Chapter Thirteen – Ruin the Friendship
Chapter Thirteen
Maisey
RUIN THE FRIENDSHIP
Performed by Taylor Swift
FOURTEEN YEARS AGO
HER: I’m down at the river with the bait. Where are you?
HIM: I’m not gonna make it.
HER: Oh. Okay. I’ll just let the worms go, then. What’s wrong?
HIM: Liza left.
HER: I didn’t know she was traveling again. When will she be back?
HIM: She won’t be back. She left us for good.
HER: What are you talking about? She’s marrying your dad. They’ve got the date set and everything.
HIM: She wanted to postpone it. Wanted to go build another damn school first. They argued. She left. And he told her if she walked out, not to bother coming back. She left anyway.
HER: Where are you? I’m coming over.
HIM: Don’t come. I’m not good company.
HER: Are you in the treehouse? I’ll be there in five minutes.
PRESENT DAY
Beckett Romero was a cheater. I repeated this to myself as I sputtered my way to the surface. I’d forgotten he could and would use any unfair advantage to win in a race. He didn’t even feel bad about it.
He was a no-good cheater. Too bad he was also a sexy-as-sin cheater.
I cursed to myself and cut through the water after him. His shoulders and back glistened in the sunshine as water streamed off him with each stroke. He had a swimmer’s body. All lean muscle with those wide, wide shoulders. Too attractive for his own good.
After throwing me behind him, he easily made it to the dogwood tree in our private little cove first. He would have likely beaten me even if he hadn’t cheated. My two-second head start hadn’t been enough for me to beat Fireball in a head-to-head race.
Vader raced along the shore, barking at us, trying to get us to join him on land, but Beckett was still in the water, watching me as I swam the last few feet to join him.
Satisfaction lit his face. I used both hands to send a wave of water over him, but it barely doused him.
He smiled at my pathetic attempt, that sinfully adorable dimple of his popping out.
“Is that the best you’ve got, darlin’?” he chuckled.
I used a Fallon ploy that she’d taught me ages ago and flipped onto my back, propelling my feet through the water to send a bigger splash in his direction. I kept kicking and kicking, even as Vader barked at me from the shore, and Beckett issued a warning.
Two seconds later, I was dragged under by an ankle before he let go.
I got a noseful of lake water and came up gasping.
Beckett laughed, completely pleased with himself.
So sure. I narrowed the distance and tried, hopelessly, to push him under.
He didn’t even budge. While I couldn’t stand with my head above water in most of this cove, Beckett could, and he had his feet planted in the silt and soil.
His arm banded my waist as I struggled to dunk him, drawing me closer, until my bikini-clad body was tucked up against his bare chest. We had far too much skin rubbing.
He’d wanted us to cool off, but all this did was kindle the aching need I always felt when we were this close.
Feelings I’d had since I’d been far too young to understand what the sudden woosh in my nether regions really meant.
“You owe me a meal. I do believe you touched me first,” he teased.
“Only after you grabbed me and threw me in the air, I think we’ll call this one a draw,” I said, shoving his shoulder again.
Beckett continued to laugh at my attempt to get away. “It’s like fighting off a gnat.”
Vader barked again, wagging his tail furiously before finally diving into the water as if he was afraid of missing out on all the fun.
“You’re such an egomaniac.” I smacked Beckett’s chest again.
Giving up, I stopped moving, letting our bodies settle against each other. Our lips nearly brushed, and his smile slipped. A sharp pulse of electricity wound through the space between us, making my skin tingle and my body hum. The heat felt almost visible, rising in waves and thickening the air.
Beckett’s focus stayed rooted on me. Something warm and curious flickered across his face as I inched our mouths closer until, at the last minute, I shifted sideways and bit his shoulder.
His reaction was instantaneous. A surprised grunt that had him loosening his hands.
I held my breath and sank below the surface.
My mind was full of payback, and I acted without fully thinking it through. I reached for his swim shorts and tugged them down, watching as they slipped over his hips and down to his knees.
For two seconds, the sight of him, naked under the water, made me wonder at both my bravery and my stupidity.
Made me wonder if I’d just made a colossal mistake.
Because he was long and hard and beautiful, even in the cool lake.
Enticing. My body ached to grab hold, just to hear him moan, to say my name in a breathy voice full of longing and desire.
I was two seconds away from doing just that when I finally pulled myself together, flipped over like the mermaid I used to pretend to be, and raced for the rocky shoreline on the opposite side of the cove.
I kept below the surface until my lungs burned.
I broke out only to inhale another deep breath before diving under again.
When I reached the boulders that circled the cove, the lake was still at my waist, and I had to use all my muscles to pull myself up and out.
From behind me, I heard Beckett cussing and splashing, and it allowed the humor and lightness to seep back into me. I’d taken him by surprise far more than I’d surprised myself.
When I’d clambered to safety atop the rocks, I turned to find him rising out of the water. The rippling waves danced around his hips, hiding his bottom half as Vader paddled around him with a stick he’d found in his mouth.
I grinned at Beckett, knowing I looked like a loon but proud that I’d finally gotten one over on him. But then, the expression on his face tore the breath from my body.
Lust. Desire. Pure need.
Damn, did I want that to be mine.
He hooked his finger, demanding I come back into the water. “Come here, you little pantser.”
I laughed, shaking my head. Water went flying from my drenched hair.
I was sure I looked like a wet rat with the strands plastered to my face, emphasizing all my flaws and scars, but I didn’t care.
How could I, when the tension flying between us was so delightful?
When it felt like Beckett had finally acknowledged the desire as much as I had.
There was joy to be found in that simple notion.
Joy and a niggle of Hope that would surely leave me scorched.
“You playing chicken, my Maisey-girl? Never knew you to be a chicken.”
He was wrong. Oh, so wrong. I’d been a chicken so many times in my life, but he and Fallon had always chosen to see the moments when I was pretending to be brave as the real me.
Beckett’s hair glimmered in the sunshine, his dark strands lit by fiery highlights, and those dark-chocolate eyes remained centered wholly and delightfully on me.
He took a couple of steps, water pouring off him as he came closer and accentuating every cut and groove.
The swim trunks he’d pulled back up were now clinging to him, showing off rather than hiding his impressive package.
A package that was still as hard as it had been when my body had been tucked up against it.
“You look a bit uncomfortable there, Fireball. I think you’d better step back into the water and…cool off.”
A wicked mischievousness curled his lips, making me want to wipe it away with my mouth pressed against his.
“Just remember, you started this, darlin’. One good prank deserves another.”
My chest fluttered and swooped. The firefighters at Beckett’s station were famous for pulling pranks on one another, and once prank season started, it went on for months before anyone called a truce. Beckett was the reigning King of Pranks. The top dog. The ultimate champ.
And now that I was living with him, he’d have easy access to me.
“Harmless. What I did was utterly harmless,” I tried to backpedal, but it only caused his teeth to flash and a spark to enter his eyes. “No big deal. You weren’t even embarrassed by it. No one saw anything.” I waved toward the trees hiding us from the crowded beach.
“But now you’ve seen far more of me than I’ve seen of you,” he said. “It’s like that episode of Friends. The one where everyone is trying to see each other in the shower, and they keep getting the wrong person until it spins out of control. Except, it’s just you and me in the house.”
“And my dad. Are you going to rip the shower curtain back and see my dad in all his glory?” I couldn’t even think it without my gag reflex kicking in.
“Small risk for a chance at payback,” he said, dragging his gaze down my body, and even though my bathing suit covered all the necessary spots, I suddenly felt very, very bare.
My thighs trembled, and my throat nearly closed. How many times in my life had I envisioned being naked with Beckett’s eyes on me? How many times had I read a book and seen him as the hero and me as the heroine and lived out my fantasies through their actions?
Too many to count. Too many to be healthy.
That was when reality slid home, as if I’d been slapped.
What had I been thinking? We were just friends.
That was all Beckett would ever want, regardless of how he was looking at me now.
Even if he’d started to see me as someone desirable, someone he wanted to get sweaty and naked with, it wouldn’t end with a real ring on my finger.
And I wanted more than heated looks and a sinful night spent twined in his sheets.
I dreamed of a happily ever after. I wasn’t ridiculous enough to think life was like my romance books, but I did deserve someone who actually wanted to love me—who wanted love at all—and Beckett held it off with a superpower-like strength.