Hard Beat

Thoughts of Beaux are still front and center as I shove up out of bed and get ready to work out. I’m out of my hotel room and in the stairwell within twenty minutes of waking, earbuds in, and muscles tense with my mind ru

Déjà vu hits, and although we’re standing apart this time, I still feel as if my body has slammed into hers. And what knocks the air out of me is not just catching her like this when the images of all of the ways I want to fuck her have owned my thoughts. Not hardly. It’s the look of shocked surprise in her eyes mixed with the realization that I’ve noticed she’s wearing the same clothes as last night, camera slung over her shoulder, hair piled on top of her head.

Again.

Disbelief marries with hurt before it rifles through me. After that moment we shared between us last night, how could she have gone out and spent the night with someone else? I force a swallow to compose myself as I watch her eyes widen and her head shake back and forth rapidly as she realizes she’s been caught. It’s too much; I can’t deal with this, with her, with the disappointment spreading through my system right now. It just doesn’t make sense, and I’d rather feel the anger than the confusion.

And it’s just the briefest of hesitations on my part as I allow myself a moment to feel stupid before I begin to rein my feelings in and turn to walk away. That slight falter gives her the opening she needs to reach out and grab my arm as I start to turn away. “No, Ta

The incredulity I feel at being caught in this same moment again on top of my mistrust toward her right now has me primed for an argument. “What the fuck do you mean, it’s not what I think?” I growl as I turn around to face her, shrugging my arm from her grasp. “Because it looks pretty damn obvious to me. Guess the joke’s on me… or whoever else you were with last night. You sure as hell have a way of making someone feel like you have eyes only for them… when in fact you give everything else instead.”

I know it’s a dickish i

“Just…,” she says, and then stops as she rolls her shoulders, a war waging across her features over the confession I can see trembling on her lips. But the simple word and the tone in which she says it does its job, because I don’t move. “All I’m doing is taking pictures.” She holds her camera up in front of her as if its mere presence is proof. And of course the notion lingers that we’ve been here with the camera between us before and when I called her bluff, I was in the wrong. “When I feel restless, I go out and take pictures… I get lost in seeing the world through a filter, can distance myself… and sometimes it’s not until the sun comes up that I realize I’ve been up all night long. I don’t know how else to explain it, other than it calms me.”

“What? Here? Are you fucking crazy?” And yes, I should really be reading between the lines, but fuck, I’m a guy. I react without thinking, jump to judge without hearing anything beyond helpless female all alone in the wild fucking West. “It’s like willingly walking into the goddamn lion’s den out there! I told you not to go out there by yourself! You promised that you wouldn’t!”

“Yeah… well, I unpromise.” And there’s something about the contrast of the tone of her voice in comparison to mine – detached versus animated, defiance instead of compassion – that shocks me into realizing it doesn’t matter what else I say because she’s going to do it anyway. I search her eyes for a reason, a co

How can she pull away when all we’ve been doing is co

“Are you purposefully trying to push buttons to get a reaction? Because it doesn’t take much to ignite my temper, and, frankly, knowing you’re out there on your own is doing it already.” I step closer to her, willing the warmth in her eyes to return. “What’s really going on, Beaux?”

“It’s how I deal, okay? End of discussion. Drop it.” She retreats a step, and luckily the wall is at her back, because that means she can’t run away now.

“Deal with what? Is shit that bad at home that you’re willing to risk your safety here so that you don’t have to go back?” I immediately feel like a jerk for my original assumption that she’s sleeping around, but now I’m worried about what she’s withholding from me. And a small part of me cringes because I sound a lot like Rafe did to me when I wanted back here. I hate not knowing what has put this look on her face and the uncertainty laced with something else I can’t quite pin down in her eyes. “What the fuck are you ru

“Nothing.” She remains expressionless.

“Don’t nothing me, Beaux. Or is it BJ now? Because I expect that kind of crap answer from BJ, not from you. Not from the woman who looked at me like she did last night before bailing out of the lobby like she couldn’t get away fast enough.” She holds my stare as my words punch her one by one.

“Like I said, I’m not ru

“Nice try but I’m not buying it.” I know she’s going to try and run the minute she averts her eyes. Good thing too, because I reach out to grab her shoulders and keep her in place at the same time she tries to shrug past me. “Uh-uh. You’re not going anywhere. In your words we’re going to settle this right now. What’s your story, then? We’ve sat for the last week talking about everything under the goddamn sun, and yet I know nothing about you.”

Oh I’ve definitely got her attention now: the sharp intake of air, her eyes flickering left and right, the stiffness in her posture.

“Yes, you do!” She sneers back.

“I know you went to Dartmouth, your reasons for freelance… but I don’t know the person you are at home without using that fucking camera as a shield in front of you. So tell me, BJ,” I say as I step well within her personal space so that I can feel the heat of her breath on my lips. “Who the fuck are you, and what the hell are you dealing with?”

“Back off, Ta

“No. You know me, right? Know how stubborn I am? It comes with my career choice, so I suggest you start talking.” We stand there in a silent standoff that I sure as hell am going to win. “Is it your family? Are you ru

“No. Don’t have any.”

“Everyone has family.” I laugh in disbelief at her lie.

“Not me. They’re dead.”

I never knew you could get whiplash from words alone, but there’s always a first for everything, and she’s taught me a lot of those in the short time that I’ve known her. “Wh-what?” I stutter the word out as dread drops through my body for pushing her. I was sure she was going to look like the ass in the end, but it seems I’m taking the lead position in that race.

“My parents died my senior year of high school. Car crash. They were driving to school to bring me a project I forgot at home. Both were gone instantly. I’m an only child as were they, so there’s no one else. I sold the house to pay for my college tuition. My blood money. So when you tell me no one understands the guilt you feel over whatever happened to Stella, you are so very wrong. I wear the crown most days.”