Betting On Love

by Danielle Dickson

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I- I like you, Billie,” I stutter out, trying to turn her frown upside down.

  She scoffs and smiles over her menu at me like she’s won a prize. “Don’t be dumb.”

  Shit, she just played me. I shake my head and look over the menu, noticing the extortionate prices, not that it matters to me, but Billie isn’t even batting an eyelash at them. Interesting. In fact, thinking about it now, she seems like she’s very comfortable being in this stuffy environment surrounded by people with more money than sense. I store that tidbit of information for later.

  We order our food and settle into easy conversation like we’ve known each other forever, yet we’ve only known each other for a week. It’s always like this with her, easy. She doesn’t like talking about herself in major detail but she’s given away a few things I would’ve never known about her otherwise.

  She’s an only child and grew up in the English countryside just outside of London. Her dad’s a renowned Doctor which explains why she’s used to being around money, I’m sure she’s had to endure as many fundraisers as I have.

  “So, what does your mom do?” I ask, taking a sip of wine. Her eyes avoid mine and a blush creeps up her cheeks. If I’m going off the conversation she had with her mom the other night on the phone and this reaction, it has to be good. “Come on, B, it can’t be that bad.”

  She chuckles and turns toward me, rushing out, “If you had a problem with your partner in the bedroom, you’d go to her.”

  I nearly spit out my wine and whisper-shout, “She’s a hooker?”

  The tables closest to us go quiet and she looks around embarrassed. “God, Mac, is that really what you think my fifty-year-old mother does?”

  I laugh. “Well you didn’t explain it very well.”

  She laughs with me. “She’s a bloody sex therapist, you tit!”

  “Ah, well that makes much more sense,” I reply. “She any good?”

  She shakes her head. “Trust you to ask that, but yes, she’s very good. She even has a couple of books out.”

  I pull out my phone. “What’s your last name?”

  She shrugs. “James, why?” I start to type on my phone, not answering her. “Mac, what are you— No! You aren’t?”

  I grin up at her and show her my confirmed order of three of her mom’s books. “Too late.”

  “I can’t believe you just ordered my mum’s sex books,” she squeaks out, hanging her head in her hands.

  “You said she was good.”

  “She is, but for other people. Not people I know!” Her voice has gone strangely high pitched. She refills her wine glass and looks at me. “Please tell me you’re not going to read them.”

  “I’m not going to read them.”

  “Mac!”

  “No, seriously, I’m not going to read them. I don’t need to.” I wink at her. “They’re purely to display in my apartment so I can point them out and embarrass you all of the time.”

  She groans and takes a long gulp of her wine. “So now you know all about my family, tell me about yours. Are you from here originally?”

  “I am. I grew up here in the city with my mom, dad, and twin sister. Other than that, there’s not much to tell.”

  “You’re a twin?” she asks in amazement.

  I nod. “Yeah, her name’s Casey-Leigh. I’m six minutes older than her though.” That part has always bothered Case.

  She smiles and takes a sip of her red wine. “Interesting.”

  I smile back at her. “It’s not that interesting.”

  She leans forward on her elbows. “See I disagree, this whole night we’ve skirted around your personal life—” I scoff interrupting her. “What?”

  “I’ve skirted around my personal life? I’m an open book, Billie, you’re the one acting like you’re hiding something,” I laugh out.

  “I’m not hiding anything, I’m just not ready to talk about certain things,” she retorts.

  I tap the table. “You divulged why you came to America within the first few days of knowing me, so what is it you’re not telling me now that’s worse than that?”

  She sighs and looks at me, a vulnerable look in her eyes. “There’s nothing worse than that, what he did broke me. How I reacted was funny now looking back at it, but I was so bloody angry at them both. Devastated in fact.” I nod and wait for her to continue. “You remind me of him in a way.”

  I sit up straight. “I’m nothing like him, I don’t even need to know him to know that.”

  “I didn’t mean you’re a cheater, I mean your personality,” she says.

  “Well that’s not true either, no one is as funny as me,” I say sarcastically, taking a sip of my wine.

  “There’s that ego again, do you realise how conceited you sound sometimes?”

  I lean back in my chair and she looks over at me, her beautiful eyes sparkling in the candlelight and it makes me worry that this is all she thinks about me. Tonight was supposed to be different. Yeah, I know I look good, I work hard for it so I think I deserve to flaunt it a little, but I’ve never had this type of reaction from a woman before. To be honest, it makes me relax a little for the first time in a while because we’ve made it through a meal and she’s listened to me talking instead of eye-fucking me over the table the whole night—although I wouldn’t be opposed to that.

  “Self-love is not the same as conceit.”

  She laughs so hard that she snorts. She slaps a hand over her mouth as my laughter rings throughout the restaurant. We attract the attention of everyone around us but I don’t care. “Did you just snort?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a snorter, Billie?” I tease.

  She goes bright red but doesn’t tear her eyes away from mine. “It happened, get over it, Mac.”

  I can’t stop laughing, even when I’m fighting Billie off to pay the bill I’m still chuckling away to myself.

  The door is opened for us again on the way out and we head toward the car waiting at the edge of the sidewalk. I open the car door for her and she climbs in gracefully, rolling her eyes at my wink, but I don’t miss the slight blush that creeps up her cheeks at the same time.

  He’s been unusually well behaved this evening, a perfect gentleman you could even say, which has been nice. I do feel bad that he’s spent all this money on me though, I tried to pay for half of the meal but he insisted that he was paying. It begs me to wonder why he would do all this just to win a bet. However, I did get him to fess up that he likes me.

  I smile at the memory.

  Until that point, I could’ve sworn he was just in this bet because I’m not an easy lay and he likes a challenge, but that little bit of information and the way he’s been acting tonight makes me think otherwise. I think there’s a different side to Mac, he’s not as one-dimensional as I first thought and each time I’m with him he reveals a different part of himself.

  The car door is opened for me like every other time tonight, and for the first time since I arrived in America, I want to just let go and enjoy myself. Would it really be that bad?

  I paste a smile on my face and take Mac’s offered hand, thanking him as he helps me out of the car. Instead of being at our apartment building, we’re at a park I’ve never seen before. Mac talks to the driver and the boot of the car pops open, revealing a basket and two blankets. He picks them up with a smirk on his face and motions for me to follow him, so I do without question. I’m going to listen to my heart for tonight, listening to my head is getting tiring.

  I shiver as we walk in companionable silence through the park, he must notice because he stops and sets the basket on the ground, wrapping one of the blankets around my shoulders. His hands gather it up in front of me and I look up at him with a small smile on my face.

  “Thanks, it was getting a little chilly,” I say, so low that it’s practically a whisper.

  He smiles, but this time it’s not his regular cheeky one, or a smirk, it’s a real smile that has my heart thumpin
g loudly in my chest.

  I’d love to see this smile more often. It drops from his face as he stares at me and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallows. I thought that was a nervous habit? I must be reading him wrong because Mac is anything but a nervous person.

  I’m caught up in the moment but he breaks me out of my stupor by wrapping the blanket a little tighter around me and clearing his throat. “We should get going, we still have to walk up that hill.”

  I groan in response. “Give me a little heads up next time you decide to take us trekking, these heels are killing me.” He leans down in a position that says “jump on my back” and I shake my head. “You’re not giving me a piggyback, Mac, I’ll be fine. Just lead the way.”

  He laughs and bows his head. “Your wish is my command, Princess.”

  Oh for fuck sake, I just snorted again! It happens every time I let myself laugh properly. I sigh, I may as well just get over it because it’s going to keep happening. I look over at him warily but I don’t think he noticed, he’s worrying his bottom lip and staring straight ahead of him. My curiosity to know what he’s thinking burns bright, but I decide to let him have this moment.

  I start to hear voices and as we reach the top of the small hill and instantly see why he brought me here.

  “Wow,” I exclaim, looking over the expansive field with groups and couples sat in chairs or on blankets; eating, drinking, and laughing. There’s a huge screen at the front of the field and I’m in awe that this is just around the corner from our apartment.

  I look over at Mac and see that he’s grinning at my approval. “Not a lot of people know about this, it happens once a month and you have to book in advance.”

  “And it just so happens that you had tickets for tonight?” I ask as he hands over what looks like tickets to a guy with a torch at the bottom of the hill.

  He shrugs. “I have connections.”

  I nod and point to a spot in the middle where the view isn’t disturbed by people sitting in camping chairs. Mac lays out the other blanket and sits down, patting the spot next to him. I clumsily flop down in my tight dress and take my heels off with a satisfied groan. He chuckles, causing it to sound like a deep rumble in his chest, a deep rumble that makes my body heat up.

  I’m handed a glass of champagne and he clinks his against mine. “To whoever wins the bet, may the odds favor me.”

  I laugh. “You sound like a bad version of The Hunger Games.”

  He shrugs and leans back on one hand. “You did cheers to it though, so no take backs.”

  I ignore his comment and take a sip of my drink, looking around me. There’s a whole mixture of people here ranging from teenagers to elderly men and women, but none of them are dressed to the nines like we are; no one seems to care what anyone else is doing. Everyone is in their own little bubble having a great time with whoever they came with, they’re not concerned with whatever they’ve got going on in their lives or what happened in the past, they’re living in the here and now.

  “What are you thinking?” Mac asks in a low voice, startling me out of my reverie.

  I turn toward him and notice he’s staring right at me. How long has he been looking at me for?

  “I was just thinking how all these people here tonight look like they haven’t got a care in the world. Like nothing outside of this outdoor cinema matters,” I reply.

  He moves closer to me and pulls the pin that’s holding my hair in the bun on the nape of my neck out and I feel it unravel, flowing down my back.

  He runs his fingers through the side closest to him. “Maybe it doesn’t, maybe what’s happening right here, right now, is all that matters?”

  He brushes the hair away from my neck and I hiss in a breath as his fingers caress the soft skin just under my ear. The tension amps up and he moves in closer, causing me to panic and lift my glass to my mouth to stall him. In my haste, I breathe at the same time as taking a sip of champagne, causing the bubbles to fizz up my nose. Unfortunately for me, I cough out what is in my mouth… all over Mac.

  He jolts back and closes his eyes, laughing at the same time. I cough uncontrollably and reach for the napkins I can see in the basket. I hand him one and watch him dab at his face.

  “You could’ve just told me you didn’t like the champagne, you didn’t have to spit it at me,” he jokes. I continue coughing and his face turns serious. “Are you alright?”

  I nod, tears pricking my eyes. “Fine, the bubbles just went down the wrong way.”

  He hands me another napkin and leans back on his hand again, casually people watching to give me a minute to collect myself. I use this time to dab at my eyes and hide away behind the napkin as complete and utter embarrassment wracks my body.

  “I’m so sorry,” I mumble.

  He looks at me and laughs, easing the tension in my shoulders. “I’ve had worse, trust me. I got puked on by a date once, in fact, it was twice.”

  I giggle. “You didn’t.”

  He nods. “True story. One couldn’t handle her liquor and the other… well, I didn’t know until that point that she was thirteen weeks pregnant and still going through the sickness faze.”

  My mouth falls open. “Shut up! How could she not tell you?”

  He laughs and shrugs. “Beats me, I just thought she was a bit of a stiff not having a drink with me.”

  The overpowering lights go dim and the screen in front flickers on which reminds me I didn’t ask him what we’re watching. The titles roll and I immediately know that it’s Top Gun, one of my favourite films. I smile over at him and find him watching me again with a grin on his face.

  What I would do to know what’s going on inside of that head of his. He’s probably just thinking how he’d love to get me home and into bed.

  I can’t stop staring at her, I purposely didn’t tell her what movie we were watching because I wanted to be a fly on the wall as I watched her reaction to it firsthand. And damn that smile was completely worth giving up my front row tickets to next week’s big game. She’s so beautiful that I haven’t even taken a second look at another woman tonight, not even when she wasn’t looking.

  Damn, I think I’m in deep.

  I couldn’t concentrate on the film because Mac’s fingers brushed up against mine more than a few times during it and I just wanted to throw caution to the wind and entwine my fingers through his, but I didn’t. As much as I said I’d let my heart be in control, it was hard to let go. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a bet. And if I was honest with myself, I think I was already well on my way to losing my first one.

  In the car on the way back home, Mac traces my knuckles lightly with his fingertips making the butterflies in my belly go crazy.

  “Have you had a good night?” he asks suddenly.

  I clear my throat. “I have to say I’m impressed, Mr. Jennings. I’ve had a really nice night.”

  His lip curls up at my use of his surname, yeah, I caught that when we walked into the restaurant. The hostess must’ve remembered him from when he went to book the reservation— unless he was lying to me that he’d never had a date there before and he frequented there a lot more than he was letting on.

  “So it was well worth cancelling your other plans to go out with me tonight?” he asks, smirking at me in a knowing way.

  “Supposedly so, but I do have an apartment that I need to… un-foil still,” I retort sarcastically.

  I thank the driver before taking Mac’s hand again to get out of the car, my shoes dangling from my other hand. Before I know it, I’m hoisted up onto his back, my dress riding up just under my bum and I squeal for him to put me down.

  “Mac, you’ve nearly got my arse on show! Put me down!” I shout, desperately trying to cover my bum and hold onto my shoes and clutch bag at the same time.

  I feel his deep rumble of laughter shake both our bodies as I cling onto his back like a spider monkey. “Relax, B, no one’s around. I’ll put you down when we get inside.”

&nb
sp; I huff and watch as he slots the key in the apartment building door and opens it, placing my feet safely back on the ground as we stand waiting for the lift.

  Once we step out of this elevator, the night’s over and I don’t want it to be. I clear my throat and she looks up at me with a smile on her face.

  “I have a shit load of beer with your name on it, if you’re interested?” I throw out there, hoping like hell that she takes me up on my offer.

  She worries her lips then smirks. “You’re on, I have a shit load of foil with your name on it. Bring it to mine in five, I just need to get changed out of this ridiculously tight dress.”

  That dress. It’s been both a blessing and a curse this whole freaking night. I’ve tried not to blatantly stare at her, but it’s been torture.

  “See you in five.”

  I take her hand and squeeze it, bringing it up to my lips and brushing them across her knuckles softly. She blushes and I walk in the direction of my apartment, opening the door and placing the basket and blankets onto the kitchen counter.

  I change into sweatpants and a skintight white t-shirt before picking up the crate of beer and locking up on the way out to Billie’s.

  This time I don’t knock, I take my master key and turn it in the lock, walking into her light and airy apartment.

  “Honey, I’m home!” I call out.

  She walks into the open space from the hallway that leads to her bedroom in a tank top and pale blue shorts, her hair piled up on the top of her head and her face makeup free. She looks good enough to eat.

  I clear my throat and pull two beers out for her to open. “Shall I put the rest in the refrigerator?” She nods and pops the tops off with a bottle opener. “Oh, they… never mind.”

  I shake my head with a smile, they’re screw tops, but I’ll keep that one to myself.

  She gestures around her. “Well... get to it, I hope you enjoy unwrapping it as much as you did wrapping it all up.”