The Safe Bet (The Game Changers #3)

by Shealy James

  Screw my damn brother. “Fine, but you go first.”

  “Of course. I met Jordan last year at a conference. The last name stuck out to me. I told him I once knew a girl with the same name. Over drinks, I briefly shared my tragic story about the one who got away. The whole time he said nothing.”

  I wondered how much he told Jordan. He had known about Brock. The first night I stayed at his house we drank tequila and attempted to get to know each other by asking what started out as simple questions. The questions became progressively deeper, and I was too drunk to filter. I wasn’t sure how much Jordan understood, so was it possible that he would he have made the connection?

  “The following week I received a phone call from Jordan’s company about consulting work. I was later paired up with Jordan on a small project, and when he flew to Seattle to wrap it up, he confessed that he was your brother. He spent the year trying to decide if he should let me back in your life. Sure enough, when a position opened within his company, I was the first person they called.”

  “So, it was all planned.”

  “Sort of. We both figured you wouldn’t see me or speak to me, but I still can’t figure out why. What happened, Rea?”

  “Is that your one truth you want from me?”

  “No.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  His eyes met mine and bored into me like he was unsure about what he was about to say. Just as quickly as I saw the nerves, they were gone and confidence had taken over him.

  “What?” I asked, prompting him to finally speak.

  “Were you ever in love with me?”

  I choked on the hot soup. Sputtering, I coughed out, “What?”

  “You heard me. I want to know if you ever loved me, because I sure as hell was head over heels in love with you, but then you left, and I…” He paused. “Let’s just say that was a feeling I’ll never forget.”

  I coughed more, breaking up the leftover soup that went down the wrong tube.

  “You promised me a truth, Reagan, and that’s what I want to know.”

  My heart pounded. I could feel the blood rushing through my body. I knew my cheeks were red, and my ears burned. That was not a question I expected at all, but I had promised him a truth, and I always kept my promises.

  “Yes,” I whispered to the seafood platter. I couldn’t bear to look him in the eye when I said the words I had never spoken aloud, especially not to him. “Yes, I loved you.”

  Chapter Ten

  March 2002

  There’s a feeling of power, a high if you will, when someone cares enough about you to protect you. That was definitely not what this was, and the feeling I was left with was nothing like a high. In fact, what I felt wasn’t even remotely satisfying.

  Ivy and I went to a party hosted by some guy she met in her biology class. Alex was older and “sooo hot,” so I was dressed in the heeled boots, skinny jeans, and low-cut top she picked out as I followed her into his house. He apparently shared it with three other guys and had people over every weekend. I could already tell it was going to be a long and possibly painful night.

  Two beers in, I was bored, and my feet hurt. I had seen a guy drink a beer from a funnel followed by a girl who didn’t shave her armpits doing a keg stand. I watched people bump and grind on the makeshift dance floor and witnessed a couple practically having sex on the couch in the middle of the room, not even in a dark corner. All the while Ivy was flirting with the mildly attractive guy known as Alex. I had sporadically chatted with one of his roommates, who was cute but boring. He asked every possible question he could about me, and I responded with variations of, “What about you?” Lame, I know.

  When I was finishing my drink, he was on his fifth or tenth. Who knew? This was when the compliments started. “You’re so beautiful,” he said and looked longingly at me. Uhm…awkward much? He followed up with, “Those boots make you look hot, and your shirt is sexy as fuck.” Yuck. Then he added, “We should go out sometime,” while slipping his arm around my waist.

  “I don’t think so, buddy. I hardly know you.”

  “You could get to know me,” he slurred.

  I didn’t have a chance to answer him. A very angry Brock marched right up to us and spoke quietly, making his presence more menacing than if he had yelled. “Take your hands off her.”

  “We’re talking. Back off.” The idiot made a mistake pushing Brock. He had gotten in fights for less in high school, and this time was no different.

  Brock took the guy’s hand and twisted it behind his back. “Take your hand off her or I break this one.”

  “Fine, man.” The guy surrendered and started to walk away. “She was a bitch anyway.”

  “Oh crap,” I muttered, knowing what was coming.

  Brock spun around and shouted, “What did you just call her?”

  I wasn’t offended, but I knew Brock was about to lose it. He had always been protective of me. Sure enough, when the dumbass repeated himself, Brock didn’t hesitate to throw a right hook right into his jaw. When he tried to tackle Brock, the guy ended up in a headlock while Brock took a few more shots to his abdomen. A crowd surrounded us now, and people were yelling from all directions.

  “Fight! Fight!”

  The girls were squealing, and I stood frozen. I was trapped in a corner with no escape. I realized this wasn’t going to end well, and I yelled. “Stop!” It didn’t help.

  Alex busted through the crowd and pulled his friend back. When they split apart enough, I snuck in and flattened my palms on Brock’s chest. He was breathing heavily, and his corded muscles were tense and flexed.

  “Stop, Brock. Stop.”

  Finally, his eyes made contact with mine. They widened in realization just before he hugged me against him. “You okay, Rea?”

  “I’m fine. You’re the one fighting.”

  He laughed.

  “You need to get out of here, man,” Alex shouted.

  Brock held up his hands and said, “No problem.” Guiding me by the small of my back, he led us out the front door while we laughed at his typical antics. He turned me and held my face between his palms. “You okay, Rea?” This time when he said the words, they felt different. He spoke softly and looked in my eyes like he was trying to say so much more, or maybe that was wishful thinking.

  I was certain we were home free. The way he was looking at me was so intimate that I almost said something I would later regret. Instead I said, “Thank you,” hoping he would understand what I really wanted to say. He barely nodded, and I knew he was going to kiss me. He was so close, but a pretty blonde girl came bouncing down the steps calling, “Brock,” in a high-pitched voice that would have dogs howling. The second her squeal interrupted the moment I was pulling away. He quickly let me go when she cried, “Oh my god! Are you okay? What happened? Why did you hit that guy?”

  The girl looked him over familiarly. Then, to my horror, she kissed him, and he kissed her back. “I’m fine, Jennie. Everything’s okay.”

  “Jennie?” I asked before my brain knew what my mouth was doing.

  “Yeah, Jennie. This is Reagan, my best friend.” He kept talking, but I didn’t hear what he said. I was placed firmly in the friend zone. I kind of knew that might have been the case, but the silly girl inside of me was still holding onto the hope that he was pining for what we used to have like I had been.

  Ivy came running out of the house next, asking what happened. She told me Alex was boring, so we left Brock with his date to get ice cream. I was doomed to face hours of questions about Brock before I could go to sleep that night if I didn’t think of something fast. Instead of allowing her to ask anything other than Cherry Garcia or Strawberry Cheesecake, I put Ivy under the microscope and spit out every possible asinine question about her night with Alex. He really was the most boring human on the planet.

  Then something weird happened, something I could have never predicted. Ivy and Neal started dating for real. I had no idea they were even hanging out unt
il I skipped class one day. Don’t judge. It was geology, which was a dumb class. Why I chose to study rocks for even a semester was beyond me.

  When I walked in my dorm room that day, the last thing I expected to see was Neal’s bare ass doing the dirty with my roomie. I opened the door, not even paying attention to what was going on around me. I almost made it to my bed when I saw a butt, a naked butt. I screamed and attempted to back out but I ran into the wall. I covered my eyes and apologized as I used the wall to guide my way out of the room. The next thing I knew, I was sitting in the hall on my knees and laughing hysterically. I’m sure my neighbors thought I was insane, but if they had just seen the smiley face tattoo on their roommate’s boyfriend’s ass, they might have felt a little nutty too.

  Ivy told me everything. He asked her out after our road trip. She didn’t know he meant it as a date, but it ended up being the best date she’d ever been on. They stayed up talking all night and found they had a lot in common. She said the conversation was “deep” and that he “understood the darkest parts of her.” I wondered what she meant but didn’t ask. I never shared my dark parts with her, so I wasn’t going to ask about hers.

  Apparently Neal did ask…they kept their relationship going privately, much like Brock and I tried to do in high school. It seemed they talked about everything over the past couple of years, but they didn’t actually decide to be together until recently. Neal was why she ditched Alex so abruptly after making such a point to let everyone know how hot he was, which he wasn’t. She was trying to make Neal jealous to force him to make a move. It worked. She said she liked being with him…a lot. What she didn’t say was that she liked him, but that was Ivy for you.

  Brock laughed when I told him what happened. Neal would never live down the smiley face tattoo now that I knew he had it done because he lost a bet to Brock. Anytime we could bring up “smiley ass,” we made sure to do just that. I think it only fueled Neal’s dislike of me, but a smiley! On his rear! Who could resist?

  “That reminds me,” Brock said after explaining about Neal’s hidden smiley, “you never showed me your tattoo.”

  “And I can’t now. It’s not the kind of thing you show off in public.” We were in a Starbucks. It wasn’t like I’d have to show off like a porn star, but the tattoo wasn’t something I needed to show him in front of others.

  “Aren’t you a little minx?” he teased.

  He had no idea. I wasn’t hiding it to tease him. I was keeping it to myself because I feared he wouldn’t understand.

  “You wanna do something this weekend? Just the two of us like old times?”

  “How much like old times?” I asked, wondering if he was proposing hanging out as friends or friends with benefits. It sounded like dear ol’ Jennie was out of the picture, and I was ready to have my Brock back. Maybe jealousy worked on me as well.

  “Like we do something fun. Drive down to the beach?”

  “Sure.” And so we did. We went to our favorite beach, played in the ocean, walked the shore, took silly pictures on the boardwalk, and drove back to school. It was the best day I’d had in a long time. No serious talks took place. It was just him and me being us.

  He loved it as much as I did. I know he did, but when we were back at school, it was like the day never happened. The four of us went out a few nights later, and guess who showed her pretty little face? Yup. Jennie, Brock’s latest pretty blonde girl. It was a super fun night, especially the part when she and Brock went home together. Then Ivy went home with Neal, and I went back to my dorm alone. No ice cream and movie to keep me company this time. I needed something more depressing, so I focused on my readings from Dostoyevsky.

  When Jennie appeared again and again with Brock, I was forced to face the fact that he had a girlfriend. She was nice. That was really all I had to say about her. Needless to say, I didn’t see her much. All my friends were part of couples, and I wasn’t one to be the fifth wheel. I found other ways to keep myself busy. At first I kept company with Aristotle, Homer, Sophocles, and Plato. Then I made friends with a few people in my history class who studied by watching inaccurate movies of historical events. Finally, I decided it was my turn to have a little fun.

  The only thing that made my geology class even remotely interesting was the teaching assistant, Wesley Boyd. He was cute in a geeky kind of way. I loved how passionate he was about rocks. When he led an erosion lab, I could see how environmental science could be exciting, sort of. Geology was something I would have complained to Brock about, no doubt, but he was too busy with Jennie. Yeah, I was a jealous harpy that had hurt feelings and maybe a broken heart. Stupid heart.

  The reminder of Brock had me returning my focus to Wesley. As I listened to him discuss the process of weathering, I decided a little extra geology help wouldn’t hurt, and Wesley was more than happy to help me. During our study session the next night, he said he had wanted to ask me out but couldn’t. School policy didn’t allow TAs to date students in their section. Thankfully he could still help me prepare for my finals, though. Our first kiss was when I accurately described the six characteristics of rocks and minerals without help. I may not be able to tell Dunite and Andesite apart, but I could bullshit my way through a short answer question and kiss a cute boy at the same time.

  But I digress. Like I said, he was passionate about geology. The night before the final he seemed laser focused at first. Then things evolved into a less formal tutoring session. When I showed him I learned what he wanted, he seemed proud of me. He kept leaning closer and closer to me, and I mirrored him step for step as I listed each characteristic. He was cute and smart, and when we kissed, I could only describe it as nice, gentle, and sweet. His smile widened when we separated. I was sure mine matched his. I aced that final, and the second my grade was entered he called and asked me on a real date.

  Ivy met Wes on a Wednesday. That Saturday I was being forced to go on a double date with my new dating buddy, my roommate, and her boyfriend, also known as Brock’s best friend. I didn’t start dating Wes to play tit for tat with Brock, so I didn’t really want Neal to tell Brock about every move he made, but I couldn’t say I wouldn’t have been happy to have him stand outside my dorm with a boom box over his head playing some Dave Matthews or something. So, I counted the days until Brock came to see me. I waited and hoped he would come fight for my honor. He and Dave never made an appearance.

  I ended things with Wes two weeks later.

  According to Ivy, Jennie lasted another week.

  Chapter Eleven

  Now

  I pushed my chair back, ready to bolt. I couldn’t breathe, and I thought I might cry. I hated crying. I felt ashamed. I felt afraid. I felt a lot of uncomfortable emotions that I had been purposely avoiding for the last several years, and one dinner with Brock made me lose all sense of control. Everything was closing in on me. It was all too much.

  His hand gently closed around my arm and held me down. “Breathe, Rea. It’s okay. I felt the same. I’m pretty sure I still do. What we had isn’t something you get over.”

  The tears started then, and I quickly used my napkin to stop them. This was so humiliating, crying in a restaurant. “We were awful to each other.”

  “Not always,” he reminded me.

  When I looked up, I saw the concern all over his perfect face. His strong jaw was slack, his eyes were wide, and he bit his lip like he did when he read something he wasn’t sure about.

  “This is pointless, Brock. We can never go back, and I’m not that girl anymore.”

  He smiled, showing me his relief and his perfect teeth. “I don’t know about that. Why don’t we finish eating, then go on a walk? I bet there’s some of that girl left in you somewhere.”

  “I hope not.”

  “I hope so,” he argued, “Because then I still know a piece of you, even if it’s a small piece.”

  “When you realize I’m not the person you think I am, you might go running in the other direction.”

  “Reagan,
knowing what I know now, I may never let you go.”

  We’ll see about that, I thought but kept it to myself as he passed me a crab leg to tear into. Through the rest of dinner, we discussed safer topics like our moms and our jobs. He asked a lot of questions about Meyer, and I regaled him with funny stories of Jordan and I doing our brother-sister parenting thing.

  “Where’s her mom?”

  “Gone. She gave up her rights the day Meyer was born and never looked back. She and Jordan were having a bit of fun. Meyer’s mom never wanted kids, but stayed clean long enough to pop out a healthy baby.”

  “That’s sad.”

  “I don’t know. She would have made a terrible mom. I only met her a handful of times, but she was pretty rough around the edges. I think Meyer is lucky her mom let her go. It was almost like she loved her enough to let someone else raise her.”

  “You have changed,” Brock commented thoughtfully.

  “This I know.”

  “You were also so opinionated about parents leaving their kids.”

  “What my father did and what Meyer’s mom did were two completely different things. Had my father left before I knew what it was like to have a two-parent home, I wouldn’t have been so broken up about it. He also left to be with his other family. That was a tough pill to swallow.”

  “I couldn’t agree more. Clarity looks good on you, Rea.”

  “Everything looks good on you, Brock. What have you been eating? Spinach?”

  “You should have learned to surf. It does a body good.”

  “I see surfers all the time. None of them look like you.” Except Restaurant Guy. Even though he was hot enough to be on the cover of a romance novel, he didn’t hold a candle to Brock. There was just something about Brock’s physical appearance that hit all the right buttons for me.

  “Well, look all you want, Rea. You haven’t changed a bit physically, which is shocking considering how much junk you eat, and I’m still liking what I see.”