“I think I love him too,” I whispered to Ellie as we went up another set of stairs to her bedroom.
She looked over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. “Duh.”
“You didn’t know that,” I argued. “I didn’t know that so you couldn’t have possibly known that.”
“Yeah, because you’re always so honest and upfront with yourself.”
“What should I do?” I asked her meekly.
She shut her bedroom door and flopped on her bed. “Tell him.”
“That’s not an option. I broke up with him. He doesn’t want anything to do with me.”
She rolled her eyes and laughed. “He wants everything to do with you. Trust me. I’m a relationship expert.”
That wasn’t at all true. I loved her… but I also knew her. “What if he doesn’t want to talk to me?”
She held my gaze and for the first time ever, I wondered if maybe she really was a relationship expert. “But what if he does?”
What if he does?
What if he does?
What if he does?
I swallowed down nerves and fear and so much emotion I didn’t even know how to name it all.
So it was true, he might want nothing to do with me ever again. I had been awful to him. I had fought him the whole way and then finally, after I’d given in and given him everything, I’d left him. It was a shitty thing to do.
I had been a shitty person.
And that left me with a choice. I could ignore Beckett and continue suffering like this. I could stick to my plan that sucked and my perfectly organized life that didn’t make me happy.
Or I could talk to Beckett. I could be brave. And try at something that wasn’t easy for me… that wasn’t comfortable. I could do the hard thing and hope that it turned into the best thing.
I could get over myself and give into something that could be great.
Something that could be the greatest thing to ever happen to me.
And even if he didn’t want anything to do with me, even if I’d messed things up beyond repair…I could still say I tried. I gave it my all. I was Britte Nichols, I knew how to get what I wanted.
And nobody was going to hand it to me.
If I wanted something, I had to go after it myself.
Hard after it.
And right now I wanted Beckett. And I knew I would want him for a long time to come. Maybe even forever.
Beckett had been right when he’d said we were good together.
I had never experienced anything so good.
So yes there would be fear. There might be fear for a very long time to come. But it wasn’t so bad if I had Beckett to go through it with me.
I felt like I could conquer the entire world if Beckett was at my side.
Now to just get him at my side.
It would have to be tonight…because if I had to spend another day like this, thinking and hurting and aching like this, I would drive myself crazy. Surely there would be an opportunity to talk to him.
Or I’d make an opportunity.
“Okay,” I told Ellie. “You’re right. I won’t know unless I try.”
She squealed and smiled the biggest grin. “We’re going to be sisters!”
I laughed because it felt good and because I loved Ellie and because…because I wanted it to be true. “You’re so crazy.”
She winked at me. “Takes one to know one.”
Deciding to ignore her juvenile comeback I turned toward my suitcase. “I should probably wear something other than yoga pants then, huh?”
“Oh, geez. Let’s see what we have to work with.”
Ellie helped me get ready both with what to wear and what to say. I never stopped being nervous, but I also felt ready. Prepared.
I had messed things up with Beckett, but this wasn’t the end of us.
I wouldn’t let it be.
Chapter Twenty-One
Beckett
My parent’s invited me home, and since I hadn’t been in a while, I thought it was time to get away from my apartment. It would also be good to get away from Britte and everything that reminded me of her.
And here she was. At my parent’s house.
What were the chances of that happening?
Okay, they weren’t impossibly small. She was my sister’s best friend.
But, honestly. What the hell?
My celebration dinner should have been a good time. My parents took us to my favorite restaurant. My brothers weren’t complete bastards. We were celebrating me after all. I should have been able to enjoy that.
Instead, I suffered through Britte and her goddamn legs all night. It was forty degrees outside. What was she doing in a skirt? Trying to freeze to death? Death by frozen, sexy as hell legs?
There I go again. What is wrong with me?
It was quite possible she was trying to kill me.
Well, she was doing a great job.
And not only those legs but her laugh. Apparently, Ellie was freaking hilarious tonight. And Lennox, who sat on the other side of her on the other side of the table from me.
I knew Lennox. He had never intentionally said something funny his entire life. Now all of a sudden he was a comedian.
I could barely eat the whole night. Okay, that was a lie. I ate, but I didn’t taste the food. And there was cake too. I should have been able to taste the cake.
When we finally piled in our different cars to go back to the house, I thought about just driving straight back to La Crosse. I could call my mom and explain. I had stuff at the house, but nothing I couldn’t get next time I was home.
Lennox and Grayson had come with me, though. They probably wouldn’t be thrilled if I kidnapped them. Plus, their cars were still at Mom and Dad’s.
“What’s with you tonight?” Lennox asked as soon as he sat down in my passenger’s seat. “You’re acting moody again.”
“I’m not moody. “
Grayson popped his head forward from the middle seat in the back, effectively scaring the living hell out of me. “Who’s moody?” he asked brightly.
“No one,” I growled.
At the same time, Lennox pointed at me. “He is.”
I started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. I had to survive ten minutes of this before we made it home.
I could do that. I was strong enough.
“You are moody tonight,” Grayson agreed. “Not feeling good, little bro? Do you have a tummy ache?”
I was not strong enough.
“I’m fine,” I told him. “My tummy is fine.”
Lennox snapped his fingers in my face. “It’s the girl.”
I ground my teeth together.
“What girl?” Grayson asked.
“Britte. The one that’s into magic.”
I glanced at the roof of my car. “You are out of your damn mind.”
“She’s still not into him?” Grayson directed his question to Lennox as if I didn’t belong in this conversation.
“I think she was into him,” Lennox explained. “But judging by the scowl—”
“And the foul mood—” Grayson added.
“Right and that,” Lennox couldn’t help but remark. I knew they were baiting me. I just didn’t want to talk about Britte with them.
Grayson continued to lean between the seats. “So what do you think happened? Think he got dumped?” And here we go.
Lennox snorted and threw his hand my direction. “Clearly.”
“Both of you are idiots.” There. I said my piece.
“Definitely dumped,” they said in unison.
“She has issues okay?”
“We figured,” Grayson said seriously. “When she started dating you in the first place, we knew there was something wrong with her.”
Five minutes until we got to the house. Five minutes.
“No, that’s not it.” I turned back and glared at Grayson so he knew I was fed up with him. “You’re such a…” I trailed off in favor of making an irritated sound si
nce I couldn’t pick which curse word to call him. There were just too many choices. He was all of them. All the bad words. “She has issues with trust, okay? And with commitment. She has issues with those things.”
“So?”
The flippant question came from Grayson again. I looked at him over my shoulder annoyed with his stupid question. “What do you mean, so?”
“Well, you just let her go?”
I glared at him before turning my eyes back to the road. “I didn’t let her go. She left. I didn’t know she was leaving permanently. I thought she’d be back.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Lennox trying to keep a straight face. If he let out one laugh, I had already decided to brake check the asshole.
“So why didn’t you go after her?” Grayson pressed.
I let out an exhausted sigh. “Because she asked me not to. Okay? She asked me to let her go.”
“Oh.” Grayson sounded too casual. I didn’t trust him.
Through gritted teeth, I asked, “What?”
“Nothing.”
I could see my neighborhood in the distance. So close. Still, I demanded. “Just say it.”
Grayson’s voice was all calm and collected, but I knew better. This was how he made his points. “It’s just that, if she has issues with commitment, then obviously she was eventually going to leave. You had to know that was coming.” I suddenly felt like the biggest moron for not knowing. Grayson went on, “If she’s worth it you go after her no matter how nicely she asks you to back off. If you’re worth it, she eventually gets over her issues with commitment.”
Lennox decided to add his two cents, “You have to try, Beckett. You can’t know until you try.”
I pulled into our neighborhood and drove past the sprawling estates until I eventually came to ours. I stayed silent the entire time.
Admitting my brothers were right wasn’t something I could verbalize. But there was truth in Grayson’s words. Was she worth it?
Hell yes, she was worth it.
Why hadn’t I realized that before?
And was I worth it?
Was I?
I hoped so. But that was all I had until I tried. I couldn’t know what she was going to do or say or think until I pushed her to do and say and think something.
I had always been the kind of person that preferred asking for forgiveness rather than permission. So why had I forgotten that with Britte?
Only the answer was easy. Because I cared about her. I cared about her more than I had ever cared about anything and I wanted to give her everything she wanted.
Even at the cost of my own pain.
But that was stupid.
Letting her go was stupid.
I should have fought harder for her. I should have reminded her how good we were together, how good we could be.
I should have anticipated her relationship phobia and been ready for it.
And I should have never stayed away.
I should have done whatever it took to get her back.
Well, at least it wasn’t too late for that last part.
I parked the car in my spot, and we went into my parent’s house. My brothers dispersed. Lennox was going to head back tonight while Grayson and I were spending the night. Lennox went to say goodbye to my parents. Grayson went wherever it was that Grayson went.
And I left for my mission.
Get Britte back.
My parents had beaten us home, so that meant Britte and Ellie were somewhere in the house. I bypassed the kitchen where Lennox was talking to Mom and Dad. I didn’t bother with the formal sitting and dining room—nobody used those rooms. I tried the main living room, my dad’s office just for the hell of it and the sun porch.
Nothing.
Extending my search to the basement, I looked everywhere down there. I even walked the back property thinking maybe Ellie had taken her out by the fire pit or pool. Nope.
Climbing the steps back to the main floor, I realized she must be with Ellie in Ellie’s room. I lost some of my courage then. It was one thing to listen to my brother’s give their unwarranted advice.
It was another thing to knock on my sister’s door and ask Britte to come talk to me. If she said no, did I have grounds to throw her over my shoulder and drag her back to my room?
Was there some kind of caveman law I could recite?
In the end, it didn’t matter because I ran into Ellie in the kitchen and Britte was still nowhere to be seen.
Had she left already? Had she been that disturbed by being around me that she’d left early?
I walked around the corner just in time to hear Ellie ask my parents if they had seen me. “I’m right here.”
She jumped, not expecting me to be behind her. Slowly turning around, she had the strangest grin on her face. “Hey there,” she said.
Instantly, I was paranoid by her innocuous greeting. “Hi.”
She rocked back and forth on her heels. “What are you doing right now?”
“Why?”
“Just wondering if you were planning to go to bed any time soon?”
“I mean, I will go to bed at some point.”
“Like, soon do you think or…”
“Why are you so concerned with my bedtime?”
She waggled her eyebrows at me. “I think you should go to bed. Right now.”
“But why?” Was she trying to get rid of me, so Britte didn’t have to run into me? That was so stupid. And juvenile. And I was going to make sure I hung out in every room they were in if that was the case.
Because I was obviously way more mature than them.
“Just go to bed, Beckett,” she said out of the side of her mouth with her eyes rounded as if she were telling me a secret.
“You go to bed, Ellie. What the hell?”
She threw her hands to the sides. “I’m trying to help you! Go. To. Bed.”
I stared at her.
“Trust me,” she whispered. “You want to go to bed.”
“Britte?” I asked quietly.
She rolled her eyes but nodded. “Finally, he gets it.”
That was all I had to hear. My heart forgot a beat, but I did remember to say, “Night, everybody.” Then I turned and sprinted for the stairs.
“You’re welcome, brother!” Ellie hollered after me. “Don’t say I’ve never done anything for you!”
I took the stairs two at a time and made it to my room in record time. I threw the door open, grabbing the handle at the last minute to keep it from banging against the wall. Skidding into my childhood room, I found Britte sitting in the middle of my double bed, her legs folded under her with an old scrapbook my mom had put together for me open in her lap.
She looked up at me with bright eyes and a smile on her face. “You had the biggest buck teeth I have ever seen.”
I stepped into the room completely and closed the door behind me. “What are you doing in here, Britte?” Afraid to move any closer and spook her, I leaned against my dresser, my hands shoved into my jeans pockets.
“But that baseball uniform,” she sighed. “Adorable.”
“You’re in my room,” I reminded her, just in case she was lost. She was in my room. She’d taken off the sweater she wore earlier and sat there in a purple tank top that was her usual flowy style and that denim skirt that showed off her insanely long legs. Her feet were bare and for some reason that did something to me. Another realization hit me square in the chest. “You’re on my bed.”
Her long, dark hair was pulled over one shoulder, and her eyeliner was purple tonight to match her top.
She was a goddess.
A temptress.
She was everything I wanted.
Everything I needed.
She closed the scrapbook and set it to the side. She leaned back on her hands and sat like an invitation, beckoning me to her.
“I’m sorry, Beckett,” she whispered, her voice suddenly filled with emotion.
The floor felt like it dropped beneath
my feet, and I nearly plummeted to the ground because my knees were about to give out. I didn’t believe I’d heard her right. I wanted to make her realize I would do anything to keep her. To be with her. I hadn’t expected her to be ready with an apology of her own.
If we were honest, I never expected an apology from Britte. Ever. It wasn’t her style.
“What did you say?” I asked so softly I barely heard myself, convinced I’d tricked myself into hearing what I wanted to.
Her shaky smile lifted those full lips. “I said, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you that morning. Or at all. I shouldn’t have…expected you to leave me or hurt me or break my heart. I shouldn’t have assumed anything about you when you had been the opposite of everything I thought you were. You were already proving me wrong, but I just didn’t want to wait around and get hurt.”
I started walking toward her, slowly for my sake, not for hers. “Is that why you left? You thought I was going to hurt you?” She nodded as tears escaped down her cheeks. “Do you still think I’m going to hurt you?”
My heart pounded irregularly. I had been prepared to do whatever it took to get her back, promise her whatever she needed to hear, go to whatever lengths I needed to go to. I couldn’t believe that she was in here…that she was ready to apologize to me first.
She held my gaze, even though I could tell she didn’t want to. She was dying to look away, to give into her fear. But she also wanted me to see her truth, her vulnerability…that she was trying. “I think it’s a possibility. Neither of us knows the future, Beckett. I could drive you crazy tomorrow, and you could end this as fast as I did. Or you could find someone better. Or just move away for a coaching job or whatever. There are a million possibilities ahead of us.” She paused to take a breath, and I had to fight the urge to assure her I wouldn’t leave her. There wasn’t a possibility in the world that would make me lose her a second time. But I sensed that she needed to work through this, and so I let her. “But.” She cleared her throat and tried again. “But, I also know that no matter what happens in the future, I want this now. I want you. And I want what’s between us. I’m taking your advice and embracing the uncomfortable. Even if I get hurt in the future, it will be worth it because I’ll have had this time with you. And this time with you is good. We’re good together. I want this. But most of all, I want you.”