by Tessa Blake
Big Mistake
Tessa Blake
Laney Powell
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Other Books by Tessa Blake
About Tessa Blake
About Laney Powell
© 2018 Tessa Blake & Laney Powell
Happy Ever After, May 2018
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This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual people, places, institutions, or posh Maine seaside towns is entirely coincidental.
Created with Vellum
For Corinne,
the best sister-wife anyone could ask for.
Prologue
Garrett
I wake up with my arm wrapped around someone.
Shit.
Unless I got so blackout drunk I forgot something, I’m single right now. So if I’m in bed with someone, I must have met someone in the bar and gone home with them. Idiot.
I hold very still and listen to her steady breathing. The feel of the sheets, the slight chemical cleaner smell…. I’m in a hotel room. In a hotel bed. With whom?
And, more important, how do I get out of it?
I cast my thoughts back to the night before. We drove down to Boston, right? To … celebrate Beck’s birthday.
Oh my God, did I pick up someone and abandon Beck at the bar?
How much did I have to drink? I was … I was mad, I realize. I was mad about something. I had a lot to drink.
So much that I stumbled back to a hotel room with someone I don’t know?
And then—because I am, after all, a guy—I have a fleeting thought: I hope that at least she’s really hot.
Which is ridiculous and completely does not matter. I have to beat it out of here and go find Beck. And Bri and Levi.
I take a deep breath and prepare to extricate myself. My arm is rising and falling with her every breath; she’s still asleep, thank God. I open my eyes, already edging away—and find myself looking at a very familiar head of chestnut-brown curls. As I slowly lift my arm from around her waist, I catch the sweet, wild-berry scent of her hair.
Rebecca.
Beck.
She sighs in her sleep, wiggles a little so that her ass—naked—snuggles against my cock, which is also naked, and is starting to wake up and notice how good Beck smells, how tasty the curve of her shoulder looks.
I’m naked in bed with Beck. Blind panic sets in. I pull back from her in horror, and fall off the bed with a thud.
Smooth.
I wince and sit up to look at her. She stirs slightly but still doesn’t wake, and I let out a sigh of relief.
This can't be happening. Or ... maybe it’s not what I thought. The details of the previous night are still locked somewhere in the recesses of my mind, obscured by a haze of way too much alcohol.
If I was that drunk last night, she must have been twice as bad; it was her birthday celebration, after all. Maybe she got sick and threw up. Maybe she cried about her asshole ex.
Maybe I just stayed with her to make sure she was okay. Maybe nothing happened.
But no. We’re naked. Something definitely happened—and the fragments of last night that are trickling into my mind are telling me it was pretty spectacular.
My clothes are on the floor next to the bed. I pull my boxers on, then tiptoe into the bathroom with the rest of my clothes in my arms, still trying to make sense of this. I’m not supposed to be in Beck’s room—in Beck’s bed. I have a room a couple floors down, across the hall from Levi.
And unless I want him to figure out what happened with me and Beck, I’d better get down there before he wakes up and sees that I never made it back last night. He’s my friend, but he’s just as protective of her as everyone else. He’ll kill me.
I look nervously at the bathroom door. I have to get dressed and creep out of here, get down to my room without being seen. Brianna’s in the room next to Beck’s, and if she catches me here, she’ll run straight to Levi.
I’m not up for dying today. I have to get into my own bed before anyone else realizes what happened.
What did happen?
But I know damn well what happened; I was drunk, but not blackout drunk, and I’m getting more flashes of how it went down.
Her long legs wrapped around my waist. Her mouth hot against mine. Her hair tumbling across her flushed face as she rose above me, limned from behind by the light from the windows. The whispers, the way she touched me, the way I wanted to touch her—and did. Her hair spread across the pillow as she closed her eyes and cried out—
I push the images away and force myself not to think about it anymore. I’m hard as a rock, damn it.
Not. Thinking. About. It.
How did I let this happen? I’m her best friend. I’m supposed to watch out for her and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid.
Well, she did something stupid: me.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
I pull my clothes on quietly and creep out of the bathroom. I look longingly at the door to the hallway. I could head right out and bolt for the elevator—no, the stairs. I’d have to pass Brianna’s door to get to the elevator, and with my luck, she’d be looking out the peephole or something. I need some space before anyone finds out about this. I have to figure out what I’m going to do.
What we’re going to do. Beck is my best friend—my oldest friend, the closest friend I have. Like a sister.
Yeah, no, clearly not like a sister.
Can our friendship even survive this? What if she wants nothing to do with me anymore? What if she blames me for taking advantage of her?
Did I take advantage of her? I don’t think I did. I wouldn’t have. We both had a lot to drink—with my last drink being that lemon-drop body shot. The one I slurped off my very good friend Beck’s toned, supple stomach.
Not. Thinking. About. It.
This is very, very bad.
I hear a faint sigh from the bed, and the sheets rustle. I look at the door again and wish with all my heart that I was a different kind of guy. But I’m not. I’m Garrett Crawford, and I might not be exactly teeming with great qualities, but I take responsibility for the things I do.
Besides, this is Beck. She’s not some girl I can just date and then move on. She’s my best friend, my confidante, my family.…
And I spent the night having the most amazing sex of my life with her.
Now I have to deal with it.
Chapter 1
Rebecca
Sitting cross-legged on my bed, I close my laptop and shove it away fr
om me. Finally. I’m done, thank God. I’m so tired of this shit, I don’t even have the words for it anymore.
But even as I think these things, I know I’m being whiny. I know this is totally a first world problem, even if that doesn’t make the tedium of this task any easier.
Maybe it’s because my heart isn’t in it. Grad school seems like the thing I’m supposed to do—which is why I’m filling out financial aid forms and contemplating tossing myself out the window—but it’s not what I want.
And anyway, defenestration isn’t really a good option, either. Since my room is on the second floor of our little old house, I wouldn’t fall far. Then I’d have to go to grad school on crutches. That would be even worse, so I guess the window is out.
I lean back against the headboard, sighing. Applying for college wasn’t like this. My mom is a Women’s Studies prof at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, so me getting in was pretty much a done deal, and I got free tuition. I know I’m lucky as hell. All my undergrad friends had loans. My mom makes good money, but she’s also the main breadwinner, because my dad is a painter and doesn’t always have steady commissions. We live in an expensive area—Blue Swan Cove, which is a little coastal suburb of Portland—and there’s not a lot left over to help me out.
So the gravy train ends now that I’ve graduated. My tuition waiver doesn’t apply to master’s-level programs, and the sticker shock of what it’s going to cost to go to grad school is depressing me beyond belief. Hence my whining over financial aid applications. I’ve been accepted to three master’s programs, but I’m basically going to have to go wherever I can get the most aid—and that probably means leaving Maine, and my family, and all my friends.
After all, what am I supposed to do with a degree in education and economics? Go to grad school, that’s what. That’s what I get for choosing majors that were interesting, instead of unique or profitable. Or both.
I wonder what kind of degree would be both unique and profitable, and conclude that such a rare unicorn does not exist.
At least my degrees are perfect for my summer job. Ever since high school, I’ve worked for KidFUN—it’s a nonprofit camp for underprivileged kids in the Portland area. Portland is only two towns over from Blue Swan Cove, where I live, but it might as well be another planet. Blue Swan Cove is a small, coastal town, populated by mostly well-to-do people, and Portland is the biggest city in Maine, which means it’s much more diverse and there’s a fair amount of poverty. So KidFUN hosts summer camps, daily as well as sleepaway, for kids who qualify financially.
I started out as a counselor, but just after my freshman year of college I applied for one of the administrative positions. So now, in the summers, I work half the time as a counselor and half the time in accounting, helping out with fundraising and anything else money-related. I love it.
Unfortunately, that isn’t something I can do for the rest of my life. So here I am, swimming in the deep end of the self-pity pool today.
Great. Super productive.
I hear the doorbell ring downstairs, and someone—Mom, probably—walking across the front hall to answer it.
A minute later, my door pushes open and Garrett comes in. He smells like summer: grass, sunlight, and a hint of Cool Water. I don’t know how he does it. He always smells good, and it’s never too much—not like the guys who think men’s body spray means wrap it around you like a coat.
And it’s the smell of safety and comfort. Garrett Crawford’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember. For the most part, that’s a good thing. He’s always there. I’m an only child, and he’s like the brother I never had. He’s looked out for me since … well, since I can remember.
The thing is, I was really sick as a kid. It started with a fever, and ended up being cancer—acute lymphoblastic leukemia, to be exact. I was diagnosed when I was seven, which is a bit on the old side if you want a good chance of beating it. My first round of chemo took two years and ended with relapse. Another round, another three years, and I was cured. Which is, of course, amazing—but there was a cost. I missed most of elementary school, and even though my parents brought in tutors whenever I felt up to it, I was way behind. I had to bust my ass and do all sorts of outside tutoring to get up to speed during my middle school years so I could be totally caught up by high school.
And while I got better, the threat of cancer lingers like the proverbial sword over my head. Which means that everyone in my life worries. Looks after me. Makes sure I’m safe—even when that’s so annoying I could scream.
Garret’s always been one of those people. For as long as I can remember, he’s been my best friend. From sleepovers when we were tiny kids to holidays together, he’s always been there. He studied with me every day after school for three solid years, helping me catch up on all I missed when I was sick. That sounds crazy, but it’s true, and it’s because we’re basically family.
Our parents are that kind of couple-best-friends that you see sometimes. My dad is an artist, and Garret’s mom manages an art gallery. My dad and Garrett’s get along like a house on fire, and his mom and my mom do all their feminist marches and stuff together. We go on vacation together—well, honestly, my family kind of tags along, because Garret’s family is rich. Like, one-percenter rich.
You wouldn’t know it, though. Garrett could have gone anywhere for undergrad, but what did he choose? The University of Southern Maine. And then he decided to go there for law school as well. He loves Maine, and always says he feels sorry for the rest of the world that doesn’t live here.
It’s one of the goofy things I love about him. No one’s ever had a better friend. Even now, when the expression on his face tells me he has decided to be a pain in my ass.
“Gross, Beck.” His nose wrinkles. “What the hell is going on in here?”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a funk in here.”
I try to be subtle as I lean my head over and get a whiff of myself. I smell okay, I think? “What are you talking about?”
“It smells a lot like Pity Me.”
I roll my eyes. “If you smell Eau de Pity, it’s only because I’m thinking about how long I’ll be paying off the student loans I’ll probably have to take out.”
“You don’t have to go to grad school,” he reminds me, for the four-hundredth time. He’s heard all my nonsense before.
“What else am I going to do? I can’t do much without at least a master’s.”
“Well, one thing you can do is get dressed.”
I look down. Sweatpants, giant wool socks. I’m comfy. “I am dressed. You got a problem with sweatpants?”
“Well, you look cozy, but I’m afraid cozy isn’t gonna cut it for what I’ve got planned.” He opens my closet and pulls out my overnight bag, tossing it on the bed. “Get your shit together. I’m taking you away for the weekend.”
“What?”
“I’m taking you and Levi and Brianna to Boston, and we’re going to have a good time.”
I make a face.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. No good time for poor Beck! Life’s so hard, with her brand-new college degree and a birthday coming up, boo-hoo.”
“Shut up,” I say to Garrett, turning my head away from him. Okay, sure, I’ve been a bit of a drip lately, but in my defense, my boyfriend—former boyfriend—Sam just broke up with me like a month ago. Well, a few weeks ago.
Okay, three weeks and four days ago, but who’s counting?
We’d been dating for most of the school year, and I’d just told him I loved him. He’d said it, too. Yet here it was, summertime, and me single.
What’s worse? The bastard did it via text. Who does that?
An asshole, that’s who.
But it still hurt. I thought I was keeping that under wraps, putting on a brave face and all that. Apparently not.
Garrett sits down on the edge of the bed and puts his hand over mine. “Look,” he says, “I know this summer sucks so far. So let’s change that. It’s
gonna be your birthday! Let’s celebrate.”
I sigh. “I don’t feel a lot like celebrating, is all.”
He gives me a one-armed hug. “I’m sorry I missed things this last few weeks. I know I wasn’t there for you when Sam split. I’ve been doing things for my internship, but that’s no excuse. Let me make it up to you. Save me from my guilt.”
I look over at him, and he’s doing his best sad puppy face.
“Besides,” he says, “if you say no, you have to be the one to go out and tell Levi and Brianna you chickened out.”
I narrow my eyes. “I don’t chicken out.”
“Then learn to live with the fact that we’re about to embark on a weekend of fun.”
“A weekend of fun, huh?” I can’t help smiling at him.
You can’t not love Garrett. He’s a total sweetheart, even if he’s a little bossy.
He’s also really handsome, in that hot guy who’s totally comfortable with himself kind of way, but I don’t look at him like that—he’s my brother in every way but blood. He’s fit, but not super-built in that gross way, with sandy hair and a panty-melting smile. But I don’t see him that way.
“Yes. And we’re going to run late if you don’t get your ass in gear.”
“Fine! Get out, so I can pack my stuff by myself.”
He grins and walks to the door. I wait for it to close behind him, and then sit back down on the bed for a minute, tears filling my eyes. Garrett doesn’t know the half of it. Sam is more than just my most recent shitty boyfriend—though he is certainly that. He’s also the first guy I ever slept with.