Joke's On You- To beta

by Vale, Lani Lynn

  “Did he try to get her to marry still?” Booth questioned.

  I shook my head. “No. Not even once. Me, on the other hand? Yeah, me he tried to do the same thing to. When I told him that no, under no uncertain terms was I going to do it, he just accepted it. It was the weirdest thing ever.” I shook my head. “I think that’s the start of what made it really awkward between me and Kerrie. I refused to marry him, and it really upset him. He backed off after that.”

  “Thank God.” He chuckled. “But you still have shit to do with your dad. You still hang out with him. Eat with him on certain weekends.”

  I sighed.

  “That’s Delanie’s fault,” I admitted. “When she had Asa, we were both young, dumb and broke. Neither one of us could afford to live on our own. Delanie moved out, and I used my credit card that I got from my dad to pay for her housing expenses, food, and other baby related expenses.”

  “My family would have helped,” Booth interjected, sounding horrified.

  I grinned. “It wasn’t that bad. I mean, after I told my dad no, that it flat out wasn’t going to happen, he just seemed to accept it. It was really weird. And it made me wonder had Delanie done the same thing, would he have accepted that, too?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. You’ll never know.” Booth leaned back into the crook of the outdoor couch, rolling his back over the arm to crack his spine. “What happened after that?”

  “Dad never talked to Delanie again. I used my credit card to pay for all of Delanie’s things. Once a month, I would endure dinner with my father, so don’t judge…”

  He held up his hand to stop me. “Who am I to judge you for helping protect my son?”

  I sighed.

  He had a point.

  “Do you…” I blew out a breath. “I’ve always liked you, Booth.”

  He sat up straighter, all signs of his earlier slouch gone.

  “I’ve always liked you, too,” he admitted. “It’s just with Asa… and you not coming around back then? Like, it was a fuckin’ miracle to get you to talk to me. I honestly thought you hated me a little bit. And Kerrie was always there to block my every move—and you allowing it—I just didn’t think I had a chance.”

  “That night.” I swallowed hard. “Do you remember it?”

  He instantly looked lower than low.

  “No, not much,” he admitted. “I remember drinking before you arrived at the party. Then I remember nervously drinking after you arrived. Not enough to impair my judgment that bad, though. I completely blacked out after your friend brought me that last round. Remember he had five beers in his hand? I don’t know why that always sticks with me so well. But yeah, that’s the last thing I can remember. Him holding all five beers in one hand. And then… nothing.”

  “I just remember Kerrie giving us both beers,” Delanie said softly. “After that, I don’t remember anything.”

  Why would that be the last thing that they both remembered?

  But before I could really think about it too much more, my phone rang on the table.

  I sighed and reached for it, looking at the screen.

  “Dammit,” I muttered. “I have to take this.”

  It was my alarm company, and they only ever called me when there was a problem.

  Booth nodded and started to clean up the mess.

  “Hello?” I answered.

  “Ma’am,” the alarm specialist said into my ear. “We have a report of a glass break detector in your main dining area going off. We’ve dispatched police to the location.”

  I sighed.

  “I’ll go check it out,” I said. “Did the cameras pick anything up?”

  “No, ma’am,” the alarm specialist said. “Camera one and two aren’t showing any activity. All is quiet as well.”

  I grimaced.

  “I’m sure it’s just a false alarm. It’s been acting up lately. I dropped a book on the ground this morning, and it set it off. I was there to turn it off, however.” I stood up and gathered my keys. “I’ll make a run by there.”

  “Okay, well like I said, the police have already been dispatched. The alarm will stay in progress until you can turn it off after getting a good look,” the alarm specialist said. “Have a nice night, ma’am.”

  I sighed and shoved my phone into my pocket.

  “I gotta go,” I admitted, looking at Booth with sorrow. “My stupid glass break detector is acting up, and I have to go meet the police at my shop to make sure it was just a false alarm.”

  He looked torn, as if he wanted to go with me.

  I rolled my eyes. “You’re not going with me.”

  He sighed. “I can’t. Asa doesn’t go back to sleep well when I have to transfer him. We get calls when I have him, and I have to have my mom meet me at the station, and she says he’s up for hours afterward.”

  “You need a live-in babysitter like Delanie has,” I teased, patting myself on the chest.

  “You can move in any time,” he countered.

  I rolled my eyes. “You’d hate living with me. I get up really early in the morning, and sometimes I go to bed at seven in the evening. It’s really hard to keep quiet when people keep odd hours.”

  His eyes seemed to focus intently on me for a few long seconds. “I wouldn’t hate it at all.”

  I chuckled and picked up one last Hawaiian roll—fuck my diet—for the road.

  “I’m out.” I paused at the door with him behind me. The abruptness of my move had him bumping into me, pinning me to the door with his big body. Yet, when I expected him to move, he didn’t.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I could feel his hot breath on my neck.

  It made my nipples pebble.

  “We’re still on for Saturday, right?” I questioned.

  He chuckled. “Oh, we’re still on. You want to come over any time, even after you’re done with the alarm company, I’m here. Even if it’s for ten more minutes.”

  After practically running out of his house after that, I arrived at the donut shop to find it hopping.

  There were people… everywhere.

  Even one face that I wasn’t all that excited to see.

  Kerrie.

  Since he arrived at my car first, not allowing me to talk to the officer that was there, I leveled him with a glare. “What are you doing here?”

  He looked at me, confused. “I’m always here. Even when you don’t want me.”

  Chapter 5

  I’m single because I hate people. But I want to find that one person who I don’t hate who also hates people but doesn’t hate me.

  -Dillan’s secret thoughts

  Dillan

  “What does that even mean?” I asked, pushing past him to go to the cops. “And seriously, why are you here?”

  “I saw the activity as I was driving by and stopped,” Kerrie explained.

  For some reason, that didn’t sit well with me.

  What would he be doing anywhere near my shop? He lived in Longview. That was nowhere near here, not to mention where my shop was located was near a school and the college. And both were practically ghost towns after five o’clock. And since those were the only two things that you could access past my shop…

  I ignored Kerrie and walked up to the officer that was peering into my shop window.

  “Officer,” I said, holding out my hand.

  He turned and took my hand. “Ma’am.”

  “This is my shop.” I pointed.

  He grinned. “I know. I was just doing a check. I don’t see anything that would be cause for worry. But why don’t we take a quick sweep of the place and make sure. Can you turn the alarm off?”

  I could.

  Which I did through my phone app.

  The piercing screech cut off seconds later, and I reached for my keys only to find them not there.

  “Shoot,” I said. “I don’t have my keys.” I paused, looking around for anybody else. “I have a
spare, though. It’s around back.”

  The officer, and apparently Kerrie, walked with me.

  He held back, though, typing something on his phone.

  “Spare keys aren’t all that safe,” the officer observed as I slid a brick out of the building and pulled out my key.

  I grimaced. “I know. But I lock myself out a lot. This door always locks behind me, and sometimes I don’t remember to prop it open. Plus, with the alarm, I figure if anybody does find it, and uses it, they’ll hit a snag with the alarm.”

  The officer didn’t say anything.

  So I chose to think he was reluctantly agreeing with me. After snagging the key and replacing the brick, I opened the back door with it and went to step inside, but the officer caught my arm. “Me first, please.”

  I grinned and ducked my head, allowing him to go first.

  I followed closely behind, and almost completely forgot about Kerrie.

  But he brought up the rear.

  I rolled my eyes.

  I really wasn’t sure why he was in town, but I had a sinking feeling it had to do with me not answering his messages the night before or today.

  He’d never liked Booth and Bourne and hadn’t bothered to hide that fact from Delanie and me.

  Which honestly drove me nuts. He never even gave them a chance. How would he know if he liked them or not?

  Though, technically, I knew why he didn’t care for them now. Me.

  He didn’t like that I still had a ‘hang up’ as he called it over Booth.

  Well, spoiler alert, my hang up had been well and truly in place since I’d seen him the day we first moved to town.

  “Looks clear,” the officer said as we came to the main room.

  Five minutes later, after locking back up and resetting the alarm, the officer went to his patrol car and got in.

  He didn’t leave, though.

  And, surprisingly, I was quite thankful for that.

  The moment he was inside, he pressed his phone to his ear and started talking.

  At one point, he’d turned to survey me and Kerrie where we were standing at the front of the building near our cars, and then he turned away again, still talking.

  “I think he’s talking about you,” Kerrie said.

  I snorted. “I think he’s probably telling Booth that everything is okay.”

  Kerrie stiffened at my side.

  “Why would he do that?” Kerrie asked stiffly.

  “Because he cares,” I said softly. “And he couldn’t come with me.”

  “Come with you?” Kerrie pushed.

  “Come with me,” I confirmed. “I was over at his house talking about the night that…”I trailed off when Kerrie interrupted.

  “The night that he fucked your sister and got her pregnant. When she was engaged to be married to me.”

  I stiffened at the hostility in his tone.

  “You didn’t want that marriage any more than she did,” I said carefully, a niggling of worry starting to take root in my brain. “That night…” A thought occurred to me. “Did you know that both Booth and Delanie can’t remember anything that night after you handed them both a beer? Literally. Their night shuts off right at that exact moment.”

  See, I’d known Kerrie so long that I knew his tells.

  I knew when he was lying. I knew when he was pissed. I also knew when he was about to lie.

  He ran his tongue over his lips, looked at me, then away. And then he shifted on his feet.

  “That’s really weird,” he said. “Both of them can’t remember it from that very moment?”

  He. Was. Lying.

  What. The. Fuck?

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  Kerrie stiffened more.

  Both of us were standing ramrod straight as we stared at each other in a silent face off.

  “Tell me the truth, Kerrie,” I said softly, hoping he would do the right thing. “You did something, didn’t you?” I asked. “It was you… what did you do?”

  Kerrie sighed and turned away, his eyes going from me to the streetlight that was flickering at my back, then right back to me. Over and over and over again.

  “What did you do, Kerrie?” I asked. “And the other question is… why?”

  He laughed then. The sound was almost… harsh. As if the laugh was pulled from the depths of his soul.

  “You want to know why I didn’t want to get married to that bitch?” he said then. “Because I love you, Dillan. Not Delanie. You. I fucking love you. Always have. Yet, all you can see is him. I’ve been trying to claw my way out from under the fucking pedestal that you placed Booth on from the moment that you met him.”

  My mouth fell open.

  “And you want to know the worst thing? Your dad was fuckin’ bankrupt. My dad and I? We worked out a sweet deal. His daughter’s hand in marriage for a bailout. But nooo, even that couldn’t go right. That’s what I get for letting old fuckin’ men do the work for the young ones. I should’ve just dealt with it myself. Because if I had, I wouldn’t have wound up betrothed to the wrong fucking sister.”

  I scratched my head.

  “So you what? Drugged them?” Because that was the only answer I was coming up with.

  “My dad and yours had this deal. You girls had to agree. Delanie did. And I couldn’t back out of it.” He shook his head. “So I had to force her hand. I had to make her back out of it.”

  I swallowed as a wave of sickness rolled through me.

  “Then, when she backed off, your dad told you that you were going to be exchanged instead, and you said fuckin’ no. Which was allowed, because they came up with some stupid contract. The money in exchange for the betrothal. But your freewill couldn’t be forced. And I’ve been standing on the sidelines ever since,” he said. “I’ve spent years trying to get you to notice me. I’ve gone the blue collar route in hopes that you would notice me. I work a hands-on job because I know that you like a guy that works with his hands. I grew a beard. I didn’t cut my hair. And still, you won’t fucking look at me.”

  I didn’t know what to say.

  I didn’t look at him because he wasn’t the one that I wanted.

  Which I told him in the next second, causing his scowl to strengthen.

  “I’m… you need to go, Kerrie,” I said softly. “Go, and don’t come back. I don’t want to see you anymore.”

  Because I had a sick feeling, if I actually heard him say what he did, I might very well throw up right on his stupid steel-toed boots.

  “Don’t do this,” he said pleadingly. “Don’t.”

  I took a step back, then headed for my car.

  “It’s already done, Kerrie. It’s already done.”

  Chapter 6

  Is buttcrack one word or should I spread them apart?

  -Coffee Cup

  Booth

  The date wasn’t going anywhere near as planned, mostly because when I went to drop Asa off at my parents’ house, he started to puke.

  I stalled with him halfway out of his car seat, wondering what in the hell I was supposed to do.

  He was puking into his massive bucket of cheeseballs, filling up what space that the cheeseballs weren’t already taking up.

  It couldn’t have smelled good, and even worse, the puke was a sickly bright orange shade, blending seamlessly in with the rest of the container.

  I felt my gorge rise and was seconds away from puking myself when he finally stopped.

  Calmly, he placed the lid on the cheeseball container, and then looked at me with fevered eyes.

  “I don’t feel good,” he told me.

  I bit my lip.

  No, I bet he didn’t.

  “Okay,” I said as I put him back into his car seat and buckled him in. “Can you make it home?”

  He threw up again into the container but nodded his head as he did. “I think so.”

  After making sure he was situated, I got back into my tru
ck, then drove off as sedately as I could.

  I winced when I saw the large tub start to slip as I glanced in my rearview mirror and reached back just in time to stop the entire thing from dumping onto the floorboard.

  I felt something wet with my hand, and prayed that it wasn’t puke, but knew better.

  It was fucking puke.

  Goddammit.

  “Hold on to the bucket, bud,” I said. “Don’t let that fall, please.”

  “Okay, Daddy,” Asa’s sweet voice said.

  I pressed my mom’s number on my truck’s touch screen and didn’t have to wait long for her to answer.

  “Did you forget something?” she asked the moment that she answered.

  “No,” I sighed. “Asa’s puking. I’m gonna keep him at home tonight.”

  She groaned. “That’s no fun. Sorry, baby.”

  I felt my lips tip up at the sides.

  Out of all of my mother’s kids, I was literally the only one out of us all that couldn’t fuckin’ handle puking when I was younger. I literally turned into the biggest pussy on the planet when I got sick, and, of course, so did my son.

  “It’s okay,” I chuckled. “I guess this is what happens. Karma, right?”

  She snickered. “Love you. Let me know if you need anything.”

  After hanging up, my next call was to Dillan.

  She answered and sounded like she was sick, too.

  “Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”

  Please don’t be puking. Please don’t be puking.

  “Yeah,” she sniffled. “Listen, I was about to call…” She trailed off at the sound of Asa puking and crying. “What’s that?”

  “That’s Asa throwing up in his tub of cheese balls.” I sighed. “I’m going to have to cancel on you. I’m so sorry.”

  She sighed too. “That’s life, Booth. Things don’t always work out like they’re supposed to. Especially with little ones.”

  She had that right.

  “Fuck,” I said as I saw the tub about to slip again in my rearview mirror.

  I grabbed it just in time.

  Sadly, the moment that I did, it was with my hand practically shoving down into the tub, burying my hand into the hot vomit and cheese balls.