Getting Lucky Number Seven (19 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Beck

I waited for the sharp edge of panic to set in, but as I looked at Lyla, my lungs didn’t constrict the way they did for a moment last night during my confession in the office, when I wondered if I was letting her in too much.

The woman completely unraveled me, and I didn’t care to be wound back up and put in a box where I had to be careful about everything I did or said. I ran my fingers across her bare back, grinning when I hit a ticklish spot and she jerked, pressing her breasts into me with the movement. “Morning.”

She tipped her head up and flashed me a beautiful smile I vowed to capture on my phone so I could stare at it whenever I had a crappy day.

“Breakfast?” I linked my fingers with hers and kissed the top of her head. “We’ll go out—I won’t even demand you make me pancakes.”

“Damn right you won’t.”

I chuckled and glanced at the time. “We better get going, though. I’ve got to get to my lawyer’s office in Concord by eleven. So we’ll do breakfast in yesterday’s walk-of-shame clothes, and then we can go get cleaned up. After that, you’ll have time to hang out at my aunt’s and study, or if you want, you can take the Land Rover and explore. I could just call when I need you to pick me up.” Or, I supposed I could take one of the other cars out of the garage, but that’d mean not riding with Lyla this morning, and I wasn’t ready to let her go yet, even for a few minutes.

Yep, I’ve definitely reached sappy territory.
But I didn’t care.

She pulled on my T-shirt and went in search of her clothes. Separating at the end of the day like we’d been doing all this time was stupid. Pointless.

Lyla came back in fully dressed—a shame, that whole wearing-clothes thing—and tossed me my shirt. She twisted her hair into a bun and glanced around. I grabbed a pen out of the cup on my desk and tossed it to her.

“Thanks.” Once her bun was secured, she placed her hand on my chest, leaned in, and kissed me. “I just wanna say that I’m glad you saw my list, and I’m glad taking care of lucky number seven made us grow closer instead of apart. I was so scared it was going to screw everything up.”

“Me, too. It’s why I tried so hard to resist when I first started thinking about it.” I curled my hand around her bare neck. “But now that I know how amazing this can be, you’re never getting rid of me.”

Her beautiful lips curved into a smile and my heart lurched. “I’m holding you to that.”

As we drove through town, I felt peace like I hadn’t experienced in months. I didn’t even care if we ran into anyone I knew, or what questions they might ask—none of it mattered right now. Not with Lyla with me. When we got to the café, we loaded up on pancakes, eggs, and bacon.

At Aunt Tess’s, we split for showers. As soon as I was dressed, I found Lyla in her room, her hair wet and her clothes still clinging to her damp skin. “Babe, I need to go or I’ll be late. You want the car?”

“No, I’ll be fine here.” She moved over to me and threw her arms around my neck. “But hurry back, because I’ll miss you.” She pressed her lips to mine. “I’m trying”—kiss—“to not get carried away with the mushy stuff here”—another string of short kisses that merged into the next—“But I already can’t wait for whatever we do tonight.”

“If this is carried away, I say go for it.” I grinned as she kissed one cheek and then the other, then the side of my mouth, before placing her lips on mine again. “Tell you what, I still owe you a movie. We’ll order whatever horrific chick flick you want and have ice cream.”

She ran her tongue across my bottom lip and then gently sucked on it. A jolt of heat tore through me, revving me up to fully aroused in two seconds flat.

I groaned. “I really have to go.”

“Okay,” she said, but she wrapped her arms tighter around me. Another kiss and we ended up on the bed—that one was on me, but considering the wicked things she was doing with her tongue, I couldn’t help but respond in kind. While I usually preferred to take my time, the way we had last night, we ended up racing though sex. Fast and furious, a blur of skin-on-skin, moans, panted breaths, and then coming together.

Head still spinning, I gave her one last kiss, reluctantly forced myself to my feet and dressed, and then raced out of the house. Tessa would kill me if she found out I was late.
Worth it,
I thought as I peeled out of the driveway, my lips stretched in a grin. At least no matter what happened, Lyla would be here at the end of the day to make it all seem better.

I think this is what being in love feels like.

…

The dark-haired woman who sat across the conference table from Mr. Hawthorne and me looked to be in her early thirties. There was something about the way she studied me that made apprehension prickle across my skin.

Her lawyer—Mr. Smith—sat in the chair next to her. “Son, I’m sorry for your loss, and I wish there was a better time to do this, but Ms. Walker can’t wait any longer. She has a daughter to take care of, and that has to be her top priority right now.”

“I really am sorry,” Ms. Walker said, her green-eyed gaze on me, and Mr. Smith shot her a stern look that made me think she wasn’t supposed to talk.

I folded my arms on the polished table. “What’s this all about? Just spit it out so I can get to the other matters I need to take care of today.” The words didn’t sound like mine. Me, an uptight businessman who didn’t have time for small talk. But after two hours with Mr. Hawthorne, sorting through estate paperwork and D&T “action items” I barely understood, I was actually starting to feel like I fit the part.

Mr. Smith set his pen on the table and steepled his hands under his chin. “Your father had another child. With Ms. Walker.”

Another child?
My mind revolted at the words; my lungs turned to stone. I glanced at Ms. Walker and her face crumpled.

“Is this supposed to be funny? Some attempt to extort money from the company?” Anger rose, burning hotter and hotter by the second. “Going after a dead man’s family is low.”

Ms. Walker burst into tears, and Mr. Smith put his hand on her shoulder. “I assure you, it’s not a joke, and we’re not trying to go after your family. Only trying to get what’s owed to my client and the child. Richmond Davenport made monthly payments that helped Ms. Walker take care of their daughter. But he didn’t add them to his will, and with him gone, the payments have stopped. His daughter deserves the same comfort his legitimate children have. I believe he would’ve wanted it that way.”

Everything inside me was crumbling. The room was too hot and too cold and the walls were closing in on me.
Mom
was the cheater. Dad… I curled my hands into fists, fighting the urge to flip the table and throw one of the million pretentious chairs lining it out the window. He wasn’t like that. Our family was healing. Coming back together.

I heard his words in my head again and again:
Son, people make mistakes. When you love someone, there are times you have to be strong and work through issues together, no matter how hard it is.

So much for working through issues. So much for fucking love.

“Beckett, you should know that your father always spoke so highly of you.” Ms. Walker gave me a watery smile and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I wish we’d met under other circumstances, but now that we have, I’d love for you to meet your sister. For us to get to know one another.”

How could she sit there and act like she wasn’t ruining everything? “Do you have proof? Any proof at all? Besides that he gave you money?”

Mr. Hawthorne put a hand on my shoulder—apparently it was the go-to lawyer calm down tactic—but it was going to take a lot more than that to stop the rage coursing through my body. “Let’s hear them out, and then we’ll decide what to do.”

The details slowly spilled out. The
baby
was six years old. I did the math every way possible, and it always meant that Dad cheated on Mom
before
she had her affair. I wondered if it was why she’d turned to Mr. Brooks. Did she know about the other woman? The child? She must’ve.

But why didn’t she say anything—I wouldn’t have been so hard on her.

I closed my eyes, thinking of how far apart we’d grown after that. All that time I’d never get back, robbed from me because of the lies. Regret and shame swelled, gutting me from the inside out. Before they’d finished with me, a viscous wave of truth hit me: our family’s name had already been dragged through the mud, and it was about to get worse. There was no way this wouldn’t get out. I didn’t even care about the money. Everyone would know that my parents slept around, the entire town would be buzzing about the love child, not satisfied until they’d squeezed every drop of evil gossip out of the scandal. Megan would flip out and spiral out of control again, and I didn’t know what to do.

Ms. Walker was full on crying now, tears streaming down her cheeks. “He loved me, and I loved him, and he loved our daughter. We were supposed to be together, but he was waiting for Megan to graduate, and now we’ll”—she sniffed and the sobbing escalated—“never have the chance.”

I stared at her tear-streaked face, completely numb. Love. What a load of shit. I remembered the way Mom used to tell her and Dad’s love story, so similar to the one Ms. Walker was blubbering about.

None of it mattered. Regardless of how good it was at the beginning, it ended with the search for more. Someone else more attractive. More money. More power. Control.

That was my legacy.

Earlier today, I’d had a moment where I thought love was more than just four little letters people threw around. Something powerful and real that could heal the past through acceptance and understanding.

What a fucking idiot. The only power it had was to take people at their most vulnerable, hurt them, and wear them down until all that was left were shattered hearts and ruined lives.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Lyla

“Wow,” I said after I was sure Tessa was gone. “She doesn’t seem to like me very much.” Her words were nice, all the right ones strung politely together, but a chill emanated from her every time she looked my way. As soon as I’d finished my lunch, I’d wanted to flee the dining room, but waiting at least a few minutes after my last bite seemed like the polite thing to do. When she’d said she needed to run errands and excused herself, I’d let out a relieved breath.

Megan lowered the phone she’d been texting on. “Aunt Tessa’s not what you’d call a ‘people person.’ Now you see what I have to deal with every day. Only add a dramatic sigh as she mumbles, ‘I never wanted kids.’”

“Ouch.”

Megan shrugged as if she didn’t care, but I could see the pain carefully held under the surface—it was the same expression I occasionally saw on Beck.

“I’m sure people tell you that they’re sorry about your parents a lot, but I truly am sorry,” I said. “I can’t even imagine how hard it’d be to deal with.”

“It was really bad right after, but at least I had Beckett to talk to—or more like we’d distract each other from moping around. It sucked, but I thought maybe eventually we’d be okay. Then he was gone, too, and…” Megan dropped her gaze to her empty plate and shook her head.

I didn’t know what to say. Obviously she’d felt abandoned, and I even understood why she might lash out. If Beck decided to ignore me, I could only imagine what lengths I’d go to get his attention. “If it makes you feel any better, I can tell every time it’s you on the phone. His whole face lights up and his voice goes soft—he’d deny it, I’m sure, because he’d say he’s far too manly and tough for that, but trust me, it’s true.”

A smile broke through, taking the edge off the grief that’d been filling Megan’s features. “Well, I can tell when he’s with you, too—he does things like karaoke. Plus, he likes to keep his college life and his life here completely separate, and he still totally brought you here, which is, like,
huge
. He used to always tell me love was crap, and that I should be careful, because guys were big jerks who just wanted to use me—like, he’d stare down boys who tried to talk to me. Seriously,
so
embarrassing. But when you guys got here, I knew he’d changed his mind—it’s written across his face every time he looks at you. He’s crazy in love with you.”

“Oh, I don’t know if he’s quite there.” The words beckoned to me, though, tingly hope buzzing through my chest. Time for a reality check before my emotions got too carried away. “He still introduces me as his friend, after all. I think I’m in crazy-in-love land by myself.”

Immediately, I worried I’d said too much. What if it came back to bite me? Not to mention I probably should’ve told him I loved him before telling his sister—if I wasn’t scared it’d freak him out and send him running.

Megan waved off my comment. “I know my brother. You’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Last night and this morning, it
had
felt like everything had changed. What was going on between us was definitely more than sex. More than friendship.

“Thanks,” I said. “I needed to hear that.”

“Sure thing.” Megan pushed out from the table. “Want to see what’s on TV?”

Studying would be the responsible thing to do—I liked to be ahead instead of behind, and with my list—and Beck—taking up so much time, I was falling more on the behind side of the line. My history test hadn’t gone so well last week, and if I didn’t ace my next test in there and my lit class, I’d be screwed. Without my scholarship, I couldn’t afford next semester. But the teenage girl I’d expected to be totally uninterested in me wanted to hang out. After seeing how lonely she was, I couldn’t say no.

So I followed her to her room, where she had a cushy loveseat and a big-screen TV. We kicked back and she flipped through channels, watching about half the time and chatting the rest. The more we talked, the more I liked her. She was funny and could talk for several minutes straight without taking a breath, and I loved every second of it.

It did make me wonder if Beck should be closer to her, though. She needed someone who’d build her up when she was feeling down, set boundaries when she was feeling rebellious, and pay attention to her so she didn’t feel so alone. I just wished I knew a way for him to be close to his family, not feel so burdened by the company, and play hockey in Boston, where he’d also be with me. Was that really so much to ask?

…

Tessa had invited me to go with her and Megan to dinner, but I’d declined, wanting to be at the house when Beck got back. I’d texted him a couple of times, asking how it was going and if he was nearly done, but so far, no answer.

So I’d set up camp on the silky floral couch with gilded trim that kept catching my hair. I lifted my giant literature book higher, trying to focus on the paragraph I’d read three times without knowing what it said. My mind kept replaying talking to Megan and everything she’d said about Beck and how she could tell he’d changed his mind.

If he didn’t feel what I’m feeling, he never would’ve opened up to me the way he did yesterday, I’m sure of it.

If anything, yesterday was another reason to let him know how much I cared. Let him know he didn’t have to go through things alone anymore. My pulse raced faster and faster as I seriously considered telling him I loved him. Honestly, I wasn’t sure how much longer I could hold it back. It was dying to burst out of me, to spread the warmth and happiness radiating through every inch of my body.

Just do it. Be bold.

That was the whole point of the bucket list, right? Stop holding back. Take risks. And how many times had I told Whitney to stop driving herself crazy and talk to Matt already? Still, it was a hell of a risk.

With a hell of an awesome payback if he felt the same way.

I’m going to do it.
Nerves rolled through my stomach.
I’m going to tell him I love him.

I heard the front door open and tossed my book onto the coffee table. I barely restrained myself from running.

Beck was turned, pulling the door closed behind him. A thrill shot through me at the sight of him.

“Hey! How’d it—” The tension filling every inch of his rigid posture and tight expression as he spun to face me stopped me cold. Dark circles showed under his eyes and his hair was messy, like he’d been repeatedly running his hands through it. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“No, I’m not okay.”

I moved to hug him, but he held out an arm, keeping me back. “Just…don’t.”

Hurt flooded my chest. “What’s going on?”

“My dad has another kid. He had an affair, too, just like my mom. Because that’s what my family does. And now I get to clean up the mess.”

“I’m so sorry. I—”

“I can’t be with you, Lyla. Not the way you want.”

Panic rose up, its steel fingers clutching my heart as I struggled to keep up with the change in topic. “Wait. How’d we go from talking about your parents to you and me?” I took a step toward him and put my hand on his arm. “We can deal with this. Together.”

Beck shook his head. “I’ll just let you down. You need to find someone else.”

No matter how much I tried to breathe in, I couldn’t get any oxygen to my lungs. “I don’t want anyone else.”

“You wanna wait until I cheat on you?” he asked, his words as sharp as ice picks.

Tears crawled up my throat and blurred my eyes. “That’s crap, and a total cop-out. You can control who you sleep with. When you love someone, you work at it. Don’t use your parents as an excuse to dump me.”

“In order to dump you, I’d have to be dating you. I told you from the beginning that all this could be was sex—I warned you.”

“You did.” My chin trembled, my voice along with it. “How silly of me to go and fall in love with you anyway.”

He stared at me, his blue eyes so cold and hard. Cracks formed in my heart, pain pushing in and pouring out at the same time.

“It’s not real, Ly. I pretended I could be a normal guy with a girlfriend, and you pretended to be the sexy party girl. But at the end of the day, we were both lying.”

My tears spilled over and ran down my cheeks. “That’s me.” I sniffed. “Pretend sexy, and in love with a guy who doesn’t feel the same way.” I strode toward the door, surprised my body still functioned despite the crushing agony obliterating my internal organs. Right before I stepped outside, I turned back and looked at my supposed best friend. “Thanks for the mind-blowing sex at least. So glad you took pity on the plain girl who couldn’t get off.”