There’s a speckling of blood on the blanket. Not enough for me to want to call an ambulance, but enough for me to know that it is quite possible that I’ve broken her in the most irreparable way.
I’ve fucked a lot of girls. Some, I’m sure, have regretted ever slapping skin with me. None of them, however, have had their innocence taken by me. Until her.
I wrap my arms around Beth because despite our beginnings, she’s mine to protect. As I pull her body closer to mine, I find myself thinking just how differently this entire day could have turned out had it not been for her. How differently it should have turned out, in a lot of ways.
Like a fool, I had entered this deal thinking she stood to benefit the most from our arrangement when, in reality, she has already given me more than my money could ever buy. A whiff of freedom, a taste of happiness, the glimpse of someone who genuinely cares. I don’t understand any of it. And honestly, right now, I’m not sure I want to. As I look over at the woman next to me, all I can think about is how seldom loneliness has been able to find me ever since she’s entered my world.
I kiss her forehead just because I can. There’s a part of me that is so fucking afraid of what we’re doing here. In principle, what we had agreed to was easy to follow through with – money in exchange for lies. Now, we’re well beyond that and there’s no questioning whether or not someone will get hurt. The thing is, selfish as I’m known to be, I really fucking hope it’s me who ends up getting the short end of the stick.
“What was that for?” Beth asks, brushing a finger over the spot I kissed. Her eyes are still closed, which makes it a lot easier to answer honestly.
“For being on my side…”
She laughs a little, trying to be dismissive, but now’s not the time.
“Don’t do that,” I say, my voice almost too stern. I take a deep breath in an attempt to settle my nerves. “Sooner or later, I’ll fuck things up, Beth. So, at least allow me to say thank you before you hate me.”
She frowns. “That’s not very optimistic.”
I arch a brow at her before going for a different angle. “I’m good at being the enemy.”
“I guess that’s a little more on the side of optimism, but still not what I was going for.” She says the words softly, urgingly.
I shake my head, denying her request to be let in, to be open with her, to believe that somewhere in between this mess we’ve found ourselves in is something beautiful. Something that can last. She’s wrong on a lot of fronts. People like me, we only get spurts of happiness, never the full forever after.
Instead of pushing the subject, Beth bundles the blanket around her and hops off the bed. Traveling on her tiptoes, she moves over to the sofa and plucks my coat into her hands.
“We’re going to play Collin’s game,” she says, brandishing the paper he’d given us.
“And what’s in it for the winner?”
“One of us gets to stay in the country. The other doesn’t go to jail.”
“Boring.”
“Really?” she laughs. “Is that why you’re always doing those boring things that have a high probability of landing you behind bars.”
She has a point. Still, it’s not the point I want. I hook my thumb under the blanket and steal a peek at her breasts. “Those look like a pretty decent prize.”
Beth swats my hand away, but there’s no missing the blush reddening her cheeks. “Seriously, Maverick!”
“More than you could ever imagine.”
With one hand gripping the blanket for dear life and the other holding the paper in front of her, Beth tries to move as far away from my tangent as possible.
I hold my hands up in a surrender. “Fine.”
“Fine,” she agrees.
“But if I win this, I’m claiming my prize.” I whisper the words, not quietly enough for them to miss her and wink before snatching the paper from her hand and scanning the list of questions Collin prepared for us. “Let’s start with the simple stuff. What’s my favorite food?”
“Beer.”
“Wrong.”
“Favorite sport.”
“Do I need to answer that?”
“Wrong.”
She crosses her arms over her chest and pouts up at me. “That wasn’t an answer. I want my point back.”
“Fine. Answer the question.”
“Hockey.”
I shake my head at her, and she rolls her eyes. “Hockey is your favorite sport,” she insists. “You’re cheating.”
“Hockey was my favorite sport…until I fucked you. So yeah…wrong.”
She blushes crimson red and my cock jumps, loving the embarrassed look on her. Silently, I tell it to stand down. One way or the other, I’m gonna win this game, anyways.
“What’s my favorite color.”
“Uhm, pink?” she giggles. It’s like she really wants me to pin her to the headboard right here and now.
“That’s another point for me. You’re not taking this serious.” I poke her side and she wiggles.
“Okay. Okay. Your favorite color’s olive green.”
I didn’t see that one coming and try as I might, I can’t keep the shock out of my face. “What makes you say that?”
She points to my wristband, then the cushions on the sofa and the accent wall behind the T.V.
“Just a hunch.”
“Okay. Fine. That one was a giveaway. Where was I born?”
“You sir, were born in Haslemere, U.K.”
“How the hell do you know that?” I ask, completely baffled by her accuracy. When she doesn’t respond I feel my stomach tighten.
I know exactly how she knows.
“Well...it appears you lied to Collin. You do know quite a bit about me.”
“I didn’t lie. There are things I know about you, but I didn’t know at the time that they were about you.” She pauses as though weighing her words and I brace myself for whatever comes next. “Your mom…she talked about you a lot,” she whispers, and I close my eyes.
Beth’s hand finds mine and it takes me way too long to bring steel back to my expressions. “I’m sorry,” Beth says. “I’ve upset you. I shouldn’t have-”
I shake my head at her. There’s no reason in the world she should feel guilty about remembering my mother.
“No,” I assure her, “I’m not upset. It’s just that…you have all these memories of her and I’ve got pieces of nothingness that I struggle to put back together.”
Beth swallows and despite her trying to hide it, I still spot the sadness in her eyes.
“But now I have you,” I say. “And you’ve got some of the missing pieces. To think I spent all of that time pushing you away -”
“And to think I spent all of that time thinking we were friends.”
I raise a brow at her. “Friends?”
“Your mom was always telling me about you - her little firecracker with a big mouth and a heart of gold. To me, you were already my friend; I just hadn’t met you yet.”
I smile at her words, but even then, I can’t dodge the feeling of salt being poured into a freshly opened wound.