“Aww, that’s good,” he said, as he grabbed another piece before going to the fridge to get the carton of orange juice.
“So we were thinking about going to the beach today,” Summer said, as she poured herself a cup of coffee. “Do you guys want to go?”
Beckett looked back at me. “Sure,” he said, and with one look I knew I wanted to be wherever he was that day.
When Summer and Patrick took their food to the living room, Beckett turned to face me.
“You okay?” he asked, his tone a whisper.
Summer knew Ryan had stayed in San Francisco for the weekend, but she didn’t know about my breakdown, and for some reason I wanted to keep it that way. I hadn’t let on that I was upset in any way, and for the first time in all the years I’d known her, I was keeping secrets from my best friend.
I nodded. “I’m good,” I said, and he shot his winning smile at me.
“Thank you,” I mouthed to him.
“For what?” he mouthed back.
“For being you,” I said, walking to stand next to him at the stove.
“Anytime,” he said, as he popped a piece of bacon into my mouth.
***
The warmth of the sun draped over my whole body, as I basked in the rays of the absolutely gorgeous day. Beckett was lying next to me, reading a book, and I was having a hard time not reaching out and taking his hand, but Summer and Patrick were right on his other side, and I never would have been able to explain myself. I could hardly rationalize to myself the pull he suddenly had on me.
I had been alternating between having small urges to kiss Beckett and wanting to kick myself for wanting to kiss him. All day I had kept mentally busy berating myself for my infidelities, telling myself it would never happen again. The fact that I had cheated on Ryan was unconscionable, but at the same time, it was hard not to want to do it again. Not that I wanted to hurt Ryan. No, my urges were selfishly motivated, but, no matter how much I wanted to, I would not cross that line with Beckett again. It helped that our friends were there. I wouldn’t do anything I would regret with them around.
Then Summer and Patrick left us alone on the beach to take a swim in the ocean and my resolve started to fade. As soon as they were out of earshot, Beckett propped himself up on his elbows, so he was facing me. I couldn’t see his eyes, as they were covered by his sunglasses, but I could imagine the glint in them as he appraised me, laying there half-naked in a red bikini that I loved but was completely rethinking as it was my skimpiest one. My mind had been focused on minimal tan lines as I’d picked it out that morning. Oh, the tiniest decisions we make.
“How’s it going?” Beckett asked, his voice full of mischief.
“I’m loving the sun,” I said, aiming for neutral. I had to keep things platonic no matter how much he tried otherwise. “How are you?”
“I’m loving watching you in the sun – especially in that bikini,” he said.
“Beckett,” I chastised him, but didn’t look in his direction. I kept my eyes closed behind my oversized sunglasses.
“Fine. I’m bored,” he said, flatly. “This book is not good. Do you want to take a walk?”
“Sure,” I said, propping myself up on my elbows and telling myself taking a walk was about as platonic as we could get. Then I made the mistake of allowing myself to look at Beckett for the first time since we’d arrived at the beach and he’d taken his shirt off.
With his deep tan, his shaggy hair and his aviator sunglasses, not to mention his obscenely beautiful upper body, he looked like he could be a model in an underwear ad. I had to force myself to look away as we got up from our towels, but that small task was a challenge in and of itself.
At first we walked in silence along the shore line, enjoying the gorgeous day, letting the water lap at our ankles each time it came up to where we were. Overhead there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The air around us was warm, but not stifling, and there was just the slightest of breezes toning down the heat of the day.
“So do you think there’s anything there with Kelsey?” I asked, trying to make small talk and at the same time hoping to encourage Beckett to think of me as just a friend. Maybe I could subtly let him down without directly telling him that a repeat of Friday night was not in the cards.
“I didn’t really get to talk to her much last night,” he said, shrugging like it was no big deal that I’d high-jacked his date. “I got the feeling she isn’t looking for anything serious which is cool, but I’m not sure I’m really interested in getting involved with someone right now.”
He didn’t look at me as he talked, but I caught the subtle message in his own words which was the polar opposite of the message I’d been sending him. It was clear in his tone that he was hoping whatever was between us would continue. Hitting him over the head with my take on our position might be my only option.
“I thought you wanted to settle down with someone,” I said, again aiming for an understated hint.
“Just with you,” he mumbled.
“What?” I asked, appalled that he had gone there even though I wasn’t surprised. I knew how he felt.
“Never mind,” he said. “Forget I said anything.”
He had to know there was no way I would forget what he’d just said, and of course his words sat there swimming around in my brain forcing me to think about things that I wanted to forget.
“Do you really feel that way?” I asked, choosing to pull the lid off the proverbial can of worms and let them scatter across the sand around us.
Beck’s expression looked strained, and I could tell he was wishing he could take back his words. He also knew he could never lie to me. I’d see right through it. I realized as he did that he was stuck having to confess how he truly felt.
“Yeah, I do.”
I sighed, not sure how to respond to that even though I knew what he would say. I should have been better prepared with a comeback that was better than what I ended up saying.
“Beck, I’m engaged.” I looked up at him, trying to gauge how my words had affected him.
He nodded, but still didn’t look at me. “Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten. But either way, I still can’t change the way I feel.”
He sounded so defeated, so I did something I shouldn’t have done. I reached out and took his hand in mine. He looked down at our hands, and then up at me, his eyes questioning what I was doing. I just smiled at him and wondered to myself why, when I should have run away from him, I was pulling him closer.
“You’re the woman I want to be with,” he said, looking down at me.
“Don’t,” I said, not meeting his gaze.
“So that’s it then,” he said then, and I could hear the resolve in his voice.
I sighed. “Beck, I’m sorry. I got carried away on Friday night. It was a mistake, and I’m so sorry. I never should have done it. It was so wrong.”
His grip on my hand tightened, as if he was trying to hold onto me. “I know,” he said blandly. “I figured as much.”
“I care about you so much,” I said. “You are so important to me, and I want you in my life. I just can’t be more than friends with you. Can you understand?”
He was silent for a few seconds as he pondered my words. I wondered if he really would walk away like he said he would on Friday night. If being friends wasn’t enough for him, maybe he would cut himself out of my life. I knew I didn’t want that at all, but I was no longer in control of that decision. It was all him.
He stopped walking in that moment, and pulled me into a hug. His arms held me tight, and I responded by wrapping my arms around him, holding him to me and inhaling the scent of suntan lotion emanating from his skin, as I wondered how much I would regret everything I’d just said.
“Of course I’ll be your friend,” he said softly, and relief flooded through me with the knowledge that I wasn’t going to lose him.
He kissed me on the top of my head before he pulled away and took my hand again as we walked in silence down th
e beach. When we turned around to walk back, Beckett held onto my hand until our towels came into view, and we could see that Patrick and Summer were back at our spot. Beckett winked at me once as if we shared some great secret, and we laid back down on our towels to soak up the afternoon sun.
***
A few hours later, Beckett drove us all home, dropping me, Summer and Patrick off at my apartment before heading home. He said he had to study but would call me later when he took a break. I was reassured that his words on the beach had held true, and we were going to still be friends.
I had just gotten out of the shower when my cell phone rang. I jumped thinking it would be Ryan. I hadn’t talked to him all day, so I figured he was calling to try and make up with me once again. I hadn’t listened to the twelve messages that he’d already left since I’d hung up on him, and I wasn’t sure I was ready to talk to him.
It wasn’t Ryan, though. It was Kate.
“Hey sweetie,” I said, when I picked up the phone. I’d hardly seen her the night before, so I was curious to see how her night was.
I’d seen her talking to Beckett’s friend Tim for a while, so I wondered if they’d hit it off. I didn’t know Tim all that well, but he seemed like a good guy. My suspicions were confirmed when she told me how much she liked him. I let her just talk for five minutes, listening to her excitement about having someone new in her life. Apparently they’d gone back to his place after our party, but nothing had happened. He was sweet, and she was smitten, and as happy as I was for her, at the same time I was thinking that every guy she met had potential. Tim just had to make it past the first two weeks without breaking any cardinal Kate rules or it would never work out.
“Hey, do you remember Jenna?” Kate asked when she finally took a break from telling me all about Tim’s finer attributes. I learned more about him in those five minutes than I had in the full night that I’d spent with him when we’d met.
I made a face even though I knew she couldn’t see it. How could I ever forget slutty Jenna and her tight red dress, although Beckett probably remembered more of her than me. I shuddered at the thoughts of what they’d done together when that red dress had come off.
“She’s kind of hard to forget,” I said, and could hear the annoyance I felt toward Kate for bringing Jenna up.
“She’s Tim’s sister,” she said then, and I could tell she was grinning.
“Really,” I said, plugging enough disinterest in my tone so she’d get the message to stop talking about this unsavory topic.
“Don’t you find that interesting?” she asked, apparently not getting my message.
“No, I don’t,” I said obstinately, refusing to engage further in this subject as I found my blood boiling at the idea that Jenna had gotten more of Beckett than I ever would again. Not that I wanted that. No. I did not want that from him, but it didn’t mean I wanted Jenna to have it either.
“She has a boyfriend,” Kate said then, and before she could elaborate, I cut her off.
“Kate, I don’t care about Jenna. I know you are all excited because you like Tim, and she is an extension of him, but I’m not her biggest fan. I really don’t mean to be a bitch, but can we please not talk about her?”
I heard Kate suck in a breath and thought she was pissed at me. Then she said, “Okay, so basically what I was trying to tell you is that she never hooked up with Beckett. It was all an act. He was trying to make you jealous.”
“Oh,” I said, finally getting why she was droning on and on about Jenna, but I couldn’t even appreciate this news. I was too wrapped up in my own drama to enjoy the fact that the thing with Jenna had all been fake.
“What happened?” Kate asked then, completely catching me off-guard. Where Summer took things at face-value and believed anything anyone told her, Kate saw right through bullshit, and wasn’t afraid to call anyone out on it when they tried to feed it to her. I knew I’d never be able to lie to her, especially about Beckett. She knew something had happened between us.
“Beckett and I hooked up,” I said, and I proceeded to tell her the full story of how I’d kissed him, our resulting stalemate and the inexcusable crimes I’d committed against Ryan on Friday night.
“Boom,” Kate said, calmly.
“Boom?” I asked, not at all understanding where she was taking our conversation.
“Yes,” she said “That was the explosion I warned you about when you told me you were going to be friends with Beckett.”
I rolled my eyes, wishing I had a video phone so she could see me do it. “There will be no explosion,” I said. “Exactly three people know about this – me, you and Beckett. I haven’t even told Summer, and I don’t plan to. No one else will find out, right?”
“I won’t say a word,” she said, and I knew she wouldn’t, but I could definitely count on her judgment for the next few weeks. That I was sure of. “Are you not telling Ryan?”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
“Do you really want my honest answer at this point?” she asked, her judgment already coming through.
“Nope, I’m good. Thanks though,” I said in a false tone of gratitude.
“You’re really not telling him?” she asked, her question much more serious.
I sighed. “I haven’t decided. I thinking on it, but I’m leaning toward not. I don’t know. If I was on the other side of the coin, I think I’d want to know if he had cheated on me, but then I think that if he’d had a minor indiscretion along the way and didn’t tell me, would it really matter? As long as he was committed to me and didn’t do it again, I’d almost rather not know. You know?”
“I don’t know,” Kate said, and I knew that she was being vague as a way to stay out of the decision-making process on this one. I was on my own.
“I’m not going to do it again. I think I just needed some closure with Beck, you know? We avoided each other for so long, and there was so much that happened there at the end that I feel like I needed to properly say goodbye to him as my boyfriend so I could have him in my life as my friend. Does that make sense?”
Kate didn’t say anything at first, and I wondered if her view of me had changed during this conversation. She wasn’t a huge fan of cheating – but really, who is? She also knew Beckett and my history, and she knew what he’d once meant to me. Could she understand why I’d done what I did with him?
“Hey, did you see that new comment that came through on your blog today?” she asked, completely ignoring my question.
I bit my lip, and wondered how much my reckless acts would affect my life outside of my relationship with Ryan.
“No, I didn’t.”
I’d been too busy with my own drama to read my follower comments. I had told Kate about WomanInWhite34 though, so I wondered if she had posted something else. That would be the icing on the cake of this fucked up conversation if she did. I crossed my fingers in hope that Kate wasn’t linking what I did with Beckett to this woman with too much time on her hands and too much pent up anger.
“That crazy lady posted something again,” she said, and my fears were confirmed.
“What did she say?” I asked, panic filling my mind.
“Hang on, I wrote it down,” Kate said. “Okay, she said, ‘Flirting is one thing, but being a flat out tease is quite another when you’re engaged to someone else. Pool anyone?’ What does that even mean?”
My breath caught in my throat. Again, it was cryptic to anyone who didn’t know what she was talking about but, unfortunately I knew exactly what she was referring to. Who in the hell was this woman, and how did she know that I’d played pool with Beckett?
I steeled myself to respond, trying to keep my voice level as not to alarm her. “Beckett and I played pool last weekend, but nothing happened at the bar. Okay, well maybe we were a little flirty, but that’s just because we were messing with each other while we were playing – trying to psych each other out. That woman is nuts.”
“Jesus, Courtney!” she said, and I knew she was
pissed. “Well, she was obviously there or someone who she knows was there. She saw you flirting with him. Don’t you find that a little creepy?”
My stomach started to twist in on itself, so I sat down on my bed, pulling my towel around me tighter. “Kate, it’s a lot creepy,” I said. “Do I have some sort of a stalker or something?”
The idea that some follower of my blog was conscious of my whereabouts and had the gall to have an opinion on what I did in my spare time was mind-boggling. I tried to remember the faces of the people who had been at the pub that night, but I couldn’t. I’d been too drunk.
“I’d be more concerned about Ryan seeing this, and finding out about your little tryst with the guy he already suspected of wanting to sleep with you. Don’t you care what he’s going to think when he reads this?” she asked, and for the first time the thought crossed my mind.
I immediately opened up my computer, prepared to delete the post. Even if Ryan never read my blog, I just couldn’t take the chance by leaving it on the page. It was too risky.
“I’m deleting it,” I said hastily to Kate, wishing my computer would boot up faster.
“Too bad you can’t delete what you did,” she said, slamming the knife into my stomach.
“Please don’t,” I said. “I don’t need a lecture from you to confirm that I’m a shitty person. Let it go.”
I understood full well that I was a cheater, but my plan to make things right from then on out had already started. No longer would I cross any lines with Beckett. I would be faithful to Ryan, and love him as much as he loved me. I would be happy to be engaged to him and treat him with the respect that he deserved as my fiancé.
“Please just be careful,” was all Kate said. “And this time I’m not joking. I really don’t want people to think that my partner is cheating on her fiancé. That would probably not be good for business.”
I sighed. “Kate, I promise you I won’t do anything to hurt the company. Okay?”
“I know you won’t,” she said, but I could tell she didn’t fully believe that I was done with Beckett. “Just promise me that you won’t do anything in public again, okay? Keep it behind closed doors.”
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