Betting Bad

by Cathryn Fox

  I walk past the room, not ready to face it, and reach the room Alex always shared with Lucas. I slip inside and kick off my boots. The mattress coils squeak as I crawl into the bed and hunker down for sleep, although I don’t expect it to be a restful one. My time in prison still haunts me in my nightmares. Rarely do I wake up without a sweat. I pull the blankets up, and the scent of fabric softener wraps around me. I breathe in the familiar aroma, and my thoughts travel back to the way that smell used to cling to my football jersey when I played in high school. Thinking about high school has my mind going back to Coach Ramsey. Sara’s father. While I’m here, I want to give back to the community by putting my football skills to use. But I can’t imagine he’d ever let me on his field again. Then again, unless I ask, I’ll never know. I came here with a plan, and I have to see it through no matter what roadblocks I might face.

  “Ty?” Lucas whispers, the soft rustle of blankets reaching my ears as my brother shifts in his bed.

  I flatten myself on the mattress, and put one arm over my forehead. “Yeah, it’s me.” A pause and then, “You good?” He gets the message behind my words, a message I’d back up with my fists if I don’t get the answer I’m looking for.

  “I’m good.” A moment of silence and then under his breath he says, “You’re home,” like he’s trying to wrap his brain around the fact that his big brother—the guy who got busted caught with a car load of weapons trying to save his punk ass from trouble—is here, in the flesh.

  “I’m home,” I say, even though I have no idea where or what home is anymore.

  2

  Sara

  I push the stacks of papers and overflowing files to the side and then set my brown bagged lunch on Dad’s cluttered desk. I peel back the plastic wrap on my sandwich, and I’m about to take a bite when I catch the peculiar way Dad is frowning, his gaze going from me to my sandwich back to me again.

  “What?” I ask. I hold half the sandwich out to him. “Want to share?”

  “No, I’m good.” He grabs an identical brown paper bag and tosses it onto the playbook he’d been going over. “Your mother made my favorite.”

  “Roast beef,” I say, a statement, not a question.

  “What else?”

  I bite into my turkey salad and look past my father’s shoulders to take in the wide expanse of football field through his office window. Since I work at the bank across the street from Collins High where Dad is the physical education teacher and football coach, I like to pop in every morning to say hello before work, and join him for lunch when I can. As an only child, I’ve always been Daddy’s little girl, and while I enjoy our hour together, I sometimes think it’s Dad’s way of keeping tabs on me. I moved out of the house last year, much to my parents’ dismay, and while I can take care of myself, I get that in his eyes, I’ll always be his daughter, someone he needs to protect in a gang-plagued city unkind to those who don’t wear colors.

  “You know, you’re kind of predictable,” I say.

  He arches a brow. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  I laugh. “It’s okay to mix it up once in a while.” I wink at him. “Maybe if you didn’t hit Lincoln High with the same plays you’ve been using on them for years, you could walk away with the trophy,” I tease. Lincoln is Collins High’s rival school, but Dad’s team hasn’t beat them since…well, since the man I try hard not to think about left for college, then got hauled away to prison.

  As if sensing my darkening mood, Dad says, “So now you’re a football expert, are you? I think this fancy new position at the bank is going to your head.” But there is laughter in his eyes, and I get he’s trying to lighten my disposition. “We can beat Lincoln. Just you wait and see.”

  “I believe you,” I say, but deep down I think Tyler’s incarceration took something away from my Dad. Tyler was the son he’d always wanted, and without a father of his own, Tyler looked up to Dad. My mom, Mariam, also treated him like the son she never had. When Ty went to prison, he took a piece of us all with him, and Dad doesn’t seem to love the game the way he once did.

  I try to push all thoughts of Tyler away. I’m not sure why I’m suddenly thinking about him. Heck, who am I kidding? When have I ever stopped thinking about him? After all this time, he still fills my daytime thoughts and my nighttime dreams. But something in the way Dad was looking at me when I first sat down, reminded me of the day Tyler was arrested.

  “I don’t have the job yet,” I say. “I have a few more classes I need first.” I bite into my sandwich but it turns to sawdust in my mouth as my stupid mind once again trips back to years ago. Tyler and I had such high hopes. We were both at Northwestern on scholarships, and both taking business classes. I was always hugely into fitness, and the proper nourishment needed for the athlete. The degree was to learn how to run a business, but I also took nutrition courses as my electives. Ty was big into sports, obviously, and took extra courses in kinetics. Our plan was to open our own sports store one day, offer coaching and nutrition clinics, and run the business together. After Ty was arrested, and pushed me from his life, I fell apart, and had to drop out of school. I flailed around for a while, taking on odd jobs until Mr. Fillmore, a friend of Dad’s took pity on me and gave me a teller position at the bank, and a few years ago I started taking night classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago, aka UIC.

  A noise at the door behind me has my dad lifting his head. I ignore the knocking. Most times we’re interrupted by students needing something or other during their lunch break. But when the color drains from Dad’s face, unease trickles through my veins. I swallow down the bread stuck in my throat and slowly shift in my seat, but when my gaze meets with a familiar set of eyes, now harder, darker, my limbs freeze and a dull beat begins in my throat and travels all the way to my ears.

  Tyler.

  I grip the sides of my chair and struggle to keep down the sob threating to break free from my lungs as I gaze at the man eating up the doorway. A man who was just a cub when he left here. But now a wolf stands before me. Big. Bad. Dangerous in so many ways. The years haven’t been kind to him, and eyes that were once pure and uncorrupted are a darker shade of blue, harder than I’ve ever seen them. It’s clear he’s seen too much, suffered too much.

  As everything inside me tightens, my gaze slides downward, over his t-shirt and low-slung jeans. As a quarterback he was always solid, but now he’s cut deep with hollowed out grooves—his body all lean lines and thick muscle. There isn’t an ounce of softness about him. Tyler might have finally come home, but like those who went off to fight overseas, it’s clear he hasn’t come back intact either.

  His once unflawed face now sports scars. My heart crashes so hard I feel lightheaded as I zero in on the cut that runs from his forehead, through his eyebrow, to his cheekbone. My pulse thuds, and I try to swallow but can’t. I can’t seem to breathe either. His hands curl at his sides, and he shifts, edgy, restless, a predator ready to pounce.

  Truthfully, there is only one word to describe him. Lethal. He’s no longer that sweet boy who’d taken my heart and virginity. His betrayal cut deep and there isn’t a part of me that hasn’t been hurt by him. Which means there’s no place for that small burst of happiness, the delirious rush of need zinging through my veins at the sight of him.

  I hate how much I want him again, how I never stopped loving him. Heat and longing moves through my body and my nipples tighten, like a testimony of my need. Even though I have no control over that side of me, I know better than to act on my desires. These past years, I’ve been careful to live a violence-free life, one void of criminal activity. So while Ty and I were once close, what we had is now in the past, and some things are better left there.

  As his gaze seeks me out, I sit there, pinned in his crosshairs. Never have I felt so stripped bare, vulnerable, at a complete loss for words as he looks at me, like he can see through my skin, see the pain and suffering, all the bottled up love threatening to tear me wide open and reduce me to a
quivering mess.

  My father’s voice snaps me back to the present, and Tyler squares his shoulders, the muscle along his jaw rippling as he clenches down.

  “Tyler,” my father says, his voice deeper, harsher than it was earlier. “Rumor had it you were back.”

  I spin so fast my neck makes a snapping sound. He knew? He knew all this time and didn’t tell me? Was that why he was frowning at me earlier? Jesus, he at least should have told me so I could have better prepared myself. Then again, could anything have prepared me for Tyler’s return?

  “Mr. Ramsey,” Tyler says, and then in a softer voice that rumbles through me, he adds, “Hi, Sara.”

  A sound catches in my throat at the familiar way he says my name, a reminder of the way he used to whisper in my ear when we made love in my dorm room. We were so happy back then. To this day, I still can’t understand why he turned to a life of crime. Yes, his family was struggling to make ends meet, but our plan of starting a new business involved them. We talked endlessly about moving them out of Middletown and giving them work in our store. Then one night, just before we were to head back to Northwestern, to begin our junior year, Tyler got caught running guns that were traced back to the local motorcycle gang. I still can’t wrap my brain around that.

  I shake off that ugly memory and turn my attention to my half-eaten sandwich. I need to get out of here. Now. Feeling completely out of control, my fingers fumble a little as I tug the plastic, and when my brown paper bag falls to the floor, Tyler gets to it first.

  I eye his gash, his brutally beautiful face as he drops to his knees, and I hold my breath, frozen in time. His warm, familiar scent wraps around me, and tears prick my eyes for all we’ve lost. I breathe him in and hold my breath for a long moment as I take in his thick lashes, and remember the way they used to tickle my flesh when he kissed a path down my body. I resist the urge to cry, to curl into him and stay there forever. Instead my gaze meets his and when I find his eyes trained on me, the room compresses and fades to black around the corners.

  Jaw locked tightly, he blinks, his lids falling slowly, then opening again. “I got it,” he says, his voice so quiet, I almost don’t recognize it as he puts the bag on the desktop. Sinewy muscles stretch with his movement and I wait for his t-shirt to tear from the assault. But I forget all about that when his hand grazes mine, skin to skin, and it starts a chain reaction in my body. He inches closer, his warm breath caressing the shell of my ear as he breathes with a calm, steady cadence—far different from the way I’m gulping down air.

  Being this close is playing havoc on my body, unnerving me, and urging me to touch him like I used to, to see if beneath that hardness the man I once knew still exists. Unable to help myself, I lightly caress his scar, trace my finger along the swollen purple flesh.

  “What happened?” The loaded question spills from my lips before I can stop myself.

  His gaze goes arctic as something flickers in his eyes. A memory? There’s a war going on inside him, but it passes quickly and his expression shuts down as he shakes his head.

  “Nothing.”

  Message received: it’s none of my business. I pull my hand back like it’d just been slapped, turning away from him—again. My gaze flickers to my father, who is watching me with careful concern.

  I eye the clock on the wall. “I should get going.”

  “Don’t let me frighten you off,” Ty says, his beautiful lips thinning to a flat line in a way I remember so well. I don’t even have to try hard to recall how those lips felt on mine, rough with need and hunger one minute, soft and tender the next. “I can come back later, after you finish up lunch with your father.”

  “You’re not frightening me off,” I say, trying to pull off polite disinterest, but knowing I’m unsuccessful when he angles his head, his probing gaze moving over my face like he can see right through me. Honest to God, I should have known better than to try and get anything by him. This is Tyler, the man who was once solid and dependable and could light me up with a single look. A man I love so much that just seeing him now sets my chest on fire with heartache. When it came to us, every inch of him, every touch, every whispered word was love.

  But I lost the illusion of us many years ago.

  I take a couple of quick breaths, and my eyes dart to his again. I have to force myself to breathe, speak. “I have some things I need to take care of,” I manage to say for good measure. “Go ahead and take care of whatever business it is you have with my father.”

  I push unsteadily to my feet, and Ty stays close. Too close.

  “You okay?” he asks, and for one blistering minute we’re back in time and I’m given a brief glimpse of the sweet boy from my youth. His knuckles brush mine, the connection between us as powerful today as it was all those years ago.

  “Yeah, fine,” I lie.

  I force my legs to work and maneuver around him, and when my body brushes his, his soft curses peel back my skin and leave me wide open and vulnerable.

  Raw.

  “Talk to you later, Dad,” I say, doing my best to keep my voice light when all I want to do is go back to my apartment, crawl under the covers and give in to the big ugly cry pulling at me. Sure it will leave my nose red and eyes swollen, but I just want to cry and cry until I have no more tears to shed. Except, when it comes to Tyler, there will always be more tears, more long lonely nights staring at the ceiling wondering why—how could he have been living a life of crime right under my nose? I’m not sure, but what I do know is that Tyler was my whole life, and after he left and shut me out, it took me years to get out from under the darkness.

  With tears burning behind my eyes, beating against my lids like thundering hail, I grab my coat and purse, and dart to the door. I need to get away from this man and return to my safe job, my safe apartment, my safe…everything. Tyler doesn’t fit into the new world I created for myself, no more than I fit into his.

  I step out into the cold and don’t bother shrugging back into my coat. I want the cold. I want it to push away the pain and hurt and freeze my bones until I’m numb. I sniff back the tears and step up to the lights, my gaze going to the motorcycle parked in front of the school. It must be Tyler’s. There aren’t too many high school students riding Harleys.

  I keep my head down and hurry to the bank. Needing to be alone, I hurry to the back room, my heels clicking on the tile. When I see Kaitlyn pouring herself a cup of coffee, my feet come to a resounding halt. I love Kaitlyn, I really do. We became instant friends when I first started here a few years back, and we’ve grown so close, but I’m not sure I can talk to her right now. I’m not sure I can even get my voice to work.

  Kaitlyn glances up and smiles, but it quickly dissolves when she takes a good look at me. Her spoon clatters in the steel sink as she drops it and comes toward me.

  “Jesus, Sara, are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  I guess in a sense I did. I saw a ghost of my former boyfriend. I force a laugh, try to make light of it, but it comes out as a hollow little sound that has her frown deepening and her eyes narrowing.

  She touches my arm and it’s all I can do not to fall into her and sob. “Sara, what is it?”

  “I…Tyler’s back.” She doesn’t know him personally, but she knows of him, knows what he did to all those who cared about him.

  Her green eyes go wide and she pulls me in for a quick hug. “Oh my God. Are you okay?” When I don’t answer, she inches back to see me.

  I nod, even though I’m not. “I’ll be fine. I just wasn’t prepared to see him. I didn’t even know he was back.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  “Not really. He stopped in to see my dad.”

  Her head jerks back. “Really? I wonder what that was all about?”

  With shock still racing through me I say, “No idea.”

  She must see something in my face because her next question is, “How did he look?”

  Beautiful is the first word that comes to mind. “Di
fferent,” I say. “Grown up. Tough.”

  She gives a nod and says, “Prison will do that to you.” Kaitlyn lost a few of her cousins to the system, so she would know. “It changes you. Kill or be killed, right?”

  Even though I’m so goddamn angry with him, hurt by his betrayal, my heart pinches, and I feel like I’m going to vomit. I hate the thought of him hurting—of someone hurting him.

  “I need to sit.”

  “Okay.” Kaitlyn steps back and I plunk myself down on the sofa below the window.

  Kaitlyn sits across from me and eyes me carefully. “You’re not still hung up on him, are you?”

  “He was my first love, Kaitlyn.” I pinch the bridge of my nose. “We had big plans. A girl doesn’t get over that so easily.”

  “It’s been a lot of years, you know.”

  “I know,” I say. No need to remind me of that. I felt every one of those years.

  “Are you going to try to get back with him?”

  My entire body tightens. “Never, not in a million lifetimes,” I say adamantly, quickly.

  “Well then, there’s only one way to get over him and get on with your life.”

  I know what she’s getting at. She’s a party girl and for years she’s been trying to set me up with one of her guy friends. I’ve always declined, but now I’m thinking maybe I should have taken her up on her offer. What was I really holding out for? Tyler to return, the same man he was before he left. One look at him today, and it was easy to see that’s not the case.

  She glances past my shoulder, and a small smile touches her mouth. “Your hot professor is here.”

  I turn and follow her gaze to see a very familiar man making his way to the front door of the bank. It’s my professor, all right. Technically, he’s my former professor at UIC, but Kaitlyn’s statement holds all kinds of sexual undertones.

  “You can’t deny that he’s good looking.”

  No, she’s right, I can’t deny that. But he’s not Tyler.