Bet Me Something (Something Series Book 3) (2 page)

Not to be
outdone, she fired back. “You’re awfully judgey for a man who’s probably slept
his way through half the women in Southern California.”

His jaw ticked.
“Even if that were true, I still wouldn’t find you remotely attractive enough
to join the lucky masses.”

Rebecca turned
pink; however before she could voice a comeback, Colby led me away from her.

“That was
unpleasant, as usual. You all right?”

“Sure,” I lied,
refusing to let the man about whom I’d fantasized for as long as I could
remember see any more of my embarrassment.

 He searched my
face, turning me towards the bar. “I don’t believe you. Come on, let’s get you
a drink, and you can tell me what’s wrong, Kenz.”

My stomach
fluttered like it always did when he shortened my name to one syllable. Most of
my friends and family used Kenzie or my given name of McKenzie, but Colby had
always called me Kenz. Even knowing he probably never thought twice about using
the nickname, it still made me feel special.

It was tempting
to unload everything on him. Truth be told, he’d make a great sounding board. But
the thought of coming across as a dependent child when I wanted him to see me
as a grown woman kept me from doing so. As fate would have it, while I was
contemplating what to tell him, we were interrupted by my mother, who I’d
secretly hoped to avoid for the remainder of the party. She insisted that I
rejoin the masses to do my duty.

“McKenzie, you
need to ensure you say goodbye to the guests who are leaving—seeing as they all
came for you.”

Mom-guilt
royally sucked, especially when I was so upset with her. But years of engrained
etiquette kicked in, as I eyed my untouched drink with regret. “Talk to you
later,” I mumbled without meeting Colby’s eyes. I knew my regression to a
dutiful twelve-year-old daughter was not exactly winning me any seduction
points.

My mother was
all about protocol and manners, which meant that for the next hour I dutifully
thanked and said goodbye to every guest present. It was somewhat awkward to be
at my own party and hardly know anyone, but it made going through the motions
while being completely numb easier to pull off. I’d have preferred a small
get-together, like a barbeque with my actual friends and family, but as with
everything, I hadn’t thought it worth the effort to fight my mother about the
party plans. If I needed a reminder of why I preferred to stay across the
country in Los Angeles, this was a prime one. Because not even at my own
celebration had I been in control of the smallest detail, including the guest
list. My one single act of defiance today had been to wear a dress my mother
hadn’t picked out. Oh, yeah, I was a real rebel.

***

After all of the
guests had departed, I snuck away to the one place I’d always had as an escape.
The tree house that Colby’s father had built with him, Colby’s older brother,
Josh, and Brian during one summer when they were kids. It perched on the border
between our two houses. I hadn’t been up here in years and noticed right away
that the wooden structure twenty feet up in the tree was showing its age. It
didn’t matter. This was the last place anyone would look for me, which allowed
me to be alone. Curling my knees up and hugging them close, I was unprepared
for Colby’s voice, which startled me out of my silent misery.

“Hey, you.” He
flashed his infamous PDG while he ascended the last step of the ladder. PDG was
short for
panty dropping grin
and, good Lord, did he have one. Yes, indeed,
when Colby Singer flashed his sexy smile, I swear every woman within a
twenty-foot radius was ready to drop her panties.

I certainly
wasn’t immune to his panty-melting charm. But, at the moment I was busy biting
my lip to keep from crying. “Hey.”

 His grin
slipped into a concerned expression. “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”

How many times
as a teenager had I fantasized about Colby Singer sneaking out to meet me here;
however it certainly wasn’t so I could burst into tears and unload my problems.
“I’m waiting out my mom, hoping she’ll go lie down, so I can sneak out and
catch an earlier flight.”

Although I wasn’t
due to return to Los Angeles until Monday, there was no way I could stay here another
day. I needed to think, and, evidently, I wasn’t able to do it in the house
where I’d grown up without completely reverting. I’d pretty much done as I was
told for most of my life and the truth hit me that it wasn’t until moving away
that I’d started to feel like I could be my true self. It confirmed that I
absolutely could not live at home ever again. I had no clue what I was going to
do, but denial seemed a whole lot easier to achieve if I could at least get
back to my apartment and be in my own company.

He smiled.
“Well, I have good news. I overheard her tell your dad that she was lying down
for a nap right before I came looking for you. How about you go get packed, and
I’ll drive you to the airport?”

Well that was a
relief. “Thanks. I could use a ride.” After climbing down and then walking to
the house side by side, I asked, “How did you know where to find me?”

“It’s where you
always went when something was bothering you, or you wanted to avoid your mom.
And since both of those scenarios seemed in play, I figured I might find you
there.” He turned back, looking over his shoulder at the structure. “The tree
house has definitely seen better days.”

I nodded. “It
has, but I like the memories.”

Once I was back
at the house, I was thankful that neither of my parents were around; only the
caterers were busy, cleaning up. After I packed quickly and verified there was
a flight that evening I could try to go on standby, Colby helped me get my
suitcase out to the car, and we set off for the airport.

Although it
wasn’t like me to leave without saying goodbye to my mom or dad, I gladly took
the opportunity and ran with it. Normally, Colby and I would have had plenty to
chat about, but for once, I was completely quiet.

“Did you, uh,
talk to your brother before he left?” Colby asked.

“Yeah. He gave
me a lame excuse of a work emergency. Do you know what really happened?”

Colby hesitated.
“Not really. He feels terrible about leaving early, though. He texted me to see
if you were doing okay.”

That was my
brother, always looking out for me. One more example of how I was dependent on
others. “I told him not to worry about the party. He may not want to tell me
what’s really going on, but staying only would’ve made us both miserable.”

“That was decent
of you, Kenz.” He fixed his eyes on me.

I shrugged,
fighting the tears once more. Dammit, I wasn’t a crier. And there was a good
reason; it wasn’t a pretty sight. I knew girls who were sweet when they cried,
some tugged at your heartstrings, but nope, not me. Ugly crying was my
specialty, with puffy eyes, red blotches on my face, and big gobs of tears.
Since there was no way I was going for that look, I put on the sassy, fun face
that Colby was used to seeing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t as good of an actress as
I’d hoped.

His expression
softened. “You going to tell me what upset you at the party?”

I took a deep
breath, realizing he wasn’t letting it go and I wasn’t fooling him into
thinking nothing was wrong. “My mom is insisting I move home to do my grad
school at Georgetown.” There, I’d said it, and without tears.

He looked shocked.
“Wait, I thought you were doing a summer internship downtown and then attending
UCLA for your MBA.”

“That was my
plan, but unfortunately it isn’t hers.” I filled him in on the slip-up by my
dad’s golf buddy and the subsequent dialogue with my parents.

“Did you tell
Brian?”

I shook my head.
“I was going to, but he seems to have enough on his plate at the moment.”

“And in addition
to insinuating you’d moved out to LA for me, Rebecca already knew your mother’s
plan and was rubbing it in?”

Kill me. Kill me
now. “Uh, yeah. You know how she loves spreading misery.”

He continued on.
“Pay your horrible sister-in-law no mind. She was only trying to cause
trouble.”

“Yeah, I know.”
I sighed heavily and let down my long, blond hair from the pins which had held
it up most of the day, attempting to alleviate my throbbing headache and feel
more like myself. If I was being brutally honest, I had to admit my infatuation
with Colby had, in fact, influenced my decision to move to Los Angeles. But
four years later, I knew I loved living in the Golden State whether or not he
resided there, too. It was beyond humiliating, however, that he’d ever think I
had moved or wished to stay for him.

As if sensing my
thoughts, he looked at me and took my hand over the console. “I’ve never believed
for a second you’d move across the country to be closer to me. For one, you had
a full lacrosse scholarship to attend UCLA. Secondly, anyone who knows your
mother or has been in the same room as Rebecca for five minutes is well aware
of the real reason you moved to the opposite coast of the United States.”

His fingers
squeezed, and I wished there was a world in which the contact gave him the same
tingle I was feeling.

Hoping to inject
some levity back into the conversation, I decided to go for the sarcasm route.
“The good news is if Rebecca was right about you feeling an obligation as my
babysitter, you won’t have to hold that title for much longer.”

I was unprepared
for him to pull off the road into an empty bank parking lot. He put the car in
park and turned to me, his expression showing his agitation.

“I come over on
Sundays for dinner because I want to spend time with you. Not because I need to
babysit or feel some obligation to do so.”

“So then why is
my brother texting you asking if I’m okay?”

He flushed
slightly. “Like it or not, you’ve always had your big brother and his friends—which
includes me—looking out for you. But make no mistake, I’ve never seen it as a
burden. Hell, if anything, it means a lot that Brian trusts me with his sister
given my, uh, unfortunate reputation that Rebecca so nicely brought up.”

I nodded dumbly.

“Plus you’ve
been busy over the last few months on our regular nights. I feel as though I
hardly see you anymore.”

Experiencing a
twinge of guilt, I let out a breath. I’d purposefully made myself unavailable
on some of our regularly scheduled Sunday nights in the hope that I didn’t
appear too obvious when it came to wanting to spend time with him. “I guess I
needed to hear that you never felt obligated to hang out with me.”

His eyes
softened. “You’re my friend, Kenz. Outside of our older brothers being best
friends or our families growing up next door to one another. I look forward to
Sundays because there’s no agenda with you, and I can be myself. Not to
mention, your cooking is awesome.”

I cracked a
smile. “My culinary skills are only a slight improvement over boxed mac and
cheese, but I’m glad you enjoy it.” For the first time, I felt an affirmation
that whatever did or didn’t happen between us, at least we had a very real
friendship where we both cared about one another.

He pulled back
into traffic and navigated towards the airport while looking lost in thought.
Then he hit me with a question I hadn’t been expecting.

“So why have you
been busy on our usual Sunday dinner nights lately?”

I was reasonably
certain that the excuse of: B
ecause I was hoping you’d miss me, and it would
make you want to rip off my clothes when you did see me
might make things
awkward. “Uh, I had other plans and figured you might want off the hook from
coming over every week.”

“Other plans
meaning dates?”

His inquiry took
me off guard. We hadn’t previously talked about that aspect of our lives. I
figured this was mostly a conscious effort on his part to spare me hurt
feelings over hearing about the women he went out with, but he’d never asked
about my dating life, either. “Sometimes. Why?”

He shrugged.
“After my brother’s wedding in Tortola a few months ago, I felt as though
things changed between us and wondered if I had done something to cause that.
Then I asked Brian if you had a boyfriend and maybe that’s what had you so
busy.”

He’d asked my
brother that question? Interesting. During that wedding weekend over New Year’s
I’d realized how obvious my crush might be to him and had decided to become a
little less available. I’d hoped it would start a spark, but this was the first
time I had evidence he’d even noticed the change. “No, nothing like that. I
guess I didn’t think you’d miss it.”

“Well, I did.”

A shiver lanced
through me with the possibilities of that answer and then sadness overwhelmed
me. If I had to move, I’d miss our Sunday nights together greatly. “Yeah, me,
too. Maybe before I pack up, we can do one last movie marathon night or
something.”

“So you’re
definitely moving home?”

“My mom didn’t
give me a lot of choice in the matter, threatening to cut me off completely. I mentioned
staying the summer for my internship, but as soon as she finds out it’s in the
music industry, there’s no way she’d be on board.”