Friends with Benefits

by Margot Radcliffe

  * * *

  Carter was in Vegas for his mom’s birthday, but also to meet with Alexa’s uncle to finalize the sale of Halcyon. He obviously respected her decision to sell, but he hated the look on her face when she talked about giving it up and knew she was only doing it for her uncle. She loved Halcyon more than anything and Uncle John agreed that she should have it. Carter buying it was the perfect solution to her getting to keep it and her uncle getting the return on his investment.

  Unfortunately, he hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to her about it because she’d gone completely off the grid and hadn’t answered any of his calls or texts since yesterday. And sending a text saying he bought her casino just wasn’t the thing to do.

  After two weeks of moping around San Francisco during what should be an exciting time in his life, he knew what needed to be done. If he had to move back to Las Vegas to have Alexa, he would do it. He was not prepared to fuck around anymore. He wanted Alexa and he was going to go for it. For real. Not some half-assed, doing-it-for-show bullshit like they’d been doing. He wasn’t giving her any more space. Shit was about to get real.

  So when she appeared in his media room right in the middle of the football game he’d been half paying attention to, it at least saved him a trip to Monaco to see her.

  “Carter?”

  “Alexa?” he asked, his heart seemingly beating somewhere outside of his chest.

  She looked so completely un-Alexa-like in a pair of jeans with stains on the front and an old UNLV sweatshirt with the collar torn out. Dark circles rimmed her eyes and her mascara was smudged on her cheek, and most startling, she had two different shoes on. Both were sneakers, but one a red Converse high-top and the other a regular maroon canvas shoe. All signs indicated that she was not okay.

  “You flew here from Monaco?”

  Where do you think she flew from, genius? He just hadn’t expected to see her yet and wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of emotion, joy, fear and acceptance all mingling in his chest like an out-of-control feelings bonanza.

  She nodded and took the seat next to him.

  “You don’t look great,” he joked, brushing a tangled piece of hair from where it had snagged on her lip.

  She laughed, the sound tight in her throat. “I’ve been drinking too much and I didn’t get a lot of sleep on the plane because I got a middle seat.”

  “You didn’t take your Uncle John’s plane home?”

  She shook her head. “I couldn’t wait for it to fly back to France from Vegas so I just took my chances. FYI, airline attendants do not like to be bribed.”

  He grinned at the image of her trying to bribe her way into a better seat. “Why was it so important to get back so fast?”

  “I remembered it was your mom’s birthday and I wanted to see you.”

  “You wanted to see me?”

  She shrugged. “Yeah, I missed my friend.”

  He met her eyes. “Your best friend.”

  “Damn right,” she agreed, a corner of her mouth lifting in a wry smile.

  “Alexa,” he said, his tone serious. “I think we need to talk.”

  She toed off her shoes, frowning when she realized they were different from each other.

  Now was the time to come clean about Halcyon, but she needed to know something first.

  “I missed you and I love you,” she said, the words so soft he could barely hear them.

  “I love you, too, Alexa.”

  She turned to meet his eyes then, her hazel ones determined and serious. “No, that’s not what I meant. I love you. As more than a friend. And though I’d really prefer an actual wedding that I’m at least sober for, I want to stay married.”

  Carter stared at her, not quite believing what she was saying. Also, a little dumbfounded that she’d completely stolen his thunder.

  “Wow,” he said, grinning, “I should have moved away a long time ago.”

  She pushed at his shoulder. “I can’t believe you actually left.”

  Laughing, he shook his head. “You know, you couldn’t even let me have this, could you? You’re the most selfish best friend.”

  Her eyes grew comically large. “What? Do you know how nerve-racking this is? I flew all the way around the damn globe with a hangover to get home to you. The man next to me farted every time he moved and a small devil child threw up on my pants. But I didn’t even care. I just wanted to get back here to tell you that I am hopelessly in love with you and the thought of not having you in my life is not acceptable.”

  “Again, your hyperbole is misleading. Monaco to Las Vegas is not nearly all the way around the globe.”

  She crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.

  He stood and pulled her up and into his arms. “You know you’re the love of my life, Alexa.”

  “I did not, in fact, know that.”

  He scanned her face, looking for any sign of a joke and didn’t find one, but could it have been possible that she really didn’t know how he felt about her? It seemed ludicrous.

  “Of course you did,” he prodded.

  Her eyes widened. “I did not,” she said, poking him in the chest with a chipped white nail to accentuate the truth of her statement.

  “Maybe you need glasses because I feel like every time I look at you I’ve got those cartoon heart eyes.”

  She shrugged then, meeting his eyes. “We saw what we wanted to see, not what was there.”

  Wasn’t that the fucking truth.

  “Well, Lawson, you waited long enough to tell me since my sister is here and upstairs making a cake for my mom we can’t do anything.”

  A corner of her mouth lifted. “You could always just get me an Hermès scarf and we could call it even.”

  “Right,” he drew out, thinking about how all his savings were tied up with his purchase of Halcyon and how it would be a good time to tell her about it. And yet, he didn’t tell her. It was definitely a symptom of brain damage, but goddammit, she’d just told him she loved him and couldn’t he have that for a damned day before it all went to shit?

  “Will you accept the best kiss of your life instead?”

  “I would if I thought that was forthcoming,” she snarked.

  He took her mouth in a gentle kiss, caressing her back in slow strokes, adoring the way she felt against him and the way she smelled, the same green apple smell he’d come to associate with simply home. Which brought up another issue they needed to sort out.

  Slowly ending the kiss, he set his forehead against hers, taking a deep breath. “If you want me to move to Monaco I will.”

  She shook her head. “I’ll go to San Francisco. There’s nothing for me in Monaco.”

  He gave her quick kiss. “So it’s settled. We’ll live in Vegas.”

  Pulling back, her left eyebrow winged up in question. “What?”

  “You were right, San Francisco sucks. You know I hate yeast. Plus, Greg is more than ready to open the office there on his own especially after I made him a full partner in the business.”

  “You did it for me so you could come back here,” she stated, asking, but not really asking it as a question.

  “I did.”

  “Because you’re in love with me.”

  He nodded, raising an eyebrow.

  “And you’d do absolutely anything for me no matter what.”

  “I mean, within reason.”

  She made a tsking sound. “Love isn’t reasonable.”

  “What do you want, Alexa?”

  “I’m just testing how unconditional your love is.”

  “You’re cracked,” he laughed. “And you look like that one time in college after you vomited all night from too much grain alcohol.”

  The couch shifted as Alexa flopped down into her seat again. “I know, it’s bad. But I don’t have anywhere to be because I am
officially unemployed.”

  “Speaking of unconditional love, um, there’s something I need to tell you.” He took her hand and squeezed and hoped for the best. “I bought Halcyon.”

  * * *

  Alexa’s jaw tightened with rage. She literally could not believe what she was hearing right now. Just a second ago, she’d thought her life was finally on the right track and now just as fast it was a shitshow.

  “I knew you didn’t really want to sell it, but would never admit it to Uncle John so I bought it for a higher price than the original buyer,” Carter tried to explain.

  But this was typical Carter behavior. Always thinking that he knew what was best for her. Since the moment she’d told him about her parents, he’d been protecting her in one way or another. Maybe she’d needed his protection all those years ago, but she just didn’t anymore. Especially not in her professional life.

  “If I hadn’t wanted to sell Halcyon, I wouldn’t have.”

  He raised a doubtful eyebrow. “You’d do anything for your uncle.”

  “Yeah, that was then. This is now. I didn’t open the Monaco casino for him, did I?”

  He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “You’re never going to let yourself be happy, are you?”

  Her rage grew exponentially, but a tiny piece of her recognized his words as the truth. Of course, she did not appreciate his phrasing or word choice because it wasn’t as if she wanted to feel guilty about her parents’ death. It was part of her. But she didn’t want to fight with him. She picked up her bag, intending to leave.

  “Oh, there you go,” Carter scoffed. “Running away again.”

  “I am not running away,” she gritted out, turning back around. “But I guess you’re right, maybe I don’t want to be happy. Tell me, how much I owe you for Halcyon so we can get on with it?”

  “Jesus Christ, Alexa, it’s not a fucking dinner check. You can’t just owe me that kind of money.”

  “So you want to run the casino with me? I’m not sure what you’re saying.”

  He stood then and blew out a frustrated breath. “Do you think I waited half of my life to tell you I’m in love with you to have it end like this? Why are you doing this?”

  A part of her heart ripped then, because it felt like all the joy she’d been able to touch for that short moment earlier was evaporating before her eyes and she had no idea how to contain it.

  “I’m doing this because I’m the richest fucking bitch in Las Vegas and instead of coming to me with a problem that affected both of us, you thought you had all the answers. And that’s just not the way I fucking operate as you well know. So maybe you’re just mad at me to distract from the fact that you don’t want to be on my team. You want to be the coach.”

  “You’re really reaching, Alexa.”

  She put her hands on her hips, facing him down. “Am I? Greg has been more than capable of running your company for over a decade and you just now gave him a partnership.”

  “Are you calling out the way I run my business?”

  “Well, apparently you want to be business partners now, so maybe I am.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Alexa took a few steps toward him. “You talk a big game about being in love with me for all this time, but I was the one who said it first.”

  “Only because I left Las Vegas,” he drew tightly.

  “You have sat back and worked behind the scenes of my life, so far as to create software for the casinos I ran, to the point that you have never paused to consider what being with me really means.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I think I have a fairly good idea.”

  “If you had, you wouldn’t have bought the casino out from under my nose when one simple phone call would have solved the problem.”

  His jaw clenched, the muscle ticking there like the steady wand of a metronome.

  “I love you, Carter, with no expectations.”

  “What are you trying to say?”

  “I’m saying that you don’t have to buy me a casino for me to love you. You don’t need to do anything besides be yourself.”

  “That’s not—”

  “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, but that’s not—”

  “Even when you thought you were unlovable, I loved you.”

  “Alexa, whatever it is you’re trying to do, it’s not nec—”

  She strode toward him, pulling him to her and finding his lips with hers. It was a kiss born out of frustration and confusion and bone-deep longing. His arms came around her, the heavy muscles of his biceps curling her into his warmth.

  Breaking the kiss, she met his eyes. “I’m not some fantasy girl that you’ve built up in your head and you don’t have to treat me as if my love is contingent upon you doing something outrageous.”

  “For fuck’s sake, Alexa, I didn’t think it was some grand romantic gesture. I’d like to think I could come up with something with a little bit more imagination anyway. I knew you’d be mad as hell, but time was of the essence.”

  “I was better equipped to handle the situation than you were, seeing as how it’s my damn casino and the person who offered for it was someone I’d been working with for years.”

  “I’m sorry for interfering,” he said, his eyes earnest. “I wanted you to be able to start fresh if that’s what you wanted.”

  “Why can’t you just admit that you’re scared?” she asked, almost laughing in frustration.

  His eyes grew incredulous. “Of course I’m scared as hell! Every time we get remotely close to something real you sneak away without another fucking word! You think I have some kind of hang-up because I was chubby once? I don’t give a shit about that and you’re just using it as another excuse to not be with me.”

  “Don’t be a dick, Carter.”

  “In case you haven’t been paying attention, I am a dick, Alexa. People aren’t exactly knocking down my door to be friends with a moody, sarcastic, semi-malcontent. And yet you’re the one who seems to think I have this hang-up about my old self.”

  Carter pulled her roughly into his arms then. She could feel the heat radiating off his body as one overwhelming and continuous wave of anger.

  “You want to be in charge, the ball is all yours, Alexa.”

  Then he kissed her and the fire ignited instantly. The love and hate and resentment and insecurity, all of it flowed through them like a flooding river of emotion, no longer contained or placid or waiting for them to examine the meaning. Alexa’s hands fisted in the back of Carter’s tailored white dress shirt, the thread busting with each flex of her fingers.

  She couldn’t breathe, but didn’t care. He was taking her whole, his tongue delving deeper, hard cock grinding against her clit showing no mercy. God, she’d missed this. For weeks, she’d been out in the cold without his smile or voice or this mad, sweet, dirty rush of pleasure only he was able to deliver.

  Her arms went around his neck to take it further and hopefully to the bedroom, but he caught her hands in his and put them back down at her sides as he broke the kiss.

  “If you honestly want this to work for real, prove it,” he challenged, eyes sparking. “I’m tired of wasting my fucking time.”

  Then he was gone, the front door slamming shut behind him.

  The fact that he’d stormed out of his own house to get away from her was not lost on her. She did the only thing left to do and went to the kitchen to help Kara with the cake. At least there was his mom’s birthday to celebrate, even if Alexa would rather shove Carter’s face into a bowl of frosting.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CARTER DIDN’T EXPECT to see Alexa anytime soon, which was fine with him. She acted like she had her shit together, but Alexa Lawson still had the best poker face in town and inside she was just as fucked up about relationships as the day her paren
ts died. He’d been by her side like an unwavering sentinel since the day it happened, but his watch was officially over.

  He threw an old keyboard from his garage into the trash. Turned out when you gave some of your work to your partner, one had a lot of time on one’s hands. The new office was still in the hiring phase and he’d sat in on all the interviews via Skype while running the main headquarters in Vegas. His stock was up again after he’d made several public appearances since opening the new branch. It would have been better if Alexa had been there for those appearances, but she’d been too steeped in her own angry delusion about Halcyon to give a shit about something he wanted.

  It pissed him off all over again that he was the one having to do the heavy emotional lifting in their relationship. Except that, if he were honest, maybe she did have a point. Her uncle had advised against buying the casino, obviously knowing Alexa’s temperament when it came to business, but Carter had ignored him. He’d been in San Francisco, miserable and alone while she sent him photo after photo of her sunning on the French Riviera and updated her social media feeds with various calendar-caliber dudes. For the first time, his connection to her had felt tenuous and paper-thin. When he’d left her house the last time, he’d literally had no idea when he’d see her next. He’d been so damn desperate to have her in his life again—to have her in his life forever—that he hadn’t thought about the consequences, just that maybe she’d come back to Vegas if she had a reason.

  Well, she was in Vegas now, but she was pretending as if he may as well not exist. One stupid mistake in their entire friendship and she was ready to call it quits? Fuck that.

  But it still didn’t change the fact that he wanted her and would take her back with open arms if she came through his garage door right now.

  He threw a chunky ’90s era mouse into the recycling bin with enough force to make an echoing clank on the metal can. How did he even have this much shit? It wasn’t lost on him that he was cleaning up his actual baggage instead of his emotional baggage, but he wasn’t in the frame of mind to be sensible. He just wanted to break shit.