by Linda Kage
He grabbed his coat and stomped down the stairs. Tess moved up beside me and rubbed my arm. “I’m sure he’s okay and will be home soon.”
I glanced at her and realized what an annoying, pain-in-the-butt worrywart I was probably being. Opening my mouth to apologize, I stopped short as Jonah hollered up the stairwell, “Found him.”
I hurried to the steps only to realize Jonah had already admitted Beckett inside the apartment and they were both starting up the steps together.
Beck lifted his face, and relief flooded me before I realized he was holding one arm where blood soaked through the long sleeve of his white thermal undershirt.
“Oh my God, what happened?” I flew down the steps to meet him halfway, clutching his arm to assess the damage. But his shirt was in the way.
“I’m fine,” he assured me, his voice quiet. It wasn’t filled with pain but maybe there was some hopelessness littering his tone.
“What happened?” I asked again, more rationally this time.
He shrugged and glanced away, letting me know he didn’t want to tell me. “It was stupid,” he said. “My own damn fault.”
I just arched my eyebrows, letting him know he needed to start talking.
His shoulders slumped as I led him through the living room and toward the kitchen where I pulled his shirtsleeve up to reveal a somewhat shallow four-inch cut running lengthwise up the back of his arm.
After leading him to the sink, I began to run water over his arm, making him hiss from the chill. Once that was done, I opened a nearby drawer that housed our first aid kit.
“So are you going to talk or make me guess what happened?” I asked as I lined the wound with a triple-action antibiotic and then began to wrap it with gauze.
“It was stupid,” he repeated, sighing again as if upset with himself. “I went looking for work and actually had someone offer me a job.”
I looked up, gasping in glee. “That’s great. Where?”
But he only frowned back. “A feed-packing plant. But don’t get too excited. As soon as I started to fill out my W-2 and handed over my driver’s license for proof of ID, they saw my name and tried to run me off the place, and I mean, literally, the guy charged me. So I went tripping backward away from him and stumbled into this coat rack thing he had by the door, knocking it over and slicing my arm open.” He sniffed his disgust and rolled his eyes. “It was my own fault for not looking where I was going.”
I didn’t agree. Seriously, who would’ve expected someone to charge them after being offered a job? My heart cracked with pity and anger on his behalf.
“Oh, Beck,” I said. “What’re we going to with you?”
“I’m thinking full-body bubble wrap,” he said.
I blurted out a laugh, but then couldn’t control myself. I threw my arms around him and hugged him, scolding, “It’s not funny. You can’t keep getting the crap beat out of you every time you leave the house.”
“Bailey, really.” He tensed against me. “A scrape on the arm isn’t exactly an ass kicking.” But then he hugged me back, and for some reason I rested my head—er, rather my temple because I was too short to get my whole head up there—against his shoulder.
Behind us, Tess hissed, “She’s hugging him again. Oh my God, she’s hugging him again.”
Realizing, oh my God, I was hugging him once again, I dropped my arms and stepped back. But he took my wrist to stop me from going away too far away.
I hissed when his fingers hit a tender spot.
Beckett looked down at my gasp and moved his fingers until he revealed a bruise. “What the hell?” His gaze sprang to mine. “Did someone hurt you?”
I was totally going to play it off, but Tess—curse her—blurted, “Yes. The cowboy guy and his sister.”
“What?” Beck zipped a startled glance to her, making her flush and hide her face in Jonah’s bicep. Then he whirled an accusing stare to me. “What happened?”
“We ran into them on campus,” Tess started. When I glared at her, she slapped her hands over her mouth and widened her eyes. Then, just as quickly, she dropped her fingers and rushed, “They cornered us, bullied Bailey, broke her phone when they saw the video on it, and then the cowboy grabbed her and reared back his arm to hit her, except Jonah finally showed up and scared him off.” She grinned lovingly up at her boyfriend at that part.
Beck stood there blinking for a good five seconds, before he shook his head. That’s when his eyes flared with rage, and he started from the kitchen.
“I’m going to kill him.”
“What the hell ever!” I leapt after him and snagged his arm, needing to put all my strength in it before he finally paused and scowled back at me. “You’ll only cause more trouble,” I insisted. “It’s over. Let it be.” He began to shake his head until I added, “Please.”
His jaw bunched and eye twitched as he stared straight into me. Then he growled, “You at least called campus police, right?” When I didn’t answer, he looked pointedly at Tess. “Right?”
She gulped and shook her head. “Bailey didn’t want to tell anyone else about the vid—”
At the shriek of distress that came from my throat, Tess broke off and glanced at me. When she realized she’d been about to reveal my big secret, she clamped her mouth shut.
Beck scowled between us. “About the what?” he demanded, but he was already running other things Tess had said through his head. “What video was on your phone?” he asked me.
No way on God’s green earth could I tell him that. But he read the guilt and humiliation clearly on my face.
His mouth fell open. “Holy shit. You took a video? Of me and Melody?”
Every time I’d felt embarrassed lately, it had seemed like the worst, most mortifying moment ever, but all those times were nothing compared to this one. I could barely breathe as I took in the shock on Beck’s face.
I wanted to explode into a million pieces and cease to exist. Except I didn’t go anywhere.
I slowly peered around us. Paige and Logan were exchanging glances, and I could read their unsaid conversation clearly. “Who else has she filmed doing it?”
Oh, God. I couldn’t do this. Whirling away from all of them, I raced from the kitchen.
Chapter 24
BECKETT
I was too shocked to do much else than gape after her as Bailey charged from the kitchen. I just wasn’t expecting to learn she’d filmed me.
Finally, I shook my head, trying to come to grips with this new development, but, yeah, this one caught me off guard.
“I’ll go talk to her,” Tess murmured, starting from the kitchen, but I said, “No.”
When they all turned to gape at me, I said, “I’ve got this one.”
I didn’t feel as if I could trust any of them to make this better. Bailey had looked devastated when she’d fled the room. I didn’t want anyone to accidentally make it worse. I wasn’t sure what I was going to say to fix it, but I still felt the need to be the one to help her.
It hadn’t sounded as if she’d left the apartment, so I went to her room because I was sure I’d heard an interior door slam seconds after she’d left the kitchen.
Worried she might have locked me out, I held my breath as I tried to handle, but it was open. She wasn’t in the room when I stepped inside, so I went to her private bath.
“Bailey?” I blinked as I poked my head through the opened doorway into the bathroom, because she wasn’t in there, either. Strange. I swore she’d gone to her room.
Starting to retreat, I paused suddenly and squinted suspiciously at the shower curtain. Instead of leaving, I stepped forward and pulled it open.
Bailey sniffed and wiped the back of her hand across the underside of nose. Hugging herself where she sat on the lip of the bathtub, she looked up at me, revealing two wet trails running under each eye.
“Hey, act impressed,” I said, stepping into the tub with her and sitting next to her. “I was sober enough to check behind the shower curtain this
time.”
Bailey didn’t answer, just kept sniffing and wiping her face.
I had to say, I’d never sat fully dressed in a bathtub that wasn’t running water before. After glancing down at our shoe-clad feet side by side in the bottom of the tub, I gave a long, tired sigh.
“You know, if I’d been trapped with no alternate way out while a couple in the next room was having sex and the door was open between us, I would’ve looked too.” I gave a negligent shrug. “It’s just human nature.”
Bailey brushed more tears off her cheeks. “And you would’ve taken a picture that accidentally turned out to be a video of it too, huh?”
I winced. Yeah, I probably wouldn’t have done that. But I shrugged anyway, mumbling, “I don’t know. Maybe.”
When she sent me a hard glance, I cringed and admitted, “Okay, maybe not. Why…why exactly did you do that? Was it like an academic curiosity? Trying to take notes for future ideas?”
“Oh my God,” she moaned covering her face with both hands. “I was not taking notes.” Then she whimpered to herself, “This is so freaking embarrassing.”
I nodded, respecting that. It was pretty freaking embarrassing for me too. I mean, I was the unsuspecting star of her porn film. This wasn’t something I dealt with every day. But strangely, I wasn’t mad at her. I just wanted to stop her tears and make her happy again.
Trying to go light, I snapped my fingers, coming up with a new idea. “You were gathering new material for your spank bank.” Then I frowned at that term. Girls couldn’t rightly call it a spank bank, could they? “Or whatever you females call your version of it.”
Another hard glance shifted my way. “I do not masturbate. That’s disgusting.”
My eyebrows popped up in surprise. “You don’t? Really? Like not ever?” How strange. I assumed all girls flicked the bean just as much as guys jerked off.
But Bailey’s eyes widened in horror as she yelped, “No! Oh my God. That’s gross. Why would I even try that if the one guy I’d ever been with couldn’t even get me off?”
That was a bit too much for me to process all at once, so I lifted a finger and drew in a breath before saying, “Wait a second.” Then I exhaled before shaking my head. “I thought it was harder for a dude to get a girl off than it was for a girl to get herself off.”
Bailey opened her mouth as if she had every intention of arguing my point, but then she paused and frowned, tipping me a sideways glance. “Well, how the hell am I supposed to know that if I’ve never masturbated before?”
“Good point,” I said, only to shrug and suggest, “Maybe you should try it then before making such rash statements.” When she merely blinked at me, I grinned. “Hey, that was why you took the video, wasn’t it? It really was spank bank material.”
“It was not!” she cried indignantly. “There’s no way the ugly heifer sounds Melody were making would ever turn me on enough to do that to myself.” She flushed, looking uncomfortable and perplexed and irritated all at once.
“So you were filming her as some kind of blackmail to embarrass her?” I guessed.
“Blackmail?” Bailey wrinkled her nose. “Why the hell would I have wanted to blackmail or embarrass her? I didn’t know her then; I didn’t care what happened to her after she left that room. It was you I was focusing on. And I was trying to take a picture, not a video, anyway,” She reiterated with a sniff, sending me a scowl for even suggesting the ideas I had suggested.
But I was too caught up on the other thing she’d said. “Me?” I repeated dumbly. “Why were you focusing on me?” My cheeks went hot. “Oh, hell? Did I look that bad, coming?” Had she wanted to embarrass me?
“No!” she practically yelled. “You looked amazing. That was the point. You looked so beautiful, it was like…” And then she fell quiet and her mouth popped open as if she’d just realized what she’d confessed before she whispered, “Art.”
I swallowed. It was the only thing I could think to do to control the immediately reaction that sizzled through me. But my dick thickened so quickly in my pants it was freaky and embarrassing. I fisted my hands to keep from reaching for her and to control the intense images sweeping through me. Images of Bailey slipping her fingers down between my legs and stroking me through my jeans or maybe unsnapping the top button and easing her palm inside. I kind of wanted to thunk my head back against the tile wall of the bathtub and groan as if I could already feel her warm fingers wrapping around me and stroking.
But she was the one who moaned. In supreme humiliation. “Oh my God,” she muffled out from between her fingers where she was covering her entire face with both hands. “I can’t believe I just told you that.”
“Bailey, no,” I tried to reassure her. Without thinking, I touched her thigh with the sole intent to being kind and comforting. “Don’t…” I wanted to tell her not to worry about something like that. I was actually flattered she’d thought I had looked like art. So fucking flattered. And turned on. But when my palm met the warmth soaking through the material of her jeans, the urge to caress her struck me hard. I mean, I think my fingers even started to move, curving around to the inside of her thigh. They wanted to move up toward her heat and cup her right between the legs.
It was so wrong and inappropriate, and I felt so guilty for almost doing just that, that I jerked my hand off her and sucked in a breath, my lungs seizing and oxygen stalling.
I couldn’t fucking breathe at all. My body panicked. My mouth gaped like a fish out of water, and my hand slapped against my constricting chest.
Oh, God. I couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t breathe.
Bailey noticed, glancing at my face before her eyes widened. “Dammit,” she muttered, turning toward me and gripping my shoulders. “You’re having another panic attack. Just breathe. Beck. Breathe through it.”
I shook my head, squeezing her hands that were still holding onto my arms. “Can’t.”
“Yes, you can,” she argued. “Now breathe out.”
Looking her straight in the eye, I exhaled. When she demanded I inhale, I did that next. She coached me through the next few breaths until we both realized I was better.
Except as soon as I was better, she let go of me and stood abruptly, hugging herself. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to creep you out to the point you had a panic attack.”
She tried to step past me to leave the bathtub. But I couldn’t let her go, couldn’t let her think my breakdown had come from disgust.
I grabbed her arm, staying her. “No.” Then I stood, shaking my head. “That’s not why I freaked out.”
But she wouldn’t look me in the eye. She tried to pull free of my arm, not listening, too embarrassed to hear me out.
“I liked it,” I blurted, making her pause and squint at me in confusion. I swallowed and then whispered, “I liked hearing why you took the video. I liked it a lot, like, I was about to make a pass at you before I realized how inappropriate and wrong that was. I’m sorry, Bailey.” Glancing down at my hands, I tried to hide my shame. “I would never do that do you. I won’t ever take advantage of your good graces. It just scared me how close I came to making a move, I…yeah, I freaked. I’m sorry.”
When she didn’t answer, I finally risked a glance up. She was studying me so strangely, I straightened and said, “What?”
Bailey shook her head, but then she said, “It’s probably just because you feel obligated to me.”
I glanced at her, wincing. “Huh?” That explanation didn’t sound right at all.
“You…” She cleared her throat and glanced away. “You’re confused right now. And I’m the only person who’s really stepped forward to help you, so you feel…”
When she didn’t come up with another word for how she thought I felt, I began to shake my head, not liking where this was headed because that wasn’t how I felt at all.
But she only nodded. “Yes. You feel as if you owe me something.”
Well, okay, yeah, I did feel as if I owed her every
thing, but I didn’t want to sex her up because I thought it was the best way to pay her back for saving me.
Did I?
No. I started to shake my head again. But she set a hand on my arm.
“Don’t worry, Beck. You don’t owe me anything. So I won’t let us go there.”
When she calmly let go of me, I merely watched without a fight as she climbed out of the tub and left the bathroom.
My chest felt hallow and carved out, and I still wanted to argue with her. Except I felt too confused. I hadn’t really wanted to make a pass at her because I just felt like I should, did I? That theory felt all wrong, and yet everything else felt muddled and confused. I had no idea what was really going on. I just understood that nothing between us would ever happen because Bailey had explicitly just said it wouldn’t.
Not that I blamed her. She’d seen me with Melody. Of course, she wanted nothing to do with that. But still…it all left me strangely empty inside.
Chapter 25
BAILEY
Monday night was weird.
Beckett and I had worked out and resolved everything to do with the video, something I was sure we’d never get past. I didn’t think he’d ever forgive me. And I was certain I’d never be able to look him in the eye again. But after our talk in the bathtub, we’d worked through it. And yet, it seemed like we’d opened up another problem.
The thing was, I had no idea what the problem was. I just felt the tension that that sprouted between us.
He waited until I was ready to turn in for the night before he took his shower, as if he wanted me to be asleep by the time he came out so he wouldn’t have to deal with the moment we both crawled into bed together. So I feigned being asleep when he exited the bathroom and sadly, I heard his sigh of relief when he fell for my act.
Seconds later, the sheets on the other half of the bed lifted and the mattress dipped as he lay down beside me. But he tossed and turned for a while before he finally set a hand on my arm. At first, I thought he was trying to wake me up to talk to me, but then I realized his grip was too light, like he was worried about waking me. Seconds later, his breathing evened and he was out.
