by Cindi Madsen
Lyla’s face dropped and my lungs stopped taking in oxygen. “I…I really don’t want to get in the middle of this,” she said. “I did with Whitney, and I made more of a mess than anything.”
“You mean you got in the middle of it once you found out about the bet?”
“Before, actually.”
A wave of nausea rolled through my gut.
Lyla pressed her lips into a tight line. “I’m not going to lie, I saw red when I heard about it. I wanted to find both Hudson and Dane and kick their asses on Whitney’s behalf. If I thought I could, I probably would’ve.”
“What happened?” I needed to put all these variables together and balance the equation so I could solve it. To put this new information with the guy I knew and figure out what it meant for us.
Lyla sighed and switched her crossed legs, and I noticed the imprint her boot had left on her skin. I focused on it, worried about the truth while desperately needing to hear it. “Last semester, Whitney ended up posing as a sports writer so she could do a story on the preferential treatment of athletes. I told her if she wanted the guys to take her seriously, she needed to insist they treat her like a professional, no letting flirty comments slide.”
“Makes sense,” I said.
“Hudson hit on her, of course, and she shut him down hard. And he was in a bad place—Whit and I didn’t know it at the time, but it plays into the story. See, Dane knew he needed a distraction, and so he and Hudson made a bet about sleeping with Whitney.”
My stomach bottomed out. “They were both trying to sleep with her?”
Lyla shook her head. “No, no. It wasn’t quite that scandalous. Dane bet Hudson that he couldn’t. That made him pursue her a little harder than he might’ve otherwise, but along the way—before they even slept together—he fell in love with her. Of course truth has a way of coming out, and Whitney found out and thought it had all been a lie, and she was justifiably crushed.”
I could imagine, since I felt crushed just thinking about Dane being involved. “How did she get over it?”
“Like Beck said, it involved Hudson begging forgiveness—which he did after a big romantic gesture—and she’d already fallen in love with him, which made it easier for her to look past his imperfections and put her faith in love and in him. He and Dane have both apologized and admitted it was stupid, but I’m sure you can see why your brother might not want you to get involved with a guy who makes bets about sleeping with girls.”
As much as I hated it, I could see it. “You don’t think…” My throat tightened and I couldn’t force out the words.
“That he made a bet about sleeping with you?” Lyla shook her head and grabbed my hand. “No. I don’t think he’d do that again. I can tell by the way he looks at you that he cares about you—when he told Beck that he did, I heard the sincerity in his voice, too.”
“But he won’t commit to being in a relationship with me. He says he can’t with hockey. You and Beckett manage, though. Hudson and Whitney, too. Maybe he doesn’t think I’m worth trying to make it work.”
“I…” Lyla hesitated and looked to the ceiling like she’d find the answers there—I glanced up, too, but I didn’t see any clues on how to solve for X. “Like I said, I almost wrecked Hudson and Whitney’s relationship by trying to help her stay away from him. If you’ll remember, Beck and I had our struggles as well.
“I don’t know Dane well enough to comment on why he won’t fully commit, or if it’s something you should worry about. But I will ask…” Her gaze met mine. “Is that what you want? A halfway relationship where you’re not sure where you stand? Is that worth fighting with your brother? If you say yes, I’ll help however I can, including trying to keep Beck out of it. Although it’s going to be like fighting a dragon with a toothpick.”
She nudged me with her elbow, making it clear she’d thrown out the last as a joke to help my mood. I wished it did. It only made me think about the odds I was facing. “I’m on your team,” she said. “No matter what you choose.”
Unfortunately, what I chose to do was burst into tears—or more like my body betrayed me and I couldn’t stop it from happening, so same difference.
Lyla threw her arms around me. “Oh, no. Did I say the wrong thing?”
“No. It’s just…” I sniffed. “My professor approached me with this great opportunity to join a engineering outreach program. They help junior high and high school students who don’t usually have access learn about engineering. I would’ve killed to be in something like that in high school, although I probably wouldn’t have done it, because at the time I was too afraid of what everyone else thought. And now I don’t give a damn if people think it’s nerdy, but I worry if I take on the project, Dane and I won’t have any time together. We already have to squeeze it in, and I’m afraid that I’ll regret walking away from the program, but that I’ll also regret walking away from Dane. I know there’s something great between us, but I don’t know if he feels it as strongly as I do, and…I don’t know what to do. What do I do?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“But if it was an amazing opportunity that had to do with chemistry, you’d go for it, wouldn’t you?” I sat back, wanting to see her face when she answered.
“Beck would understand me following my passion, like I understand him putting so much of his time and energy toward hockey. But that’s also because we’ve been together for a while. And we were friends before that, so we know each other almost as well as we know ourselves. It’s hard to compare.”
“The thing is, before Dane, I felt so lonely. I told myself my fresh start would fix it, but it was meeting him that made that feeling go away. How do I choose between my future as an engineer or a future of loneliness?” I knew it sounded overly dramatic, but right now, life felt pretty damn dramatic.
Plus, even though Dane hadn’t said as much out loud, I could tell he needed me back. The image of him standing up in the diner and rushing over to me after he’d returned from New York popped into my mind. I could still feel the imprint of his fingers as he’d hugged me so tightly.
“Honestly,” Lyla said, “I feel that finding the right person means not having to chose between them and your passion. Instead you work together to figure out a way to have both.”
Beckett walked into the room balancing bags in his arms, and the scent of garlic and soy sauce hit me. His gaze bounced from me to Lyla. “Everything okay?”
He looked like he wanted to reverse his tracks and run back the way he’d come—he never was great at dealing with tears.
I quickly wiped the traces of mine from the cheeks. “I didn’t even hear you come in.”
He extended a bag toward me. “General Tso’s chicken and extra spring rolls from The China Garden. It’s my version of a peace offering.”
“As far as peace offerings, it’s a pretty good one. Much better than the time you superglued my Magic Pegasus Barbie’s head back on.”
“Hey, I was, like, eight, and that was the only way I knew to fix it.”
“More like the only way you knew to keep me from telling Mom. Barbie’s head was practically down to her shoulders. She lost nodding capabilities and looked like she belonged on the hockey court or football field.”
Beckett shrugged a shoulder, a crooked grin spreading across his face. “So, she looked badass. You’re welcome.”
I laughed and swiped the bag from his hands. He sat down between Lyla and me and we dug into our food.
Of course my thoughts drifted back to Dane. This time our night at the Skywalk Observatory came to mind. He told me he felt crazy and a little bit reckless with me, and crazier without me.
I totally understood, because I felt that, too. Caring about him, getting dangerously close to being in love with him… Common sense no longer applied. I wanted to be reckless with him. I tried to hold back one little piece of my heart so at least I’d have something left at the end, but somewhere along the way Dane had gotten hold of it anyway.
> He had so much going on right now, all those worries that made it hard for him to sleep, and I’d been in that broken, hopeless place before. I didn’t want to leave him alone to deal with it, like I’d been left behind so many times. I knew how crushing that was, and how hard it made it to feel worthwhile. To be strong.
But if I threw away a great opportunity for a guy who refused to fully commit to me, it’d be hard to think of myself as strong and independent.
I needed to know I wasn’t the girl I used to be.
Even if that girl ended up boyfriendless and taking on the world alone.
Chapter Forty-Four
Dane
When you didn’t sleep very much, it took even longer to sleep off a hangover. Sometimes overdoing it with the alcohol helped me get some extra Zs, but at about three a.m., I sobered up enough to wake up with Megan on my mind.
I’d nearly called, but I worried I’d wake her up, and then I wouldn’t be there to hold her in my arms and cuddle with her until she fell asleep. She and I seemed to take turns. One night she’d rub my back until I drifted off; the next, I’d be the one to draw circles across her skin until her eyes closed and her breathing slowed.
Eventually I fell back asleep, but I felt even worse now than I had at three a.m. I stumbled into the kitchen and blinked at the bright light that seared a sharp spike of pain through my brain.
“Hey, man,” Ryder said, slapping me on the back and sounding annoyingly chipper. “Wanna hit the weights?”
“Bro, I want you to stop shouting.”
He laughed. “Do you even remember the end of last night?”
I searched through my memories, blips of almost leaving, only to get talked into game after game of flip cup. Everything got pretty fuzzy from there. “Do I want to?”
“Probably not.”
“Did you make any progress with Lindsay?”
That put a dent in his chipperness, but it was less satisfying than I hoped. “I looked up partway through the first game and she was gone.”
“I told you she hates the team and hockey players in general. There are a dozen other chicks lining up to take their shot at you. Maybe you should focus on them.”
“Yeah, like I’m going to take advice on women from you.”
I frowned and reached into the freezer for the waffles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
He shook his head. “Nothing, man. Let’s just go to the gym.” He put the box of waffles I’d just gotten out back in the freezer. “You’ll ralph if you eat those right now.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to ralph regardless. Now give me back the damn waffles.”
“Fifteen minutes and we’re going.”
Jeez, what crawled up his ass?
Whitney and Hudson wandered in, him in just his boxers and her in one of his huge T-shirts. The smile on Whitney’s face faded when she saw me.
“What?” I asked.
“Do you even remember last night?”
Pushing my fingers to my temples didn’t do much for my still-pounding headache. “Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
“You were pretty drunk, man,” Hudson said. “Like me at the beginning of last semester. Is everything okay?”
“Did you and Megan breakup or something?” Whitney asked.
“Can’t breakup if you’re not together,” I said.
“Oh. Is that how you’re justifying it?”
Lead filled my gut. “Justifying what?”
“You almost left with Misty.”
I shook my head. “No way. I told her at the beginning of the night I wasn’t interested.”
“Apparently the memo’s stronger when you don’t do shots with her.”
I took a step toward Whitney, dread rising. “I was doing shots with her? Did I… Did I do anything else?”
“I don’t know. Did you?”
Hudson put his hands on her shoulders and massaged them. “Relax, baby.”
Whitney shot him a look and then he raised his hands in surrender. So much for having my back.
I looked to him, not wanting to hear whatever it was from Whitney, with the added anger I probably deserved, although I had no recollection of why. “What happened?”
“Misty claimed you were only going to help her find her car keys—that she thought she might’ve dropped them in the parking lot,” Whitney said, apparently not caring that I’d clearly asked Hudson. “But since you could hardly walk, it seemed like a poor excuse. Me, I would’ve recruited someone who wasn’t seeing double.”
Ox came around the corner and eyed the scene. “Are we hitting the gym, or what?”
I searched my memory, trying to find what Whitney claimed had happened among its contents. “The last I remember, I was blowing her off.” A sick sensation tugged at my stomach. “I didn’t… You don’t think I did anything more than shots with her, do you?”
Whitney crossed her arms. “That’s what I’m asking you. Megan’s a sweet girl. I was worried that you two were a bad idea, but you seemed better, and despite your tendency to sometimes say dumb things, you know I like you. But if you hurt her—”
Hudson cut in. “What Whitney’s trying to say is—”
“Whitney knows what she’s trying to say. She doesn’t need help.”
Great. Now they were fighting over how much of an asshole I was.
“He didn’t kiss her,” Ryder said. “She asked him to leave with her and he told her no. Then she made a big show of trying to find her keys, and asked him to help her find them. I was going to help, but I got sidetracked, and the next thing I saw was you guys talking to him near the door, so I figured you were going to help.”
Cool relief flooded my veins, but the knowledge that I could’ve done something awful and not even remembered came fast on its heels, taking away the side of me that wanted to congratulate myself. For all my talk about self-control and being a better person, I’d gotten so wasted I couldn’t even remember the end of the night. I was right back to where I was all those months ago. Up to my neck in drama, being a selfish jerk, all my goals forgotten.
Whitney made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. “Misty didn’t lose her keys. She claimed she miraculously found them once I showed up. What she wanted was to get you alone, and you almost went.”
“Dane’s a sucker for a damsel in distress,” Hudson said. “He can’t help but help.”
“Well, I don’t trust Misty to keep her hands to herself, so next time, just tell her to find someone who doesn’t have a girlfriend—or an amazing person you care about who cares about you, since you keep getting hung up on the word girlfriend.”
“You would understand why if you met his last girlfriend,” Hudson said.
“Bro.” Now that memory rose up, of the phone call from my sister telling me my ex-girlfriend nearly died last night, because she’d finally spiraled out of control. And that spiral started when I let her down. As if I couldn’t hate myself any more, another wave of self-loathing slammed into me.
Hudson shrugged. “What? It’s the truth. Now, I vote we stop grilling Dane and go to breakfast.”
“We’re going to the gym,” Ox said, patting his bag as if it were all the proof he’d need.
I didn’t want to play this back and forth game anymore. “For the record, no one would feel worse than me if I screwed up things with Megan. And we all know I probably will.”
I waited for someone to deny it.
Just as I was about to say “Fuck all ya’ll,” and go back to bed, Whitney stepped forward.
“I’m sorry. I just really like Megan. Can’t you see how much she cares about you? Either go all-in or let her go, Dane. That’s all I’m saying.”
Panic rose, and I wasn’t sure if it was more for going all-in and it still not being good enough, or the thought of letting her go.
…
Fuck, fuck, fuck, with a side of fuck.
I ran my fingers across the top of the sugar and sweetener packets, thinking of my firs
t night here with Megan, and then I wished I’d picked a different location.
While I was wishing for shit, I also didn’t want to do this.
Over the past few days I realized two major things. I wanted Megan to be my girlfriend. I wanted her to know I’d be there for her, whatever she needed, not make her feel like it was conditional, or that I’d bolt at the soonest sign of intimacy.
In fact, I was all for intimacy. I wanted her underneath me, my tongue rediscovering every inch of skin.
Don’t think about that now, or you’ll never get through this…
It wasn’t just about sex, either. My life sucked without her, she was the best thing that ever happened to me, and I loved her.
Like, I was crazy in love with her.
Not sure how I didn’t see it before. Probably because I’m a dumbass, which was part of my second realization, and it only made everything clearer and more painful.
The entire thing boiled down to one major point: I wasn’t good enough for Megan Davenport. I never would be, no matter how many goals I made, because I slipped too often for them to make enough of a difference.
Which was why, when Beck cornered me in the locker room earlier today, the decision I hadn’t quite wanted to embrace went from the one I was trying to talk myself into to the only option.
My nerves had already been stretched tight, frayed and ready to snap. I knew I had to face him at practice, and I wasn’t sure how it’d go. If we’d hash it out in the locker room or on the ice.
Despite arriving extra early, Beck was already there. It was just him and me and the dead quiet hanging in the air. He deserved one hit unblocked, and I’d decided I would give him that before I defended myself.
“Bro, you have every right to be pissed at me,” I said. “I have sisters, so I get it. But I need you to know that Megan was never a fling or a bet. I care about her, and I’d never purposely hurt her. I know I don’t deserve her.”
Beck spun to face me, arms crossed. “It took me all weekend to try to wrap my head around it, but Lyla assured me that you were genuine when you said you cared.”