CHAPTER 7 BEN
I’m pacing in the kitchen when Kaylee finds me. My heart still thumps loudly in my chest but the rushing buzz in my brain has calmed.
I want nothing to do with marriage or engagements or commitment. I don’t even like attending weddings when they’re for other people.
And now Ellie thinks Kaylee and I need to get married to continue this charade? I wasn’t even on board for the girlfriend idea. The only reason I agreed was to get Calvin off my back. It has nothing to do with Kaylee’s magical pussy.
And the only reason I’d even consider continuing with it after this first Billy Peters hiccup is because of the charity idea and what kind of impact we could have on kids and future athletics.
Together, Kaylee and I could raise a ton of cash, and I’m also helping out the little sister of a buddy by getting her out of a career she can’t stand and laying out a new one for her. But she needs my help for that.
I even like the competition idea she came up with. It doesn’t matter who wins it in the end since the goal is to raise money for a cause, but I’m highly competitive by nature. I want to win—probably as much, if not more, than she does.
And the thing that scared me maybe most of all when Ellie mentioned an engagement or marriage to Kaylee Dalton was the first thought that flashed through my mind before the fear stepped in.
I don’t want to think it again.
I can’t.
It’s not me, and it’s not where I ever saw my life headed—real or pretend.
And yet…
I draw in a deep breath as I try to calm my racing heart.
I didn’t hate the idea as much as I felt like I needed to act like I did. As much as I still feel the need to act like I do.
The thought of Kaylee in a white dress walking down the aisle toward me, of a honeymoon spent mostly naked, of a future where she’s taking the lead over a fitness class for kids at my gym, of her wrapped like a vine around my body every night as we fall asleep together as husbands and wives do…
all that should scare me. Instead it does something else to me.
And that is what’s so goddamn terrifying about all this.
“You okay?” Kaylee asks cautiously.
I blow out a breath as I pause my pacing to face the windows. I stare out at Luke and Ellie’s backyard. It’s a family yard filled with kid toys that probably weren’t there before little Nolan came along but are certainly center stage now.
Marriage, kids…it’s all a universe I’ve never wanted any part of. I think back to when I was a kid and my parents were fighting all the time. I was ten, old enough to understand what was going on, and listening to them was enough to turn me off to ever wanting that for myself.
And then Tatum came along.
She convinced me over time that I did want that, though the gift of hindsight tells a different story. The truth is that she wanted it, and she convinced me I did, too.
But I never really did…not until a blue-eyed girl turned into a woman I can’t stop thinking about. And it’s not just her ass I can’t stop thinking about, though that does take up more than its fair share of real estate in my brain.
She’s beautiful, yes. Hot as fuck too.
But she’s smart. She’s funny. She’s kind. She puts her family first. She’s caring and, like me, wants to make a difference in her short time in this world, but she can be a shark when she wants to be, or a firecracker, or a fucking tiger.
And for as much as I tried to convince myself feelings wouldn’t get involved…they’re involved.
There are a whole lot of implications that go along with that admission, though, which is why I need to keep it close to the vest. I need to work my way through it so we can focus on the deal we made.
“Yeah,” I grunt. “I’m fine.” I turn to face her, and she doesn’t have quite the same look of terror in her eyes that I’m feeling, but she doesn’t exactly look calm, either. “What are your thoughts on their idea?”
She shrugs. “Honestly my mind went to the charity first. Imagine the sponsorship opportunities for both of us if we’re planning a wedding.” She air quotes planning a wedding as if that lessens the weight of the words. It doesn’t.
“There are other ways to make money,” I say flatly.
She walks across the room until she’s standing beside me, and she looks out over the yard. I turn to look at the view, too. “Yeah, there are. And there’s an awful lot about all this that goes against everything I believe in. But I don’t want to give up on this plan yet. Do you?”
I focus on a bush clear across the yard.
I don’t know what it’s called, nor do I care.
It’s some round bush with pink flowers all over it, and that’s the type of shit husbands and fathers know.
If I asked Luke, I’m sure he’d come in with the title and its complete life cycle along with the exact amount of daily water it requires to flourish.
That’s not shit I want to know. Ever.
And while I’ve admitted to myself that the place where I’m currently located in life isn’t where I belong for very much longer, the dad who knows the name of every plant in his backyard isn’t where I’m taking my life next.
But as I glance down at Kaylee, I can’t help but wonder whether she has the power to flip everything I ever believed on its head.
Maybe she knows the names of the plants and I won’t have to learn them.
Maybe that’s what a true partnership really is—allowing each of us to have our own strengths so that together we can hold onto each other and face this world.
Maybe she’s the piece that’s been missing all this time as I’ve settled into a life on my own and tried to become everything to everybody while I’ve lost sight of what I might actually need to make myself whole.
“What’s that bush called?” I ask, pointing to the one I’ve been studying by way of experimentation. If she doesn’t know the answer, then maybe all these random thoughts I’m having can just be shoved back into the dark recesses where they came from.
But if she does…then maybe she’s that piece I didn’t know I was missing.
“Dwarf oleander.” Her words come without missing a single beat.
Oh shit.
I am so fucked.