Chasing the Wild Sparks (33 page)

“Not really a good day for you to be on camera, is it?”

“No. I’ve been told already this morning.”

“Who said something about it?”

“Everyone. They said I look like hell. That’s part of the reason why I’m not doing noon today. The promo won’t be as close up, but Pam will still be working overtime trying to make me not look like a damn zombie.”

“It looks like you didn’t get much sleep.”

“No. After Ricky left, I was up most of the night.”

“Oh. Where do you have to be for your dare and the promo?”

How much can I tell her?  “Downtown.”

“What are you going to do for your dare?”

I try not to smile too much because I don’t want to give anything away, not even my excitement for the dare. “You’ll see.”

She looks confused and almost offended. “So it’s a secret?”
Baby, I promise it’ll be worth the wait.

I can’t help my smile at the thought. “Not for long.”

She turns her head away from me. “What do you want, Finn? You already told me what you thought of me last night.”

“Baby, I—”

Springing her attention to me, she snaps, “Do not
baby
me, Finn. After the things you said last night, you’re lucky I’m down here at all.”

That’s a swift slap to the face. Along with
Becks
, I love calling her
baby
because she is my baby, even though she thinks my car is. “I know, Becks. There aren’t even words I can say.”

“You can start with ‘I’m sorry for being a dick all over again.’”

“I’m sorry. I’m so,
so
sorry. I embarrassed and irreversibly hurt you. I don’t know why I said those things. They just kept coming out of my mouth before I could stop.”

“Well, you must actually feel that way or you wouldn’t have said them.”

“I don’t. They just came out. It was the Jack talking, ba—Becks.”

“It was you, too, because you were upset for so many reasons. The first was my dancing with Rod.”

“Yes.”

“The second was because I wouldn’t leave when you wanted me to.

“I’m sorry.”

The third, you were mad because I wouldn’t have sex with you in public.”

“I’m such a dick.”

“The fourth was you getting pissed off because I wouldn’t go home with you.”

“I know.”

“The fifth was when I told you I won’t move in with you.” My gaze hovers over her face, looking for any sign of her changing her mind. Nope. She hasn’t. I grit my teeth and look away from her. Yes. I’m still very put off by her telling me that she isn’t. I always will be upset until a moving truck is parked out in front of my apartment moving one of our things in or out of it.

While watching the busy traffic, I say, “I’m sorry for making you mad about all the other things, but I’m not sorry for wanting you to move in with me.”

“I’m not sorry for what I want, either. We both have our opinions on this. We both want more of each other, but to different degrees.”

I kick my stare back to her and regard her before I say, “I want you forever, Becks. That’s
my
degree. What’s yours? Does our relationship have an expiration date if we don’t get married?”

She oddly looks somewhat dismayed. “No.” I doubt it.

“So far it does if we can’t even live under the same roof. We can’t keep going on like this.”

“Then, what do we do?”

I look back out to the busy road. “I don’t know, but things are going to get even worse for us.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to have to start working weekends more, so we won’t have as much time together. I’ll have a day or two off during the week, or maybe one on the weekend.”

“Why?”

“I have to do more locations on the weekends, some out of town. It’s the offseason for the most-watched sports, so they want me to expand my base for the dares, to gain more viewers online.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“No,” I blow out a huff of air. “We can always trade off on our nights during the week, or I can just stay with you since I don’t work as early, and it doesn’t bother me to have to drive. I-uh, I won’t be able to meet you on Wednesday for lunch or stay over tonight either.”

“Why?”

“Tonight, I have to work on part of my dare and I have to go to Philadelphia Wednesday morning.”

“Your dare? Philadelphia for what, Finn? That’s
way
out of your viewing area!”

“I have to go up there because we’re doing a dare collaboration with a few other affiliates. They want us to meet there to shoot it. I’ll be there until Friday morning for the final wrap up. I was hoping you could meet me at my mom’s Friday since you have the day off. I know it sucks for you to have to drive, too, but I want to spend Easter with you. We’re both off Monday, so that’ll give us all weekend to be together. I could dump the rental car up there and ride back home with you. Will you spend Easter with me still?”

She nods. “Yeah, but we need to talk.”

“We will. We can also make out in my old room.” That’s a sudden turn-on. I’m already thinking of us having sex in there while everyone else is downstairs. We’d have to try to be quiet and not get caught. I’ll try my hardest to make her scream and she’ll stubbornly fight to not be heard.

I can’t fucking wait.

Weakly smiling, she says, “I’d like that.”

I play with her hair before tucking it behind her ear. I diffidently say, “Maybe you’ll let me get to at least second base.”
I’m planning a homerun, baby. Bases loaded. More than once at bat. Multiple grand slams.

“Maybe.” Becks smiles fades and she sighs. “I do want to be with you, Finn. Don’t ever think that I don’t want that. I’m just…” She looks over at Rod and my gaze trails hers. We then look back to each other.

“I know, baby. We need to get past this, though, if we want to be together.”

“Yes, Finn.
We
being the operative word. You need to give some, too, on your part.”

I close my eyes for a few seconds, thinking of how I want to say the next thing without infuriating her more. I open my eyes and say, “I am, Becks. I said I’d move into your apartment and then we could find another place. I’ll do that for you. I’ll do that for
us.”

“But this feels like it’s just all for
you.
You get me to move in with you, but I don’t get any closer to what
I
want.”

I hesitantly touch her fingers. She doesn’t pull away from me, so I take her hand and lace our fingers together. I love the way her skin feels against mine. “Becks, we’ll be together. Isn’t that all that should really matter? Baby, why are you making this so much harder than it should be?”

“Why are
you
? Why don’t you want to be my husband?”
Oh, baby, you don’t know how much I want to be your husband... I just can’t.

This is killing me. I bite my lip, glance over her head and swallow to open up my constricting throat. “Becks, do we have to talk about this here?” I ask tightly, still trying to open up my throat.

Ignoring my plea she says, “It really hurt me when you said those things. Private things about us. I didn’t make you wait for sex to be callous.” She chews on her lip, trying not to cry. My sweet Becks. She tries so hard to not cry in front of me. That’s what I’m here for, to comfort her. That’s my job. I just wish I was doing it last night instead of pushing her away from me. “I wanted us to get to know each other more before we took it to that level. What’s so wrong with that?” I respected that. It was just one of the hardest things I’ve had to endure. Not being able to be with Becks every day tops that.

“Nothing. I wanted that, too, Becks. It was hard to wait; I admit that, because I was so in love with you. And I’m even more so now. It was worth the wait. I can’t believe I said those things to you. I wish I could take them back.”

“What about the other things you said? How I won’t do certain things for you…”

Which thing is she talking about? Shit. The blow job comments. “Oh. That.” I don’t even know how to apologize for saying those things to her.

“I’m sorry I’m the worst girlfriend ever.”

I let go of her hand and put both of mine on her upper arms and crouch to look into her eyes. “You’re not, Becks. I don’t even know what to say.” Maybe she’s never done that before and I’m giving her a hard time about it. We’ve actually never talked about it. We should sometime just so she knows that I still love her. Damn it. “I’m such a fucking asshole.”

She takes a deep breath. “So Morgan says.” She’s going to be tearing me a new asshole soon, too.

I hang my head. “I know.”

“I hate fighting with you. I thought I lost you last night. I didn’t sleep, and I didn’t talk to Morgan or Rod much this morning.”

I raise my head and nod. “It kills me, baby. That’s the whole point. Just arguing with you tears my heart out. I can’t imagine…”

“Don’t then.”

“I’ll try not to,” I respond, dejected at the thought of losing my Becks.

She moves closer to me and puts her hands on my jacket. “Can we go back to saying that we’ll think about what the other wants?”

I look into her eyes, but they drift down to her lips. Can I do that? Can I go back to actually considering marrying her? I hope so, but I already know my answer.

“I can do that.”

Becks stares at my lips, as well. “So can I. I’ll think about moving in with you, Finn. Just promise me that you’ll consider…” Fuck.

“I will, baby. Just give me a couple months. Maybe less. Please?” Probably years. Shit.

“Same here.”

I nod and we quietly regard each other with small smiles. She then asks, “So, who do you have to go to Philadelphia with?”

I sigh as I think about having to leave the state and Becks. “Milo and an intern. Ricky’s off the rest of this week, so I want to drag him up there with me. He doesn’t want to hang around Shay’s family all weekend.”

“Oh. At least you won’t be alone.”

“I’d rather be with you. If you didn’t have to work, I’d ask you to come to Philly with me.”

She rolls her eyes. “That would be fun bunking with three other guys.”

I play with her key. “They’d get their own room. That’s one dare I won’t be participating in. Nobody else gets to see you naked.” Along with her heart and soul, Becks’ body is all mine, too.

She grins. “Oh, you think I’d be naked with you?”

I flash a wide smile at her, now confident. “You wouldn’t be able to help yourself, Becks.”

“Cocky aren’t you?” I thought she liked me cocky.

I let go of her key charm and send my arms around her waist. “Hell, yeah.”

She tilts her head, narrowing her eyes at me. “Why do you think I wouldn’t be able to ‘help’ myself?”

I’m thankful to be playful with my girl again. “It’s always rough for you to keep your hands off of me. I’m like one of those magic genie lamps in the sand. You see me and you can’t keep from rubbing your hands all over me to bring me to life.”

She giggles. “You are one unbelievably smug son of a bitch.”

I laugh enthusiastically, feeling relieved. Then, the thought of losing her enters my mind again. I’m so stupid. “Sometimes.” Not when I almost lost my reason for living.

She stares at me; a puzzled look crosses her beautiful face. “Not always?”

“No. Sometimes I fuck up and almost lose the best thing that’s ever blessed my life.” I came so close to losing her. I don’t ever want to go through that again.

“Never.” She runs her soft fingers through the start of my beard. “This is the longest you’ve kept your stubble,” she discerns.

I reach up to the other side of my face and rub my fingers over it. “Yeah. I need to shave.” Cara mentioned that, too. I slept in my contacts, making my eyes too blurry this morning to shave.

She instantly shakes her head at me. “No you don’t. It’s perfect. I love it.”

“You do?” Really? How much does she like it? What would she do for me to keep it?

She self-righteously grins at me and uses my response, “Hell, yeah.”

I clear my throat while glancing over Becks’ head to Rod, who is still watching us. I drop my gaze to hers. “I need to fix this. I’ll try to make up for last night this weekend. For now, can I take you to lunch?”

“No.” No? She won’t even go to lunch with me? I won’t see her until Friday. She puts her hand on my neck and tugs, so I lean closer to her. She whispers in my ear, “You can take
me
, though.”

Oh, fuck yes, Becks.
I whisper in return, “Let’s go to your apartment. I need you, baby.”

She shoots a look to Rod, who is still observing us like we’re untamed animals in an exhibit. She says, “Give me a minute.” Becks walks over to Rod and talks to him. I need to apologize to Rod and now is probably the best time to do it.