by Lexi Ryan
I sigh. “A little bit.”
“You know, Keegan and I are more than comfortable. Let us help with whatever you would need to take time off. When was the last time you took more than a few days off work? Doesn’t everyone deserve a vacation?”
“I don’t want your—” That’s when it happens. Emma folds her hands on the table, and I gasp. “There’s a big-ass rock on your finger, Emma!”
Her grin is wide and immediate. “I know!”
“On your ring finger.”
“I know!”
“You got engaged and didn’t tell me?”
“I was going to tell you tonight, but you looked worried when I got here. I didn’t want it to all be about me.”
I jump out of my chair and rush around the table to hug her. I wasn’t very easy on Emma when she first came into Keegan’s life, but I couldn’t be happier to know she’s staying there. “Congratulations!”
“Thank you. I’m so happy.” She squeezes me back, hard, and I admit, I’m a little choked up. My throat is thick, and my eyes burn as I blink away tears. When I sit back down, I have to take a few breaths to make sure I’m not going to cry like some sap. “Will you be one of my bridesmaids?” she asks, and then my eyes well up again.
“Bitch, you’re making me cry.” I wipe away the tears that escape. “I would love to.”
She claps her hands, positively glowing in her joy. “I absolutely hated everything about planning my wedding to Zachary, but this is going to be so much fun. We’re going to have a beach wedding, and Jazzy is going to be my flower girl, and it could pour down rain and the caterer could forget to show up and it would still be the best day of my life.”
“You’re disgusting in your happiness, you know that, right?” I make a face, wrinkling my nose. “Oh, crap, you and Keegan are probably going to want to have a bachelor and bachelorette thing in Vegas like Mia and Arrow did, aren’t you?”
She nods. “Oh, yeah. And Keegan’s going to ask Mason to be a groomsman. Are you going to be okay with that?”
Last time we were in Vegas with our group, Mason and I ended up married. I should be worried about all the time this wedding will push me and Mason together, but instead I’m relieved. It sucks being the only one left living in Blackhawk Valley, and I miss Mason more than I miss anyone else. “It’ll be fine.”
She bites her lip and looks away before turning back to me. “I know you just explained your situation with Mason’s parents, but is Mia’s brother part of the reason you won’t be with Mason? Is this about Nic?”
Emma didn’t come into our lives until after the awful accident that took the life of Mia’s brother, Nic, and our friend Brogan, but I know she’s been given the basic details. I shrug. “Maybe on some level, everything in my life is about Nic.”
Four years ago . . .
I spend my Saturday mornings at the federal prison in Terre Haute, and with every trip, I have too much time to think, too much time to worry. Today, my worries are heavier than ever because of what Clarence said last night, but I haven’t decided what to do about it yet.
I park and head to the facility’s main building, beginning the long process of working my way through security. After two years, a lot of the corrections officers recognize me and ask how I am, but even though I’m more comfortable with the process, I’ll never be comfortable in this space. It’s not meant for comfort. It’s meant for punishment—no matter what anyone might feed you about efforts to “rehabilitate” criminals. This isn’t where they send you if they think you can change. This is where you go when society has given up on you. But I refuse to give up on the boy I’ve loved since I was nine years old.
I’ll never forget the day I fell for Nic. I wrecked my bike outside the trailer park, and my knees and chin were busted open. There was so much blood that I was frozen in panic, just sitting there in the ditch beside Old Grotto Road, silently crying. Nic, my neighbor and best friend’s big brother, found me, scooped me into his arms, and carried me home.
It was a hero-worship kind of love that got way more complicated a few years later when I watched him repair the roof on his trailer. He was shirtless, his skin dark from the summer sun, his hair shaggy around his jaw. At thirteen, I thought he was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. His dark, broody eyes, the way he’d mumble to himself in Spanish, and that massive chip on his shoulder.
By the time Mia and I were in high school, my secret was out. I loved my best friend’s big brother, and she knew it.
Nic was a bad boy, and I’m not talking about what uppity bitches mean when they say those words. Nic wasn’t just some young punk who liked leather jackets and tattoos and wasn’t afraid to drop F-bombs. That’s an amateur bad boy; Nic was a professional. He was the kind of guy who didn’t give a shit that he was breaking the rules. If he thought breaking the rules was the only way he could get on even ground, he’d break them twice.
He ended up in prison because his family needed money, and he did what he had to do to get it. Nic’s problem was that he thought he was smarter than the guys he was working with, and they didn’t like his ego. They knew he wasn’t loyal and were happy to see him go down. But guys like that always expect their money back.
Nic has spent the last two years in this place, and he’ll spend the rest of his life here if he makes the same mistake when he gets out. This isn’t some rich white kid who got caught selling coke to his friends. This is a Mexican-American guy from a trailer park who’s spent his whole life having people decide he was trouble after just one glance.
The first time I visited here, I expected to talk to Nic on the telephone through a Plexiglas panel, like in the movies. But the visiting room is made up of rows and rows of chairs. There are officers all around, cameras everywhere, and not even the illusion of privacy.
When I see him today, it’s like someone reaching into my chest and bringing my heart out into the fresh air. He’s in his typical neon-green jumpsuit and slip-on shoes. His dark hair is wet, as if he just got out of the shower. Every time I visit, he looks more tired than the last. Not even after his mom left did he look this rundown. It’s like this place sucks the soul out of him, and I don’t like to imagine what he’ll become if he doesn’t get parole at his next hearing.
“Bailey,” he says softly. He draws me in for the first of two hugs we’re allowed—one at the beginning of the visit, and one at the end. “Why the fuck are you wasting another day visiting me?”
The thing about bad boys is they tend to be real assholes. Nic is no exception.
“Nothing better to do, I guess.” We do this dance with every visit. He pretends he doesn’t want me here, and I pretend my visit is no more inconvenient than stopping for a gallon of milk on my way home. We both know better.
We separate and take our seats, and I study his face, memorizing the hard line of his lips and the broody darkness of his eyes.
“Now I’m here, so I guess you’re going to have to talk to me, unless you want to walk away and make my drive over here for nothing.”
He shakes his head, but his eyes soften as his gaze drops to my mouth for a beat. The attention makes my stomach flip in anticipation, even though my brain knows his gaze is the only thing that’s touched my mouth since he was sentenced. Along with our allotted hug at the beginning and end of our visit, we’re allowed one kiss at each of those times. But Nic never kisses me. It’s as if he’s determined to push me away now more than ever. “How’s college? You keeping up with all those rich kids?”
“It’s fine.”
His jaw hardens. “I heard a rumor that you’re dancing at the Pretty Kitty. Please tell me that’s not fucking true.”
I lift a shoulder in a halfhearted shrug, trying to play it off as if it’s nothing, like I don’t care what he thinks about me shaking my ass for strange men.
“Christ, Bailey. The fuckers who spend their time there aren’t good enough to look at you.”
“You always liked going there.”
H
e arches a brow. “Like I said. Not good enough to look at you.”
Why does he have to say that shit? My chest hurts. “Gotta pay for college somehow.” It’s the excuse I’ve used with everyone, and Nic seems to buy it just like everyone else did. I want to tell him the truth about why I need the money. He’s the only one I could tell, but he still wouldn’t like it. “Your old boy came around last night.” I know better than to speak his name here, where there are too many curious ears, but Nic knows who I mean. “He was waiting for me when my shift ended.”
His jaw goes tight, and every muscle in his body tenses and he sits a couple inches taller. “What’d he say to you?”
“He said you owe him money. Wanted to know if I have it,” I say. When he lifts his chin ever so slightly, I know it’s true. He owes those assholes money. “The goods the police found in your trunk . . . those weren’t yours, were they?”
“A cut would have been mine, but they weren’t paid for.”
“He wants his money. Where are you going to come up with that kind of cash?”
He looks away.
I draw in a ragged breath. “You know, he’s a regular at the Pretty Kitty.” Nic doesn’t meet my eyes. I swallow. “Last night he offered to let me pay off your debt.”
His head whips around. He’s not slow or naïve. He knows exactly what Clarence was offering. “Is that what you want?”
“Are you kidding me? I don’t want his hands anywhere near me.” And I’m not a whore. It’s one thing to take off my clothes and shake my ass, to shimmy up a pole so some drunken idiots will hand over the cash in their wallet. It’s another thing altogether to spread my legs and let a man inside me. I swallow hard and lower my voice. “This isn’t about what I want, it’s about making sure you can start fresh and stay clean when you get out of here.” He deserves someone who’ll make a sacrifice for him, and considering how he got here, that someone should be me. “If you had a way of saving me from having a shit life, you’d do it.”
“I don’t need you to save me from anything.”
“You’re going to get parole. I just know it. The last thing you need is to get out of here already in debt.”
“I’ll figure it out.” His voice is as hard as his jaw now, and he’s not looking at me. “It’s my problem, not yours, so back off.”
“Maybe I can find another way to get the money. Or maybe you just don’t come back to Blackhawk Valley. Go somewhere else, start a new life.” I reach out to touch his hand. “I’ll come with you.”
He yanks his hand away and sneers. Finally, he’s looking at me, but those brown eyes aren’t kind. “Listen, Bailey,” he says. “Whatever little-girl fantasies you’re carrying around about us ending up together, you need to get rid of them right now. Move on with your life. Stop trying to play my hero, and stop trying to be my girl. That’s not what I want.”
It’s impressive how hard he can hit without touching me. I want to be tough and hide how much it hurts, but I’m failing. My vision blurs with tears.
His shoulders sag. “I never should have gotten involved with you. You get too attached.”
But you did. “I’ll find a way to pay him back.” Someone has to. I won’t let myself think about what will happen if Nic has to work off what he owes Clarence. It’s not an option.
“No, you won’t. You’ll find a way to get the fuck out of my business. If he mentions it again, you tell him you don’t have anything to do with me anymore.” He makes a fist. “And you don’t, Bailey. Stop thinking this is some fairytale, because there’s nothing between us anymore.”
I used to think nothing would hurt more than unrequited love. I spent my adolescence loving Nic and knowing that he cared for me but not in the way I wanted. But this? Knowing we were so close to having a life together and now he’s not even willing to try to get it back? God, it’s so much fucking worse.
Present day . . .
“The last time I did snakebites, I woke up in bed with Mason,” I tell Emma. I lean forward on my barstool and add, “Married.”
“All the more reason to continue the tradition,” she says with a mischievous grin.
After dinner and going through her boudoir shots—which she absolutely adored, thank you very much—Emma convinced me we needed to celebrate properly. We drove over to one of her favorite bars in Destin. After we snagged two seats at the crowded bar, the first thing she did was to order a round of snakebites.
She bypasses the water I ordered and picks up both shot glasses, handing one to me. “It’s tradition!”
I have no one to blame but myself. I’m the one who taught her this terrible tradition, after all.
“Come on,” she says. “We need to celebrate!”
“Here’s to your engagement!” I hoist my shot glass.
She clinks hers against mine and grins. “And to your marriage.”
I grumble, then decide the reminder is as good a reason as any to get this alcohol in my system. I lick the salt from my wrist and throw back the shot, wincing like a schoolgirl when the heat hits my throat. I’m out of practice.
I reach for the lime fast and bite into it. My eyes water as the tart juice spills on my tongue. Emma pumps a fist in the air and cheers.
“I know you two,” someone says from the other side of Emma.
I cough on my lime and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. The guy is tall and built, with an easy smile and thick, dark hair that curls a little around the collar of his polo. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the Gators’ receivers, but I’ve never met him. “You might know her,” I say. “But I’m pretty sure you don’t know me.”
“I do.” He grins. “You don’t know me, but I know you.”
I roll my eyes. He’s hot, but that’s about as lame as a come-on line gets. “You don’t say.”
He points to Emma. “You’re Keegan Keller’s girl, the actress.” He swings his hand around to point at me. “And you’re Mason Dahl’s wife.”
Emma’s head whips around so fast, I’m pretty sure she’s going to need to see a chiropractor tomorrow. She looks to the guy and then back to me, shock in her eyes. And, yeah, I’m pretty shocked too, because no one is supposed to know.
Before I can decide what to say, I’m saved by a text coming through on my phone. I look down and see a message from Mia.
Mia: I thought we were best friends who told each other everything.
My stomach lurches as I think of the secrets I’ve kept from her. For a dozen nauseating beats of my heart, it doesn’t even cross my mind that she might be referring to my secret marriage to Mason.
Then I see the link at the bottom of the text. I click it, and the page it opens reads, “Mason Dahl, Gators receiver, secretly eloped in Vegas. You won’t believe what was caught on camera.”
My stomach climbs into my throat as I tap the play icon. The video looks like it was taken by someone’s cell phone. It’s slightly out of focus and not very steady, but when Mason and I walk down the aisle of the small Vegas chapel, you can tell it’s us. I’m holding his hand and giggling, practically dragging him to the front.
Honestly, there was part of me that never really believed we got married. Like, maybe we bought rings and talked about it, but I couldn’t imagine myself following through with it—no matter how drunk. How could I have made such an awful mistake, even completely trashed? But there I am, reciting vows that I can’t quite make out in this recording, tears rolling down my face as I make my promises to Mason Dahl.
And if the world wasn’t already in love with the Gators’ wide receiver, they would be after watching this video and seeing him finish his vows by whispering in his bride’s ear then kissing her so deeply that she was clinging to him when he pulled away.
I was clinging to him. That was me. I really am married to the one man I can’t have. I want to spring into action, to fix this mess before it spirals into a disaster. But at the same time, I want to re-watch the video fifty times just to see the smile on Mason’s face when I say, “I
do.”
I type out half a dozen partial responses to Mia, deleting each before I finish. The words I finally settle on are lame at best.
Me: I’m sorry. I promise I’ll explain everything next time I see you.
Then I open the text thread between me and Mason, fully aware that Emma and the hot dude are both watching me. Emma looks away for a beat before turning back to me, and when she does, the little bitch is laughing.
“This isn’t funny.”
She bites her lip. “It’s a little funny.”
“You’re a bitch.”
She nods. “Absolutely. Totally. And selfish, too. I want you to live here.”
With shaking hands, I start typing, because this is going to affect Mason, too.
Me: Someone leaked our story to the press. There’s even a video.
Mason: Not someone. Me.
Me: WHAT? WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT? WTF, MASON?
When I get home from my last meeting of the day, there’s another collection notice in my mailbox for Bailey. Somewhere along the line, someone figured out we were married. The paper bills started arriving a few weeks ago, and then about a week ago, I started getting calls from people trying to track her down about overdue bills. I don’t know every detail of her financial situation, but I’ve learned more in the last week than I’ve ever known before. Though Bailey may have many talents, managing money is clearly not one of them.
I toss it into the stack with the others and see my phone flashing at me from the counter. It’s been blowing up with text messages and voicemails from friends and teammates since that video was released, never mind the deluge of texts from Bailey herself written in all caps and pulling on all sorts of colorful language.
I scroll through the notifications until I see a text from Keegan. I tap on it.
Keegan: Your wife and my fiancée are getting drunk at Gallagher’s, and we’re missing out. What do you say we divide and conquer?
