“I can’t do it.”
“Please?” She leaned forward, resting her hands on my knees. “This could be a once in a lifetime opportunity for me.”
I shook my head.
With a smirk, she launched herself at me, knocking me onto my back. She followed me to the ground, her fingers searching for my waist. As she tickled me, she pleaded over and over again for us to go.
“Angel, stop!” I squealed through my giggles. “Please stop.”
“Not until you agree.” She howled with laughter as her tickling stole my breath, resulting in near silent gasps.
I wrapped my legs around her waist, trying to push her off with my hips.
“Please, stop!” I was practically crying with laughter and my voice came out as a shrill scream.
“Git off her!” Beau’s voice and the sound of footfalls racing toward us caught my attention. He burst from between two trees seconds later.
Angel stopped her attack at his cry and looked perplexed as she glanced between me and him. I twisted in place as best as I could while pinned by Angel to glance up in his direction.
His eyes widened as he took in our bodies closely twisted with one another and the matching grins on our faces. “I, uh, I . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude,” he stammered as he backed away. His face burned red from neck to forehead.
Even though I probably should have been mortified at his assumption and the obvious embarrassment it caused him, I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. As I did, Angel joined me. Beau scowled at me and then turned to leave.
“Hey, cowboy,” Angel called after him as I unwrapped my legs from her waist.
He stopped and slowly turned around, but his eyes found mine rather than hers. I tried to stow my laughter, but I’d gone beyond amusement and straight to hysterical. By that point, I wasn’t sure I could stop chuckling.
Angel sat back on her haunches, leaving me lying spread-eagle in front of her, and turned her attention to him. “I was just trying to convince Phoebe she needs to have a little more fun in her life.”
I started choking at her words and had to roll onto my side. Without looking away from Beau, Angel patted my back.
“What do you reckon?”
“What Phoebe does with her life, or for fun, ain’t my concern.”
“Of course not.” She was using her butter-wouldn’t-melt voice, so I knew I’d be in trouble soon. I should have just agreed in the first place and been done with it. “But I thought maybe you could help convince her to take me to the bonfire tonight. She wants to miss it. Says it isn’t very entertaining.”
My heart stopped and the breath left my chest. I went to smack her. She caught my hand and pinned it against my side. Because I’d turned away from Beau during my coughing fit, I couldn’t even see his expression to put my mind at ease that what she’d said hadn’t hurt him.
Not that I should have cared if it had.
I shouldn’t have cared at all. Yet my heart started to bleed that he’d somehow think I hadn’t enjoyed him singing to me.
“It ain’t exactly mandatory attendance.”
“Beau, wait!” I fought out of Angel’s hold and rolled over to look at him. Angel’s words had left him looking like someone had just run over his puppy. With the stress already present on his face, it was too much for me to bear. “She’s just teasing. You know I really enjoyed that night. We’ll be there.”
Instead of giving him a reason to smile, what I’d said seemed to rest heavy on his shoulders and he leaned forward under the weight of it. He left without saying another word. It was only when he was too far away to follow without making a fuss that it occurred to me why my words had hurt him. It was after that night—the one I’d said I enjoyed—that I’d slipped away without a proper goodbye.
Did it really affect him that badly?
The question played on my mind for a moment before I shoved it aside. After all, didn’t he have Cassidee to kiss his boo-boos better?
I pushed myself to my feet and stalked back to the cabin, leaving Angel to clean up the mess. The one from the picnic, at least. I wasn’t sure where to start on the one in my head.
“THANK YOU for coming with me tonight,” Angel said as she held my arm beside the campfire. Despite my hesitations, I was actually having a good time. Joe and Mitch were the same ever-hospitable people they’d been the last time I’d sat around the logs, and even Beau was smiling and joking with some of the other guests. At least, while he knew he was being watched.
In the lulls between conversations, he stared at the fire and looked on the verge of tears. I wanted to ask what was wrong. What could be the cause of his heartache? Had the baby had a bad diagnosis? Was Cassidee ill? Was whatever it was the reason he’d been back in Georgia and out of sight?
Even when he was joking and laughing, it was clearly faked. His amusement didn’t reach his eyes the way I knew it usually did. The amber didn’t dance into the chocolate the way it could when he was having a good time. Instead, his irises seemed dull and lifeless.
“You have to have one of these!” Angel’s voice was as close to orgasmic as it could get as she finished her first mouthful of one of the s’mores being served around the campfire.
Beau’s gaze lifted at the sound, and he caught me staring at him.
Ever the coward when it came to him, I dropped my gaze first. “No thanks,” I murmured.
“But they’re good.” She waved it in my face. I might have assumed she was drunk if it weren’t for the fact that we were underage and I knew Beau was a stickler for those rules. “Not a Chocolate Orgasm good,” she said, referring to our favourite way to eat Tim Tams, “but pretty damn fine.”
I clenched my thighs together as I thought about the chocolate orgasm I had the first night I tried s’mores. It was too much to hope that Angel didn’t notice my indrawn breath and the rush of blood that flooded my cheeks. She knew about that night, but she didn’t need to know it was now playing on a loop in my mind.
“What is it?” she asked.
“It’s nothing.” I glanced across the fire and caught Beau’s gaze focused on me. I wondered whether our adventures on the Fourth of July were playing on his mind too. “Just remembering the first time I tried one.” I broke eye contact with Beau and turned back to Angel. “And you’re right. Tim Tam Slams are better.” I used the safer name for the treat she’d mentioned—the PG13 one I could use at home.
She jumped up and grabbed another s’more and a drink off Mitch, flirting lightly with him as she did. I smiled at their interaction.
“Bein’ near your friend suits ya, darlin’.” Beau’s voice caught me off guard. He’d moved to sit beside me for some unknown reason. “Ya ain’t looked so . . . relaxed since ya arrived in the States.” Something told me relaxed wasn’t the word he was originally going to say, but he’d caught himself.
It was the first time we’d spoken to each other alone since New Year’s. “Thank you. Angel, she’s . . .” I sighed as I tried to think of the best way to encapsulate everything that Angel was to me. “Well, she’s part of my soul.”
He looked confused, or maybe hurt. His gaze found her again. “Joe says y’all are in the honeymoon suite. Are the two of ya . . .” He trailed off and swallowed. “Ya know. Have y’all . . .” He frowned, as if he found it impossible to ask the question.
I raised my eyebrow at him. “Are you trying to ask whether we’ve gone muff diving together?”
His expression went blank and he stared at me, as if my frank question was too much.
“Dang, I’d forgotten how blunt ya can be. But I shouldn’t’ve asked. It ain’t none of my business.”
“It’s not. But it’s okay. We’re not together like that.”
I could have been wrong, but it looked like relief flashed across his features. His mouth certainly turned down just a little less.
“I mean, we tried it once, but it didn’t work out.”
“What d’ya mean, y’all tried it once?”<
br />
The question was likely rhetorical, but I didn’t care. It felt good to be talking to him again—properly talking without insults and arguments. “It started back in high school. We were playing truth or dare with a bunch of people from our class.”
Beau looked scandalised, but unlike Xavier would have if I were revealing the story to him, he didn’t hurl accusations about me and her being immoral.
My lips curled up a little more. I’d forgotten how fun it was to knock him slightly off-balance. “We were dared to kiss each other. I think the boys were hoping to see a little girl-on-girl lip-to-lip action.” I laughed as the memories filled my head. “I don’t think they expected us to paw each other in the back seat of Logan’s Commodore for the next half hour.”
“You telling old war stories, Pheebs?” Angel wrapped her arm around my shoulders as she sat down behind me. “The part she always forgets to tell is the fact that she broke my heart.”
The small upturn in Beau’s lips was wiped away at her words.
“Angel—” I warned. He didn’t need to know that part of the story.
“I had the biggest crush on my girl. I doodled her name over all of my schoolbooks. Put our initials in love hearts everywhere I could. Phoebe was gonna be my forever. I just knew it.”
“Angel, have you been drinking?”
“Of course I haven’t. I just think your friend here needs to know that I understand what it’s like to stand near the sun. That I know what it’s like to feel the burn. And that it’s worth it. Every second is worth it.”
“You’re in love with her?” he asked Angel.
“No. I love her, but I’m not in love with her. Not anymore. Besides, Pheebs doesn’t swing that way.”
“If anyone could turn me though, it’d be you, my Angel.” I turned and kissed her cheek.
Nothing she’d said was a lie, but it wasn’t quite as cut and dried as she made it sound.
After all, she’d been the one to break off our steamy session. She was the one who’d rushed from the car, not willing to look back. The one who’d refused to talk to me for a week.
I found out later she’d been the one to suggest the game of truth or dare to find a way to kiss me. If Logan hadn’t made the dare because he was a horny bastard, she would have. She’d never admitted to her crush before then, always keeping it carefully hidden. Just like her mum’s drinking issues.
Once we’d been apart for a week, neither of us could stand it. She apologised for pushing and explained that she’d built up this image of me in her head. Apparently the reality of the experience had fallen short of her fantasy.
I told her I’d start practising so that the next time anything happened the reality would exceed her dreams. She swore black and blue that it wasn’t because I was a bad kisser, more that she hadn’t truly understood what it would mean to kiss her best friend. That was the start of our banter, and why we always teased each other with the promise of a tryst that would never happen. Neither of us wanted to face that disappointment or risk our friendship again.
I turned back to explain myself to Beau, but he was moving away—back toward his seat. I guessed that was the end of our conversation. Who knew when we might have another friendly one?
JUST LIKE THE previous bonfire I’d attended, Joe and Mitch oversaw the proceedings.
Unlike last time, they started with a few campfire songs rather than handing it straight over to Beau.
“I don’t think he was overly upset by your story,” Angel whispered in my ear while choruses of “She’ll be Coming Round the Mountain” sounded around us.
“Like I’d care if he was,” I said, staring at him through the fire while he got himself set up.
She gave a solemn nod and a chuckle. “I’m sure you wouldn’t.”
“Besides, he walked off during it, so obviously he was upset.”
“So you do care.” She laughed in victory.
“I don’t.”
“Just admit that you care about him. That you care about his opinion of you.”
“I can’t.” I squeezed my eyes closed. Why couldn’t she understand this? “Because he should’ve been my forever, Angel. And he’s not. And that kills me.”
She wrapped her arms around me tighter than before. “Sometimes our forevers don’t work the way we think they will. You’re still my forever, Pheebs. You know that, don’t you?”
“Forever friends,” I muttered back the words we’d promised the day we’d started talking again.
“Exactly. Maybe that’s what you and Beau need to be. Whatever you need from each other, though, it’s not this. You need him to help you figure that out, and that’s not going to happen by tying yourself and each other up in knots. Especially when you have to work side by side for the next year. Talking is the only way to figure it out.”
“I hate you sometimes.”
“You love me. You just hate that I’m right.”
“Exactly,” I said.
During our hushed conversation, I’d tuned out the rest of the people at the bonfire, but then I heard the soft guitar start and all of a sudden, Beau was singing.
My breath caught in my throat as I watched him through the flames. His voice was gravelled and low. Husky in all the right places. Fuck me. I’d forgotten how well he could sing. And the song he sang, one about making someone feel wanted, was incredible.
It felt like he was singing directly to my pussy, and the lyrics were a magic tune designed to seduce me. How could a few words in his voice when he was on the other side of the fire ignite such an inferno in me? One that raged a hundred times brighter than even the hottest kiss I’d ever shared with Xavier.
Not mine. Not mine. The words ran on repeat. Never mine. Besides, I’ve got Xavier.
Fire and passion led to heartache and pain. Steady. Constant. Friendship. That was a better love.
Angel nudged me when she saw me staring. She gave me a look that seemed to suggest she was waiting for me to catch the obvious. What she couldn’t comprehend was that I’d already caught it. I’d caught it, tried to hold it, and it had burned me in return.
She was right about one thing, though. I needed to figure something out, if only so Beau and I didn’t kill each other. Or worse, have the tension between us explode at an inappropriate time.
The song morphed into a new one. This song wasn’t one I knew, didn’t associate it with Beau, but it still hurt to hear. The lyrics were about a girl cheating on a guy and him wanting her to suffer for it. Him wanting her to cry him a river. It was almost our story, only told in reverse. He sang with so much angst and emotion—so much anger—it made my stomach churn. How could he sing like that about doing those things and still do it to me?
When the second song ended, he paused for a moment to glance at me. I half expected him to stop singing. Maybe pass the guitar onto someone else. After all, the last time he only sang a couple of songs. But he didn’t. Instead, he started a song I recognised within just a handful of chords. A song with so much meaning to me. To us. A song about heartbreak and roller coasters.
The same one that had played the first we made love.
I buried my head in my hands as I let the words wash over me. It was almost impossible, but I tried not to look affected by his song choice.
Finally, the song was over and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Then he started another song. One far worse. One about wishing for one more day. Memories of him playing it around the last bonfire came into my mind. The emotions it had stirred in him. Our blazing kiss in the forest afterward.
The arsehole stared straight at me as he sang words as familiar to me as my own name. With the number of times I’d put the song on to comfort myself back home, the lyrics had long been engraved into my heart.
And he was using them as a weapon.
Tears sprang to my eyes, and I dropped my gaze away from his.
“I can’t do this,” I muttered to Angel before shoving myself up from the log.
Wit
hout a backward glance, I stalked into the darkness, needing to get away from the music. From him. From those damn lyrics that threatened to tear at the glue needed to hold my heart together every time I was near Beau.
Angel’s voice called for me at the same time the music cut off. I didn’t pay attention to any of it. All I needed was to get away. I wished I had a bike with me so I could blast away into the darkness and try to outride my sorrow.
“Phoebe, wait.”
I screwed my eyes shut for a second and took a deep breath when I heard Beau’s voice. Opening my eyes as I exhaled, I increased my pace. I’d fucking run if I needed to, just to keep away from him.
“Dang it, woman, would ya stop runnin’ from me?”
“Why should I?” I tossed the words back over my shoulder.
“Because I want to talk to you.”
I spun on him, my eyes wild and full of tears. “I think you mean torment me. Does this excite you?” I asked, throwing my hands out toward him in exasperation. “Do you enjoy seeing me reduced to a puddle of fucking tears, Beau? Because you do it to me often enough.”
He retreated as if I’d struck him. “No, I—”
“Is it some sort of game to you?” I cut him off, waving my arms in his direction to keep him from approaching me. I probably looked like I’d lost my mind, and in some ways I probably had. “Do you find some poor young tourist to be your sap? Feed her all the lines, and then torture her if she dares to come within a mile of you again. Well, I’m sorry that I dared to believe the lies you told me.”
He recoiled from me. “What?”
“I’m sorry that I’m a tasty little titbit that got caught in your gullet. I assure you that I’ll be gone as soon as I can.” I spun on my heels and stalked off again. “In the meantime, would you please just leave me the fuck alone?”
“Phoebe, wait!” he called again.
I wrapped my arms around myself to hold all the pieces in place as I forced myself to keep moving.
Phobic (Phoebe Reede: The Untold Story #2) Page 22
