Hedging His Bets

by Laura Carter

  She bites my arm. “Was it strange for you, that she was there?”

  “No. I’m used to Emily being around more than her not being around. What was she doing there, though?”

  “I invited her.”

  I tighten my hold on her as she shivers. “I have no issue with that, but can I ask why?”

  “Because I wanted to get to know her better. I figure she’s back in your life now and I’d like it if we could be friends.”

  “When you say that, I hope you understand that if she’s back in my life, she’s there as a friend. You know that, right?”

  She takes a swig from her bottle instead of answering my question. I take the bottle from her mouth and shift so I’m looking her in the eye. “Hey. You know that, right? I don’t want her to be any more than that. Until very recently I didn’t appreciate that. I didn’t…” My words come and go, getting lost between my head and my tongue.

  Jess sets her bottle in the sand and twists to face me, coming up to her knees and taking my cheeks in her hands. “It’s okay, Jake. You don’t have to have all the answers. You’ve only just started talking to each other again. I only want you to know that…I like her. And she loves you. I adore her for that.”

  I growl and sit forward, forcing her to lie back in the sand. “I fucking adore you, Jess.”

  She bites her lip and raises a brow as I come to hover above her. “I hope we’re clear on what my feelings are for Emily, ’cause I don’t adore her like I want to roll around naked in the sand with her.”

  I bend, brushing my lips gently across her neck until goosebumps form on her skin. “That’s a shame. I think I could be into you rolling around naked with women in the sand.”

  She laughs so hard her chest rocks against mine. She slaps a hand across my back and lifts her head, reaching up and putting her hands on my nape. I waste no time in kissing her.

  And I keep kissing her, rolling my crotch against her. She lifts her hips, rocking up into me. God, what I would give for this beach to be empty. What I would give for this day to last forever.

  We roll in the sand, me on top, her on top, our lips never parting and I wonder how, in two years, we have managed to live without making out like this. I feel like a teenager, not only because I’m kissing and grinding on a beach, but because there’s a childish excitement coursing through my body, like a kid starting something new and exhilarating. I’m on the fastest damn rollercoaster known to man and hell, I’m not afraid of the twists and turns to come, I’m not afraid of dangling upside down with my feet in the air. I want it all. I want the ride, however it comes. I want Jess.

  The sky is black by the time a beagle pushes its nose between Jess’s face and mine. “What the fu—?”

  “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry.” Jess and I lift our heads to a woman who looks like she’s running through syrup as her feet dig in the sand, coming to retrieve her dog. I wink at Jess, finally breaking away from her. I stand and take hold of… “Roger, I’ve told you people don’t want to play.”

  I keep hold of the dog’s collar until the owner reaches us. Jess adjusts her sweater where my hands may, or may not, have been creeping up. Hey, it’s dark.

  “Your dog is called Roger?” I ask.

  The woman clips him on to a leash. “He’s jolly. Like Jolly Roger.”

  I smile, partly because that’s amusing, mostly because I feel high on life. “Cute,” I tell her.

  When she’s gone, Jess and I pack up our things. Reluctantly, I lead her back to the truck and close the passenger door behind her as she slips inside. Not before giving her one last kiss.

  She connects her cell to Brooks’s car port and leans back in her seat, her bare feet up on the dash, the wind blowing her hair, her lips swollen and inviting. She takes hold of my hand and her cheeks lift as she stares out at the clear night sky.

  My expression matches hers as I pull into the open road because, for the first time today, I’m thinking she might beat her fears and stay.

  Chapter 17

  Jake

  “You don’t have to start opening doors for me and minding your p’s and q’s because you dry-humped me sober, you know.”

  I shake my head as I offer my hand to Jess, help her out of the truck and close the door behind her. I step into her, nudging her back against the truck. “Always so, so classy.”

  “Oh, I hadn’t realized you have a thing for classy.”

  I growl as I press my forehead to hers and squeeze her hips in my hands, rolling my pelvis against her. “Feel that? That hard-on is saying I have a big thing for you.”

  She presses her hand between us, making me hold my next blink, desperate to get out of these damn shorts and into hers.

  She bites her lip and looks up teasingly. “Hmm, big thing. Nope, I don’t feel a big thing down there.”

  “Oh, babe, I’m gonna make you regret that.”

  Her expression changes to something darker, intrigued, lustful. “Is this the part where you tell me you have a red room filled with floggers and chains?”

  Growling again—a certain display of my infallible manhood—I hook her legs up around my waist and take her mouth with mine. She turns my cap backward and pulls my shoulders tighter to her, her nails digging in so hard I feel them through my clothes. When she moans into my mouth, I swallow it and groan back. Groaning because I know this has to end before I come against my best friend’s truck, in my brother’s driveway. And besides that, there is nowhere I want to come except inside this woman.

  “I don’t have a red room. I don’t need all those whips and toys to show you a good time, babe. But if you want me to tie you up, say the word. I’d like nothing more than to spread your arms and legs and tie you to my bed all day, so I can lick you and fuck you senseless.”

  Her lips part and her legs grip my waist like a vise, pushing her tight against my crotch.

  “Fuck, I’d love it if this house were empty so I could take you straight to bed and make you scream my name.”

  “No can do. Sorry, man.” I’m dragged from thoughts of how I want to take Jess by the sound of Brooks’s voice. What the fuck, buddy? I’m in a moment here.

  Brooks makes strides to the truck as I lower Jess to the ground, keeping her against my side until my hard-on has sufficiently stopped tenting my shorts. “I thought I heard the truck. Have you had a good day?”

  Jess clears her throat and looks at the ground as the street light illuminates the red rising on her cheeks and neck. Her awkwardness amuses me.

  “We’ve had a good day. You coming to make sure I haven’t beaten up the truck?”

  “In part. The main reason I’m out here is to forewarn you that Emily is here.”

  I shrug and glance at Jess. “That’s cool, right?”

  “Of course, yes.”

  “It’s Ems, Brooks. We’re good now. We’ve talked.”

  One side of his face twists and he scratches the thick stubble around his jaw. “Right. Thing is, she’s not alone.”

  My body stiffens without receiving messages from my brain. It can’t receive messages from my brain because my brain has gone into code fucking red. “She brought him?”

  “Yeah. Listen, buddy, I came to tell you because I’m willing to bet you want to do to that guy what I’d want to do to him.”

  My breaths come in heavy, long drags. The guy who acted like my friend, who I trusted with my secrets, and then fucking betrayed me. The way I was brought up, family and friends are everything. They aren’t something you screw over for no good reason. My fists clench at my sides. “You came out here to stop me.”

  Brooks holds up a hand, as if in surrender. “No, man, I didn’t. I came to forewarn you so you can choose what you’re putting into play, offense or defense.”

  “Defense? There’s no goddamn defense for the shit he pulled.”

  I think Jess
says something in the background but I’m already lost to rage. The rage I’ve let simmer for three years. Rage so strong, I forget I’m walking through my brother’s house, that my friends are sitting around by the pool having pleasant evening drinks. I step out to the deck and watch the bastard, laughing and joking with my friends, my family. He doesn’t deserve to be around these people.

  Emily clocks me first and stands as I make my way to the group. She plants a hand on my chest. I’m het up enough to knock someone out of the way, so it’s a dangerous move, but I control myself.

  “Jake, stop,” she says, glaring into my eyes.

  “Move, Emily. Move, right now.”

  Brandon stands and I see Drew rise in my peripheral vision. “Emily,” he warns, “this is between them, sweetheart.”

  She stays between us, her hand still on my chest. I call out Brandon across her shoulder. “What the fuck are you doing here? You have no goddamn right to be here.”

  “Relax, bro. What’s done is done. It’s in the p—”

  “Oh, hell, you did not call me your bro.”

  Wisely, Emily steps aside as I launch myself at the man I once considered a good guy.

  “Brandon! Jake!”

  I collide with Brandon and we tumble back onto the pathway leading down to the beach. I shove him off me, and he lands yards further down the sand than I do. He staggers to his feet, his white shirt coming untucked from his chinos. Pretentious wanker. Who sits around the beach in chinos and a fucking shirt?

  “You busted my fucking lip,” he whines.

  “I’m gonna bust a lot more than your lip, dickhead.”

  I charge back at him, knocking him to the ground again. I drive my fist into his jaw, knocking his head to the side. I raise my fist again but before it lands, searing pain burns from my crotch and brings vomit to my throat. I roll to the side, covering my dick and balls, in agony from Brandon’s knee.

  “That’s a low fucking blow,” I snarl.

  He dives on top of me and moves to drive an elbow in my face. Same old moves I’ve seen him use in drunken fights a thousand times. I block his elbow and crash a fist into his ribs.

  “Brandon!” The voice is Emily’s but I see the others running onto the beach.

  “Take her up there,” I hear Brooks say. “Let’s leave them to it.”

  I smash another blow into Brandon’s side and he falls off me, gasping for breath.

  “You two gonna kill each other?” Drew asks.

  I glance at Brandon, who is curled into a ball, blood running from his nose and onto his pompous shirt as he squirms. I can’t stand the guy but I’m not about to beat someone to death either. I shake my head in the direction of Drew and Brooks, who are standing side by side, their arms folded across their chests.

  They head back up to the house as I come up to sit and face out to sea, my arms draped loosely over my knees, rubbing my right knuckles with my left hand. Brandon coughs and splutters as he crawls up to sit next to me, mirroring my position.

  “Feel better for that, asshole?”

  “It’s something I should have done three years ago, fucking traitor.”

  “Traitor? Man, I hated myself for it. I hated listening to you spill your guts about Ems then…”

  “Then going back to our house and fucking her?”

  He drags in a breath so deep it makes him cough. “Yeah, actually. Yeah. I felt fucking horrible. I still do. I wasn’t going to come tonight but Ems said you guys were patching things up and, damn it, man, I wanted to be able to do the same.”

  “We can never be friends again, Brandon. Not after what you did.”

  “Jake, you didn’t love her. Not like that. I listened to everything you said and I know how much you care about her. I fucking love you for that. But you were never in love with her the way I am. You were afraid of losing her.”

  I want to argue but he’s right. I know that now. “It wasn’t about whether I did or didn’t love her, Brandon. Fact was, I told you I did. There’s fucking guy code, man.”

  “I know. I fucked up. I’m not denying it. I should have told you how I felt before making a play. Hell, maybe I should never have made a play.”

  “Yeah, you got that right.”

  “But I love her, Jake. I do. I did then and…fuck it.”

  I take my eyes from the dark horizon and look at him. He rubs a finger under his nose and winces.

  “Fuck what?” I ask, my conviction waning.

  “I’m going to ask her to marry me, man. I want to spend my life with her.”

  “Marry her? Marry my Ems?”

  He pulls back from me, as if I might hit him again. Christ, he truly does love her. More than I could have, at least that way. “It really wasn’t just a lay, huh?”

  “If it had been, I’m pretty certain I could have stopped myself.”

  I rub a hand roughly over my jaw. “Like hell you would have. Your dick was bigger than your brain at college. Probably still is.”

  “Fuck you, I’ve got a decent job in the city. Granted, it doesn’t pay like Billy-Big-Shot’s job beside me but I do well.” He looks up toward the house. I don’t follow his gaze. “I’ll take care of her, Jake.”

  “You’d better, Brandon. I swear to God, you hurt her, I will break you, man. I will end you. I’d do anything for her.”

  His lips curve into a small smile. “That’s why I want you to be in our lives, Jake.”

  I glance at his hand on my shoulder, then at his face. “Christ, you going to try to kiss me next?”

  He laughs and we fall into silence. I’ve got to admit, it feels nice to have gotten Emily, to have gotten Brandon, out of my system. Maybe one day, probably no time soon, we can find a way to all be in friends again.

  As we sit watching the ebb and flow of the water, I realize, for me, there’s nothing between me and the girl I want anymore. Nothing except her own demons. And I hope we can get past them, because damn it, I want to be the guy holding the ring someday.

  “What the hell is it with everyone proposing this week?” I mutter.

  “By all accounts you’ve looked pretty cozy with the brunette this week. Is she new?”

  I raise one brow as I turn to face him. “Keep your fucking hands to yourself.”

  He laughs and I laugh with him. For now, it feels nice.

  We talk about the last few years, nothing too personal, but filling in the blanks that mutual friends haven’t done for us. We talk until the lights go out at the house and Emily comes down to the beach.

  “Are my boys getting along?” She slips down to the sand, nudging Brandon and me farther apart with her hips.

  I drop an arm around her shoulder. “Who died and made you chief, huh?”

  “Well, when the rest of the squad is regressing, someone has to step up to the plate, right?”

  “Even regressed, I’m still chief, Ems.”

  She beats her chest and growls like a silverback. I laugh, appreciating fully how ridiculous Brandon and I must have looked to the others, fighting like kids in the sand.

  We talk for a while but there’s something missing. Someone. And I want her here. I want to pick up where we left off at the truck. I want her by my side for the rest of my life.

  “All right, guys. I’m out. Sleep well.”

  Emily stands and kisses my cheek. I pull her into a hug, trying to tell her in that move that I’ll always be there for her. “When he screws up…”

  She hits my chest but smiles as she backs into Brandon and takes hold of his hand. In some other time and place, I might have thought it was pretty cool that my best friends hooked up and fell in love.

  I’m still not quite there yet.

  Brandon holds out a hand and I stare at it a beat too long before I take it. “You might need to get that nose seen to,” I tell him.

 
“Nah, you hit like a pussy, always have.”

  “Yeah, tell me that when you’ve had a nose job tomorrow.”

  My excitement builds as I head up the path to the house, making my strides larger and faster until I’m jogging. I want to go to bed with my girl, even if I only get to hold her. I feel…free, somehow. It’s hard to describe. It’s as if socking Brandon in the face and seeing Ems, seeing them happy and still together, has given me a blank slate. I can love Jess. I do love Jess. I think maybe I have from the day she walked into my apartment, startled that Alex opened the door naked. From the moment we realized we both secretly like black-and-white movies. Since the first time she told me how she lost her parents and I wanted to be her protector and take care of her the way she should have been taken care of all her life.

  I can hear voices coming from the bedrooms but the lights in the house are out. I climb the stairs, the glass ceilings giving me enough light. There’s no light coming from under the bedroom door but I know she won’t be sleeping yet. Jess is a night owl.

  I turn on the light and instantly dim it, in case she is sleeping. But the bed is empty. “Jess?”

  I walk through to the en suite but that is empty too.

  Her toothbrush is gone.

  I open the wardrobe in the bedroom. Her clothes are gone.

  “What the fuck?”

  And I know. My gut falls like I’m free-falling from a clifftop toward a bed of rocks.

  She ran.

  I dart from the bedroom and downstairs, running out the front door. As I reach the end of the drive, I see the taillights of a yellow cab driving away, and I know who is sitting in the back.

  The night seems to grow darker and a tightness settles into my chest, making it hard to breathe, making my eyes sting.

  She ran.

  I stand in the middle of the road, staring in the direction of the cab, praying for it to turn around and bring her back. Knowing that won’t happen.

  Chapter 18

  Jess

  People assume that when you fall in a love with a friend, it happens gradually. That it creeps up on you without a defining moment. People assume that a love that comes from the foundation of a friendship doesn’t have a moment of fireworks—bangs that shock you to the core, bursts of bright color, a sense of overwhelming beauty. That your friendship simply becomes something you depend on so much that you can’t let it go. You recognize everything about your friend that is truly magnificent. Sometimes, you see things others will never be blessed to see because you, and only you, know that person so well. That may be true for lots of couples who started out as friends. If it is true for you, I’m happy for you, genuinely. You managed to hold on to someone you cherish truly, inside and out.