The Bet

by Lily Zante

  But there was that fucking, stupid bet standing in the way.

  Screw it.

  And screw Luke, too.

  Who the hell was he kidding?

  He wanted Izzy. He wanted her more than he had remembered wanting anyone. Hell, if she’d been anyone else, there would have been no hesitation.

  He had forced himself to leave, otherwise, a few more kisses like that, and he wouldn’t have been able to tear himself away. Stepping out into the night air, he took a few long breaths, then looked around, as the sound of sirens in the distance broke the silence. Only when he got near to his car did he notice.

  “Fuck.” He stared at

  “Fuck.” This time louder. His tires had been slashed. All of them.

  All.

  Of.

  Them. There had been no break-in, no wonder the alarm hadn’t gone off. Just some petty, jealous, mindless thugs slashing all his tires before disappearing.

  His $200K car, trashed.

  Fuck.

  He tapped his phone but it wasn’t working either. Looked like the battery had died completely.

  “Fuck.” He kicked the lamppost, then wiped his hand all over his face.

  Fuck.

  He looked around into the murky darkness of the deserted street. Not a soul in sight. Enraged, and totally pissed off, he turned around and headed back to Izzy’s.

  A moment later, he was knocking on her door again, and, not wanting to frighten her, rapped his knuckles gently. “Izzy?” he tried to raise his voice, without shouting. He knocked again. “Izzy?”

  “Xavier?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  She opened the door, quickly and stared back. “You changed your mind?” she asked, provocatively.

  “My car,” he said. “All the tires have been slashed.”

  She looked horrified. No,” she gasped. “Your tires?”

  “Yeah. Can I use your phone? My cell phone battery died.”

  “Sure,” she said, letting him in. “We don’t have a landline, but you can use my cell phone.” She rushed to her bedroom and returned with her phone. “Here.”

  He turned his back to her, and walked around, closing his eyes, pressing down on his eyebrows, and called the police, then explained what had happened.

  “Sorry to disturb you,” he said, when he had finished.

  “You didn’t. I hadn’t gone to bed yet.” She reached for his hand. “What did the police say?”

  “They’re sending someone over to take a report.”

  “I told you not to bring your flashy car around in these parts,” she said, her voice gentle. “I hate that this happened to you.”

  “It’s never happened before.” But he should have heeded her advice.

  “Maybe you could get a battered up runaround?”

  Tobias had said the same thing, or hinted at it. His brother didn’t have any flashy cars, and the guy could afford anything he wanted.

  “Mind if I wait?” he asked. “I don’t know how long they’re going to be. You can go to sleep if you want. I’ll keep a look out for them.”

  All that time he’d been in her bedroom making out with her, and someone had been trashing his car. He didn’t regret it though.

  Not one iota.

  She yawned. “I’ll wait up with you.”

  “You’re looking pretty sleepy. Go to bed, Izzy.”

  “How can I sleep when you’re here?”

  He shoved his hands in his pockets again. The car he would deal with.

  “I’m sorry this happened to your car,” she said, taking a step towards him, and touching his arm, at the elbow.

  “The car doesn’t matter as much.” He shrugged. “I mean, it matters, and it’s going to bump up my already jacked up insurance premium, but … it’s still a car at the end of the day.”

  He swallowed. He liked her standing close like that, the defiance gone from those dark eyes. She was soft, with her defenses down, and she was so tempting. He shoved his hands further into his jean pockets. She tilted her chin up at him and he wondered what intent lay behind that curious expression.

  “It’s just a car,” he said.

  “Jacob would disagree,” she said, putting her arms around him. He instinctively wrapped his arms around her, letting her sink into him. This was nice. This. He inhaled and drank in the essence of her hair, and breathed, standing still their bodies closely entwined together.

  It wasn’t a lustful hug, or a tight hug, or a hug that meant anything in particular, other than ‘I’m sorry and are you alright?’ She held onto him tightly, and they stood like that, before he thought he heard the sound of a car driving up.

  “That might be them,” he said, loosening his arms, and walking towards the windows. He peered out. “It’s is.” He turned to her. “I’d better go and tell them what happened.”

  “Want me to wait up for you?”

  “There’s no need to.”

  She saw him to the door anyway, and yawned again. “Go to bed, Izzy,” he told her.

  “Okay, but let me know if you need anything.”

  Chapter 37

  He bought a BMW as a runaround while he waited for his beloved Ferrari to get repaired.

  And in the week of all this mayhem, Izzy had had to rush home. She’d told him she would explain all when she got back, and this time, he’d made sure she caught a flight back. There was no point in spending 9 hours on a train to get home when she could do it in so much less.

  He had intended to see her, to try and figure out where they were headed, to gauge the depth of her feelings. But with her sudden trip home, his plans for the weekend had been thwarted.

  So when Savannah asked him if he could babysit Jacob because she and Tobias had another charity fundraising event to attend, he willingly agreed.

  And that was how he’d ended up spending his Saturday night looking after the kid instead of spending time with Izzy.

  “Today, buddy, we’re going to do whatever you want.” That was what he’d told Jacob two hours ago, and the little guy had been in his media room, having fun playing on the games consoles ever since.

  Luke had called him earlier, asking him to pass by the bar later on, if he was free. “I’m busy, dude. Why don’t you come over to my place?” He had expected Luke to decline, but when he quickly agreed, it surprised him. Luke pretty much kept to himself, and now he found himself wondering what was going on with him.

  “How comes you’re so busy all of a sudden?” he asked, when Luke turned up later. “I called you a couple of days ago and they said you were out of state.”

  “I was. Got my eye on opening up a couple of new bars. One in LA and one in Miami, next year.”

  “The ones in New York aren’t keeping you busy enough?”

  “Always got to be busy doing something,” said Luke, casting his gaze around the apartment. “I haven’t been here for a while.”

  “No, you haven’t. Your friends barely see you.”

  “My friends come to my bar if they want to see me.”

  “I did come. I came last week, but you weren’t there.”

  “I’m not always at The Oasis, pal. I have to keep an eye on the other places. In fact, why don’t you call me one day when you’re free? I’ve finally got access to the new place I bought. It’s around the block from you.”

  “To live?”

  “My next bar.”

  “Another bar …” Xavier whistled in amazement at his friend’s drive and ambition. Here he was, still debating whether to proceed with Hennessy or not, and Luke was sprinting ahead, buying up premium real estate and turning it into hugely successful bars and clubs.

  “What are you doing these days?” Luke asked, “Or rather, who, should I say? You’re running out of time with Izzy, unless you’ve scored and not told me.”

  Xavier peeked over his shoulder, and lowered his voice. “Shhh.”

  Luke’s eyes widened. “Is she here?”

  “No.”

  “Then why
the shhhh?”

  Xavier shook his head. “Because I’m babysitting.”

  Luke looked at him. “Babysitting? You?” He looked around the living area. “Who?”

  “Savannah’s son, Jacob.”

  “They left him with you?”

  “I’m getting good at this,” Xavier told him. “He’s in the media room, playing on the Xbox.”

  “Alone? Unchaperoned? Is that wise, pal? How do you know he’s not playing some 18+ shoot em ups?” Luke shook his head, as if he suddenly knew a thing or two about babysiting. “Anyway, you still haven’t answered my question. Are you close to winning the bet? That’s all I want to know. Is Izzy the lucky girl or not?”

  “Will you shut the fuck up?” He hated Luke talking like that.

  “Why are you getting so uptight? I’m not asking for proof or anything—I’m enough of a gentleman to take your word for it.”

  “Shhhh!” he hissed, placing his finger over his lips. He might as well have announced it on national TV.

  “What’s going on?” Luke asked, amusement dancing in his eyes, “Either you're on your way to winning, or I am. Just tell me how things are looking, because ten thousand dollars is still a lot of money.”

  “Dude. Keep it down.” Jacob was playing in the media room, but he didn’t want to talk about the bet right now.

  “What’s wrong?” Luke asked. “You look like you’re about to shit a brick.”

  He might as well have, by the way Luke was carrying on. “Screw the bet.”

  “Screw the bet?” Luke scratched the side of his jaw. “Hmmm. Let me remind you that it was your idea, dude.”

  He drew in a long breath. This wasn’t the appropriate time to be discussing this, and he wasn’t the one who had summoned Luke over. Luke was the one who had come to see him.

  “We can discuss this another time.” He was more interested to know what had caused his friend to come over. “What’s going on with you?”

  “The usual, the bars, the old man.”

  “Yeah?” It was the same old same old with Luke.

  “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  “I know.” But there was something else. He sensed that Luke hadn’t come over to discuss the same old same old. Something gnawed at him below the surface, but his friend wasn’t one to openly divulge information, even when he was the one who needed to.

  “You seeing anyone?” Xavier asked, suddenly, wondering if that might be it.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  It had been worth asking. “What was it you wanted to tell me?”

  “Nothing that can’t wait.”

  “Seriously, dude. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Everything’s cool” Luke looked at his watch. “I need to shoot. We’ll catch up another time.”

  “You sure?” Because now that he looked at him more closely, Luke didn’t look all that great.

  “Yeah. I’m sure. Come by the new site, it’s on Canal Street. Not far from your place.”

  “That’s handy for me.”

  “It’s not ready yet, but I’m there most days. Place is a demolition site. We’re going to strip it right back.”

  And watch the cash roll in. This dude was ambitious, and driven. “Will do, dude.”

  Chapter 38

  She hated getting those kinds of calls. The ones where her dad fell to pieces and couldn’t get out of bed or go to work.

  They were lucky that his foreman at the local factory was good. He’d been one of the guys who’d worked for her father back when her father had a business that was thriving. But there was only so much slack the guy could cut him.

  So she had gone home, hoping to help her father through another bad period. If it hadn’t been for the extra money she had been making working for Xavier, she wouldn’t have gone back so soon after her last trip. And, although she hadn’t told him the specifics of why she’d rushed back, she’d taken Xavier’s advice and got a flight over instead of taking the train.

  “You didn’t need to come back for him,” her mother had said, the moment she had walked through the door.

  “I could, so I did.”

  “Won’t your studies suffer?”

  They would, but what choice did she have? “I can’t stay long,” she replied. “Where is he?”

  “In his room, where else?”

  At least he didn’t drink himself to oblivion when his bouts of depression came—they were deep, and dark, and spiraling, and alcohol would have made things worse.

  Too bad she had a statistics exam to prep for, but she knew her priorities, and knew she had to step in when her mother—bless her—had run out of patience with the man she’d fallen in love with.

  So she sat with her father, and hugged him, and held his hand, and tried to buoy him up. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t looked especially happy to see her, and hadn’t asked how she was doing. He’d been a good dad, the best he could be, and sometimes the roles reversed and your parents needed you to parent them instead. Now was such a time.

  She listened again, with a sinking heart, as he talked about being a failure, and how he could not provide, and what had been taken, and how different things might have been. And she did her best to counsel him, and move him out of living in the past, which was where he seemed to drift to, for it didn’t serve him to revisit that part, that relentless hamster wheel of negative thoughts of what could have been.

  He always refused her suggestion to get counseling because he was too proud a man to want to think about getting help. “Nothing wrong with me, Izzy. He didn’t break me.”

  “I know, dad.”

  “A man can have his down days, can’t he?”

  “Sure, dad.”

  But don’t be having those down days where you want to start over. He’d said it before a couple of times, that he wished he could start his life over. That he wished he could reboot. Words like that scared her to death. Words like that made her push college out of her head, and get on the next flight out.

  Her coming to see him had done him good. At least, she liked to think it had. But it wasn’t a quick fix. She knew that, too.

  How could she get a proud man to admit to his depression? To not want to give up? She couldn’t. She could only be there for him as best as she could, and it was a lot more than her brother ever was. In the few days she’d been here, she’d only seen Owen late in the evenings, usually after soccer practice. He was only living at home until he graduated high school.

  A few days weren’t enough. Sometimes she worried more than a girl of her years should have, and there were days when she envied Cara her easy life with two normal parents and a solid, loving family life.

  “Aren’t you going to fall behind in your studies being here for him?” her mother asked two days later.

  “If you were here for him I wouldn’t need to do your job.” She’d apologized straightaway, because after spending days trying to lift his spirits, her own spirit was sagging.

  Four days she stayed with him, four days before she felt she could leave. She’d needed to leave two days ago, but what could she do? Stay and help him, or run back so that she could revise for another test?

  So she tried to do both, and only gave half of herself to each. She wasn’t even sure if it had been worth it.

  There would be hell to pay at college. Too much to catch up on, a test to do, and coursework piling up on top. As well, Savannah had called her earlier to ask if she could babysit Jacob but she’d had to explain she was out of state. Savannah had also asked if she could continue doing ad hoc days on weekends, and she promised that she would come and see her about it on her return.

  And then there was Xavier. Apart from a few stilted conversations, and a couple of texts, she hadn’t shared much of what had gone on at home. It was better this way. It was better keeping the two parts separate—her family, and Xavier.

  The Stones were from a different planet to most ordinary people.

  ~ ~ ~

  “When d
id you get back?” Cara asked her the day after she returned. She’d returned late last night while Cara was sleeping.

  “Last night.”

  “And you’re not going in today?”

  “I’m shattered.”

  “I’ll go in the afternoon.” She couldn’t go back into lessons and catch up if she was dead tired.

  “Good idea. I’ll see you at the cafeteria? We can catch up then.”

  “I need to go into the library and catch up on all my work, first.”

  Cara sat down on her bed, causing Izzy to budge up. “Shouldn’t you get going?” Otherwise her friend was going to be late for her lessons.

  “I’ve got a few moments.”

  “And?”

  “I bet lover boy must have missed you.”

  “Don’t call him that,” said Izzy, snuggling under the duvet.

  “What else can I call him?” Cara asked, raising an eyebrow. “How come things changed so fast between you?”

  “Can we not talk about this right now?”

  “Can we talk about it later tonight?”

  Izzy gave her a look that indicated otherwise.

  “How’s your dad?” She’d told Cara that her father had been ill. It was always better to gloss over the facts. The truth was always so much darker, so much more depressing.

  “He’s feeling better, thanks.”

  “We’ll talk tonight.”

  But tonight she needed to cram for the test. Tests, tests, always more tests. No wonder that when she had finally slowed down enough—even though she’d gone through an emotionally draining time with her father—her body seemed to want to do nothing. She lay in bed, feeling sorry for herself, indulging herself for a change.

  “We’ll talk tonight,” said Cara, getting up and leaving.

  When she heard the front door close, she texted Xavier:

  I’m back.

  He texted back almost instantly:

  Want to get together this evening?

  She had the stats test tomorrow, and while she was contemplating what to reply back, another message from him appeared:

  I’ve got some more work for you, if you’re interested