Getting Lucky Number Seven (15 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Beck

After weeks of no sex and hardly being able to think straight when I was with Lyla, my mind was finally clear again. Even better, I now got to kick back with my friend and enjoy a movie and ice cream, no pressure. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d watched a movie with a chick I’d slept with.

We settled onto the couch and I turned on the newest Fast and Furious movie, waiting for her protest. On cue, she shot me a look. “There’re at least as many hot guys as hot girls in it,” I offered.

She pressed her lips together, moving them to one side and then the other. “Fine.”

I wanted to kiss her, but that seemed too much like a boyfriend move. If this was going to work, I needed to create boundaries. Friend time versus sex time. When she shivered, though, I couldn’t help myself. I pulled her legs onto my lap and leaned over them to try to warm her up. And maybe so I could feel her soft skin against my bare chest again.

When I set my bowl down on her thighs, she squealed.

“Cold!”

I tapped the bowl on her other leg before setting it down on my coffee table. As the movie wound down and Lyla shook her head and muttered about how anyone with a basic knowledge of physics would realize the move they’d made jumping from one car to another would be impossible on several levels, I fought the urge to kiss her again—she looked damn sexy in my shirt.

Instead, I turned off the TV and patted her knee. “Didn’t you say something about tattoos? You want me to check them out, or do you want to do that another time?”

She glanced at her phone. “It is getting kind of late. Guess we’ll save it for next time.” She swung her legs off me and got dressed, facing away, suddenly shy—I was going to have to cure her of that. If we ever did this again, that is. She took a pencil out of her bag, wound her hair into a bun and stabbed it through, then handed me my shirt. “Maybe Wednesday after your hockey practice? Then you can help me figure out what to get and where, and we can find a parlor with lots of good reviews.”

Yeah, that wouldn’t keep me up tonight thinking about every inch of her skin at all.

…

Three nights later, Lyla showed up at my door wearing a cream dress with colored stitching that ended mid-thigh. Tall brown boots came up over her knees, leaving only a few inches of skin exposed. It was her old style, but modern at the same time, and without hiding her body. As I took her in, the only thing I could think about was running my hands through her fiery hair and then sliding them up that tiny skirt so that I—

“Hey,” she said, charging inside and flopping onto the couch. She opened up her laptop. “So, here are some of the tattoos I picked out. I need your input.”

Working to shift gears on where my thoughts were headed and move them to where hers were, I walked over to the couch and sat next to her. A girl on a mission, apparently, she didn’t bother looking at me. Just clicked through several pictures of flowers and butterflies in different colors and sizes.

“When I talked to Whitney, she was like what’s the point unless people see it? So she votes for something like this…” Lyla pointed to a large floral tattoo with swirls. “But then I was thinking that this isn’t for other people, it’s for me. Plus, that’d take a long time, and it’d probably hurt like crazy.

“I’m thinking one of the watercolor tattoos instead, because they’re really cool. Like maybe this one…” She clicked to a lotus flower. “Or this one.” I wasn’t sure what kind of flower it was, but it was little and pink and orange.

“I think the second one,” I said. “It looks like you.”

She glanced at me and grinned. “I think that’s my favorite, too.” I thought maybe she’d take a beat to say more, maybe greet me properly—which I wouldn’t be opposed to including a kiss—but then her attention went right back to the laptop. “Okay, I’ve been looking up reviews for tattoo parlors and…”

Her words blurred as I stared at the zipper on the inside of her boots. My fingers twitched, wanting to slowly zip it down and see her legs again. For them to be wrapped around me. How could she focus on anything else now that we were finally in the same room again? Ever since Sunday night, I’d hardly been able to stop thinking about the sex and how amazing it’d been.

Suddenly I started worrying it hadn’t been mind-blowing for her. Maybe it was just okay, and I was as clueless as her ex. Maybe she couldn’t even cross it off her list.
No, she wouldn’t have faked it. What would be the point?
Not to mention, I’d felt it when I’d been buried deep—

“Beck? Are you listening to me?”

“Honestly? No. Your dress is short and those boots are hot.” I nearly laughed at the way her mouth dropped open. “Like you didn’t know how sexy you looked when you put that outfit on.”

“Sexy?” she asked, as if she’d never heard the word before.

I nodded and closed the space between us, my attention consumed by her mouth. The instant her soft lips were under mine I groaned in relief. “I’ve always had a thing for skirts, with their easy access.” I slid my hand up her thigh and when she spread her legs, I stroked her with my thumb.

I took in the shaky breath she exhaled and slipped my tongue in to meet hers. Within a couple of seconds she was rolling her hips. Telling me when to go faster or slower. The boots came off and so did the panties, but the skirt stayed on. When I mentioned that I’d always wanted to have sex against the wall with a woman in a skirt, she said, “Well, how convenient. I just so happen to have a skirt on, and there are several walls in here.”

I wasted no time backing her up against one. And as one of my sexual fantasies came true, I made a note to figure out what hers were, so that I could make sure I fulfilled every. Single. One.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Lyla

I stood in front of my closet, surveying the contents and trying to mentally put an outfit together.
It’s not like I’m his girlfriend, so it doesn’t matter what I wear.

Over the past few weeks, I’d had a
lot
of mind-blowing sex. Once in a while I’d get caught up in thinking about Beck, and admittedly they weren’t always just-friends or just-sex-buddies thoughts. Now he’d asked me to go to a party the hockey team was throwing, and anxiety churned through me, along with question after question.

Would he hold my hand?

Kiss me?

Hit on other girls in front of me?
Man, that’d suck.

Just remember, no matter what happens, he thinks I’m sexy.
A calm washed over me. He liked me for me, and he’d never cared much what other people thought. I did know he had a thing for skirts, though, so I pulled on the short lavender lace one I’d bought during my last shopping excursion—I was definitely going to need a summer job to pay off that credit card—along with a white tank top and a dark purple beaded necklace.

As I was deciding yay or nay on a shimmery silver headband, my phone rang. Last minute I decided yay—the headband added bling and volume to my hair, so win-win. I picked up my phone, expecting Beck, but Miles’s name was there instead.

“Hello?” I answered, wondering if he’d called by mistake. He’d texted to check in a few times since we’d broken up, but we were both busy, so I hadn’t heard from him in months.

“Lyla. Hey.”

I moved to the mirror, teased up the hair behind the headband, and then reached for the handmade purple and blue chandelier earrings I’d picked up at a street fair last year. Apparently Miles wasn’t going to say more than
hey.
“How are you? How’s school?”

Speaking of school, I really need to check my grade for that lit test that totally snuck up on me. Surely I didn’t do as badly as it felt like I did.

“School’s good,” Miles said. “I’m busy, but my grades are good. And I like my professors.” NYU had always been Miles’s dream, and at one point I’d thought about going there, too. But I’d gotten more scholarships for BC and that pretty much sealed my fate. At first we told ourselves the distance wasn’t
that
much and we could find a way to make it work, but that was before we tried to find the time to visit back and forth.

“Cool.” I slicked on some lip gloss and then glanced at the time. Beck should be here any minute.

“I miss you.”

My body stilled.

“I know we broke up because of the long-distance thing, but… No one gets me like you, Lyla. No one’s as driven or as focused—so many girls here aren’t even that serious about college. They just think it’s party time.”

Driven. Focused. Serious. How many times had he told me he loved that about me? Was that even me anymore? Maybe I was slipping—I had been to lots of parties lately. A tinge of panic pinched my gut. This past month, I hadn’t dedicated as much time to my classes as usual. I wasn’t flunking, but I wasn’t excelling either. This whole bucket list was supposed to prove that I could be serious about college and more relaxed about life at the same time. Only balance had been trickier than ever since Beck and I had entered our friends with benefits arrangement.

And now that I had Beck, I didn’t even miss Miles anymore—it’d been weeks since I’d thought about him.

But I don’t really
have
Beck.
I didn’t know what to say, so I went with the polite. “Yeah, I miss you, too.”

“You should come visit me,” Miles said. “It’s only three hours.”

“Or you could come visit me.”
Wait? Why am I inviting him here? Do I even want to see him? I think it’d just be awkward.

“My car’s in the shop. I think it’s dead. Seriously, you’d love it here. You’ve got to check it out.”

My car was limping and hacking up a lung, but not quite dead. “Yeah, maybe.”

A knock sounded on the front door. I cut through the living room and swung it open. Beck had on a vintage blue T-shirt that stretched nicely across his chest and brought out his eyes. He’d shaved today, and while I liked scruffy, shaved was equally nice.

“Looking sexy as usual.” Beck’s fingers skimmed the hem of my skirt. “Love this.”

Oops. I hoped Miles didn’t hear that—didn’t want to hurt his feelings when he was having a vulnerable I-miss-you moment. I held up a finger to Beck. “Hey, Miles, I’ve got to go. I’ll look at my schedule and call you later. ’Kay?”

“Potassium to you, too,” Miles said with a laugh. “Talk to you then.”

Yes, I appreciated the periodic table humor as well as the next chemistry nerd, but for some reason it didn’t make me laugh this time. I guess we’d used it too much over the years.

I hung up and smiled at Beck, and with him in front of me, his sexy compliment echoing through my head, my earlier anxiety melted away. “I’m so ready to party. The non-drinking version, of course, since I’m the designated driver and all.” I hooked my hand in his elbow. “It’s your party, so you can drink if you want to.”

“Deal.” As we headed down the stairs to the parking lot, Beck asked, “You still talk to Miles?”

“I haven’t for a long time. He just called out of the blue. Said he wants me to visit.”

Beck barked a laugh. “Yeah, right. Like you’re going to drive all the way to New York for a booty call when you get nothing out of it.”

I wanted to tell him to be nice—and to add that not every guy expected a booty call—but that wasn’t what our relationship was about. So while I’d told Whitney last night over pedicures and a cheesy romance movie to stop wondering if she should call Matt her boyfriend and just ask—he’d claimed to be busy more and more and she was in full meltdown mode about it—I realized I was a total hypocrite. I couldn’t even talk to my best friend about the guy I was having sex with. Because, silly me, I’d gone and made them the same person.

…

No surprise, the party was big and loud. The guys had about a month without games as they trained for regionals at the end of March, and apparently they planned on letting loose during their mini-break. Whenever Beck ran into one of his teammates, they greeted each other with a variety of fist or chest bumps, with the occasional bro hug. He introduced me to everyone, but other than a hand on my back here and there as we wound through the crowd, we didn’t touch.

There was no hand holding and no kissing.

Beck and I were circling the crowd when a tall brunette in teeny-tiny shorts shoved a total jock-type guy, sending him stumbling into our path. “You’re such an ass!” She loudly accused him of checking out another girl, and he tried to placate her with, “Baby, it’s not like that!” Her response was to storm off, and then he chased after her, leaving our pathway clear once again.

Beck shot me a sidelong glance, the
yikes
expression on his face clear. “That’s relationships for you. Aren’t you glad we don’t have to deal with that?”

“Totally,” I said, but another couple who stared at each other like there was nothing else in the world snagged my attention. The guy had his hands in her pockets, so there was definitely some feeling up going on, but when he laughed at whatever she’d said and kissed her cheek, I could tell their affection went beyond the physical.

There was no doubt they were together, and clearly they didn’t mind who knew it. Miles had always held my hand, had always introduced me as his girlfriend. I didn’t realize how much I missed small gestures like that.

I’ve got to stop thinking that way. It’ll just screw up the good thing Beck and I have.
Besides, now I was glorifying my relationship with Miles, when the truth was that we’d had plenty of issues, several of which went back to the fact that sex with him left us both frustrated enough we’d stopped having it very often. He’d been the one to bring up the breakup, too, as if having a girlfriend in another state held him back somehow, which I supposed didn’t make it as mutual as I liked to pretend.

“You want another drink?” Beck asked, eyeing my empty soda cup. “I’m going to grab another.”

“Sure.”

His hand grazed my back before he headed toward the drinks—the contact made my skin hum, and I told myself it was as good as hand holding, even if it didn’t necessarily announce we were here together. I watched him maneuver through the crowd and how he smiled and nodded at people as he passed. Not shoving, but always nice. Intimidating enough by size alone for most people to move out of his way.

The sex
was
amazing—there was no denying it. A week ago, he’d asked me what I wanted to try. If I had any fantasies he could help me out with. At first I’d said I didn’t have any, and that I liked what we were doing, which was true. But when he’d pushed again the other day, I’d finally blurted out the thing I’d thought of a few days after he’d asked. “I…I want you to wear all of your hockey gear. Then I…” My face had burned and I’d turned away, shaking my head.

Beck had put his fingers under my chin and tipped my face up to his. “Then what, Lyla?”

“Then I want to take it off you, one piece at a time.”

I’d waited for him to laugh, or look at me like I was crazy, but he’d simply kissed me and told me to hang tight while he changed into his gear. Stripping it all off and telling him exactly what I wanted had been empowering, and my body trembled with desire just thinking of the sex that’d followed.

But I still wished that once in a while he’d simply hold my hand. Or kiss me when we weren’t naked or on our way there.

Longing wrapped around my heart and squeezed. I shouldn’t be thinking of what I didn’t have. Beck was crazy hot, he made sure the sex was as good for me as it was for him, and I knew if anyone tried to hurt me, he’d tear them apart.

We were friends, and friends first, and that was as important to me as to him. Even the fun conversations and easy hangouts with Beck had faded a bit, though, replaced by a blur of sex. It made me feel less like a friend and more like a girl to pass time with until he got bored—I wasn’t delusional enough to believe he wouldn’t eventually move on to someone else. I closed my eyes, hating that I felt stupid for not being happier about how great my life was right now. That I wasn’t pulling off no-strings-attached, no-expectations-or-getting-serious fun.

Was I still open to another adventure around the corner? Or would I turn it down so that I could continue to fool myself about what was happening between Beck and me?

“Lyla, hey.”

I opened my eyes to Jeff.
Shit.
“Hi!” It came out way too high, with the edge of panic I was trying not to show.

“Haven’t heard from you in a while.”

A hand pressed to my back, the familiar cologne and the way my nerve endings jumped to attention letting me know Beck had stepped up next to me. “She’s seeing someone now,” he said.

I glanced up at him, my heart fluttering at his words. All that worry for nothing.

“I hardly even get to hang out with her now,” Beck added. “She’s always with her new boyfriend.”

The flutter changed to more of a stutter with a splat. There was an awkward beat where Jeff just nodded, then he took himself and his sticky tongue somewhere else.

“Figured that’d be the easiest way to get him to stop asking you out,” Beck said, handing me a cup filled with Coke. “You must’ve really put some kind of spell on him.”

Really?
That’s
the easiest way? Instead of simply admitting you and I are spending all of our time together?
Suddenly I wondered if I was his dirty little secret. The girl he didn’t want to think was sexy. He’d made it sound unbelievable someone could be so wrapped up in me, too. The confidence I’d built up since starting this whole endeavor slowly leaked out of me. I hated that I wasn’t stronger, but it didn’t stop me from feeling the opposite.

I sipped my drink, wishing it were laced with something more powerful than sugar, even though, logically, I knew alcohol wouldn’t solve the mess I’d gotten myself into.

All around us there were people laughing, drinking, and practically humping in corners. There were a lot of beachy bimbo types wearing clothes that made my short skirt and tank top seem like a burka, and most of them were draped over Beck’s teammates, sometimes two or three to a guy.

“You know, I’m kind of surprised you’d bring me when you could pick up so many girls here,” I said, hating I’d let it come out.

Beck lowered the drink he’d been tipping back and his eyebrows drew together, genuine confusion filling his features. “Why would I need to do that? I have you.”

For what? Hookups day and night? Or is there more?
Now I was wondering if he was having sex with other girls on the side, on the nights I was busy cramming several subjects into my brain at once. The thought made my stomach lurch.

“Hey, Beck.” The words were icy cold, and when I turned to see who the feminine voice belonged to, I recognized the blonde I’d interrupted him with all those weeks ago. He’d introduced us, but I couldn’t remember her name. She was giving me the same look she’d given me then, too—like I was dog crap she’d gotten on her shoe. More hatred flickered through her eyes as she turned to Beck. “I’mma big girl. You could’ve just told me you had a girlfriend. You didn’t have to ignore me for a month like I was some desperate clinging idiot.”

Judging from the slurring and slight bobble, she’d surpassed the level of alcohol intake that allowed her to keep her inside thoughts from coming out of her mouth a while ago. She was still clinging to the cup in her hand, though. Her lip curled as her acerbic gaze moved to me. “For her of all people.”