Desired Hearts: Bonus Chapter

Beck

Using the excuse of being cold, I stared at the fire, not listening to the goings-on in the kitchen behind me. There was something about a fire that had always intrigued me. Like the ocean, there was a dangerous calm to it. How something so soothing could also be so dangerous, an underlying question with no real answer except… that was just the way things were.

Like women, I supposed.

I loved them. Touching them. Being inside them. Making them call my name. Learning how to please them. If nothing else, I strove to be the best at whatever I was doing. Even if such pursuits weren’t necessarily of the serious kind.

Life was too short to take it seriously anyway. We lived. Fucked. Ate. Drank. Died. The rest of it was inconsequential.

My friends’ conversation penetrated. Pia was talking about not being able to drink this weekend, pregnant and all.

“With one major difference,” she said of this weekend and the last time we’d been here.

“The sacrifices you make,” I called over to her, thinking of the very few of them my own parents had made. Their lives had hardly changed after having kids. We’d been raised by nannies and babysitters, not that I gave a shit. It was easy to seduce a girl my age, or a few years older, into allowing my friends over even though my parents forbade it. I was pretty sure the sitters knew they were sneaking beer into the cellar where we “hung out.” Was pretty sure my parents knew their liquor had been watered down. But no one gave a shit as long as their own needs were met.

Speaking of needs…

I hadn’t been with a woman in weeks. Not since—fuck. No matter how many times I told myself not to think of it, a faceless French prick named Mathieu popped into my head. What the hell did I care? Mae was too good for me. Always had been. Of course she would marry someday. I just wished it wasn’t someone obviously the exact opposite of me. “He’s cute and cultured, speaks three languages,” etcetera, etcetera. Mae refused to take the hint. Every time she brought him up, I changed the subject. But since they’d got engaged, it was all she wanted to talk about.

“It’s cold as balls out there,” Cole said. “But the hot tub is on.”

Cole gave me the finger as he walked by. I did the same. Yeah, we were no better than a pair of fifteen-year-olds. At least one of us had grown up, slightly. Me? I didn’t see the point.

I stared at the fire for a few more minutes, happily drinking my beer in solitude. The kind of solitude I liked best, with other people around. True introverts, I didn’t get. Seemed boring as hell to me, not to have friends or the arms of a sexy woman around at all times.

“Come on, Beck.”

Pia. How she’d become like a second sister I’d never know. We didn’t have a ton in common, besides our love of the water, and Mason. That fucker had gone through hell and back. He deserved a good woman like her.

Apparently we were toasting.

I looked over at Delaney. She had no idea. Parker worried she may have seen the ring in his glove compartment, one hell of a place to keep a diamond. But I was pretty sure this was going to be a surprise.

“To endings and new beginnings,” Cole toasted to what Delaney thought was the last week of her job. I held back a smile, knowing otherwise. “Bound by life’s ride, here’s to the journey.”

“Here’s to the journey,” I said, along with the others, drinking the entire glass of champagne in one long sip. It wasn’t my choice of drink, but I wouldn’t turn away a good bubbly either.

Here we go.

Parker got on one knee. As I suspected, Delaney was shocked. No way she could feign that kind of surprise. Also not surprising, she was in tears in five seconds flat. The woman was as sentimental as they came. She had more emotion in her left finger than I had in my whole hand. Than Mason had in his whole body.

Smiling at my own joke, I watched as Parker got engaged. Cole was surprised when we told him and planned this weekend, but honestly, I wasn’t. Parker might hate what his dad did to his mother, but he’d always had a kind heart. Seeing him fall head over heels in love was much less shocking than when Mason did the same.

Now that fucker… How Pia put up with him, I wasn’t sure.

“Thank you for making me the happiest man in the world.”

Parker said it quietly, just to Delaney. But we could hear him easily enough. Smiling, happy for him, I pulled my phone out of my jeans pocket.

Mae

Got a date!

I put down my beer and texted back.

Why aren’t you sleeping?

It was almost midnight there.

Too excited. Graduation is set for 5/5.

I had no idea what to say. How to feel. Working for her dad, it would be hard to avoid her, not that I wanted to. But it was a hell of a lot easier to love Mae O’Malley from a distance than it would be when she, and fucking Mathieu, were in Cedar Falls.

Exciting! When will you come back?

Didn’t get tix yet but probably the following week.

Less than two months, and she would be back home.

“Beck, you okay?” Pia asked.

I thumbs-upped her text and put my phone away. Pia’s nausea from the last few months was rubbing off on me. Feeling sick to my stomach, I made the excuse of wanting to put on my bathing suit for the hot tub and hightailed it upstairs.

Mae was coming home.

…..

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