The Safe Bet (The Game Changers #3) (10 page)

Chapter Fourteen

Now

I made up some excuse and left the second Brock would let me. He knew he had crossed a line, but it was my fault. I shouldn’t have stayed at his house. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep. I shouldn’t have drunk the alcohol…yes, blame it on the alcohol.

It was already happening. I was becoming that foolish girl who let things slide because she wanted the guy. What was it about guys that made girls stupid?

“You know there’s no rush for you to move out, right, Reagan?” Zoe asked me as she put the groceries away in the cabinets. It seemed she moved in while I was playing stupid at Brock’s house. “I told Jordan that you didn’t have to move at all.”

“No…I get it. It’s time.”

“That’s what he said. He worries about you, though.”

“Yeah, I know. He’s a good brother,” I said as I stood to leave. “He loves you, Zoe. It’s time for him to have his own life without his sister always around.” I just wasn’t sure what I was going to do in the meantime.

I called Melanie to come up to the store to discuss my housing dilemma. I didn’t make enough for me to get my own place unless it was on the edge of town and inconvenient to everything. I had savings, but I sunk every dollar I had into creating the best last bookstore anyone had ever seen.

“I’d let you stay with me, but I’m afraid I’d want to kill you. I haven’t lived with anyone since I moved out of my parent’s house when I was eighteen. I don’t even like having house guests.”

“No, I need my own place, but thanks for thinking of me…sort of.”

She winked. “Anytime.”

“Seriously, what am I going to do?” I hesitated, biting my thumbnail that become just a nub over the last few days.

“You might have to actually start selling books for what they’re worth instead of giving them away,” she suggested helpfully.

“If I raise the prices, no one will buy them. Everyone has an e-reader now.”

“I don’t.”

“Yes, but your idea of reading for fun consists of Forbes and The Wall Street Journal.”

“You’re right. Today I read an article—”

“Stop,” I interrupted with a groan. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“And this is exactly why you can’t afford an apartment. Your business sense is somewhere in the bottom of the ocean along with your dating life.”

“Hey! I’ll have you know I had a sleepover with a man last night.”

Her face lit up at my foolish confession. “An adult sleepover? Tell me more.”

“It was really nothing, but I spent the night with Brock.”

“And?”

“And nothing. We were supposed to be talking, but it felt more like we were catching up or on a first date. We had some wine, and I fell asleep. Nothing scandalous happened.”

“You know it would be all right if something ‘scandalous’ did happen.”

“Ha,” I scoffed. “No. It most certainly would not be all right.”

“Oh, Reagan. You have to let go of whatever happened in the past. It’s time to move on with life. It’s time to find your happy.”

“I am happy.”

“Yeah,” she responded with disbelief. I didn’t really believe it either. I existed, and everyone in my life knew it.

Melanie was a perceptive girl, and she knew we were heading into shaky territory. Instead of pursuing the conversation further, she slapped her hands down on the counter and stood. “Well, I have a date with an accountant.”

“A real date or a business meeting?”

“You know the answer to that.”

She was right. I did know the answer to that. Melanie never mixed business with pleasure. The sheer fact the “date” was with an accountant told me he was not on her list of suitable possibilities. She went for the bad boy type…more like Restaurant Guy. Hmm…maybe they should get together. Then she would be distracted while I figured out what to do about—

Never mind. I was so not going there. There was nothing to be done about anything. He who came from the past shall remain in the past, and that was that.

Melanie left for her lunch “date” and a promise to meet up with me for apartment hunting later, so I distracted myself with searching for a new home online. I had plenty of time considering a total of ten people came in after lunch. One of them mistook the store for a florist. I wasn’t sure how, considering books were attractively piled in the windows as a display, but there you have it. Men looking to apologize are even less observant than normal.

By the time Meyer arrived, I had a list of rentals to go see, and I was more than ready to close my store that seemed to have somehow run its weekly traffic away.

“So,” she began once she climbed up on her stool at the counter with her snack. “Daddy says you might be moving soon.”

“Yes, but I will still see you all the time.”

“Oh, I know.”

“All right. Then what’s this about?” Nothing was ever easy with Meyer. She was building up to something.

“Does this have something to do with New Guy showing up?” Yeah, she called him New Guy too. We were awesome role models.

“Absolutely not.” She paused and waited for more explanation. I wasn’t sure how much Jordan had told his hyper-aware, but still, too-young-to-know everything daughter. “It has everything to do with your dad and me. It’s time for me to fly the nest, Grasshopper. It was bound to happen sometime.”

“Yeah, I know, but then who will I watch movies with?”

“Uhh…me. How about you come with me to look at these places with Melanie and me, and we’ll find the perfect place to watch girly movies. You in?”

“Only if you buy me ice cream…”

“As if that was even a question.”

***

Seven rentals later and with our stomachs were full of double chocolate chunk ice cream, I was personally considering telling Jordan he was stuck with me forever unless he wanted to pay for me to live somewhere nicer.

Everywhere I looked that seemed to be in my budget had some hidden catch. The first place appeared to be great in the pictures, but when we pulled up to the place, I knew the images had been lying. The building seemed like it was hardly standing. The next place was a house, and it would have been great if I wanted to live with a family of rodents. By the seventh fail, I was done, and Meyer looked like she was about to crawl out of her skin. We went to the ice cream shop and washed our hands thoroughly before we dove into enough chocolate ice cream to cover dinner, dessert, and tomorrow’s breakfast.

Who was I kidding? I was still getting a cinnamon roll for breakfast the next morning.

The big surprise was yet to come, though. When we arrived home, I had a visitor. I should have known he’d show back up, but after not hearing from him all day, I let myself believe the drama was over. I didn’t even allow myself to think about how disappointed that made me feel because then I would be admitting that I wanted to see him again. And for the record, I didn’t want to see him again. Okay…yes, I did, but I didn’t want to want to see him again.

“How’d the search go?” Jordan asked as we walked through the door. I felt Brock’s eyes on me as I dropped my purse on the counter and grabbed a drink out of the fridge. I knew he was grinning when he realized I was ignoring him to avoid the whole awkward, “Why are you here?” business.

“Great,” I told Jordan as I continued to pretend my heart wasn’t pounding thanks to the proximity of a certain someone.

Meyer followed up with, “She’s being sarcastic,” as if the other adults in the room hadn’t realized it.

I dove into the description of each place, making everyone laugh at my theatrics. I may have been overdoing it just a bit to appear unfazed, but damn, what was I supposed to do? I had no clue how to act around him because he had me so screwed up in the head, I couldn’t find the path back to normal if it was the only one left.

“Why don’t you get someone who knows more about this to help you search? Doesn’t Melanie know this area really well?” Zoe asked.

“Yeah. She plans to help me but tells me my budget is too pathetic for her taste.”

“Of course it is.” Jordan rolled his eyes. “Go ask the real estate guy who has the office near the store. He’ll help you. He loves you.”

“Yeah, and he’s the skeeziest man alive. No, thank you, but nice suggestion, brother.”

“I’ll introduce you to my real estate agent. Maybe she could help you.” This was from Brock. I could only imagine what his real estate agent looked like, but I only needed one guess for her hair color. Like I would want to hire someone like that to help me.

Then I had a brain to mouth malfunction. “Is she blonde?” Everyone’s eyes whipped toward me. It must have been my tone. I didn’t mean for it to sound like it did even though I meant it exactly how it sounded.

“No. She’s a brunette.” Brock chuckled. He liked that I sounded jealous. That only annoyed me even more.

“No thanks. I can find my own place.”

“Suit yourself, but you do realize she would do all the searching and negotiating for you, right?” Brock knew how to go for the jugular. He knew there was no way I would take whatever was offered rather than find something I really wanted.

“Fine, but you guys have no say in what I pick.”

“Sure.”

“Fine,” Brock and Jordan said in succession as they wore twin expressions of mock seriousness, which told me they were both big fat liars.

I was doomed to have them overshadow this process, so I gave in when Brock offered to drive me to go look at places a few days later. The real estate agent didn’t waste any time when Brock called her. She set up appointments at several places, which I foolishly told the guys about. When Brock and Jordan held out their fists to play paper, rock, scissors for who got to go with me, I knew I was in trouble.

In the first round, Brock threw paper and Jordan threw scissors. “Best two out of three,” Brock said, just in case the rules weren’t clear.

The next time they both threw scissors. Then Brock beat Jordan’s scissors with rock. It was one to one and the deciding round. Brock threw scissors and Jordan threw…yep. He threw paper. Brock raised his arms in victory then shouted, “Ha!” as he pointed in Jordan’s face.

“And it’s a good thing. I know real estate,” he bragged before grabbing my arm and leading me out to the car.

And what he meant by “knowing” real estate was that no place was good enough. The afternoon went a little something like this:

“Absolutely not.”

“Nope. We’re not even stepping foot in that place.”

“It looks nice from the outside, but do you really want to hear your neighbors going at it through these paper-thin walls?”

“Why did they bother calling these houses single family units if they built them right on top of each other?”

“Uhh…no. Get back in the car, Reagan.”

By the end of the day, I was defeated and tired. Brock wouldn’t shut up about the lack of decent real estate after he was the one who insisted on the great finds his agent could locate for me. Finally, I turned to him and said, “Brock, shut up.”

His mouth immediately closed, and his eyes widened.

“I’m sorry, but I get it. There isn’t anywhere in this town I can live that meets your standards and my budget. No need to harp on it.”

His free hand reached for my neck, where he started rubbing the knots out. “Sorry, babe. You know I just want the best for you.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” I turned and watched the sand dunes pass us by. What the hell was I going to do? Jordan wanted me out. I knew my brother would let me stay as long as I needed, but just knowing he wanted me gone was enough to push me out the door…only I had nowhere to go.

“We’ll find you the perfect place,” Brock said as if he could read my thoughts.

“Hope so,” I responded, trying to appear unfazed by the day. I didn’t want Brock to take care of me. I didn’t want to depend on him for anything, especially not emotional support. He was known to let me down.

“How about we grab some junk food and go back to my place and watch whatever reality TV show you want to watch? By the end of that, you’ll feel better about your situation.” He knew me too well. Reality TV stars were the train wreck I couldn’t stop watching. They had always made me feel better about life because I was never as pathetic as they were.

Junk food and reality TV turned into joking and laughing and somehow cuddling. I wasn’t quite sure how that happened, but I also didn’t fight it. When my eyes grew heavy, I knew it was time to leave, but I felt warm and of all things, I felt happy. I couldn’t force myself to go even though I knew it was trouble. I never expected the trouble to appear in my nightmares, though…not when I felt so safe there in his arms.

Chapter Fifteen

March 2003

“Library, then food. We can make it to the party if we go right after class,” Ivy said, suddenly very eager to focus on school. It had been a few months since the bar incident, but I still wouldn’t ride with her no matter how many times she swore she wasn’t drinking or using anything.

“Sounds good. Although I don’t know why you want to go to this party so badly. Are you hoping to catch Neal hitting on girls?”

“Something like that.”

“You two are weird.”

“Make up sex is the best. You should try it some time. It might bring the excitement back or get one of you to finally admit how you feel.”

“Ha. Ha. You’re hilarious,” I told her with a solid dose of sarcasm.

“Why haven’t you told him? Or at least had a conversation about what happened after graduation?” Ivy knew what happened at her party, mostly because she was witness to it all rather than me telling her. She poked and prodded until she had enough information to put two and two together.

“Because I’m not a whiney, needy girl. It’s pathetic.” Instead, I’ll just secretly hope he’ll one day come to his senses and tell me how much I mean to him, so I can simply say, “Me too.” That’s so much better.

She knew I wasn’t telling her the whole story, I could feel it, but Ivy was smart enough to let it go. “Then maybe it’s time you make him jealous. It’s time to do something to make your relationship official.”

“Sounds like a huge waste of energy,” I told her, ignoring her stab at my relationship with Brock. We were kind of together, and that was enough for me for now. We were exclusive because there was no time for anyone else, and I didn’t feel the need to worry about how I felt about him because it seemed he felt the same way even if neither of us ever said it.

“Like I said, try it sometime.” Ivy laughed maniacally as she pushed through the doors to the library.

On the ride up to the fourth floor, where we now had a study room, I tried to quickly read over my assignment. Ivy was humming away like she just discovered an odd bacteria in a petri dish, which had me following her eyeline out the panoramic elevator.

Brock was sitting at a table in the library when he was supposed to be in class. It wasn’t his presence that had me eyeing him with a feeling close to hate. It was the girl sitting next to him with whom I had a problem. I could only describe her as familiar and satanic. My hands gripped my assignment tightly.

“What is she doing here?” Ivy asked after noticing my reaction, or rather my lack of one.

“Didn’t I tell you? UCLA didn’t work out.”

“Of course it didn’t. She’s an idiot.”

“Mmhmm,” I agreed as the elevator dinged, alerting us to the arrival onto our floor.

“So, what is she doing at the library with Brock?”

“Great question,” I grumbled. Instinct told me to stay and watch from afar, but I followed dutifully along to work on my paper instead of staying in that elevator for the rest of the day stalking Brock and Candace like I really wanted to do. Feelings of inadequacy and uncertainty replaced all the good ones I had about mine and Brock’s possible relationship. I was suddenly unhappy with our arrangement and wishing I had gone along with the profession of love that I had wanted to share with him for so long. At least then I’d know for sure.

“You gonna write anything?”

“What?” I turned to Ivy, who already had her books and laptop laid out on the table. My bag was still resting in my lap, and I hadn’t even realized we were sitting in the room until she said something.

“Are you going to start working on your paper?” she asked slowly.

“Oh. Yeah.” I tried to work on my paper, but my heart wasn’t in it. I didn’t feel up to writing about Thomas Hardy or Jane Austen or any other author for that matter. I wanted to know what Brock was up to with Candace.

When he came over later, I didn’t ask, and he didn’t tell me. In fact I would have never known anything was off if I hadn’t seen what I did. I wanted him to tell me what happened. As soon as he came in, I asked, “How was your day?”

All he offered was a simple, “Good.”

So, I asked, “What did you do?”

He responded as expected. “Worked on a project and went to the gym.”

It was incredibly frustrating. Coming right out and asking him about her would have been too much for my foolish pride, so I pretended everything was fine. As usual, he saw right through me. He asked me a million times what was going on, but I could never bring myself to admit I was jealous.

Brock had a project due on Friday, so he was supposedly pulling an all-nighter in the lab on Thursday. I wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. Trust me, I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but there was this nagging voice inside my head that bothered me all night. I checked my phone over and over. No messages. No missed calls. I threw my highlighter down and gave up the pretense that I was studying. I sat on my bed, obsessing over Brock. He was the distraction on a night when I desperately needed a clear head.

My phone rang beside me, and I jumped, hoping it was Brock. Of course it wasn’t. It was Ivy drunk dialing me.

“What’s up, Ivy?” I answered glumly.

“Reagan! Can you come get me?” she cried. She sounded like she was sobbing and I could barely understand her, It took me a second to decipher that she called me for a ride.

“Yeah. Where are you?”

“Bar on Ninth Avenue,” she wailed and finished with, “Hurry!”

I threw on some clothes and made it down to Ninth in record time. There were a few bars in that area, but I was looking for the seediest dump I could find. I knew that if she went to drink alone, it wouldn’t be anywhere where we would have gone as a group. She wanted to be where nobody knew her name.

I saw the dump at the end of the string of respectable businesses and a brand new two-seater convertible parked right out front. I found her sitting on the curb in front of her car smoking a cigarette with black streaks of mascara under her eyes. She was violently shaking and staring blankly at the space in front of her.

I approached her as if she was a skittish kitten, or how I imagined I would approach one. Ivy never flinched, but she knew I was there. “Thanks for coming,” she said with a gravelly voice. Had she been screaming?

“Always.”

She scoffed at that. “Yeah.”

“What’s going on, Ivy? You don’t smoke.”

“No, cigarettes are disgusting.” Surely you see my confusion here, but I knew better than to point out the obvious.

“Why don’t we go back to the apartment? We can eat ice cream and veg out. If you want to talk, I’ll listen. If not, we can watch some stupid movie with a happy ending.” I wanted to get back to the safety of the apartment as fast as I could. I was still waiting to hear from Brock, and I didn’t have time for one of Ivy’s tantrums that night.

“Yeah,” she said, then stubbed out her cigarette. “Let’s go.”

I started to head to my car when she stopped me. “Let’s take my car. I don’t want one of these jackasses screwing with it. It’s brand new.”

It seemed odd that she cared about her car. Typically she hated the extravagant gestures from her parents, made in place of them actually being there. Every time she expressed her disappointment in her parents, they sent her a gift that cost more than our college tuition. I thought that might have been the reason she jumped down the rabbit hole this time, but it seemed I was mistaken. She also appeared to have sobered up a bit. Her speech was in no way impaired now, so I had no way of knowing just how bad off she was at this point in the night. She simply wanted to go home.

“Sure. Okay.”

“You’ll have to get the keys from Bartender Man. He won’t give them to me.” Yes, I thought that was both wise on his part and suspicious on her part, but I did what I was told. Bartender Man gave them to me without question and went about his business. It wasn’t until we were on the two-lane highway that led to our apartment that I discovered exactly what I had gotten myself into.

The road was dark and just wet enough from the rain that had come down on and off all day. The road had a hill on my side and a drop on the other. Trees parted only enough to fit the highway in between them. They were the perfect conditions for an accident, which was why I sped up when Ivy said, “I think about dying more than I think about living. I wonder what it would be like not to consciously feel anymore.”

“It wouldn’t be like anything,” I told her as my foot pressed a little harder on the pedal in an effort to make it home faster.

“It would be freeing. That’s what it would be.” And then she stopped talking altogether. For a moment I thought she fell asleep, but her eyes were wide open. I searched my brain for something thoughtful to say, but I was never good in times of crisis.

It was silent. The radio wasn’t even on, and the road felt like it was forever long. Like the light at the end of the tunnel, I saw the traffic light up ahead casting a green glow on the street. That intersection was the final turn to head back to the apartment. For some reason, I knew that light meant safety.

I was so focused on the destination that I didn’t see her hand coming. We were less than a hundred feet from the intersection when Ivy leaned across the car and pulled the wheel, forcing the car to veer quickly off the road. Without thinking, my foot went for the break, but all too quickly we were off the embankment and flipping. One. Two. Three flips before the car slammed against the tree. I was buckled in tightly and trapped in the car. My window was against the wet ground, and I knew if I could find a way to unbuckle my seatbelt, I could climb through the non-existent windshield.

My mind wasn’t working clearly, though. At no point while I struggled to free myself from the car did I notice that I was alone. Ivy was nowhere to be seen.