13. Chapter 12 #2
"I was going to ask you the same thing."
He sends a ball sailing up the ramp. It drops clean into the fifty-point ring. Showoff.
"Well, I don't know. Is there anything I should know?" He turns to look at me, like he's waiting for an answer he already knows.
Oh God.
Does he mean the deadline Colin quietly moved up without telling anyone? The one maybe three people in the entire building know about? Or is this just Beck fishing for a compliment, the way he fishes for everything?
Either way, my stomach drops a little.
He knows I'm holding something back. Doesn't he?
I can see it in the way his face just fell, the way his gaze lingered for half a second. He's reading me the same way I'm reading him, and whatever he's finding, he's choosing not to push.
I think about lunch with Zoey the other day, how she'd just asked him to do things, and Beck had just said yeah, sure.
No negotiation. Just instant compliance. Like his plans didn't exist until someone else drew them up for him.
And that is the thing that makes me feel like the world's biggest bitch.
Because I've seen this before.
I think about the way he talks about Declan.
Always with that edge of humor that's a little too sharp to be funny.
The way he mentions Mason's opinions like they carry more weight than his own.
The way every Morrison story he tells seems to have Beck in the background, reacting to someone else's decision.
He never pushes back.
On anything. Or anyone.
And now here I am, sitting on information that directly affects his career, his future, his entire life… and I've just told him we're not talking about it tonight.
Am I doing the same thing?
Am I just the latest person in a long line of people who decide things for Beck and call it kindness?
"You've seen ESPN?" I ask, because it's easier than admitting what I actually know.
His mouth twitches. "Finn mentioned something in the locker room tonight. Something about three teams sniffing around, apparently. Very flattering. Very stressful."
He says it light, easy. And of course, that just makes the guilt land even harder.
Professionally, I should tell him. That's the job.
That's always been the job.
But I don't want to be the woman who brings a trade deadline to the pier.
Not tonight.
"Fine. No hockey chat. It's off the cards tonight."
"Great."
We move to the basketball hoops, where he destroys me so thoroughly that a small crowd forms, then to the balloon darts, where I discover I have a vicious streak I did not know existed.
There's an air hockey table that nearly ends the entire evening, and at some point during a racing car game, he leans his whole body into every turn and I laugh so hard I drive us both off a cliff.
It's fun.
And somewhere in the middle of all of it, I stop noticing how wherever we move, his hand is on my back, guiding me through the crowds. I stop noticing that I've started grabbing his arm every time I laugh.
I've stopped noticing how easy Beck makes all of this.
At the ring toss, he elbows past a kid to grab the last set of rings, and fails so miserably even the attendant doesn't make eye contact with him.
"He cheated."
"Good. You elbowed a twelve-year-old out of the way to play that game. You deserve the loss."
"He entered a competitive environment unprepared." Beck hands the kid a twenty and signs his hat, which the kid seems to consider a fair trade. "See? Everybody wins."
Beck hooks two fingers through my belt loop and steers me away before the attendant can formally ban him from ring toss for life.
Somehow, we end up at another skee-ball game.
He feeds the machine more tokens, and hands me a ball. "So. Let's talk about you."
"Oh. I didn't agree to that. "
"Too late." He watches me line up my throw, standing close enough that I can smell his cologne. "For instance. The pool the other morning."
My ball bounces off the rim and rolls into the gutter. "What about it?"
"Darcy."
"What."
"When I had my hand on your neck—" His voice drops, just enough that the family at the next bank of machines over couldn't hear. "—you grabbed it. I felt you pull it tighter."
Heat floods my cheeks so fast I'm amazed the token booth kid doesn't call the fire department.
"And at your desk last week, when I told you to look at me." He rolls another ball. Another fifty. No wonder he game back to this game. "You didn't argue, didn't roll your eyes, just… did it." His gaze slides to mine. "So I'm curious. What does Darcy Madden like?"
The honest answer is...
I don't know.
I've had sex. Plenty of it. Polite, scheduled, performed-correctly sex with men who treated my body the way I treat everything—efficiently, accurately, and without much creativity.
But nobody has ever put their hand on my throat.
Nobody has ever told me what to do in a voice that made me want to obey.
Nobody ever stood in a closed café in a leather harness and looked at the woman he loved like she was the most interesting thing in the room, despite who was there to witness it.
I've never had that kind of passion.
I don't even know what I'd ask for if someone gave me the chance.
"I think," I say carefully, rolling my next ball—thirty points, respectable—"that I've spent a lot of time being good at things. And not a lot of time figuring out what I actually want."
Beck rolls the final ball between his palms, but instead of taking his shot, he looks at me.
"Fair enough." He bumps his shoulder against mine. "We'll figure it out."
We?
He abandons skee-ball and drifts farther down the pier. I follow like the good girl that I am.
Oh God.
What is this man doing to me?
The wood gets older and more worn out the further we walk, with the old boards creaking under our feet.
The sound of the waves crashing against the pilings vibrates up through my heels, and eventually, Beck pauses at the railing near the fishermen's section, both hands curled around the weathered metal.
His facial expression tightens for half a second. So quick I'd miss it if I weren't already watching.
"This is where you were," I say quietly. "When the livestream happened."
"Yep. Right about here."
"And yet, you still come out here?"
"Sometimes." He shrugs, running his thumb over the worn railing.
"Usually when I need to think. It's weird, I guess.
This is where everything went to shit, but it's quiet out here.
Nobody's asking me anything. Nobody's telling me what I should do next.
" His mouth pulls into a small smile. "Just me, the ocean and a bunch of old guys who take fishing way too fucking seriously. "
I look toward the empty stretch at the end of the pier. "So this is where Beck Morrison comes when he wants to disappear?"
"Pretty much." His eyes find mine. "Don't tell anyone. I'm creating an air of mystery."
He stares at the dark water for a moment, then turns back to me with something softer in his expression.
"Look at me, huh. A bad game, complicated family, career hanging by a thread. And yet, I'm still having a good time tonight."
"Yep. By every metric I understand, you should be miserable, Beck." I step closer, letting my hands fall on his chest. "How are you doing this?"