Chapter 7 #2
“Are you sure we can’t head down to the equipment shed? Do some more drills or something? I hate to waste practice time.”
It could never be said that Sarah didn’t take her tutelage seriously.
Beckett had never enjoyed teaching someone as much as he’d enjoyed teaching her.
She was bright, interested, always attentive.
And he sure as hell wasn’t going to complain about getting to put his hands on her at every available private opportunity—many of which he’d gone out of his way to orchestrate.
“Honey, you’ve conquered Boulder Mountain and passed every demonstration and oral quiz I’ve thrown at you.” She had, in fact, excelled at every single challenge he’d come up with. She was a natural. “You’ve earned a break. C’mere.” Beckett patted the bed beside him.
With one last glance out at the rain, Sarah slipped off her sandals and flopped down on the mattress, frowning.
“That is not the expression of a woman happy to be in my bed.”
Her lip quirked into a half smile as she gave him the side eye. “I’m sorry. I just can’t settle. I’m worried about the certification.”
Beckett stroked a hand down her arm and laced his fingers with hers. “You’re not the one who has to take the test.” It was as much a reminder for himself as for her.
He didn’t want to think about the fact that he’d be spending the summer seeing a woman with her face who wasn’t her.
In between all their staff duties and training sessions, they’d talked endlessly about everything under the sun.
The intensive one-on-one time had done nothing to dim his interest or diminish his certainty that there was really something here with this woman.
And in less than a week she’d be walking away.
“Yeah, but I’m in it now. I have to finish the training, have to be ready.”
“Just in case?”
On a sigh, she rolled toward him, snuggling against his chest. “Mostly just to prove that I can be.”
“Because everything’s a competition.”
Sarah hummed in agreement and slipped a hand under the edge of his T-shirt, tracing little patterns on his side.
Beckett tightened his arms around her. He couldn’t wrap his head around that worldview. “Does it come from being a twin? This competitive streak? Were you and Taryn always trying to outdo each other growing up?”
“Some. But a lot of times, the competition is with myself.”
He tipped his head down to study her. “What are you trying to prove?”
She considered the question. “I don’t know. When I was younger, I think some of it was to prove that I wasn’t like Taryn. That I could stick things out, finish stuff. Then I guess I got addicted to winning. I like knowing I can push myself to do better, be better.”
“Admirable,” he conceded. “But exhausting, I’d think.”
“Sometimes.”
“I think there’s a place for competition and sticktoitiveness.
But it’s not everything. Some things shouldn’t be finished.
Fights. Brussels sprouts. Things that don’t make you happy.
” Beckett shifted her closer and rolled so she stretched out atop him, pleased when she dropped her knees to either side of his hips.
Maybe they’d get to some of those horizontal activities after all.
Sarah folded her hands across his chest and propped her chin on them. “Didn’t it bug you? Walking away from your MBA, when you were so close to done?”
He didn’t even hesitate. “No.”
“Really? I mean, you were that close to done. Why not finish? That was a very expensive lesson. There’s not really any other point in an MBA.”
He shrugged. “Yeah, but the debt was already racked up. I was never gonna go into corporate to help pay it off because it just wasn’t gonna make me happy and would have done serious damage to my mental health.
Having the degree wasn’t going to do me any good, and I wasn’t racking up additional debt by leaving. ”
“But if you’d stayed and finished, you would have at least had the degree in your back pocket, just in case. Because sometimes it’s not about what degree you have. It’s about having degrees. Proving that you can finish things.”
And they were back to this again.
“Sometimes. But that’s totally sunk cost fallacy.
That somehow continuing on the wrong path is justified because of the existing investment in time and money.
But that doesn’t make it less wrong in the end.
” He absently stroked the soft skin of her thighs.
“In any case, I don’t think I’d have realized that an MBA and that whole corporate thing wasn’t for me without doing it.
So in that sense, it wasn’t a waste. I loved working for the National Park Service. ”
Sympathy shone in those big, doe eyes. “I’m sorry things turned out like they did.”
It was harder to feel that way himself when he was here with her.
“Eh, it’s a hard job. Harder than most people realize.
People think it’s all hiking and climbing and doing fun outdoors stuff.
It’s also rescues and being law enforcement and dealing with deaths and drugs and a million other things that happen under the surface, behind the scenes.
I was headed toward burning out there, too.
” Another three years, maybe five, he’d have been ready to move on.
“So now what?”
“I don’t know. That’s what I’m here to figure out this summer.” But it had been her occupying his thoughts, instead.
He’d been wracking his brain for days, trying to figure out the best way to convince her that they should pursue this.
Hell, he’d even gone so far as to wonder what the hell kind of a job he could get in New York after summer was over.
Would being in the concrete jungle for a prolonged period kill him?
Would all that be worth enduring for the chance to see where this thing between them could go?
The irony that he was considering making major changes to his life because of a woman wasn’t lost on him.
Sarah wasn’t even his girlfriend. She’d made him no promises beyond this week.
They were in a situationship, he supposed.
Yet he hadn’t felt this much for the woman he’d asked to move across the country with him.
So how could he let her just walk away without trying for more?
Sarah sighed, her chest rising and falling against his. “I envy that. Having time to breathe, to think.”
Beckett tucked a lock of her blonde hair behind her ear. “You could take the time.” He wanted her to take it. He wanted her to take it here, enough that he was prepared to talk to Michael about hiring her on. But that was getting ahead of things.
“I have a very tight schedule to finish my thesis.” She said it with the ease of a well-rehearsed excuse.
“The thesis for the degree you’re not sure you like, to go on to the PhD you aren’t sure you want.”
Her expression turned mulish, and he knew he’d probably pushed too far. But there was so little time to convince her.
“I’m just saying—that’s a lot of years to invest in something you’re not passionate about.
” The idea of it made him shudder. Being trapped like that would kill him.
Sarah wasn’t him, but he could see the cost down the road of her stubborn insistence about finishing what she started.
“What’s the worst that could happen if you took the time to make sure it’s what you really want? ”
“If I don’t roll on into the PhD program this fall, I might not get in. I might miss my chance.”
Was it an epic case of FOMO or fear of the real world?
“Did it ever occur to you that if you took the time and didn’t get in after this, that maybe you’re supposed to do something else?”
“What? Like fate or God intervening?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I just think the universe tends to set us on the right path, if we’re paying attention. But it’s easy to get distracted by other stuff instead of listening.”
“And you’re here to listen this summer.”
“That’s the plan.”
She frowned, clearly flummoxed by the idea. “How do you deal with not knowing what comes next?”
“I’ve learned patience.” Though she was testing it. He’d been listening all week and knew what he thought was next, at least with her. But she wasn’t on the same page. Not yet anyway. And he had limited time to convince her.
“Patience is not my strong suit,” she admitted.
He’d pushed her far enough for one day. “Then how about distraction instead?” He stroked his hands higher up her thighs, beneath the hem of her shorts.
Sarah hummed low in her throat and wiggled in a way that had the blood draining out of his head. “I think I can get behind this kind of distraction. Except for the fact that your roommate could come back at any moment.”
“There’s considerable entertainment to be had without losing a stitch of clothing.” He maybe hadn’t engaged in any of it since college, but he’d take what he could get. Curving his hands around the firm cheeks of her perfect ass, he grinned at her. “How do you feel about baseball?”