Bet on Me (Bet on Love #2)

by Rachel Higginson

  His sigh rattled my bones and dug at something rock solid inside of me. Or something I had thought was rock solid. “Baby girl, this bitterness is going to eat you alive. I said it before, and I’ll say it again, she is your mother. Whatever anger and resentment you have for her doesn’t change that. It will never change that.”

  My blood felt like lava, hot and burning beneath my skin. I rarely got mad at my dad. In fact, I could remember every time I’d felt this disappointed with him…this frustrated and furious. But right now I just couldn’t stand the words that he was saying or the accusations that I was doing something wrong because I didn’t want to see her!

  “What did she say to you?” I growled. “What could she have possibly said to you to make you trust her? After everything she did to us, to you, why are you on her side and not mine?”

  He quieted his voice and leveled his tone. “She said she was sorry, Britte. And she meant it.”

  Tears streamed from my eyes before I could catch them or convince them to disappear. I sat there listening to my dad’s silence, sobbing at his words and the freshly broken heart shattering in my chest.

  I was reliving that day again. I felt like a child that had just lost her mother and didn’t know if I would ever see her again.

  I felt alone and abandoned and painfully neglected.

  “I have to go, daddy.” I hung up the phone before he could say another word. We might have fought and argued, but he would understand my need to flee.

  I had seen him run from his emotions over and over again through the years. Maybe I learned this from him. Maybe my ability to shut out anything uncomfortable, anything painful or with the potential to hurt me, came from him.

  But either way, this was who I was now. This was how I wanted it to be.

  My mother didn’t get to have a conversation with me. She didn’t earn the privilege of my time or forgiveness she didn’t deserve.

  My dad was a better human than me. I could admit that. I could be fine with that. But she wouldn’t weasel her way into my life like she had his, so that she could abandon me all over again.

  Those thoughts didn’t stop the tears, though. They didn’t dry my eyes or make the pain in my heart go away. I cried for almost an hour before I had no water left to leak out. I wasn’t less sad when I stopped crying, but I just couldn’t work up any more tears.

  The Microbiology textbook had fallen off my lap a long time ago, and I’d almost emptied the box of tissues on the end table. And suddenly I was starving. I wouldn’t necessarily call my violent sob fest a workout, but I had to have burned some calories, right?

  This wasn’t stress-eating, I promised myself as I jumped to my feet. My stomach was actually growling.

  I had just decided to clean up the mess of tear stained Kleenex and make myself a Hot Pocket when there was a knock at the door.

  I knew Ellie was with Fin and anybody else from school would have texted first. I glanced at my phone. The green light that notified me when I had a text or notification blinked frantically.

  Oops. I’d forgotten all about my phone once my dad had called and I hung up on him.

  I rubbed my eyes and walked over to the door, peering through the peephole. I was surprised to find Beckett on the other side. He’d asked to see me tonight, but I told him I had to study.

  I breathed in deep, ready to send him away when the scent of hot pizza drifted through the door. Looking through the small hole again, I realized he was holding two huge pizzas and a bag of garlic bread.

  Before I could rip the door open, he called out, “I can hear your stomach growling from here, Britte. I know you’re in there!”

  I smiled. It wasn’t something I had expected to do tonight after the bomb of a conversation I’d had with my dad. But when I opened the door to let Beckett in, I was smiling.

  “My hero!” I sighed.

  He took me in, starting at my bare toes and working his way over my black leggings, oversized tank, and black bathrobe style cardigan. He seemed to approve, even though these were my scrubbies I only wore around the house until he got to my face. Then his eyes bulged, and he pushed by me so he could set the pizza down on the counter and turn back to me.

  Before I could shut the door, my face was in his hands, and he was holding me close to him. “What’s wrong?”

  I sniffled, “What makes you think something’s wrong?”

  He made a growly sound in the back of his throat. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Apparently he didn’t want to play games. “Nothing’s wrong,” I lied. “I just had a fight with my dad. We never fight. It upset me.”

  His shoulders relaxed some, but he didn’t let go of my face. Feeling awkward and embarrassed, I grabbed his wrists and attempted to pull him away. But his hands felt warm and comforting, and he smelled like pizza and his cologne.

  It shouldn’t have worked. But it did.

  It so did.

  He pressed a sweet kiss to the corner of my eye. “I’m sorry you’re upset.” Then he pulled me into a hug and wrapped his arms so tightly around me that it felt like he was the only reason I could stay together. Like he alone had taken the weight of keeping me in one piece.

  Without Beckett’s arms, I would have splintered apart, pieces of me breaking off so they could crumble and dissolve.

  “Thank you,” I whispered against his chest. “I’m starving.”

  He pulled back with a goofy grin on his face. “I thought you were going to thank me for the hug.”

  “That too,” I laughed. “But mostly for the pizza.”

  His low chuckle rumbled through his chest, and I found myself missing his arms when he pulled back. “Grab the plates,” he ordered. “I’ll start dishing up.”

  I pulled down a couple of plates Ellie and I had rescued from Goodwill and handed them over. He’d been smart enough to text Ellie and come up with my two favorites: Buffalo chicken and Supreme.

  Supreme without mushrooms. Because ick. Mushrooms were gross.

  I threw away my tissues and piled my books in a neater pile on the coffee table so we could curl up on the couch.

  He sat on one side with his legs sprawled out and I sat on the other, my legs folded neatly beneath me. It was such a picture of us. Him taking over every single inch of space that he could, forcing his way into places that didn’t belong to him so he could make them his, make them realize they wanted to be his. And me, squished as tightly as I could so that I wouldn’t bother someone else, so that I wouldn’t have to deal with anyone else.

  I took a bite of pizza and rolled my eyes at myself. All the emotion from earlier had turned me into a philosopher.

  “So what was the fight with your dad about?” He had wasted zero time. So Beckett. Jumping straight to the hard stuff.

  I debated what to tell him. We’d already fought about my mom. I didn’t want to do that again. But more than that, I didn’t want to taint our time together with her. I didn’t want to talk about her again. Or think about her. Or waste more breath on her.

  But even though I felt all those things, I still said, “He still wants me to talk to my mom. And I don’t see the point.”

  Beckett held my gaze from across the couch. For a second, I thought he was going to parrot everything my dad said. I didn’t want to hear that lecture twice in one day, so I raised my shields and prepared to kick him out of the apartment.

  He surprised me by saying, “Why is your dad pushing so hard?”

  My pride and my broken heart were soothed by those words, so I felt safe enough to say, “I don’t know. I think because he talked to her and feels closure now, he’s hoping for the same thing for me. In his way, I think he thinks it will be good for me…like him pushing me into this is helping me in the long run. But he doesn’t get it. The relationship he had with my mom is different than what I had with her. Couples break up all the time. Love dies. People move on. But not with your kid. You’re supposed to love your child no matter what. I don’t think I’ll ever have ‘cl
osure’ with my mom. I don’t think that’s even possible.”

  “I think you’re right about that,” he agreed. “Kids aren’t supposed to get closure from their parents. Their parents are just not supposed to be assholes.”

  “Exactly,” I huffed.

  His eyes darted away from mine. “But I think you’re wrong about couples. I mean, I know people break up, and the divorce rate is like…crazy, but I don’t think that’s normal. Or should be normal. A marriage…a love like that, shouldn’t be something you can just walk away from. Or be able to heal from quickly.”

  “Oh, trust me. My dad didn’t heal quickly. Or easily. And I still don’t believe all he needed was closure, and now he’s all better. My mom messed him up.” I set my plate down and pulled my knees to my chest. “But my point is, marriages do break up all the time. That’s not surprising. For them at least, even if my mom wouldn’t have left completely…even if she would have stayed a part of my life, their love was over. She wasn’t willing to fix them or her or what they had. It was easier for her to leave, so she did.”

  “That’s the problem with the world,” Beckett murmured sympathetically. “People aren’t willing to work at things. They’re so afraid of pain and being uncomfortable that they run at the first sign of trouble.”

  I felt myself smiling again. It wasn’t a big smile or even an obvious one. But if he had intended to lift my spirits, he was. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean society and relationships, and I don’t know what else. But I think there’s this attitude that if it hurts, it’s wrong. Or if it makes you feel uncomfortable or awkward or takes you out of your comfort zone, it’s bad for you. But that’s not the case. Okay, maybe life threatening pain is really bad for you. Or if you’re being abused or the other person is cheating or whatever. But every good thing in life takes work. Takes hard work.”

  “That’s adorable coming from the baseball star with all his job choices and perfect life set up for him.” I kept my tone teasing, but my words were serious. Beckett had all these ideas on life and love, but his life was nothing but easy living and endless options.

  He grabbed for one of my feet and yanked it toward him playfully. The action pulled me into laying down with my feet on his lap. His mischievous expression made butterflies take flight in my belly and my pulse quickened with anticipation. “You think baseball was easy for me?” he asked as he started massaging my feet. “I worked my ass off to get that good. Every day. Without a break. Since I was a kid. I loved baseball, so that also made it fun. But baseball was painful. More than painful. There were a lot of times I didn’t think I would make it. And the same with school. I know you think I’m some kind of manwhore playboy, but the truth is I had to work hard for my grades and to graduate with honors. I gave up a lot just to make sure I would always be eligible to play and that I’d have these options when I graduated. The coaching gig came out of the blue, but that was after working my ass off for coach for four hard years. Life isn’t easy for anybody, Britte. Not even me. But the best parts of my life, have been the ones that have made me the most uncomfortable…that have taken the most out of me. Take you for instance.”

  I let out a squeak of surprise when he jumped over me, lengthening his body against mine. I stilled when he ran his nose along the curve of my jaw. “You think you weren’t work? You think you didn’t make things extremely uncomfortable for me?”

  I was too breathless to respond. My hands clutched at Beckett’s shirt and my legs rubbed against his like we were crickets.

  “But it was worth it, Britte,” he whispered against my mouth. “So goddamn worth it.”

  My eyelids fluttered closed just in time for him to kiss me. Gently at first, slowly building my desire and the depth of his kiss.

  He held his body over me with the strength of his arms, and I couldn’t help but run my hands over the cut muscles and defined form. Moving over his shoulders to his back, I admired every hard inch of him, every piece and part he’d worked so hard to build.

  He let his weight settle over me, not so I was crushed, but so that I could feel him, every inch of him. His lips moved over mine with increasing desire, sucking, biting, tasting until I was breathless and needy.

  I tangled my fingers into the hair at his nape, loving the silky feeling that also brought a sense of possessiveness…and female power.

  We kissed and kissed, each second melting deeper into each other, feeding our insatiable hunger for each other.

  At some point he nudged his way between my legs, forcing them apart to accommodate his hips. I moaned, and the greedy sound should have embarrassed me, but oh, my God!

  Oh, my God.

  He kept kissing me, moving his lips all over my face and neck, down to my breasts. His mouth found my nipple through the thin material of my tank, and I arched my back into him, practically begging him to do that again.

  My legs wrapped around his hips, cradling him against me, demanding he stay there…right where I needed him.

  Right where I would die without him.

  “Beckett,” I heard myself whisper.

  His raspy chuckle skittered down my spine. “I thought you had to study tonight.”

  I lifted my hips into him. “This is better. This is so much better.”

  His mouth found mine again, his teeth sinking into my bottom lip before he kissed me again, picking up speed and making me lose my mind with lust.

  One hand continued to support his weight, while the other gripped my waist. His fingers slyly found the edge of my tank, and he lifted it with ease, slipping his hand beneath. I gasped at the hot sensation of his hand as he moved over my ribs, dragging his rough palms up the length of me.

  I moaned again when he laid his hand on my breast, squeezing gently at first, then firmer, then tighter still until I didn’t think I could stand it. His fingers drew back, taking only my nipple this time and I thrashed my head to the side, needing him closer…with fewer clothes on…inside me.

  Oh, my God. That thought! I had never even had that thought with a guy before.

  It should have terrified me.

  I had been so opposed to even thinking about sex with anyone until I was in a committed relationship. I had a list of reasons and possibilities and rationale that proved over and over I could not have sex with anyone until I knew they wouldn’t leave me.

  Until I knew they wouldn’t abandon me.

  Beckett slowed the kiss and pulled back. I hadn’t changed my posture or acted differently, despite the changing direction of my thoughts. I hadn’t outwardly freaked out, even if inside I was a tornado of confusion, indecision and desperately hot female hormones.

  Beckett hovered over me, staring down with those gray eyes that could be so mysterious but they weren’t right now. They were open and clear and so focused on me they left me breathless. “Where did you go, Britte?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but his cell phone made an obnoxiously loud chirping sound that made us both jump. Beckett sat back on the couch again, digging his phone from his pocket.

  “I’m going to kill him. He keeps changing my ringtone, and it’s driving me up the wall.”

  “Who?” I already knew it was one of his brothers though from the frustrated look he had on his face. Beckett only looked that adorably murderous when it involved his family.

  “Grayson. The bastard.” He tapped at his phone for another minute before tossing it on the coffee table. “Sorry, if I didn’t deal with it, it would have kept chirping.”

  I couldn’t help but smile. “Not a problem.”

  His expression immediately gentled and he laid a hand on my knee. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I scooched into sitting with my back against the arm rest and my legs still stretched out, so he didn’t have to stop touching me. “I’m a little hot and bother…” I fanned at my face dramatically. “But I’m fine. More than fine.”

  His smile turned sexy and secretive. Like he knew something the rest of the world didn�
��t. “I’m supposed to be at Gray’s right now. Lennox is there too. They’re waiting for me.”

  “Did you just stop by to get some action? Beckett Harris! Was I just your booty call?” I was mostly teasing him, but there was this irrationally insecure part of me that needed to be reassured.

  “It’s not my fault you have such a great booty,” he grinned at me. “But in all seriousness, no. I did not just stop by for a quickie. My honorable intentions were to bring you food, help nourish your study-focused mind and make sure you didn’t need anything else. Then I was going to leave you to it. Instead, you distracted me with your legs in those tight ass pants and your low cut shirt and your face and I just… well, I just couldn’t help myself.”

  “My face?” I laughed, sure it was covered in pizza grease.

  His gaze held mine. “It’s so beautiful,” he murmured. “I can’t help it. It’s not my fault.”

  How could I be mad at that? “Fine,” I sighed. “We’ll raincheck the booty call. Family obligations await.”

  He started to look put out again. “Poker night,” he explained. “I’m bringing the booze.”

  “Ooh, anything good?”

  “Not for them,” he chuckled darkly. “The plan is to never be in charge of bringing the beer again. I’m playing the naïve-just-graduated-from-college kid who’s used to keggers, and the cheapest crap money can buy. It was a role I was born for.”

  I snorted surprised laughter, and his expression warmed. Rubbing my nose self-consciously, I poked him with my big toe. “Have fun tonight. Text me later.”

  He stood up and grabbed his phone. Leaning over he swept a mild, but affectionate kiss on my mouth and then said, “I plan to.”

  He grabbed one more piece of pizza on his way out of the apartment and waved goodbye at the door before disappearing into the hallway. I lay there for a long time after he left, trying to figure out if I hated the silence he’d left behind or that he’d made me hate the silence he left behind.