Page 24 of She's Mine

“She’s probably with HIM.” I spit the last word out like it’s poison on my tongue, acrid and bitter.

“No, Bear.” She launches into an explanation. And I listen without taking another drink.

“I came into work today and ran into Daisy. She was all happy and shit and showed me a freakin’ engagement ring on her hand, telling me she and Paul are getting married. You can imagine I was kind of shocked but she followed that up with the little nugget that it wouldn’t have happened if not for Bea.”

“What?” I set the beer down.

“Bea apparently told Paul to get his head out of his ass - a direct quote according to Daisy - and stop wasting time with Daisy. She apparently said that if they love one another they need to just be together and stop trying to make each other miserable and jealous because life is too short to be douchebags to the people you love. Then she asked me if I knew where she was so she could thank her.”

What the fuck?

“I told her I thought she was with Paul…or her and she told me neither one of them had seen her since the day after the boat party. Which was a fucking week ago, Bear! And she hasn’t been to the apartment either. No one has seen her!”

“What the fuck?” I sober up real quick. “Okay, let’s not…where else could she have gone? Friends? Relatives?”

“Um…she mentioned her father once. She said something about him being the reason she couldn’t come with me to have Christmas with Mom and Dad.”

“We’ll start there. Do you have an address or a phone number?”

“No, but I’m going back to the apartment and tossing her stuff to see if she wrote it down somewhere. Bear…do you think she’s alright?”

“I don’t know, Kat. Let’s just…find her father and go from there. I’ll meet you at the apartment.”

It only takes me a few minutes to get over to where the girls live. Kat is already there and comes rushing up to me with a book in her hand and a pissed look on her face.

“Do you care about Bea?”

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

She shoves the book at me. I look at it and see a lot of little curly cues and flowers written on the pages. It takes me a little while to realize what I’m holding. Bea’s journal. The words jump off the page like gut punches.

I know it might seem stupid but the way he looks at me has my heart thumping fast and he promises me he is going to do such naughty things to me. Tonight when he was speaking to me, telling me all the things he wants to do to me…I could easily lose my heart if I’m not careful. I could fall in love with Bear. And then what? Would he be able to tell…I’m already halfway there.

“Son of a bitch!” Kat is nodding her head with big tears standing in her eyes. “Son of a bitch! Okay, have you found an address yet?”

“No, but I just started looking.”

“Let’s pull out every piece of paper we can find and if that doesn’t work we’ll call the school and tell them there is an emergency and we need his phone number. Maybe they’ll give it to us.”

Chapter Nineteen

Bea

I lay in bed with the covers pulled up over my head like I’m hiding from the world. It’s the same thing I have been doing for the past week. It takes me a while to realize someone is at the door and isn’t leaving. I jerk the covers down and stare at the ceiling in my childhood bedroom. The knocking doesn’t stop so I drag my achy body from the bed and trudge towards the door.

I open the door and feel my heart gurgle in a last desperate death throes as I take in the man standing on my doorstep.

Bear!

“I thought I told you not to open the door when you are naked, damn it!”

“I…I thought you were…a delivery driver…never mind.” That’s the last thing I need to say to him. “What are you doing here, Bear?”

“Everyone was worried about you. We were worried about…”

He stops before going any further. But he doesn’t have to. I can guess what he was about to say. “That I would do something stupid. Because that’s what I do best. Stupid shit. Like ask my best friend’s brother to be my fake boyfriend.”

He doesn’t say anything letting me know all I need to. “I’ll ease whatever guilt you feel, Bear. I’m fine.”

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