Victim of Love (18 page)

“Trying? Oh, no.” Beck took a sip of his Schnapps. “Being smart just comes naturally to some of us.” He did a double take at Max. “Oh, no offense.”

Max chuckled, then frowned, then chuckled again. He handed me back the statuette. “Who’s this joker?” He pointed a thumb at Beck.

“This is Beck,” I said. “He’s Laurie’s brother. Beck, this is Max. Kamal’s friend.”

“Nice to meet you,” Max said. “You got a wise mouth to go with that pretty smile. But don’t worry. I can take a joke.”

Beck shook Max’s hand. “Oh, I’m not worried about you, Max. I can tell you’ve got a
wicked
sensa humah.”

I winced at Beck’s mockery of Max’s accent.

Max smiled, but the confusion was evident in his expression, not sure if he should be affronted by Beck or attracted to him. Beck had that effect on people. “You’re lucky you’re cute, guy,” he said.

Okay, looked like Max had opted for flirting over fighting. I was relieved, but the way his gaze traveled over Beck’s body made me want to elbow him in the face.
Back off. Mine
.

“You probably get away with murder with that smile, am I right?” Max said, reaching out and giving Beck a playful slap on the arm.

“Not yet,” Beck said. “But the night’s still young.”

“Hey Beck,” Kamal said. “Glad you could join us.”

“I wouldn’t miss it, Kamal.”

Townsend approached with Pippa. “Hey, Beck’s back! Now the party’s starting.”

“How you doing, troublemaker?” Pippa asked.

“I’m great.” Beck smiled up at them, then glanced at Max. “Making new friends.”

Max beamed at Beck. “You don’t need to sit there in the sand, guy.” He patted the end of his cabana chair. “You wanna sit here?”

I tried not to glare at Max, but failed. He glanced at me, but quickly turned his attention back to Beck. The guy likely thought I was jealous that he’d so quickly thrown me over for a better model.

“Thanks Max, but I’m good.” Beck turned to me. “Go for a walk?”

I nodded and we both stood.

“Where you guys going?” Max asked.

“We’ll be back,” I said.

“Oh come on,” Max said. “At least invite me along if you two are gonna go get busy. I’m a guest!”

Townsend smirked at Max. “Barking up the wrong tree, dude. Beck is straight.”

Max threw his head back and laughed. “Yeah. And I’m Donald Trump.”

Townsend looked at me, one eyebrow raised. I rolled my eyes then mouthed the word “
Asshole
” and Townsend grinned, nodding.

“We’ll be back,” I said again, and Beck and I moved off down the beach, Kamal’s eyes on us as we went.

When we’d put some distance between us and the party, moving past the main resort and closer to the end where out bungalow was, Beck smiled at me. “That’s quite a gift Kamal brought you.”

“Yeah, he’s a real peach. I’ll have to thank him later with a smack in the head. Speaking of gifts, how did you get this back?” I held up the nun.

Beck faced forward again. “I got it back because you’re a little shit.”

I frowned at him. “Why am I a little shit?”

He beckoned me with his arm and moved toward a secluded area along the dunes, then sat down on the sand. I sat down beside him, looking at his profile.

“You’re a little shit,” he said, “because you cost me a lot of money today. But I’m forgiving you.”

“What are you talking about? I wasn’t even with you. Why did I cost you money?”

“Because you’re a little shit.”

I shuffled over so I was facing him. “Stop calling me a little shit.”

He smiled. “But you
are
a little shit.”

“Why?”

His smile slid, and he sighed, then glanced to the side. “You got in my head last night.” He looked at me. “I called Quinn, and we met up. I gave him the Kennedy job.”

I studied his eyes. “You...you didn’t make the deal?”

He shook his head, slowly. “All your talk about grieving families and moral compasses ruined my morning. By the time I was off to meet the client, my entire game was off. So I didn’t do it. I gave the job to Quinn and lost a bunch of cash. Because you’re a little shit.”

I beamed. “I’m sorry you lost money. But I’m glad you didn’t do it.”

He waved me off. “Yeah, yeah. So you had a good point. I’m going to stick with pre-twentieth-century death trophies from now on.” He frowned at me. “I owe you an apology for the way I reacted last night.”

“No.” I shook my head. “I was sticking my nose into your business. Judging you. I’m the one who’s sorry.”

“No stealing my apology, Olsen,” he said. “It doesn’t happen often, so just take it.”

I smiled. “Okay. I accept your apology.” I took his hand. He flinched, then relaxed, wrapping his fingers around mine. “So,” I said. “I got you to take your mask off for a while?”

He grinned. “Don’t get cocky. The mask’s still there. You just made it slip a little.” He tilted his cup back and drained his drink.

“I’m glad you came back.”

Beck nodded, but avoided my eyes.

“When are you leaving the Cape?”

“In the morning.”

“Beck. I want to be with you tonight.”

Beck’s cheeks uncharacteristically flushed with blood as he stared at me. “I’m surprised to hear that.”

“You shouldn’t be,” I said. “Don’t you realize what you do to me?”

He set his cup down and took both my hands in his. “I realize what you do to
me
, Olsen. You make me wish for things I can’t have.”

He leaned in and kissed me, but pulled back quickly.

The quick press of his lips sent my pulse racing, and I let out a hard breath. “What kind of things?” I asked.

He smiled sadly, stroking my cheek with his finger. “Normal things. Falling in love. Being able to offer someone my best self.”

“Maybe I don’t need your best self,” I said. “I just want you, however I can have you.”

The emotion that welled up inside me took me by surprise, and at that moment, I knew it was over, the timer had popped, and I was cooked, toasted, done. I was over the moon about this man, and my words probably made it as obvious to Beck as it was to me now.

“Come here.” Beck reached for me, but I pulled back, pushing him away with a gentle hand on his chest.

“No, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to explain, I get it, Beck. Just...”

He grabbed me and tugged me over beside him, then caught me in a tight hug, holding me to his body. “Listen to me,” he said in my ear, holding me tight, rocking slightly. “Just listen for a minute, okay?”

I let out a shuddering breath, weakened by his warmth and the feel of his arms around me. “Okay. I’m listening.”

“I’m crazy about you too,” he said. “I mean that with all my heart. You’re so special, and it kills me that I met you now. But Olsen, I’ve done things I can’t forgive. And I’ve seen things I can’t forget.”

I stayed silent for a long time. Beck didn’t have to give me details about whatever he’d seen and done that made him such a self-proclaimed mess. He was being honest enough, and I got the message. He couldn’t pursue anything further with me. I got it. Loud and clear.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t accept it. At least not without a protest. My pride was shot to hell anyway. “But we’re so good together,” I said. “Maybe I can help you get past whatever it is. Maybe you can just try with me. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.”

He eased back and turned me toward him, holding my shoulders and looking in my eyes. “Olsen, baby. I hope one day I
will
be past it. I hope one day I won’t need to drink an entire bottle of Schnapps just to be able to look in the rearview mirror at my past. I hope one day I won’t have to wear a mask just to function, and when that day comes, I selfishly hope I can hunt you down and that you’re not shacked up with some great guy and want nothing to do with me. But I’m not there yet. And what I’m going through now, I can’t put that on anyone else. And I can’t give myself to someone else if what I’m giving isn’t whole and healthy and real. I wish I could, Olsen. You have no idea how much I wish I could.”

I blinked back tears. “I appreciate your honesty. It means a lot.”

His lips tightened. He nodded once. “They’re going to be wondering where we are. We should head back to the party.”

“And what about after the party?”

He blinked. “What about it?”

“I want to be with you tonight.”

Yeah, I was being a pushy brat. But I didn’t care. It was possible that I was in love for the first time in my life. I could have questioned myself, asked how I could know this for certain since I hadn’t felt it before. But my stomach hurt, my heart hurt, and I was completely consumed by this man sitting before me. I was outside the lines, I’d abandoned logic, and was spinning out of control. If it wasn’t love, well, it was sure as shit closer than I’d ever gotten.

It sucked, and I knew it was going to suck even more next week. But I was feeling it, and I was damn well gonna own it. If Beck was leaving my life, then I wanted as much of him as I could get before he did.

Beck laughed. Resting his arms on his knees, he shook his head, looking down. “You’re stubborn.”

“Just give me one more night,” I said.

Beck looked up at me, eyebrows raised, but said nothing.

“One more night to pretend,” I said. “Please?”

A smile spread across Beck’s face. “What about your
date?
”

“My
date
can do whatever he wants. Let him flirt with me. Let him flirt with you, I don’t care. Let’s go hang out with our friends and your sister and watch the fireworks and have a good time. But there’s no way I can go back there right now and do all that unless I know the night will end with me in your bed. There’s no way.”

Beck held my gaze, his eyes sad and conflicted. He sighed, hanging his head. “Olsen...”

“One more night, Beck. Please. One more night.”

Yeah, it was that bad. I was begging. Literally begging. And I was not ashamed.

Lifting his head, Beck grinned at me. “You’re a little shit.”

“I know.”

He gave me a quick kiss. “Okay, Olsen. Okay. One more night.”

A loud whistle sounded in the distance, then a giant, colorful spray of fireworks exploded over the water, followed by a chorus of cheers from the party down at the other end of the beach.

I stood, taking Beck’s hand. He rose and pulled me close, kissing me long and deep. We disengaged, and I held his hand as we walked back down the beach toward the party.

Lamenting the moment when I had to let it go.

Chapter Eight

Balls Said the Queen

The fireworks display over the water was remarkable, with a finale reminiscent of Baghdad during the Gulf War. When it was over, the beach party resumed and the bonfires raged. Despite Beck’s prior declaration that he was planning to toss back a lot of Schnapps that evening, he stopped drinking when we got back to the beach, and I enjoyed thinking this had something to do with me, and his desire to be functional when we got back to the bungalow later on.

Kamal’s friend Max, however, apparently had no such aspirations, and proceeded to become more noticeably shitfaced as the night progressed. He was not exactly pleasant when sober, so was definitely not a pleasant drunk, and I witnessed both Kamal and Travis at different times attempting to speak to him about toning it down, as he’d managed to piss off nearly every member of our group in one way or another since his arrival.

I had hoped that his earlier quip about Pippa being Pippi Longstocking’s slutty older sister was an aberration, but it proved to be a mere facet of his personality, and was only enhanced with each beer he sucked down his neck. He called Townsend ‘The Stay Puft Marshmallow Man’, told Laurie that she’d have a perfect body if her breasts were just a little bit fuller, and informed me twice that my legs were too thin for my upper body and that I should really start doing squats.

At one point Kamal came to me and apologized for his poor judgement in trying to set me up with Max, speculating that intoxication and my seeming rejection of him played a part in his behavior, and insisting that “he wasn’t like that” normally, which I found hard to believe. Either way, Kamal was sincerely apologetic, and acknowledged that perhaps he was not the best person to mentor my love life in the future. I told him not to worry about it, that it was the thought that counted, and I held nothing against him.

Beck was the only one spared the worst of Max’s drunken attacks, as the young man from Provincetown seemed to have fallen instantly in love with him. This of course came as no surprise to me, or Laurie, who reiterated that “everyone who meets Beck ends up loving him”, but it was awkward to watch. Beck handled it well, however, and remained polite in his gentle discouragement as Max slurringly told him how much he loved his smile, how hot he was, and tried multiple times to convince him to slip off into the dunes to make out with him.

I wasn’t bothered, as I knew Beck had been promised to me that night. And while Beck and I stayed in our own corners of the party, away from each other, I was encouraged every time our eyes met across the fire, the small, suggestive smiles he’d shoot my way when given the chance.

Eventually, after attempting unsuccessfully to dance in front of the band and falling down several times, Max found a spot on the sand outside our circle to sit alone and sulk as he continued to swill from his red plastic cup full of keg beer.

Because of Max’s seeming retreat from the socialization, I grew complacent and forgot all about him.

My bladder to the point of bursting, I excused myself and headed up toward the resort bar to hit the bathroom. I’d made it halfway there when Max stumbled up on the sand, blocking my way. “I wanna talk to you,” he announced drunkenly, pointing an accusatory finger in my face.

“Can it wait, Max?” I attempted a disarming smile. “I’ve just gotta hit the bathroom.”

“No it can’t wait,
Olsen
. Lemme tell you shumthing. I came down here thinking I was gonna get laid all night. But you jusss fucking...ignore me. S’fuckin’ rude, man. You’re fucking rude asshole, Olshen.”

“Max, buddy, I’m sorry you feel that way. I didn’t know you had any expectations from me. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Can I just go to the bathroom, please?”