Love Emerged (19 page)

Marge’s smile is contagious, and I’m soon laughing, dipping her and spinning her around the floor. I catch Bea a few times, her permanent smile only growing wider the longer the song goes on for.

The song comes to a close, and I’m a little disappointed because being in the center of a horseshoe ring full of people reminds me of my mom. The last time Pitbull says, “Fireball,” Marge jumps into my unexpected arms. As I try to hold her up without grabbing her ass, I lose my footing and collapse to the ground with Marge completely sprawled on top of me.

The crowd silences, but Bea’s laugh vibrates off the crystal chandeliers.

“I’m so sorry,” I say, biting my lip to stop my own laugh.

“Nonsense.” She rolls off me.

I immediately stand on my feet, offering her a hand.

She slowly rolls to all fours and then ever so slowly rises to her feet.

Her two hands grip the cheeks of my face. “Thank you. I haven’t had that much fun since Gilbert died.”

She brands my cheek with her pink lips, and I smile.

“You’re welcome.”

“Okay, folks, let’s slow it down again. I think we all need to slow our heart rate,” the DJ says.

Marge flips him off.

“Now, I suggest the two of you leave since my new granddaughter is a real bitch.”

My eyes search out the bride, standing with her arms crossed, on the edge of the dance floor.

“Thanks for crashing the party though.” She winks and turns around to divert the bride while I get Bea.

Not saying a word, I grab Bea’s hand and pull her toward the exit. I walk us toward the elevator, but Bea stops us at the hotel bar.

“I swear, that bride was going to bite our heads off,” I tell her, urging her to ditch the alcohol because we can order room service.

“Oh, please, I could have taken her.” The cocky Bea is back in place.

Immediately, the bartender comes over since it seems like a quiet Saturday night for him.

“A bottle of Jack Daniel’s, please,” Bea requests.

The bartender tilts his head. “A bottle?”

“Yes, a bottle,” she repeats. “You can bill my room.”

He nods, grabbing a set of keys to unlock a cabinet. Setting the bottle on the bar top he scribbles something down.

“Oh, can you give us two shot glasses?”

He holds his hands up in the air. “I’m sorry. I can’t give out the glassware.” He puts the sheet of paper for Bea’s signature down in front of her.

“Okay, I understand.” She accepts his refusal, way too amiable while she scribbles her signature. She hands me the bottle.

“You two have a good night.” He winks at me, assuming I’m getting lucky.

A group of four women sit down at the opposite side of the bar, and he maneuvers down to handle them. At the same time he’s busy, Bea steps up onto the barstool, showing me a glimpse of her pink thong peeking out from the bottom of her short sundress. She reaches over, grabs two shot glasses, and falls back down to the floor at the same time the bartender glances back. His eyes stay on us, and Bea hides the glasses behind her back, trying to be as nonchalant as possible.

“Thanks, buddy.” I raise the bottle, and he nods.

I step up to Bea, hiding her from his visual sight. “Put them in my pants pockets,” I whisper right before I swing my arms around her waist.

When my lips land on hers, she sucks in a breath, and it takes her a minute to remember she has a task to complete. Then, she slides each glass into the pocket of my slacks, and as much as I don’t want to end the kiss, we need to leave. I pull back, and her chest heaves from the unexpected act.

“Let’s go.” I nod my head toward the exit to the side where the bartender won’t see the glasses lodged in my pants.

We escape the clueless bartender and are in the elevator within seconds.

Bea’s back lands on the wall of the elevator, and she starts laughing hysterically. Hearing her enjoyment spurs my own laughter, and soon, we’re two fools in an elevator, laughing about crashing a wedding, Marge falling on top of me, and stealing two shot glasses.

“Did he really think I wasn’t about to steal the glasses? I mean, come on.”

I catch my breath. “Yeah, he learned his lesson for being a moron.”

The elevator dings, and I realize I never hit a button, but we’re on my floor.

Bea snatches the bottle from my grip. She saunters out of the elevator with the bottle high in her hands. “You ready to play a game?”

I rub my palm down my face. “Not really, but I don’t have a choice, do I?”

I follow her, watching her tight ass swing from side to side in exaggeration. All I can hope for is that my secrets will be enough to keep our drunken asses off each other.

We enter my room, sober, sitting across from each other at the same table for two that overlooks the nightlife of Chicago. I dig out the shot glasses from my slacks and undo the top two buttons on my dress shirt.

“Whoa. We aren’t playing strip poker,” Bea says.

I shake my head.

“Yet.” She winks.

I chuckle although I’d play with her even if it endangered my position with Deacon at this point.

She pours the two shots, sliding one my way.

“How exactly is this going to be played?” I’m fairly sure, after a few rounds, I won’t remember where I am, let alone my childhood secrets.

“I’m going to assume a fact, and if I’m wrong, I drink. Same way for you. You continue until you guess wrong. So, I’ll start because I’m awesome, and I know all your dirty secrets.” She wiggles her finger at me in a slow circle.

“Did you make this game up just now?”

She laughs and nods. “Yep.”

“Nice,” I say.

“Were you a nerd in high school?”

“Yes.”

She looks me up and down, looking for another truth of my past. “You didn’t have a ton of friends?”

“Nope.”

“Yes. I told you, I’m awesome at this.” She pretends to pat herself on the back. “You got your first tattoo your freshman year of college.”

I slowly shake my head. “Nope. Drink up.”

She tips back the shot glass and downs it. “Damn, I thought for sure you were the wild one once you got out from under your mom’s thumb.”

“I didn’t have to pry myself out from under my mother’s thumb. I got my first tattoo my junior year and quickly became addicted to them.”

She nods. “Interesting.”

I rub my palms together, looking her over. “You were Miss Popularity in high school?”

“Yes—at least, before I moved.”

“You never had one true friend until Piper?”

Her eyes glance down for a second, and when they pop back up, I wish I’d asked another question. “No.”

“You’ve never felt loved?”

She stares at me, hard and determined. “The game is supposed to be fun, Dylan. Fun questions, like losing virginity and things. Not this bullshit heavy crap.” She pours herself another shot and downs it.

“I’m sorry. I just want to know about you.”

“I was telling you things. You know I was a swimmer, I’m best friends with Piper, I work at Deacon—”

“That shit is superficial. I want to know you—what you’ve been through, what haunts you, what brings you happiness.” I pour myself another shot just to calm myself because, by me wanting these things, I have to admit to myself that I want a relationship with her.

She shakes her head. “You are impossible, you know that? Why can’t you just let me be?”

“What kind of life are you living by being fake all the time? Putting on this tough act when, down deep, you’re hurting? I can’t sit back and let you ignore it.”

She stands up, moving toward the door to bolt, but I catch up and lock my arms around her.

“Dylan, stop. Not tonight.”

“Not ever, if you had your way. I’ll start, okay? I’ll tell you every embarrassing thing in my life, but you have to do the same. When we leave this room, we’ll both be free of our demons. Got it?”

She turns around in my arms. “Why? Why do you want to know this?”

“Because I care about you.”

She rolls her eyes. “You don’t. You’re just a fix-it guy. A guy who thinks he can put everything back together.”

I grab her hand, ignoring her comments because I’m still confused as to why I want to make sure she’s okay. To clear her from her haunting fright. I’m still figuring it out myself.

When I sit down on the bed, she follows, swinging her legs up and crossing them.

“Okay, but I’m going to need some alcohol,” she says.

I grab two glasses, fill them up half with Jack, and hand her one.

Second-guessing my original idea of sitting on the bed with her, I pull a chair over and set it in front of her with my feet extending onto the bed. She slightly scoots back, preparing herself.

“I was diagnosed with ADD when I was little. My attention was for shit, and luckily, my mom saw the signs. She tried to put me in swimming, thinking I could channel my attention to it, but it didn’t work. For about a year, she worked with me on her own, filling my days with anything that resulted in me sitting down and focusing.”

I take a sip of my drink while Bea intently listens.

“The model cars and planes was the success. Suddenly, I could calm my brain by putting them together. So, when my mind starts going wacky or I can’t seem to concentrate on any one task, I put together a model. It works, so that’s why I was who I was in high school. I was a loner, except for a few close friends that I met at camps. They, too, had forms of ADD and ADHD.”

She nods. “I think it’s cool that your mom fought that hard for you.”

“I know. I owe her. The same with dancing. She used dancing as a way for me to concentrate on the steps and keep my mind focused. She’s a great mom.” The minute I say that sentence, my heart hurts for Bea. I can’t imagine growing up without my mom, and Bea practically did.

“Do you still have problems with it?”

“A little. My psychologist says some people grow out of it in their twenties, and I don’t know if that’s the case, but it’s not as difficult as it once was. Plus, I know ways to deal with it all. There are still days I stop at a store and pick-up a model.”

She nods, taking a sip of her drink. “Thank you for sharing that with me.”

“You’re welcome. Now, it’s your turn,” I urge her on.

Her legs go from crossed to straight and back to crossed. Her drink moves from one hand to the other. “Okay, well . . .”

Bea

HOW DOES DYLAN THINK THAT
his loving mom who got him through the challenges of his ADD is comparable to my distressing childhood?

But he did trust me with something he probably keeps close to him and from others.

“My parents were separated by the time I was a year old. My dad didn’t really want me. At least, that’s what my mom says. I believed her for a long time until I grew up, and now, I don’t know if I do.”

“Have you ever asked?”

I straighten my legs out in front of me, taking a gulp of my drink. “No. It’s pointless because, even if it were true, my dad would deny it. My mom’s been married seven times—all billionaires, all bringing their own baggage. After my mom’s second marriage to Benjamin Lloyd, ‘the international businessman’”—I put my fingers in quotes because that’s how my mom always referred to him—“he said having me around was too hard, so my mom dropped me off at my grandma’s in Iowa. I lived with her until she fell ill and died. At nine, I hardly saw either of my parents, but someone had to be responsible for me. My mom was on her third marriage at that point, and luckily, the man had kids of his own. Derek Bishop, the owner of a tech company, had had a happy family until his wife died in a car accident, leaving him a widower with four kids.”

Dylan stands up and brings the bottle over to refill both our glasses. He goes back to his chair, and I hate this feeling, like I’m talking to a psychologist all over again.

“Can you sit on the bed? You don’t have to be right next to me. I just don’t like you being across from me. Reminds me of my therapy days.”

He says nothing but gets up and sits down on the bed, leaning his back to the headboard.

“So, Derek was really nice, and because of his long hours, he had two nannies for his children. It was the best place I lived. Even his kids were welcoming to me. I needed it after my grandma died.” I smile, remembering the huge room I shared with my half-sister. The sleepovers, the gymnastics classes, the private school. “It was nice there, but my mother destroyed her chance when Derek found her fucking his partner.”

Dylan gasps, and I don’t blame him. Many of my mother’s acts are shocking.

“Then, there was Sam Wilson.”

“The baseball player?”

I turn to look at his impressed eyes. Sam was just inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame last year.

“Yeah, but I never knew him that well. It only lasted for his off-season. I classify it as her fun time. He was younger, and she was never around much then. I was already thirteen, so she left me home, alone, the majority of the time.”

“God, Bea.”

I cringe at his sympathetic voice. I hate when people feel sorry for me.

“After Sam, she went back to businessmen. Zeke Placker was the owner of some dot-com company that had instantly made him billions. The problem with that marriage was, he wasn’t sophisticated enough for her. He preferred to sit at home on weekends instead of going on trips or nice restaurants. If my mother can’t show off her money, it’s almost as if she doesn’t have it. He eventually asked for a divorce, leaving us back at my grandma’s house for a year. The house was left to me in a trust, so my mom couldn’t sell it.”