Page 34 of One Bet

I stood, taking the blanket I had wrapped around myself, and headed to the stairs.

He tugged the tail of the blanket. “You live here.”

I nodded. Yeah, I did. “Right. You should go.”

He chuckled. “It’s my dad’s boat.”

And we were back to me going. I jerked the tail of the comforter from his hand and when the top slipped into a wardrobe malfunction of the Janet Jackson variety as I reached for the door handle, I tugged it up which knocked off the entire rhythm of my dramatic departure. Before I could slide out onto the deck, Keaton put a hand on my shoulder. “What’s going on?”

I had no idea, I could only think of one thing to explain it.

“I lied. I love you. So much.” I shrugged. “And you said ‘good’ when I said I didn’t, so I have to go now.”

“You love me. Uh…” His eyes went wider, and he dropped his hands, then crossed them over his chest, then dropped them again. After a second of staring at his fingers, he punched a fist to his hip, then waved it around before pointing at me. “Thank you.”

He nodded like a bobblehead doll. “I appreciate that, but I-I-I need-I need to get going. Football. Because I’m the quarterback. They can’t play without me…so…I have to go to…practice.”

He slid his legs into his jeans then tried with a valiant amount of effort to slip his head through the armhole of his shirt before he gave up and yanked it off. “That’s wrong. I’ll just carry it.”

His reaction to my spontaneous blurt of affection calmed me. It made me wonder what the hell I was thinking, and more, why my saying such a thing would make him act like I had a gun pointed at his penis. “Keaton?”

He nodded and cleared his throat again. “I’ll call you. You know. Today. Later.”

“Okay.” Before I even had the word out of my mouth, he’d disappeared out the door, shoes in one hand, shirt in the other.

My heart shattered into a thousand pieces. I never should’ve said I loved him. I didn’t love him, I couldn’t be in love with him. We’d only known each other, really known each other a couple days. And we’d only slept together once. I mean, I wasn’t an expert or anything, but I was pretty sure multiple orgasms still only counted as sleeping together once so long as we didn’t leave the house between world rockings. But whether I came once or twice or four times, thank you very much, I certainly had enough sense to know that sex didn’t equal love. That came from somewhere else and I’d used the word prematurely. By a year or two, at least and I’d scared him off. Sent him running, literally.

I would’ve never believed I would’ve turned into one of those girls who poured her heart out just because she’d spread her legs for some guy. But Keaton wasn’t just some guy and to have “poured my heart out” would mean I really loved him…that wasn’t possible either. Right?

I flopped backward on the bed and waited for the phone to ring.

20

Keaton

Avery didn’t make love like she didn’t care, or maybe she fucked like she did care, I didn’t know which way to look at it. All I knew was, Avery didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about her and maybe it wasn’t fair to expect her to, but I did. I expected her to be as invested in us as I was, and when she wasn’t, I wanted to die. My skin felt too tight, my head too clouded, and my guts too twisted for me to stay in a room and pretend I didn’t care about her answer, or more specifically, her non-answer.

I wanted to stay with her, see where this thing between us ended up and I didn’t need to see my face on TV to be a part of the game. Coaching put me on the field, with the team, every week. TV paid more, kept me relevant. But that didn’t get me anything and it meant leaving Avery.

I walked into the Alpha house no clearer on a plan than I’d been after I talked to Avery. The house hadn’t changed much. There were still four TVs in the living room, although they were bigger now, hanging on the walls and the wires for the attached game machines had been replaced by invisible blue tooth connections. There were guys sprawled on the four leather sofas, some playing those video games, some lounging to watch game footage, and in the middle of it all, Ryder and Finn.

Finn looked up when he saw me, but Ryder tossed his controller to one of the younger guys, then walked three steps toward me. I wasn’t really in the mood to deal with this shit, but neither was I in the mood to brawl with someone who didn’t fight fair.

“Keaton!” I didn’t mistake his tone for happiness to see me. He only sounded jubilant to those who didn’t know him as I did. To me, he sounded bitter and angry.

He slapped me on the back like we hadn’t just seen each other a couple days ago like we were still friends, and there was a time we were. That time had passed. Now, I didn’t know what we were. “Let’s have a drink and catch up on old times.”

He led me to the kitchen with his arm still slung around my neck. Once we each had a beer in hand, he leaned against the counter and looked me up and down.

“How you been, Ryder?”

He laughed and tipped his beer back, just two guys having a drink and a chat. But so much more simmered under the surface and we were bubbling, about to explode all over the laminate floor.

“Now you care?” His eyes flashed, and my entire body tensed, on alert, ready for the first blow, but then he laughed. “I’m a secretary now. Working my way up in Dad’s company.”

All his big dreams went down the toilet the minute he got kicked out of school. There was supposed to be a football career, then a job with his dad. But after the Glouster scandal went nationwide, no one would touch him.

I didn’t know what to say to that, I knew why he was bitter. Guys like Ryder only assigned blame for their faults, never took it. But I didn’t have to talk because he kept going.