make a fool of myself. But then, he was getting a lot of practice.
“Oh, by the way,” he said as he knocked my shoulder with his. “I love you, too.”
We smiled at each other and I leaned in to rest my head on his shoulder.
“My God,” Hanna said as she rolled her eyes. “You guys are sweeter than Kool-Aid powder.”
I smiled a quick thank you at her but she shook her head. “That’s not a good thing. How long do you think it is before your father gets word? This is a small town remember. Everyone knows everyone’s business.”
My heart lurched at the thought of my father ruining this thing between Buck and me. He’d do it, I realized. He’d move heaven and earth to destroy us. Not because he was mean. But because he thought it was the right thing for me.
The Neanderthal aspects of my father couldn’t be denied.
“That’s where you come in,” Buck said to Hanna. “With your help, we can pull this off.”
She frowned at him. “Such as?”
“I’ve got a game on Friday. Tutoring on Saturday…” he paused to shoot me a quick smile letting me know how much he was looking forward to it.
“And Monday,” he continued, “is a teacher conference day, right?”
Hanna nodded, obviously still having trouble understanding what was going on.
Buck shrugged. “That makes Sunday a non-school day. An extra date night, you might say.”
“And?” I asked hesitantly.
He smiled at me, then Hanna. “And, if you and Hanna were to go to the movies. I might just be there at the same time. And maybe we could sit next to each other. Hey, it was all on accident, right.”
I smiled widely at my boyfriend. He was such a genius.
“What’s in it for me?” Hanna said with a deep frown.
Buck’s smile grew even wider. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe I can talk Jimmy Coulter to hanging out with us?”
Hanna’s face became white as her eyes grew in size. “Of course, If you don’t want to. I understand,” he said as he took a bite of his spaghetti.
She looked at him as if trying to figure out if he was teasing her, then her brow furrowed. “Why doesn’t Jimmy just ask me out? My father is not a caveman.”
Buck tiled his head as he studied her for a moment. “Do you want me to tell him to ask you out?”
She huffed as she gave me a quick look of anger. I could only shrug. No way was I getting in the middle of this.
“No,” she said as she put down her fork. “I don’t want you ordering and dictating what boys ask me out.”
Buck simply nodded. I was surprised to see that he wasn’t angry. Not about Hanna telling him off nor about his plan coming to nothing.
An awkward silence fell over us. I spent the time trying to think of someway to be with Buck away from school. All I knew was that I wanted to be his girlfriend and experience everything that meant.
The quiet at the table dragged on and on. I was about to say something when I noticed Buck studying Hanna closely. She didn’t see it. Instead, her gaze was focused off into nothing.
Just as I thought I couldn’t take it anymore, she sighed heavily and said, “Of course, it wouldn’t be right for me not to help Rebecca.”
I held my breath, was a but going to be added to that sentence?
“But,” she continued, “It probably would go better if there was someone for me to hang out with so you guys can … you know do your whole boyfriend-girlfriend lost in each other’s eyes thing.”
Buck laughed slightly but kept quiet. I could tell however that he was on full alert. Ready for action if necessary. His entire body next to mine hummed with potential. Ready to spring either way to get what he wanted. At the moment, he was letting Hanna get to where he wanted her on her own.
“I guess it wouldn’t be a bad thing if Jimmy was there,” she said at last. “I mean if he wanted to. Not because you made him,” she added with a fierce gaze at Buck.
He had the good grace to not laugh at her. Instead, he simply nodded then returned to eating his lunch and rubbing his leg against mine under the table.
Chapter Eleven
Rebecca
To say my life changed would be an understatement. It wasn’t the big things. Like the way people treated me as if I was important. People I had hardly ever spoken to would nod and smile at me in the hall.
Even the teachers seemed to pick up the new pecking order. Calling on me more often, as if I had suddenly gotten on their radar.
Or the fact that I made Hanna take me to buy jeans. I used my own babysitting money to get two pair. I kept one pair at Hanna’s and hid the other pair in the bottom of my dresser. Now I only had to figure out a way to wear them without anyone knowing.
God, my life sucked.
No. It was the little things I found most surprising. Like the way certain songs suddenly made sense. Or the way the gray clouds of autumn were suddenly beautiful. Because everything was beautiful.
But it was the day I found my hand in Buck’s back pocket that shocked me. Who ha
d I become? I had my hand in Buck Benson’s pocket as we walked down the hall with our arms around each other.
How had this happened? How I had I become so comfortable I felt it was perfectly acceptable to put my hand in the back pocket of a boy?
Of course, the envious stares of other girls didn’t hurt. They saw it as me marking my territory. And they weren’t wrong.
Buck, being the oblivious guy he could be at times, never registered the significance. Of course he didn’t. I was sure that none of this was new to him. To me though. It was as I had stepped into a new world. Filled with different rules.
Rule number one being that my father could never find out I was walking down the hall with my hand in Buck’s back pocket.
The Sunday night at the movies went exactly as he said it would. Hanna and I arrived. The boys were already there with the tickets. Hanna and Jimmy blushed at each other, hemmed and hawed then sort of drifted away.
I looked up at Buck and smiled. He was so eye-catching handsome that my heart just stopped. Dressed in a flannel shirt, jeans, and square-toed boots. He looked delicious.
We smiled at each other. And I knew my world was right again.
“You need a haircut,” I said. Of course, he didn’t but it was a perfect excuse to run my hand through his sandy brown hair.
“Come on,” he said as he took my hand. “The smell of popcorn is killing me.”
I laughed, the boy only ever thought of football and food. - And me, I realized as a warm sensation filled me.
After loading up on supplies, we found seats in the middle. I looked over at Jimmy and Hanna a little in front of us and to the left.
“You are a genius,” I said to Buck as I leaned up and kissed him on the cheek.
“I know?” he said with a smile. “But just so we are together on this. Why am I a genius this time?”
I laughed. “Hanna and Jimmy.”
He smiled and shrugged. “I … No we, … got lucky on that one.”
I sighed and leaned my head on his shoulder. He put his arm about me and pulled me close. Heaven, I thought as the lights went down. Pure heaven.
After the movie, the four of us made a stop at the food court. I couldn’t stop myself from looking around wondering if friends of my parents might be there. A sick worry gnawed at my stomach.
Buck caught my frown then nodded that he understood. Standing up, he shifted to put himself between me and the other shoppers.
A little thing, but I couldn’t stop myself from appreciating him. He understood. And instead of complaining about my idiot family. He simply fixed the problem. I thought of Jenny Carson crying behind the gym. And how he had fixed that. That was him I realized. He was a fixer. A protector, with a strong sense of right and wrong.
My father’s rules didn’t bother him because he thought they were stupid rules. But he worried about me, so he devised ways to reduce the threat and therefore my worries.
The four of us talked and laughed for almost an hour. For the first time in my life, I felt normal. Like a real person. It’s sort of strange when you think about it. Being Buck Benson’s girlfriend made me feel normal. That was something I never would have believed until I lived it.
But, like all good things, that night had to come to an end. Hanna and I stopped at her house so I could change out of my jeans. She couldn’t stop talking about Jimmy and about how much our lives had changed in a few short weeks.
She was so happy I realized as an enviousness filed me. She didn’t have to worry about her parents finding out. She didn’t have this sword hanging over her head ready to drop at any moment.
But I pushed it aside, my troubles were not her fault. But anger built inside of me. It was so unfair. So not right. I couldn’t bask in the happiness I should feel.
When I got home, I waved to Hanna then stepped into the house. My Dad was waiting for me, a beer in one hand and a frown on his face.
My insides clenched up as I fought to maintain my composure. What had happened? Had someone seen us? My God, my life was ruined if that was the case.
“You’re almost late,” he barked. It was as if he was trying to find something to complain about. Some way to stop me going out with my friends.
I sighed inside. One disaster avoided.
“Yes, Sir,” I said. What else could I say? Get into an argument about how close to curfew was almost too late?
Once I realized that was all he had, I gave him a quick smile and went to my room where I was able to fall asleep with the memory of that normal feeling. That sense of specialness that I knew I would remember for the rest of my life.
The next morning, I smiled to myself when I realized Buck wasn’t waiting for me at the front door. It gave me time to rush to the girl's bathroom and change into my new jeans and a cute top. When I stepped out of the stall, several girls raised an eyebrow. I could tell what they were thinking. Who changes into jeans at school? And how could Buck Benson find this girl appealing?
Ignoring them, I carefully folded my dress and seater and put them in my book bag. I had already worked out that after school I would have just enough time to change before I had to catch the bus.
My heart raced as I hurried to the front of the school to find Buck. He was looking out over the crowd of arriving students.
“Hey,” I said as I came up behind him and rested my hand on his strong back. The man was as solid as a rock. All granite.
He spun around and smiled then his eyes traveled down over my body. Lingering on my hips.
Yes! I thought. That was the look I wanted to see. A hungry approval look that made my insides flutter and filled me with a sense of feminine power.
“Hey,” he responded as he took my hand and led me into school. I sighed happily. My world was whole again.
That became our life. Steeling moments, talking, sharing, growing together as a couple. I kept waiting for it all to end, but it didn’t. Somehow, we kept it a secret from my parents.
His brothers and their girlfriends came home for Thanksgiving. He spent it with his family. I spent it with mine. But the entire time, I felt cheated, as if every part of me knew that we were supposed to be together. Sharing it with each other.
The tutoring sessions at the library continued. But there were too many watchful eyes.
Our only real moments were at the movies. I couldn’t do it every week. My dad would have become suspicious. But whenever I thought I could get away with it, I talked Hanna into it. Of course, with Jimmy, she was always more than willing.
There was something about the darkness. That big man next to me. My man. Solid, powerful, confident. Someone I could trust with my very life. It filled me with a sense of happiness. A rightness that made me feel like I would bust some times.
It must have been the fourth movie night. Buck and I were leaving the theater and stepping into the lobby, our arms around each other. I was so in love. So head over heels that I could see nothing else in the world.
I squeezed him, he smiled as he looked down at me, then leaned down to kiss me for the hundredth time that night.
“Rebecca,” an angry voice barked from behind us.
My heart dropped and my world slammed to a stop as I turned to see my father there, his brow furrowed in an angry scowl.
Buck’s arm dropped from around my waist as he stepped between me and my father.
“What is the meaning of this?” my father growled.
I swallowed hard. My life was over. I could see it in his eyes. A combination of anger and disappointment.
Hanna and Jimmy stepped out of the theater. Hanna’s face immediately turned white as she looked at my father and then me and then back at my father.
“I knew it,” he continued as he stared at Buck like he wanted to shoot him where he stood.
Buck didn’t flinch, he stared back. I swear it was like a western movie where the two men face off with each other before guns erupt in fire.
“Dad,” I pleaded as I fought to come up with some excuse
. But there was nothing. Nothing that would work.
“You, come with me,” my dad said as he grabbed my arm and started to drag me away from Buck.
“Mr. Montgomery,” Buck said as he tried to calm the rising tension.
My dad slammed to a halt and then turned on Buck like a wolf ready to pounce. Buck stood a good five inches taller than my father but that wouldn’t stop him. Again, Buck didn’t back down, he held his ground staring back at my father. Almost daring him to say something.
“You stay away from my daughter,” my father snapped, then turned and pulled me out of the theater. A dozen kids from school saw it all happen. My cheeks grew warm with embarrassment.
This was so typical. My life was falling apart and there were more witnesses than I could count.
A numbness filled me. I could feel nothing but the loss of what I had had. Buck was gone to me. Besides all the embarrassing drama I had just put him through. There was my father. I knew him. There would be no possible explanation he would accept.
My world was over. My father would forbid me from seeing Buck again. And I knew him, he would ask me every day and would know when I lied.
“You knew the rules, Rebecca,” he said through clenched teeth.
“But, Dad,” I cried. “I love him.”
He scoffed and shook his head, his hand still firmly gripping my arm. “You just think you do. Believe me, when you are older you will thank me. Boys like that, they can ruin a young girl’s life.”
A tear began to trickle down my cheek. He would never understand. Buck had saved me. He had made me whole.
“You can’t keep us apart,” I yelled as I tried to pull away from him.
He came to a stop and turned to stare down into my eyes. “If you care about that boy’s health,” he said with a clenched jaw. “You will not see him again.”
The threat in his voice told me everything.
“In fact, you won’t even be returning to school. I bet we can home school you. You’re supposedly smart. Let’s see you finish high school at home.”
My stomach dropped. He was serious. I was going to be locked up in my room. What is more. If I tried to see Buck again, my father would do something. He and my brothers might actually attack him. I had seen that look in my father’s eyes. If he had his way, Buck would die a long slow death.
Deception (The Benson Brothers Book 3) Page 7
