by Amelia Wilde
“Not for a single day. I just—I just didn’t know what to say over the weekend. That’s all.”
I look down at the basket of chips, heat rising to my cheeks. “I didn’t make it that attractive of a proposition, running away from you like that.”
“I didn’t either, when I ran away from you the first time.”
“To be fair…” I take a bite of the chip, chew, swallow. “I sent you away.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. At the top of my lungs.”
“But I went.”
“You had to.”
“I didn’t. I was ready to stay with you through—through whatever it was that was going to happen. Even if that meant nothing was going to happen.”
“You weren’t. You were young.” He starts to shake his head, but I hold up a hand. “We were both young, Beck. Neither of us was ready for that.” Then I say what I’ve wanted to say to him for years. “I don’t blame you.”
Beck’s eyes widen, and he puts both hands on the surface of the table. “You should blame me, Sam.”
“I don’t. Do you know why?”
“No.” His voice is tight, laced with pain, and I see another layer of what this has cost him.
“Because it wasn’t anybody’s fault.”
Beck clenches his jaw, looks to the side, and that’s when I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t stand to be sitting this close to him and not touching him. I reach out and put my hand over his, and he forces his eyes back onto mine.
“You know, this fantasy that I had—” His eyes relax a little bit. “This fantasy that I had about talking this over and then putting it behind us forever is probably a pipe dream.”
“Yeah,” he says, a little bit of the edge returning to his voice. “This probably would take more than one conversation.”
I swallow hard, my heart aching in my chest. “Do you think—do you think you’d be willing to have more than one conversation about it? With me?”
“Right now?”
“No, not right now.”
“Thank Christ.”
I don’t realize how tense he is until something shakes out in his shoulders and they drop away from his ears. “But later?”
He cocks his head to the side. “We’re on borrowed time, Sam.”
I press my lips together. “I got an extension.”
“Still.”
There’s a silence between us, and I look into those eyes and feel gravity shift underneath me again. “I don’t care about the endgame.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Not right now I don’t.”
Beck purses his lips. “What about in two weeks? Will you care then?”
“I don’t—”
“What do you want, Sam? Are you just looking to—to close the book on this so you can move the hell on with whoever you found downstate?” His voice is alive with anger, and the roller coaster I’m riding plummets down into an odd despair.
I press my hand tighter against his. “I don’t have anyone downstate, Beck. I’ve never had anyone. Not since you.”
“You don’t have to lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. It’s all been false starts. That’s half of why I’m here. I’ve been looking for you since I left, and you’ve been here all along.”
It’s so raw, the feeling in my chest, that it brings tears to my eyes. I don’t know what’s going to happen at the end of all this.
“This was my only chance to see you again,” I whisper.
“Okay.” Beck runs his other hand through his hair. “Okay. We’re on a damn date. I’m not supposed to be getting pissed off.”
“No,” I laugh, the sound only slightly clouded with tears. “You’re supposed to be eating a burger. Maybe we should focus on this.”
“I’d like to focus on you.” The roller coaster makes its way back up the incline.
“You could do that, too.”
“I’ve already started.”
Chapter Sixteen
Beckett
Sam looks into my eyes, her blues dancing in the mood lighting of the brewing company, and she gives me the same smile she always used to. I never saw it on her face for anyone else. She doesn’t even know she’s doing it, and I swore a long time ago never to point it out because it would be a damn shame for her to get self-conscious about it. She bites her front lip just a little, her eyes lighting up and her nose wrinkling just a little.
Something in my chest cracks open, an old ache and a new lightness pouring into the rest of my body, right down to my fingertips.
This isn’t an easy conversation. I don’t want to go back to those days any more than she does. But there’s something raw and angry inside me that has festered for years, and the only thing that’s come close to touching it is hearing that she never found anybody else.
We’ve got plenty of time to fix this.
I don’t know what the hell gives me that idea, but the thought floats up from the depths of my mind before I can stop it. Is that even the truth? This could all be over in two weeks. She could head out of town and never look back.
Or…
Or…
She looks down again at the basket of chips between us, a gentle pink color coming to her cheeks, that smile still on her face. “Damn, Beck, could you pull it back a little bit? This is some focus.”
“No.”
The smile gets wider. “No?”
“Not a chance.”
She narrows her eyes, cocks her head a little bit to the side. “What changed your mind?”
“I didn’t change my mind.”
“You were…a little angry a second ago. Were you just glad that I don’t have a boyfriend?”
“You wouldn’t be here if you did.”
She shakes her head, then puts her elbow on the table and leans her face into her hand. “No. Well…maybe.”
“Don’t even try to convince me that you’d come back here and cheat.”
“Maybe not cheat. But it would be hard to turn you down for a casual date.”
“This is a casual date.”
“No,” she says, straightening up, her face going serious. “It’s not.”
Her words fall like a raindrop on dry leaves, the sound carrying through a silent forest. And she’s damn right. We might be pretending that this is just a meet-up between two old friends, that this doesn’t carry any weight, but it does. Of course it does. There’s not a chance in hell that we were going to come to dinner and have it mean nothing.
I can’t take my eyes off of her. There’s a warning sounding in the back of my mind—don’t get too close, don’t put yourself in a position to lose control, to hurt her again, don’t do it, don’t do it—but looking at her right now, her hair falling gently over her shoulders, shining from whatever it is she put in it before I picked her up, I can’t see any other way forward except with her.
It’s a huge fucking risk for both of us. It’s a huge risk, and I can’t deny that either. But the risk slinks quietly into the background of my thoughts. I just want to look at her. I just want to be near her. More than near her.
The waiter appears at my elbow out of nowhere, and I’m so focused on Sam that when his voice booms over us, I startle like a damn little girl.
“One cheeseburger, medium well, with waffle fries.”
“Jesus.” I say it half under my breath. The waiter—Pete—ignores it, setting the plate in front of me.
“And one hamburger with ketchup, well done, also with waffle fries.” For Sam, he puts on a big smile, even though I’m the one who’s going to be paying his damn tip. I can’t really blame him. She’s the most gorgeous woman this town has ever seen, or ever will see again.
She tucks into the burger like she hasn’t eaten all day. Maybe she hasn’t. But it doesn’t matter, because in between bites she asks me careful questions, nothing too heavy, nothing that can’t be digested easily along with the food.
That lasts for as long as the burger does, but it’s not Sam’s
fault that the conversation turns deeper as she picks at the last of her fries.
“What made you come back here?”
“To Lockton, or to the brewing company?”
“Lockton.”
I swipe another fry through my ketchup. There’s no way to answer this fucking question without bringing up that summer again, and my stomach does a slow turn. “After what happened—” Sam’s eyes flicker away from mine, but then she meets my gaze again. “I didn’t feel like I deserved a life like you have.”
“You know that’s not true, right?”
I can feel my jaw setting. Maybe it fucking isn’t, but I’ve felt it in my gut for so long now that I don’t know if I’ll ever shake the feeling.
“I don’t know, Sam.”
“It’s not.”
The next breath she takes in is deep, and her eyes have gone wide, locked on mine. When the waiter reappears to leave the bill on the table, he doesn’t make a sound. I dig in my pocket for my wallet and put my card down on the bill with a snap. Something in the air has shifted, changed, and Sam is still looking at me with an intensity that might not ever let up.
“It’s all such a long time ago,” she says, her voice dropping to just above a whisper.
“Some of this shit should just stay in the past.”
“For now.”
I look into her eyes, and she’s biting her lip again. When the conversation gets like this, I think it turns her the hell on.
This can go one of two ways, right now. This can go back into the hard shit. This can go back into discussing the past, skirting the real issue at the heart of why we left each other like two criminals on the run.
Or I can take her home with me.
The waiter comes back, takes the bill, and returns with my card in under a minute. Even he can tell that something is happening here.
I put my card back into my wallet, and Sam leans forward, waiting.
I could take my hands in hers and lead her out of here right now. It’s twenty minutes to my place. We wouldn’t need to talk about anything there.
My arms ache with the want of it.
Ache.
Chapter Seventeen
Samantha
Damn it, take me home with you.
I want to say the words out loud, but I feel frozen across the booth from Beck. All evening, we’ve been slipping into conversations that hurt, that chip away at the years between us, and surfacing into casual chatting over burgers and fries. The Lockton Brewing Company makes me feel like everything is going to be all right, but it’s stifling at the same time. I want to get the hell out of here, or else I want to climb over the table and straddle Beck in front of everyone.
We’re both playing with fire, and I know things will only get hotter if I sleep with him again. But every time we get close to that ache that I carry in the center of my chest, it’s like I’m awash with adrenaline. I can see every tiny feature of his face, every small movement of his lips. He’s high-definition sexy, and I’ve waited years and years to have a conversation this intimate. It’s like scratching an itch I didn’t know I had—or that I pretended not to have.
But the heat between my legs isn’t something I can ignore anymore, and I want a different kind of intimate. I want something like what we used to have, when it was just bodies and heat and that sheer, electric connection that didn’t require any explanation.
I want Beck to fuck me. It’s vulgar as hell, but I want it so badly I can’t take my eyes off of him. I also can’t look at his shirt without wanting to peel it over his head and throw it onto the floor.
For one long moment after he’s put his card back into his wallet, I’m breathless with hope. It’s going to happen. I know it’s going to happen.
Beck reaches across the table, offering his hand.
I don’t hesitate to put mine in his.
The moment our skin makes contact, I have a full-body shiver of pleasure. Just from touching his hand. Jesus, I can’t imagine what it’s going to feel like to have him in bed next to me again.
Warmth floods my chest. Yes—I can imagine what it’s going to be like.
“Let’s go.”
Beck’s voice is confident, sure, and when he pulls us both up and out of the booth I don’t waste a single moment looking back at the table. I’m pretty sure I have my cell phone in my purse, and even if I don’t, I can always buy a new cell phone. Or drive back here later.
We hustle out to the car, and I slide into the passenger seat with anticipation ricocheting from my fingertips to my toes. I don’t know where Beck lives. In all of our conversation tonight, I never asked him. It could be an apartment on the outskirts of Lockton. It could be a house. I don’t really care, as long as he has a bedroom. In fact, I don’t really care about that. I just want to be with him, behind closed doors, sans clothing.
It’s a bad idea. A terrible idea, even though we’ve been having these conversations like it’s not a disaster in the making. What happened between us—blame or no blame—could always be waiting to rear its head in the future.
But none of that matters while we’re speeding through the sunset down the highway. My mouth waters at the thought of pressing my lips against the skin of Beck’s chest, of finally getting to see the built body that taunts me from underneath his clothes. I squeeze my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the heat and pressure there. It doesn’t work.
We’re getting close to Lockton, and my heart speeds up. What is his house going to be like? Some kind of filthy bachelor pad, like his dorm was in college? An apartment he shares with roommates? He’s never mentioned a roommate, but he could have one. It wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility. But if he does have one, they’d better not be home right now.
Although maybe I don’t care about that, either.
Beck steers the car through the outer city limits, pulling off the highway near one of the freestanding Starbucks that has gone in since I moved away to go to college. It even has a drive-thru. It would have been unfathomable to high school me. Everyone just bought shitty coffee at the 7-Eleven.
His hands are strong against the surface of the wheel, steady, and one glance at his face in the brilliant orange light, dappled by the shadows from the buildings and the trees we’re rolling past, tells me he’s made up his mind. Thank God. I’d been so lost in my own thoughts on the way here that I didn’t even reach for his hand. Why distract him, anyway, when I so desperately want to get where we’re going?
A muscle in his jaw works, pressing his teeth closer together, and his eyes move across the road ahead of us, scanning for anything that could possibly delay us—at least, I think that’s what he’s scanning for. That’s what I would be looking for.
Only—
Wait.
These roads are beginning to look awfully familiar, and not because I grew up here. Because I’ve been living here for more than a week now.
My heart starts a slow descent into my toes.
I try to force my lips to form the question, but the words won’t come out.
Thud—there it is, my heart falling right onto the asphalt beneath the car.
Beck pulls up in front of the Holiday Inn Express—the pull-through underneath the covered roof, not into a parking spot. I tear my eyes from the window and look at him. He’s looking straight ahead, but after a moment he turns his head and meets my eyes.
“So—” My mouth is so dry, my throat is aching. “We’re not…going back to your place?”
He shakes his head, once, side to side.
“Okay.”
Cheeks hot, stomach sick, I scoop my purse up from the floor of the car and put my hand on the handle. That’s when he reaches for me. “Wait—”
I turn back, embarrassed, not taking my hand off the door. “Wait for what?”
His mouth is curled in pain, and it glows behind his eyes. “I don’t want to fuck this up, Sam.”
I nod, slowly. “All that at the restaurant, and now you’ve got reservations
? You’re seriously not going to come up to my room?”
“Not—not tonight. Understand me, please.”
Please.
“Okay.”
Then I turn away from him, breaking his grip on my arm, and push the door open. In seconds, I’m pushing it shut again, not another word between us.
I’m walking to the hotel entrance when I think I hear it. “Sam—“
But I don’t look back.
Chapter Eighteen
Beckett
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
That was not how I wanted that to play out. None of this is how I want it to be playing out. In a damn ideal world, I’d never have left Sam in the first place. I can see that now. At the time, it seemed like the only right choice was to go far, far away from her, where I couldn’t hurt her anymore. Where my impact on the world would be reduced to nothing, exactly like I deserved.
I watch Sam until she’s inside the lobby of the hotel and out of sight, and my hand goes to the keys in the ignition. I could turn them right now, jump out of the car, and catch up to her before she reaches the elevator.
But I don’t.
Instead, I put the car in drive and pull away from the hotel, a silent stream of curses running through my mind on repeat.
I drive to my house in a daze, not hearing a damn thing on the radio that I turn up loud to cover the noise in my head, hardly paying attention when I pull into the driveway and wrench the keys out of the ignition.
I’m so pissed—at myself, at all the years that have been lost between me and Sam—that I try to unlock the door with the key to the shed in back twice, then lose my fucking patience entirely and slam the side of my fist against the smooth wood.
“Jesus.”
I stand there in front of the door, hanging my head, and then sort through the keys. This is not the kind of scene I need to be displaying to the rest of the neighborhood, even if there are only four other houses. I’m already the guy who lives alone and works at a factory and can’t even be bothered to get a damn dog. I don’t also need to be the guy with anger issues, even if that’s exactly who I am.