Chapter Twenty-Five
Lyla
The world outside the window of Beck’s Land Rover had been more greenery than buildings since we’d left Boston, and here and there I got glances of the Merrimack River from the freeway.
I stretched as much as my seat allowed. The trip had flown by, but my legs felt a bit cramped.
“I know just what we need for the last leg of our trip,” Beck said, picking up his iPhone and scrolling through his music. The instant the first bloop noise started, I grinned. “It’s our song!”
As Flo Rida sang the first few lines, I shook my head. “I’m so proud our song is a stripper song.”
“Hey, I’d watch your body go down and throw my money around.” Beck wrapped his hand around my upper thigh. “I’ll swing by the bank. We’ll incorporate it into our foreplay.”
Tingly heat spread from my stomach outward, the mention of foreplay waking up every cell and sending blips from the times we’d been together dancing through my head. Anytime I thought I was getting in too deep, and that maybe I should stop having sex with him before I ended up irrevocably crushed, I wondered if I could stop even if I tried. Being with Beck was intoxicating—I loved how it made me feel sexy in a way I never had before. How easily he could have me practically panting with a few words or a simple touch. But now there was also the deeper level of intimacy.
It was like my wishful thinking at the party a few weeks ago had come true. He held my hand when we walked across campus together, and we kissed each other hello and good-bye, and everything in between. Despite not being in an official relationship, we spent more time together before and after we had sex, and we’d had some of our deepest conversations lying in his bed, nothing between us.
And the thought of giving it up—giving him up—sent pain radiating through my chest.
I told myself we’d still be friends no matter what, so I wouldn’t be giving him up completely. But since I’d accidentally fallen head over heels for him, I wasn’t sure I could do it. See his perfect messy hair, hear his deep sexy voice, and not want more. Over the past few days I’d told myself of course I loved him. He was my friend—my best friend, really.
But then he’d shoot me a smile, just like he was doing now, and my heart would constrict, and I’d bite back the words that wanted to explode from my mouth. I love you.
“You okay?” Beck asked as the song came to a close. He opened up the console between the seats and held up the Twizzlers and sour gummy worms we’d picked up at the gas station before hitting the road. “More sugar?”
“More sugar. Hmm.” I knew it was cheesy, but I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Don’t mind if I do.” I ran my lips down to his jaw and kissed my way along the strong line of it and down the column of his neck.
The engine revved as he accelerated. “Twenty more minutes. Then we won’t even say hi to my aunt or sister. I’ll just carry you inside and have my way with you.”
I took the package of sour gummy worms that he’d dropped in his lap when I kissed him, sat back in my seat, and bit into the candy. “Want one?”
He leaned toward me, opening his mouth, and I tossed in a worm. “Thanks, babe.”
The breath I sucked in at hearing him call me babe was laced with sour sugar, and I started coughing, because I was sexy like that. I reached for my H2O and gulped until the burning subsided.
Beck glanced at me, and I waved him off. “I’m fine. Just…you should really chew instead of inhaling the candy.”
“Good tip. I’ll keep that in mind.”
As we turned off the freeway, a knot formed in my gut. I really had no idea what I was walking in to. While I’d gone on and on about Miles back when we were dating, and mentioned being from New York—but the middle of nowhere part—I supposed that I hadn’t been an open book when it came to my family, either. But I was minutes away from meeting his, and there was still so much I didn’t know.
I bit my lip. “So, uh…” Finally I decided to stop beating around the bush and say it. “Beck, I feel like I’m going into this situation completely unprepared. I don’t even know…how your parents died. Or when. Or pretty much anything other than you’ve got an aunt and a sister named Megan who was arrested once.”
His grip on the steering wheel tightened. “There’s not going to be a pop quiz, Lyla.”
The words were too sharp. It’d be easy to take offense, but I knew it was more about it being hard for him than being upset with me—I hoped, anyway. “Beck. It’s me. I’m not trying to push you. Just trying to know what to say or how to act, and I’d prefer it if I didn’t put my foot in my mouth.” I reached out and placed my hand on his shoulder, rubbing calming circles with my thumb, the way he often did when we were lying next to each other.
“My parents died in a plane crash early last summer,” he said. “Private plane, lots of attention. Everyone wanted a rundown of exactly how the plane crashed, too. They kept asking me how something like that could happen. Like I’d know or want to discuss the gory details.”
“I’m sorry.” I had to admit there were a lot of questions that came to my mind, too. I guess it’s human nature.
“They were coming home from a business trip—ever heard of D&T Pharmaceuticals?”
“Yeah. When I looked up pharmaceutical companies, it was one that I made a note to apply to after I graduated.”
“Well, considering it’ll be mine when I turn twenty-one, I could probably get you an interview,” he said.
I stared at him, sure my mouth was gaping open in the most unattractive way. “Your company?”
“My great grandfather Davenport started it—that’s where the D comes from. His partner, Mr. Truman, sold his half of the company to my dad a few years ago. Right now the board of directors is running it, but they can’t make any big changes without me, even though I don’t really have any power for several more months.”
“That’s…crazy. I mean, huge. I mean…” The plastic bag containing the sour gummy worms crinkled as I fiddled with it, trying to think of what to say to the shocking revelation. “I’m not sure what I mean. It’s a lot of information to process.”
“You’re telling me. Can you really see me in a suit behind a desk?” He brought his fingers up and pressed them into his temple. “Yelling about reports and the bottom line?”
“Is it bad if I say I’d kinda like to see that? Solely for eye candy reasons—you’d look super hot in a suit.”
That comment got me a half smile. Then he sighed and glanced at me, anxiety swimming in the blue eyes I’d peered into so many times. “Well, I guess that’s good, because that’s my future. I’ve put it off as long as I could, but there are a lot of family and business things I need to deal with this trip. I probably shouldn’t have dragged you along, I just…” He turned his palm up and then curled his fingers between mine so that our hands locked together. “I wanted you with me to counteract all the shitty stuff.”
I leaned my head on his shoulder. “Then I’m here. For whatever.”
He tightened his grip on my hand and kissed my forehead. We passed the rest of the drive in silence, just the occasional squeeze or glance between us, as if we were both checking that the other one was still there.
…
“This must be karaoke girl,” Megan said after Beck introduced me to his sister—his aunt was apparently due back soon. Like Beck, Megan had a fair complexion, and a hint of strawberry blond showed between her flawless highlights. Her eyes were dark brown, though, and she was on the shorter side.
I glanced at Beck. “You call me karaoke girl?”
“Not me.” He tilted his chin at his sister. “Megan does.”
“Ever since I called him when you guys were at that karaoke bar. I was like my brother? Singing karaoke? He must like this girl.”
“I do. She’s my best friend.” Beck flashed me a grin, and I forced a smile onto my lips, trying to be happy enough with that title.
“Let me guess.” Megan eyed my blue scoop neck top, multiple beaded necklaces, and long blue and cream skirt. “Art major? No, photography.” She pressed her lips into a tight line. “No, I’m sticking with art, but really they both fall into that realm, so either way, I get the points for it.”
“Chemistry, actually,” I said. “I left the lab coat and goggles at home.”
“Though she does manage to look sexy in them,” Beck added, hooking his hand on my hip. I wondered if Megan thought his signals about who I was to him were mixed, or if this was normal—maybe all his female “friends” were more like friends.
“I’m going to go put our bags away and show Lyla around.” Beck shouldered his duffel and gripped the handle of my roller suitcase.
“Mm-hm,” Megan said, flopping on the couch and punching on the TV.
With a hand on my back, Beck led me down a giant hallway—honestly I’d nearly inhaled more sour sugar crystals when we’d pulled up to the large two-story house with tall Victorian columns marking the entryway and a Romeo-and-Juliet-esque balcony off the side. I knew houses like it existed, but I’d never expected to set foot in one.
Beck slipped his thumb underneath the hem of my shirt. “After that discussion back there, I think we better add you wearing a lab coat and nothing else to our list of sex to-dos.”
I slowed my pace. “Just remember, you pretty much asked for this.”
His eyebrows ticked together.
“Did you hear about the physician and the biologist who went on a date?”
“No,” he said, drawing out the word, amusement starting to replace the confusion.
“Think about it. You know the punch line.”
The corners of his mouth twitched—he always liked to pretend he was too cool for science jokes, but I knew better.
I turned and ran my finger down his chest. “Say it.”
Beck shook his head, the smile he’d been fighting breaking free. “The kinky shit you’re into.”
I laughed and shoved him. Then, when he still hadn’t said anything, I raised my eyebrows and put my hands on my hips.
He sighed. “There was no chemistry.”
I clapped and got the crinkly-eyed smile, complete with sexy indention in his cheek. He crooked his finger and I moved closer, wrapping my arms around his waist as he leaned in for a kiss.
“Let’s get you into a room and conduct our own chemistry experiment,” he said against my lips. “Or maybe we’ll just find a table to bend you over, since chemists do it on a table…periodically.”
“Mmm. I love when you talk nerdy to me.” I kissed him again, thinking labels didn’t matter. Not when we had this.
We climbed up a staircase and turned down another hallway. The bedroom he led me into was about as big as my entire apartment. He set my suitcase at the foot of the king-sized four-poster bed. Was it weird that my mind now went to ways Beck and I could work the bed frame into sex? He was turning me into a one-track-minded girl.
Who was also in love.
Maybe that was making the one-track-mindedness worse.
The strap of Beck’s duffel bag slipped down and he hiked it back up. “I’ll be just across the hall.”
I wanted to ask what the point of that was. He could ask me to come to New Hampshire with him to help him deal with everything, but spending an entire night with me was too much?
Maybe labels do matter. The back and forth when it came to the lines of our relationship were making me feel crazy. Up one minute, down the next. Confident when we were kissing, totally unsure the beat after that.
“Beckett?” A pretty woman with nearly black hair peeked through the open doorway. She came into the room and hugged Beck, then turned to me and extended a hand. “Hi, I’m Tessa Davenport.”
She had olive-tone skin, and her eyes were dark like Megan’s, which made me wonder what Beck’s dad looked like. And what his mom looked like, for that matter. “Lyla Wilder.”
Tessa was so flawlessly put together in her wrap dress, glittering jewelry, and heels, I felt like a mess in comparison. “Beckett doesn’t usually bring girls home.”
I waited for him to insist on the “just friends” aspect again, but he didn’t. Maybe that meant I should chime in, but there was something about the factual, toneless way she said it that made it hard for me to know how to respond. I wasn’t sure if she thought my being here was a good thing or a bad thing. But with the way she looked me over, a tight smile on her face, I felt like I was on trial.
“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Lyla. I was thinking we could all go out for dinner, and then, Beckett”—she turned her sharp gaze on him—“you and I need to sit down and go over a list of action items. It’s going to be difficult to fit everything into this week, but hopefully we can at least make a dent in it.”
“I’ll do my best,” Beck said.
“We’ll leave in ten, then?”
Beck nodded, and his aunt left the room, her heeled footsteps growing quieter and quieter. He sighed, dropped his duffel bag, and settled onto the bed. “I knew it. She lured me here with talk of one meeting, and now she’s going to have me busy every single day. I shouldn’t have asked you to come. You’ll be so bored.”
I climbed onto his lap, straddling him, and brushed my lips over his—it was one of those bold moves I never thought I’d be comfortable doing, but found I couldn’t get enough of. “I’ll help out however I can, but I’ve also got books and my computer, with plenty of schoolwork to keep my busy. I’ll be fine.” I ran my fingers across his jaw, feeling the start of his five o’clock shadow. “They both call you Beckett.”
“Yeah, my parents, too—they weren’t big fans of the shortened version, actually. But I was always Beck to everyone else.”
“So that’s what you prefer? Or do I get to call you Beckett sometimes?”
One corner of his mouth twisted up, and then he drew me closer and nipped at my bottom lip. “You, Lyla Wilder, can call me anything you want.”