Double Dare You

by Cara Lockwood

  “Look, you’re no Greenie. I may never have slept with you...” Mira raised her eyebrows. “And as your straight best friend, never will, but I am willing to bet you are great in bed. You are like the hardest worker I know, so I can’t imagine you’re lazy in bed.”

  Allie laughed a little. “Thanks, Mira.” Allie felt a little bit better. “I do think I have some skills.”

  “Of course you do!” Mira chirped. “I do have a question for you, though. So, all that time you were friends with Beck before the weekend...did he ever invite you on one of those crazy tours of his? The heli-skiing?”

  Allie shook her head. “Me?”

  “You’re a kick-ass skier,” Mira said. “You eat black diamonds for breakfast.”

  “Yeah.” Allie glanced downward. She was a pretty good skier. It was the one thing she’d split with her conservative parents on—she’d learned to ski and kept skiing, despite the risks. Of course, she wore one of the best helmets money could buy—at her parents’ insistence. “But even if he’d invited me on one of those tours, I would’ve probably said no, anyway.”

  “Bullshit. If Beck had invited you, you would’ve bought a new skintight ski suit, gotten a full-body wax and then you would’ve gone. Girl, please.” Mira spoke the truth. Even Allie had to admit it. “But he never asked you. Even though you guys were friends who hung out almost every week.”

  “Yeah.”

  Mira jammed another bite of salad in her mouth, chewing fiercely. “It’s all because you didn’t fit into that extreme sport box. It’s that he likes to keep his life arranged in neat little boxes: his one-night stands in one, his friends in another, adrenaline junkie stuff in yet another. He reminds me exactly of a guy I used to date in college.” Mira waved her now-empty fork in the air. “Even if you dated him, or hell, even if you could get him to marry you, he’d probably just put that in another box. Along with each kid you had. Never the two or three or four or five boxes shall meet.”

  “I don’t think he’d do that.” Why was she defending Beck? Mira was probably more on target about Beck than even Allie wanted to admit.

  “Really? Is that why when you tried to climb out of that friend box and get into that sex box he decided he was better off without your friend box than having someone who wouldn’t stay in it?”

  Allie felt the punch of truth. She wasn’t going to finish her lunch for sure now.

  “Ugh. I’m sorry.” Mira reached across the table and clutched at Allie’s hand. “Your face looks like I kicked your puppy. God, I need to shut my mouth and mind my own business.”

  “No.” Allie gave her friend a weak smile. “I know you want what’s best for me.”

  “And I’m proud of you for not trailing after him like some stray cat, like half of Aspen.” She squeezed Allie’s hand one last time and let it go. “I want you to see that you can do better than Liam Beck. He’s never going to rearrange those boxes for you in his mind. He’ll always be trying to put you in one.”

  Allie let out a frustrated breath. She knew logically that might be true, but in her heart, she simply wanted to believe he could change. And part of her wasn’t so sure she could do better than Beck. She could feel his lips on hers, how he’d made her whole body come alive with a single touch. What other man could do that? He’d been as good as she imagined—no, even better.

  “It’s probably just Christmas. Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, more ghosting and breakups happen than any other time. Too much pressure with the holidays.”

  “Is that true?”

  “I saw it in a meme somewhere, so probably not.” Mira laughed to herself as she dabbed her mouth with a napkin.

  “Probably is true with Beck. He hates the holidays.”

  “Did he ever tell you why?”

  “Not exactly, but it has to do with his family.” It was one of the many secrets Beck kept. She knew the broad outlines of his childhood: addict dad, absent mom, and the fact that Beck spent his childhood in and out of foster care before he turned eighteen and set about taking care of himself. It was the same story that had made him such a favorite in the Olympic Games. Kid from a broken home makes good with two silver medals. But none of that explained exactly why he hated Christmas so much. Allie had just assumed Christmases had been hard for him, growing up. But he refused to talk about them, or pretty much any of his childhood.

  “You’re sure he didn’t rattle you?” Mira asked, looking suddenly concerned.

  Allie let out a false laugh, which sounded a little too forced. “No, of course not. I’m the one who left him in the bathroom.”

  “But you also kissed him.”

  “Right, to prove that there was nothing between us,” she said. “Which there’s not.” Now, that was definitely a lie. But Allie told herself she’d keep on telling it until it was true. Fake it till you make it, she told herself.

  Mira stared at her friend a beat. “Okay,” she said after a while. Allie was glad her friend didn’t push it. Suddenly, she didn’t want to talk about Beck anymore. Allie took a gulp of ice water from her glass.

  Mira’s face softened, and she reached out and clutched Allie’s hand on the table.

  “I didn’t mean to doubt you,” she said. “I just care about you, and Beck is trouble.”

  “I don’t want to be hurt again, either.” Allie sighed, dunking her spoon once more in her soup. She pushed it away from her, frustrated. “Look, don’t worry. I can handle myself. It’s not like he’s...” She glanced at the waiter who strode by carrying a tray filled with two decadent chocolate desserts. “He’s not double-fudge brownies with extra chocolate sauce and whipped cream.”

  “Don’t even talk to me about chocolate right now.” Mira munched another bite of her salad and glared at the desserts. “I couldn’t even zip up my jeans yesterday. I’ve already gained the holiday ten pounds and it’s not even the holidays yet.”

  Allie laughed at her friend’s exaggerated expression of disgust. “You look your adorable little self as always.”

  “No, I don’t. And if this keeps up, Dockett will fire me just because I don’t look the ‘hospitality part’ anymore.” Allie frowned at the mention of her boss, Bill Dockett, who owned Enclave. Dockett subtly pressured his employees to stay trim, put together and trendy. Allie thought it absurd and likely illegal, but Mira was paid well, and she was doing what she loved, and the only downside was working for a dinosaur of a boss who’d never heard of #MeToo. Mira looked at her friend. “You’re lucky you’re tall. You’ve got more places to stash the weight.” Mira cocked an eyebrow. “Not that you need to worry about that. You’re the one who needs another brownie. You’re literally wasting away.”

  “I am not,” Allie protested.

  “The heartbreak diet has done its job, but now you need to eat, my friend.” Mira pushed the bowl of onion soup toward Allie. “You need to at least have three more bites.” She dipped the spoon in and lifted up a bite, as if she planned to feed Allie herself.

  “What am I? A toddler?”

  “I’ll make the airplane noises for you if you want,” Mira joked. Allie made a face at Mira, the woman who’d answered her post for a roommate back when she first moved to Aspen. The two had hit it off immediately since they’d both been from Nevada. What were the odds she’d find someone else who learned to ski in the Sierra Nevadas and then moved to Aspen to get more snow? Allie dutifully took the spoon and had a bite of now-lukewarm soup. “Seriously, though. Come out with me tonight. You need a do-over from yesterday. No Beck this time.”

  “I don’t know.” It wasn’t that work had been busy at her small accounting office, but Allie wasn’t usually a hit-the-bars-two-nights-in-a-row kind of woman.

  “Don’t flake out on me!” Mira scolded. “I double dog dare you,” Mira teased.

  “Don’t start that again!” Allie cradled her head in her hands in defeat. “Pretty soon, I�
�ll be jumping off a cliff because someone asked me to. You know I can think for myself, right?”

  “I know,” Mira said. “But maybe you’re too much in control. Maybe you need to give it up a little bit. Shake things up. Come on, admit it. Last night was fun. The bartender?” Mira banged the table with her open palm, making the silverware jump.

  It wasn’t the bartender Allie was thinking about, as she remembered Beck’s strong hands at the small of her back, the feel of his hands in her hair.

  “It was fun,” she admitted. Not the fun she planned to repeat, if Beck was involved.

  “But seriously. It’s fun to shut your brain off now and again. Let someone else do the steering.”

  Allie couldn’t help but feel that her friend spoke the truth. She’d always held on to things in her life so tightly: her job, her friends and even Beck. But look at where that had gotten her. She thought the tighter she held on to Beck, the more he’d be hers, and yet the opposite had happened. He’d walked out of her life anyway. Maybe the way to happiness wasn’t keeping a tight rein on everything in her life. Maybe it was all about letting go. Letting chance take the wheel.

  “Come on,” Mira said. “Let’s play this game tonight. See if we can’t get more people involved.”

  “More people?”

  “Let’s ask our friends to give you a few decent dares just for fun. See where it leads. Come on. You need some fun. This will be fun.”

  * * *

  Beck spent the night and following day thinking about Allie. Her soft lips, her delicate voice, how that vixen had grabbed him literally by the balls and then left him wanting. She was the only woman who could do that, wrap him around her finger, make him do what she wished and then leave him panting for more. He should be mad, but instead, all he could do was admit to himself that he deserved it. He never should’ve kissed her like that. He’d crossed a line again. He was always doing that with Allie and it was getting to be a problem. Not that he’d planned it. The woman lit a passion in him that burned white-hot, woke desires in him he didn’t know he had, his basest primal instincts.

  He knew there was a kind of darkness in him, one that invited in the chaos, but when Allie was around it boiled in him, almost impossible to control. Even now, thinking of her delicate cool fingers around his cock made his heart pound. The fact that she’d left him with a nasty case of blue balls just had made her hotter. No woman toyed with him like she did, no woman left him wanting more. That bombshell auburn hair with the highlights of fire. That electrifying kiss that had all but made him come right there. And part of him wanted to have her ride him until she was spent, but another part also wanted to just curl up with her naked and cuddling in bed, her snug in his arms. That was what made Allie so dangerous. It wasn’t just the sex; it was how he wanted to take care of her after.

  “Uh, hello? Anybody in there?” Willis waved his hand in front of Beck’s face, and he realized his business partner had been talking for quite a while and Beck hadn’t been listening. He straightened, taking his feet off his messy desk in the small office of Aspen Adventure Tours, the business the two old friends owned together.

  “Sorry, man. I zoned out.” Beck gave Willis a sheepish grin. He’d known Willis since the Olympic Village in 2006. Willis invented some of the tricks that were now staples on the half-pipe.

  “Mmm-hmm.” Willis studied him. “Doesn’t have anything to do with Allie Connor, does it?”

  “Why would you say that?” Beck’s voice was sharp, defensive, even to his own ears.

  “Because I know she was at the party last night, and rumor has it...well, that you two had a reunion of sorts.”

  “It’s not like that.” He didn’t like the idea of anybody spreading rumors about Allie. The muscles in his neck tensed. There it was, that rise of protectiveness in him.

  Willis leaned back in his seat, dark eyes focused on Beck. Judging him. Willis had never much liked Allie, though Beck was not certain why. Part of him thought Willis was jealous of the attention she sucked away from the business, and the way she was always trying to get him to scale back on some of the more dangerous tours.

  Willis, however, thought people paid more for danger, and that was what they were in business to deliver. The two friends couldn’t be more different. Beck was blond and blue-eyed. Willis, dark haired and wiry, was almost all beard, which went all the way down to the third button on his shirt.

  “Look, it’s none of my business, man, but she’s your polar opposite. Yet that girl has you wrapped.”

  Beck knew this was true, remembered how he’d stood frozen in that bathroom while she’d walked away from him. Still, he could think of worse things than to be in love with a woman as amazing as Allie Connor.

  “So?”

  “So, didn’t she try to change you? Try to get you to sit home and knit or something? All those accountant types are the same.”

  “That’s not exactly it.”

  “You’re going to retire, then? Give the business over to me? I wouldn’t mind.” Willis grinned.

  “I’m not retiring.” Beck glanced at Willis, feeling heat at the back of his neck.

  “Okay, then, maybe you should do some work instead of stalking your ex on Instagram.” Willis nodded at the smartphone lying faceup on his desk, Allie’s profile up on it. He quickly swiped the screen away on his phone.

  “I just wanted to see if she’s okay.”

  Willis shook his head slowly and absently smoothed his beard. “Right. Sure. Hey, it’s your life, man. I’m just glad you didn’t give all the accounting over to her.”

  Beck had been tempted. Allie had offered numerous times to do their accounting work. As of now, she just calculated their taxes at the end of the year. Beck was not a numbers guy, but Willis seemed to be happy to pay their bills and do the payroll and Willis didn’t see why they should pay an outsider to do it.

  “Have you thought more about my suggestion of expanding to Vail and Breckenridge? Maybe Keystone?” Willis’s eyes lit up at the prospect.

  Beck might take risks on the mountain, but when it came to finances, he made only deliberate, safe decisions.

  “They already have adventure tours. The competition is thick there.”

  “With your name? We could blow them all away.” Beck hated playing off his fame. He hadn’t gone to the Olympics for fame. He’d done it to prove he could.

  “But I live here. I’d hardly ever be on those tours.”

  “So what? Your name is what sells, man. Go for the opening, stay a week, then come back here. You’ll have people lining up in droves just to say they skied the same backcountry trails Liam Beck did.” Willis was pushing this hard. Beck didn’t know why. They both had enough to get by. More than get by: thrive.

  “Aren’t we already making enough?” Beck asked.

  “Is it ever enough?” Willis countered.

  Beck didn’t think much about money. He had enough in his bank account and his bills were paid. He didn’t worry about much more beyond that. They were doing well and he didn’t see the point in risking overextending for a few extra bucks.

  “What if the new venture failed?”

  “I’d run it for the first year. It won’t,” Willis promised.

  “How could you run both Vail and Breckenridge?”

  “I’d figure it out,” Willis said.

  “I don’t know.” Beck shook his head. “Why do we need to expand so fast? We’ve got a good thing going here. And if we save up for another year or two, then maybe.”

  “By the time we do that, it’ll be even more competitive. And somebody else will have a name they can use, too. You know there are a ton of other punks out there, fresh off the last Olympics, probably planning their own gigs right now. We’ve got to get out there, make our mark, first. We could own Colorado.”

  Beck still didn’t like the idea of spreading himself s
o thin.

  “You’re asking me to take on all the risk,” he said.

  Willis paused a moment, seeming to contemplate what he planned to say next.

  “I’m asking you to open your eyes to the possibilities, that’s all. I’d like my paycheck to be as fat as yours one of these days.” This was Willis’s way of reminding Beck that he didn’t think their deal was fair. Beck knew Willis hated the sixty-forty partnership split, but what could Beck do? He’d already laid down most of the capital—all the money he’d made from snowboarding endorsement deals after the first Olympics—and had taken on all of the risk of losing it all. Willis had come later, bought in after Beck had laid the groundwork. Sure, Willis worked more hours on the mountain than Beck did these days, but that had been the deal from the start. “Listen, just read this, okay?”

  Willis held out the folder stuffed with paperwork he’d put together, numbers for what it would cost to open two new locations. Reluctantly, Beck took the folder. He owed it to Willis to at least read the stuff.

  “It would be a nice Christmas present if you said yes,” Willis said as he nodded toward the folder, his eyes full of expectation.

  “You don’t watch it, you’re just going to get coal,” Beck joked, and his old friend’s face broke into a smile, not that he could see most of it, covered as it was by his mountain beard. He glanced at the folder, which was brimming with numbers and spreadsheets. God, how he hated spreadsheets. “I guess I can take a look.”

  “That’s all I’m asking you to do.” Willis’s mood seemed lighter, happier. “Want to grab a few beers tonight?”

  It had been a while since Willis had asked him out for a beer. The two kept monstrously busy schedules, but also, Beck had felt his friend grow a bit more distant lately. He knew he should say yes, but, frankly, he didn’t quite feel like it. He wanted to sit and brood about Allie. Maybe scroll through her social media accounts once more. Willis would definitely not approve.