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Beck textsin the evening to ask about the interview. I wish he’d forgotten. It’s humiliating that it went as badly as it did.
I tell him it didn’t go well and that honesty is not, as it turns out, the best policy, and then I go on to Instagram, which does not improve my mood, as I’m apparently the only person in the freaking state who’s got nothing going on tonight. Kayleigh is heading to Vegas with “the girls”—I assume the roommate she called a “fat c*nt” on TikTok one day after posting a quote about kindness is not among them. Beck is at work. Caleb and Lucie are probably having a romantic dinner for two while they talk about how much better Lucie is at giving birth than me.
I put on a horror movie and watch with growing impatience. What female goes into the creepy basement of a haunted house, finds a hidden passageway, and decides to investigate on her own?
“You deserve to die,” I announce to no one as she grabs a conveniently placed flashlight.
My voice in the quiet cabin isn’t loud enough to shout down the one in my head, the one saying,“If you’re so much smarter than everyone else, Kate, why are you alone on a Friday night?”
The girl on the TV starts banging on the door that’s just shut behind her when a motorcycle roars in the distance. It can’t possibly be Beck. It’s one of the bar’s two busiest nights of the week.
Yet only a moment later, the cabin door opens and he fills the space with his massive frame.
“You have a swimsuit?” he asks, putting his helmet down on a chair.
I blink, astonished. Nothing about his presence here, or the question, makes sense.
“A swimsuit? It’s nine at night.”
“Yeah, Kate, I’ve got a watch,” he says. “You always used to want to go night swimming. It’s not like you’ve got anything else to do.”
I frown. I have a long list of bad qualities, and my need for excitement is somewhere on there. Nowhere near the top, obviously, as there are far worse things about me, but it’s something Caleb never liked, and it led me into a lot of trouble.
I swallow. “You think it’s okay?”
He folds his arms across his chest, his mouth a flat line. “Why wouldn’t it be?”
Because one form of fun leads to another.
Enjoying myself will create a craving for more. We’ll swim, and I’ll want to go to a bar. We’ll go to a bar, and I’ll decide one beer can’t hurt, and when that beer’s gone and all hell hasn’t broken loose, I’ll decide smoking some weed won’t hurt either, and then I’ll wake up to discover I’m at Kent’s again—my mouth dry and my hands shaking for more of whatever I passed out doing the night before.
My fear is that fun is like cocaine—something I’m incapable of enjoying in small quantities—but it sounds too crazy to be said aloud.
I hitch a shoulder in lieu of answering. “Yeah, let’s go.”
After I’ve slipped a bikini on under my clothes, I follow him outside and he hands me his helmet.
“We’re taking the bike?” Back when Caleb and I were just dating, I must have asked Beck to take me out on his bike a hundred times, and he always refused.
“No,” Beck replies with a quiet laugh. “I just thought you might like a helmet for swimming. Of course we’re taking the bike. Why? You scared?”
I put the helmet on. “I think you know better than that. I’ve never had a logical response to fear.”
He doesn’t smile, but there’s something heated in his slow appraisal that makes my stomach tighten deliciously. “Yeah. I remember.”
He sits and I slip on behind him. As I wrap my arms around his waist, I picture being beneath someone his size. He’d probably crush me to death if he was on top, but there’d be worse ways to go.
He’s careful on the gravel, but once we hit pavement, he accelerates so fast that I gasp. It’s not the gentle ride you’d normally give a guest. We’re flying, taking corners fast, weaving between cars.
My heart races and my brain—with its nonstop stream of insults and warnings—is silenced. There is only Beck—his size, his smell. The bike tilts and he’s still there, solid and warm. It swerves and I press my cheek to his broad back so hard it’ll probably leave a mark. My body molds to his, my grip on him tight, but I let myself relax a little, following Beck’s lead, trusting him while the bike rumbles between my legs.
I love every fucking minute of it.
He comes to a screeching halt along the road and parks.
“What’d you think?” he asks as I pull off the helmet and climb to my feet with unsteady legs.
