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She looked surprised, blinking wide as her gaze slipped away. “What is this? Truth or dare without the dare?”
“I just want some answers. Do you love, Matt Hawkins?”
“Yes,” she said. No hesitation. That was the truth right there staring him in the face.
The worm twisted until it was painful.
“I love him like a brother. A brother I never had.”
Christ, he wanted to believe her but something was off. Like there was more to the story.
“You guys have a relationship that seems to go beyond a brotherly kind of thing. I should know, Bets. I’ve got three of ‘em but I don’t stick my tongue down their throats and spend the night them.”
“Good,” Betty inched a bit closer on the sofa. “I hope not because that would paint you in an entirely different light.” She opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else and then closed it.
What was it that she needed to say? What piece of the puzzle was still locked away inside her?
“I’ve loved Matt Hawkins since I was twelve. Since he trusted me enough to share something personal and painful. Something that still haunts him. He’s the only person I know more broken than I am, and I don’t know what to do other than to be there for him. No one understands Matt the way I do and I know everyone in town thinks he’s this badass loser who drinks too much and does a healthy dose of drugs on the side. Even my sisters don’t know him or understand him. They think he’d bad news, a bad influence for the bad Barker.”
She twirled a long piece of hair through her fingers. “They don’t know what he did for me. What he does for me. Matt calms this wild place inside of me. He’s my family. My best friend.”
How the hell could he be jealous of someone like that? The guy sounded like a truckload of trouble and heartache. But he was. He was jealous as fuck because the tortured Matt Hawkins knew those pieces inside her—intimately—the pieces that Beau wanted to touch so badly.
“What are we doing, Beau?” She got to her feet, her fingers rubbing against her thighs, nervously.
“I’m not doing the movie,” he said slowly, so that there was no way she could misunderstand. Christ, he was really putting it out there now. He took a step closer to her, but paused, unsure how he should proceed.
“Are you kidding me? There’s no movie? You’re not going to film it?”
His hands were balled fists inside his pockets. Every muscle he owned was tight and the tension across his shoulders, heavy.
“Do you want the role?” he asked.
“Well, yes, but…”
“But you haven’t accepted yet. Why?”
She exhaled and tucked the piece of hair she’d been twirling behind her ear. “Honestly?”
“That would be good.”
“I’m not sure if I can work with you.”
“Why?”
“Because, things are complicated between us.”
“Why?” he said again.
She made a noise that sounded like disgust. “I’m not doing this, Beau.”
“Are you afraid?”
“Yes.”
“Good. So am I.”
If she was surprised at his words, she didn’t show it. “Now why are thing
