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I spun around and leaned against the door, trying to look casual. “Just getting the room ready to share.”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find somewhere else to crash for a few days.”
My heart faltered. “What? No…”
“I think it’s for the best, don’t you? After the ‘dream’”—he raised his fingers to make air quotes—“we need more space, not less.”
Now I understood why he’d agreed so easily to Andi staying here. He was looking for a way out. But it really wasn’t that simple.
“How are you going to explain to people why you can’t bunk with your brother for a few days, man?”
“I’ll think of something.”
“You think anyone is gonna buy that something isn’t going on between us after that marriage prank?”
“Things are getting back to normal,” he said, tone sharp. “You said it yourself.”
“Yeah, they have been, so do you really want to start a new round of gossip?”
He sagged, looking defeated, and I took no pleasure in hammering my point home, but a sense of desperation and urgency led me to do it. I was worried that if Beckett left now, he might never come back. It would be the end of any more dreams, sure, but it might also be the end of us, at least the us we were now.
I couldn’t handle that.
“Andi came to us because she doesn’t want anyone to know she left Colt’s place,” I said. “If you go try to stay with someone, you’ll have to either tell them her business or ours.”
“Shit.” He tossed his duffel on my bed and dropped to sit on the edge of it, back to me. “I can’t believe you out-logicked me.”
I laughed, because neither could I. “Obvious sign you’re not thinking clearly.”
He snorted. “I guess.”
I edged around the bed so I could sit beside him. “Beckett, I won’t cross any boundary you set. You’re safe with me. If you don’t want anything to happen, it won’t.”
He glanced sidelong at me. “That’s the problem.”
Hope fluttered. “You want something to happen?”
“No, of course not.” He stood and shot me a falsely bright smile. “It’s fine, man. I can just go out tonight. If I hook up with someone, no one will think twice about me sleeping somewhere else.”
“Beck…”
“You should go out too. It’s time we put all this shit behind us, right?”
I frowned. “I already went out last night and look how that ended.”
“I guess you weren’t doing it right,” he said, a teasing note to his voice.
“Or maybe I just know what I want, and I’m not afraid of it.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Beck backed toward the doorway. “See you later, Wes. Don’t wait up.”
* * *
BECKETT
I knocked backanother Jack-and-Coke and surveyed the dark club. I’d driven over to Riverton, unable to face trying to pick up someone in Granville. Someone Wes might know. This was hard enough without rubbing it in his face.
There was a brunette who’d been giving me flirty eyes the past fifteen minutes. She was gorgeous, and I was trying to motivate myself to move my ass from the spot I’d claimed at the bar.
