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Amusement began to glimmer in his eyes. “And my student employment was at the university barn where I fed, waterered, and groomed livestock and horses.”
“But…”
That would make him almost a…cowboy.
“But…”
“Dear God, how many times is she going to say but?” Booth wondered, rolling his eyes and groaning dramatically. He sounded five instead of twenty-five.
I kicked him under the table before I pointed accusingly at Beckett. “You were wearing a freaking polo shirt, slacks and pansy-ass loafers the night I met you.”
“Well, yeah,” Beckett shrugged. “I’d just returned from a livestock judging contest. We were supposed to dress semi-formal.”
I just stared at him, wondering who the hell this guy was.
He gave a not-so-humble shrug and grinned. “I won runner-up in the contest, if you were curious.”
“I’m confused,” Dad broke in. “You only had a semester and a half of school left, you were in a decent fraternity, apparently active since you were attending judging contests and working at the university barn, yet you dropped out?”
Beck cleared his throat and shifted in his chair, but he had the courage to meet my dad’s gaze—his face blushing and tense—when he answered, “I wouldn’t say I dropped out as much as I was, well, thrown out.”
The last two words tumbled from his lips timidly, and they left a silence in the kitchen that even I couldn’t come up with some random phrase to blurt out in order to cloak all the awkward.
Beck’s worried gaze sought me, and I knew I couldn’t remain quiet any longer.
I turned to my dad, but he was already saying, “I don’t understand. You were expelled?”
With a cringe, I answered, “Well, I was going to talk to you about that. Later.”
Brow puckering with confusion, Dad glanced between the two of us before settling his gaze on me. “Talk to me about it now.”
“Well.” I cleared my throat and looked at Beck as I said, “Beckett’s had a hard week, so I’ve been helping him out a little, I guess.”
“What kind of week?” my dad demanded, no longer so receptive to Beck’s presence, as Booth blurted, “Beckett? I thought we’ve been calling him Beck.”
I ground my teeth. “I told you his name outside, moron, and besides, Beck is short for Beckett.”
“But isn’t Beckett the name of that rapist you had at your college?”
Dad froze with his gaze on Booth before flipping me an incredulous glance. I could only scowl at my brother, unable to meet my father’s stare. “How the hell do you remember that?” I demanded. “You never remember anything!”
Booth could only shrug. “Because I remember thinking Beckett sounded a lot like bucket.”
Beck made a sound that sounded like a mix between a choke, a groan, and a laugh. I couldn’t tell if he was amused, horrified, or nervous, but I had a feeling it was a strange mixture of all three.
“Bailey Rae Prescott,” my dad thundered, pointing Beck’s way as he glared at me. “Please, God, tell me this is not the same boy who’s been plastered all over the news. You did not let a rapist into my home.”
“Of course I didn’t,” I answered immediately, while Beck silently set his spoon down and then took his hands off the table, placing them into his lap as if he were already preparing to leave as soon as he was ordered to go.
Right. As if I’d let my dad kick him out.
“He’s innocent,” I said simply. “He didn’t rape anyone.”
“And how the hell would you know that?” My dad looked disappointed and enraged all at the same time as he rose to his feet and rested his fisted hand on top of the table to glare at me. “How could you possibly know what he did to that girl? The news said he was released and the charges were dropped, but no one ever mentioned he was proven innocent. They probably just had a lack of evidence to try him. He probably had some lawyer find some technicality—”
“No,” I muttered from between clenched teeth. “They didn’t have a lack of evidence. They finally got some evidence. From me.” I poked a finger into my own chest. “That’s why they let him go free, because I was the witness who came forward and finally got him free, because he’s completely innocent.”
“Witness,” Booth repeated before he let out a snort. “What, did you watch him screw the chick, or something?”
