Page 4 of Sweet Surrender
She let out a loudwooand nostalgia cracked his chest open and memories poured out. All the times he’d heard that sound, all the times they had made that sound together. Pain lanced through him at the reminder of all the times he had missed. People say that certain scents could trigger a memory, well this sound did it for him and it was agony.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, ripping her ear buds out when she spotted him, her scowl snapping into place. “Creepy stalker much?” Her good mood was all gone the second she registered his presence, as usual.
Annoyance flitted through him. “How long are you going to be?” he snapped, like the asshole he was. Guilt instantly ate at him, he started to apologize but her withering glare had his lips folding inwards. Taylor was effectively the maid service at the Inn. He’d told her that he didn’t want her cleaning his room but she’d taken that as a personal challenge,typical, and she cleaned his room every day, with relish and a dash of spite.
Taylor drew herself up to her full height, 5’8” with long, slender legs that he definitely hadnotpictured wrapped around his waist a thousand times. She flipped her flame red hair over her shoulder with all the sass she could, the gold hoop through her nose caught the light and her emerald eyes flashed at him.
“I’ll be done when I’m done. It’s not my fault you’re messy as fuck.”
He snorted. He wasn’t messy at all; everything was as neat as could be.Shewas the messy one. He remembered the number of times he’d been in her room as a teenager. Tripping over all her crap scattered on the floor, getting tangled in the clothes strewn about the place like a hurricane had hit it. Tornado Taylor, that’s what he’d called her. He shook his head at the memory, trying to dislodge it.
He grabbed a towel from the clean stack she had placed on an armchair, and wiped his sweaty face then the back of his neck.
She scowled at him and turned away. “You stink.”
“Leave then so I can shower,” he grumbled.
“I will as soon as I change the bed.” She looked at it now, her cute nose wrinkling. “I can’t believe I have to change your gross sex sheets,” she complained.
“Oh sweetheart, we didn’t have sex in thebed,”he purred. It was technically the truth, he and his date hadn’t had sex at all, but he refused to admit that her little stunt last night had succeeded. He watched her closely for a reaction and saw her face flush, adorable red covering up the smattering of freckles that ran across her cheeks and nose. Freckles he used to fantasize about licking until…nope, not going there.
He couldn’t believe she was blushing. That he rendered that motormouth of hers speechless, with asexjoke no less. She was the queen of dirty jokes but she wasn’t used to him making them. The Beau she knew from years ago would never have made a dirty joke to Taylor, he would have stuttered and stumbled and stared at his feet, tongue-tied and blushing.
“Unless you’re moving out then I need another two weeks paying up,” she interrupted his thoughts.
He nodded. “I’ll get you the cash later today.”
“Are you sure you wouldn’t rather move out? I wouldn’t mind at all.” She shot him a smile full of teeth and snark. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“I’m sure.”
She cursed and turned back to the bed and began pulling the sheets off. He stepped forward to stop her, he couldn’t watch her do this, like she was his damn maid. She sensed his intentions and shot him a look that would have turned a lesser man to stone. As it was, Beau was so used to that look, he was immune. She glared at him as she wrenched a pillowcase free and dropped it to the ground, shaking her head and arching her eyebrow in challenge, a challenge she won.
He stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door, trying to shut the feelings out. He felt like he was suffocating in this twisted game they were caught in.
Things hadn’t always been like this between them. At one point she had been the most important person in the world to him. They had been the best of friends; she was the reason he jumped out of bed each day. She was…God there weren’t words for what she had meant to him…
Back then he’d been such a fucking cliché. The geeky, fat kid in love with the beautiful, popular girl. Only the beautiful popular girl had become his best friend’s new stepsister. The time he spent hanging out at Dean’s house, around her, had brought them closer together and soon she became his other best friend.
At first he was so shy and tongue-tied around her. When she paid him attention, he didn’t trust that she was genuine. He’d been used by the popular girls at school who pretended to be his friend or acted like they wanted to date him when really they wanted him to do their homework or to use him to make another guy jealous.
He hadn’t been under any illusions, he was a nerd, he was fat and awkward as hell with zero confidence. No way would those girls be interested in him. Eventually he realized that Taylor genuinely wanted to know him and be his friend. He managed to put hisawkwardaside and have conversations with her.
They talked about everything. Music, movies, books and TV, politics sometimes, and even pointless crap like if you had to choose between having dicks for fingers or testicles for toes which would you pick? Dick fingers all day long, FYI.
Taylor would always come and grab him for lunch at school and they’d walk to the cafeteria together, past all the other overweight, nerdy kids who watched open-mouthed as this goddess picked Beau. Every damn day she pickedhim.
They would sit together, sometimes with Dean, and people-watch, making up stories about strangers, getting more outrageous with each person they picked. As well as random discussions about dick fingers and testicle toes, Beau liked to challenge her. Taylor had this silly belief that you could fit awoointo any song, so he spent his time testing her on songs of all different genres. So far, she hadn’t proved him wrong.
Taylor had been magnetic. Hell, she still was. She had a vibe and an energy about her that was addictive, you always wanted more. And damn his soft, naïve teenage heart but he had wanted more. He wantedeverything.
Who had he been kidding though, there was no way she was interested in him like that. Plus, she already had a boyfriend, Bobby, who treated her like shit. Taylor had an amazing bullshit detector and kept her circle small; it was something Beau adored about her. She wasn’t fake, she didn’t need the world to love her and care about her, just her close friends. Which was why Beau could never understand how Bobby had snuck into her circle. He was a fucking moron.
Twice their football coach had to break up fights between Beau, Dean and Bobby after Bobby had opened his mouth in the locker room and overshared his and Taylor’s sexcapades. Why the fuck would you share that information with her stepbrother and best friend in the vicinity? That’s what a fucking moron he was. Not that Beau had minded, he relished having an excuse to beat the shit out of him.
Sometimes it was difficult being such good friends with Taylor. The more time he spent around her, the more he fell for her and had to put his feelings aside. Beau had become perfectly content with wanting her and settling for friendship, hell, he would take what he could get.
Until one evening after school, Taylor had burst into his room, ranting and raving about what a dick Bobby was. This was a regular occurrence, but Beau always listened, he never bitched about Bobby and he was never disrespectful. Any comments he wanted to make would only be borne of jealousy and not fit for her ears.
