Reckless Redemption: A Bad Blooded Rebel Novel (Bad Blooded Rebel Series) (9 page)

Danni
flashed a mega watt smile at me and my heart skipped a beat.

“Thank
you,” she said. She took my hand and her soft skin felt incredible in my rough
hand as she led us up the steps and out of the stadium.

We
walked hand in hand all the way out to my car. After unlocking car, I opened
the passenger side door and held it open for her. Before getting in, she hugged
me and said, “Thanks for bringing me, Beau.”

Hugging
her back, I inhaled the scent of her shampoo.

“You’re
welcome, beautiful.”

I
wasn’t ready to let her go yet but I did as she lightly pulled away from me and
slid into her seat.

As
soon as I was behind the wheel, I started the engine and asked her, “So, what
should we do? Do you want me to take you home?”

I
really hoped her answer was no. I hadn’t had my fill of her yet and we hadn’t
been able to really talk about anything. That was supposed to be the whole
point of us spending time together today.

Danni
took her hat off and placed it in her lap. Her ponytail fell around her
shoulder and she turned her head to me.

“Why?
Do you want to take me home?” she asked, her blue eyes widening.

“Of
course I don’t,” I replied. “I want to spend as much time with you as I can. I
was just giving you an out, I guess.”

“Well,
I don’t want one. I asked to spend the day together, Beau, and the day’s not
over yet.”

I
smiled in relief as I put my car in park.

“So,
where should we go?”

“Well,
I’m still kind of hungry. Could we maybe go for pizza or something?”

I
laughed and asked, “You’re still hungry?”

“Well,
yeah,” she laughed. “What’s wrong with a girl that likes to eat?”

“Not
a thing. I like that you’re not one of those girls that cringes at the sight of
a cheeseburger. I’ve always liked a girl with an appetite.”

She
playfully nudged me and said, “Most girls would read into that as a back-handed
insult but I am choosing to ignore it.”

“It
definitely wasn’t an insult. You know me, Danni, I like curves.”

She
giggled and nudged me again. “Whatever. Just feed me, I want pizza.”

“Whatever
you want,” I smiled and turned on the stereo.

A
few of our latest tracks that Sadie had mixed and completed started playing over
the speakers.

“I
like this,” Danni said. “Is this one of the tracks for your new album?”

“Uh,
yeah. Sadie got them done last week and gave me a copy to check out.”

“It’s
really good, especially that intro. I’ve always loved the way you play the
guitar,” she said.

“Thank
you Danni. That means a lot,” I said, grinning.

“Well,
it’s true. You were always my favorite Rebel even before…” she trailed off.

I
cleared my throat.

“Thanks.”

We
drove the rest of the way to the restaurant in silence as the music played.

“So,
this is a nice place,” Danni stated before taking a sip of her soda.

We
were sitting in a little booth in the back corner of my favorite pizza place
and we’d just placed our order.

“Do
you come here a lot?”

I
shook my head and said, “Not as often as I’d like to. I used to love coming
here when I was a kid.”

“Really?”
she asked sweetly.

I
sighed sadly. “Uh, yeah. Me and the guys used to play Little League baseball
and Ryder’s dad would bring us here after the games.”

“That
was really great of him to do that for you guys. I know you didn’t have it easy
growing up,” she replied, placing her hand on mine.

“No,
but neither did most of the others. Alan was one of the best parts of my
childhood. He really was the father I never had.”

“What
happened to your real dad?” Danni asked, but then her cheeks turned a beautiful
shade of pink when she saw the look on my face. I hadn’t realized I was
scowling.

“Oh
shit, Beau, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have asked that.”

“It’s
okay, Danni.”

“No,
it’s not. We’ve been having a great day and I just had to ruin it.”

“You
didn’t ruin anything, sweetheart. No worries.”

Before
either one of us spoke again the waitress came over and placed our pizza on the
table. I placed a slice on Danni’s plate before getting one for myself and she
thanked me.

After
taking a bite of her pizza she said, “So, if we are going to stick to the
reason for this little outing today, maybe we should talk about everything that
went down in New York.”

I
almost choked on the pizza in my mouth. I had been having such a great day that
I was kind of hoping we wouldn’t actually have to address this issue.  I
swallowed my bite and said, “Danni, look, we really don’t have-”

She
put her pizza down and placed her hand over mine.

“We
need to.
I
need to,” she answered, desperation in her eyes. “Please.”

I
sighed and took another drink of my soda, wishing right then it was whiskey. I
needed something strong to calm me if I was going to be facing that disastrous
fucking night again. I already thought about it every day…now I was going to
have to talk about it with the person I hurt the most.

“Okay.
Let’s talk,” I said, leaning back in my chair and looking at her.

“Why
did you do it?” she asked me point blank. “You said you loved me…if you did,
why did you have sex with that girl?”

I
took a deep breath and blew out through my lips. “I saw you and Jake.”

“What
are you talking about?” she asked, her brows drawn.

I
balled my hands into fists on the table as I remembered the guy I considered a
friend with his tongue down Danni’s throat.

“He
had his hands on you all night and I was so jealous I couldn’t see straight.
Then when I heard that he’d led you to the back of the bar I got pissed. I came
looking for you to get you away from him. When I walked out the back door to
try and find you, I saw him kissing you.”

Danni
gasped and her eyes went wide. “You what?”

“Yeah,”
I said through gritted teeth. “I was trying to find you and tell you that I was
in love with you, but instead I found you making out with my friend.”

“Hey,
hold on,” she said angrily. “I didn’t make out with him. He kissed me and about
a half a second into it I pushed him away.”

“It
didn’t look like it,” I answered. “You two looked pretty cozy to me. I thought
you didn’t want me anymore and that you’d moved on, so I figured I would too.”

A
single tear slid down Danni’s soft cheek and I ached to wipe it away.

“Beau,
I didn’t move on. Like I said, I quickly pushed him away and told him that we’d
been involved. He said he could guess because you looked at him like you wanted
to kill him. He told me to go tell you how I felt and that he would back away
because you were his friend. I left him in the back alley and came to find
you.”

My
heart sank. “Oh shit…”

More
tears began to fall as she continued. “When I walked into the bathroom and saw
you with that girl my heart broke. It literally broke in my chest. I have never
felt pain like that,” she cried.

“I’m
so sorry,” I said, despair in my voice. “I-I really thought you’d moved on with
Jake. All this time I thought you’d had sex with him.”

“Of
course I didn’t. I loved you, Beau,” she said, and I felt pain when she said
she loved me…
loved
. Past tense. “I could never have done what you did.”

“Danni,
I didn’t know. I swear to God I didn’t know you and Jake didn’t hook up. I was
already half drunk at that point and I wasn’t thinking clearly. I tried to get
past you with that girl but I couldn’t even go through with it. I never even
made it halfway through.”

“You
hurt me so much,” she sobbed, picking up a napkin and wiping her eyes.

I
moved from my seat and knelt down in front of her.

Taking
her face in my hands, I whispered, “Danni, I am so, so sorry. I didn’t know any
of this…please forgive me. You have to forgive me.”

“I
want to…so much.”

“We
can’t move past any of this unless you can. You know I still love you and I’m
all in, but the next move has to be yours.”

She
leaned in and wrapped her arms around me.

“I
know,” was all she said as we hugged for several moments.

I
inhaled her scent deeply and it took all of my strength to keep my lips from
kissing her skin.

“Listen,”
I said, pulling away from her, “let’s get out of here. I’m pretty sure that
both of us have lost our appetites and I don’t want the day to end like this.
Do you want to come back to my place and watch a movie?”

She
blinked at me and said, “A movie?”

I
picked up a clean napkin and wiped the last few tears off her cheeks.

“Yeah,
I have hundreds of DVD’s at my house. Any movie you can think of. What do you
say?”

Danni

I
sniffled and closed my eyes for a second. The floodgates had been opened and it
was all out there now. Beau only had sex with that girl because he thought I
had sex with Jake. Every day up until now he’d thought I’d actually fucked his
friend…and he still loved me anyway. He loved me through it all even when he
thought I’d been with another man.

In
that moment I felt like a piece of shit. I’d spend the past year unhappy and
depressed; I was mad at Beau for having sex with a random girl when we weren’t
even technically a couple. Even though it felt like he cheated on me, the truth
is that he didn’t. He shouldn’t have done what he did but I couldn’t hate him
for doing it.

I
opened my eyes and looked into his…they were the warmest chocolate brown eyes
I’d ever seen. They were so expressive. Beau might say one thing but his eyes
always gave him away. Right now they were pleading with me to stay with him.

“Okay,”
I answered him, my voice rough.

“Really?”
he asked, his body relaxing.

I
smiled at him and said, “Yeah. You’re right. Let’s not end this day on a bad
note. I want to watch something funny.”

He
smiled back at me and answered, “I can do funny. Come on, let’s box this pizza
up and get the hell out of here.”

“Okay,
I’m just going to go call Ev really quick. I told her I’d check in,” I said and
he laughed.

“What’s
so funny?”

“Oh
nothing. Ryder already called me this morning, told me not to fuck this up
today.”

I
rolled my eyes and sighed. “I swear he’s like a protective papa bear
sometimes.”

“Or
a giant pain in the ass,” he laughed. “He just wants this to work out for us.”

I
smiled weakly at him and said, “I’ll be right back.”

He
nodded at me as I walked toward the bathrooms to call Everleigh. I pulled out
my phone and dialed her number. After a few rings she picked up.

“Hello?”

“Hey
Ev, it’s me,” I said.

“Hey
Danni, how’s the date going?”

“Well,
it was going great until we had ‘the talk’,” I replied.

“Oh
my God! Well, what happened?” she asked, sounding hyper.

“Did
you know he thought I had sex with Jake?”

“He
what
?” Everleigh screamed so loud that I had to hold the phone away from
my ear. “Why in the hell would he think that?”

“He
saw Jake kiss me.”

“Oh
lord,” Everleigh answered. “And in his mind he just thinks that when two people
kiss it immediately means they must’ve had sex?”

“In
his world it probably does, Ev. He’s a famous rocker and that more than likely
happened every day before he met me.”

“Still,
he should have had faith in you, Danni.”

“And
I should have had faith in him too, Ev. Yes, he actually did have sex with
someone, but it never would have happened if he hadn’t seen me with Jake. He
went this whole time thinking we’d slept together but he let it go and loved me
anyway. Shouldn’t I be able to do the same thing?”

She
sighed and said, “That’s up to you, girl. I hope it all works out for you guys.
It was way past time for the two of you to talk this out.”

“Yes
it was,” I replied.

I
looked over at our table and saw Beau chatting with the waitress as she boxed
up our pizza and I watched him for a moment. I was tired of fighting and causing
us both to be miserable.