Page 60 of Busted Dreams

I still hadn’t gotten over the fact he shared something so personal with Thatcher and Beck. Now that I’d had time with both of them, the offense seemed less important, especially after some very important points Beck made sure to highlight. But I was afraid all my righteous anger would come rushing back as soon as I saw him. Irrational or not, that was where I was. And I was a coward for not wanting to do it tonight.

There was barely any sound as I shut my bedroom door. Breathing out a sigh of relief, I went through my nightly routine and got ready for bed. It was cathartic to take a shower, like I washed all the negativity from the night away. Wrapped in a towel, I rubbed another against my damp hair as I opened the bathroom to see Rhys stretched across my full size floral bed, smiling lazily like this was the moment he’d been waiting for all day.

If I’d seen him hours ago, I think I would have yelled, or at least raised my voice. There would have been a lot of hurt feelings, and I wasn’t positive I wouldn’t have said something I’d regret later. Maybe it was better I see him tonight rather than in the morning when I was all refreshed from a full night’s sleep. Because now I was drained with zero energy to be angry at him.

“Rhys,” I said as I pulled my underwear on under my towel, then pulled a tank over my head. My pajamas were thin and left nothing to the imagination, but he’d seen it all last night anyway. So I draped the towel over the back of my desk chair and walked to the bed.

He grinned and tugged me around the waist before I could even lift a leg to climb on the bed. I squeaked from surprise as he arranged me next to him. There would probably never be a time when I wouldn’t be surprised at being suddenly tossed around.

“Why the long face? Didn’t have fun with Thatcher tonight?” He threw a leg over mine, smoothing the hair away from my face.

“That was fun.” More than fun, until the end. “It’s something else. I might as well get it out in the open.” I let him slide his arm under my head as he listened intently, locking his beautiful blue gaze with mine until I almost forgot what I was saying. “I know you told Beck and Rhys that we had sex last night.”

I expected guilt or at the very least uncomfortableness. But he just kept his gaze steady as he waited for me to continue. Then I found I had nothing else to say, because his reaction baffled me.

“And?” he said.

“That was it. That was all I had to say.” I was really confused about how to deal with these boys. None of them reacted at all how I thought they would, or even similar to each other. Each new encounter with them was a new experience that I found myself unprepared for, for good or bad.

“Baby, I didn’t tell them not to tell you. I fully expected this would come out if I didn’t tell you myself. Granted, this is sooner than I thought it would be, but I’m not sorry I told them, or ashamed of my choice.”

“Okay,” I said quietly.

“Okay? Are you sure?” He scooted a little closer, eliminating even the thought of any space between us.

“Yes, but I reserve the right to bring this up later. Your reaction isn’t anything like I thought it would be, and now I’m trying to process what I thought I knew to what I know now. This is all new for me, so it’s going to take time.” Hopefully, I didn’t sound as much of an idiot to him as I did to myself. “But I do ask that I be allowed to share any life changing moments from now on, or at least have a conversation with me. When I found out you’d told them, I was betrayed and hurt. I don’t like feeling like that, especially by someone I trust.” Oh look, I found my words. “Some things were put into perspective for me that I never would have thought of, and there might not be a right or wrong, but that’s what I want between us going forward.”

“I’m sorry you felt that way. It wasn’t my intention at all, and if I’d known that would be the outcome, I would have let it play out as it would. For me, I was protecting you, and in a way, protecting them too. I promise from now on, I’ll make sure we talk and I’ll let you make the decision of what to share and when.”

The pressure that had been building inside me since I’d found out released. In the last twenty-four hours, I’d lost my virginity, had my first major hiccup in a new relationship, entered another relationship, witnessed a domestic argument I shouldn’t have been part of, and fixed what I thought might be broken. That was the most exhausting and satisfying twenty-four hours I’d ever lived.

“Let’s go to sleep. We can talk more tomorrow if you want.” He lifted off the bed to pull the covers out from underneath me to position us under them. That sounded really good. Already, I was having a hard enough time keeping my eyes open.

“Goodnight,” I mumbled into the pillow.

“Night, baby.” He kissed the crown of my head.

Good things were going to happen tomorrow, I just knew it.

“Here, this is for you,” Beck said as he tossed a letter at me when I entered the kitchen. Damn, how did he do that? Whenever I’d try to throw paper, it would just flutter away in the imitation of a dying helicopter.

“Thanks?” How did I have any mail here? There were only a few things I could think of where I’d had an opportunity to list my new address. I damn sure hadn’t updated the school. I was the only one of our friends that was still underage, and who knew how the school would react if I alerted them I wasn’t living with Jare anymore. Call me crazy, but I doubted they’d accept my word that Beck was my brother.

Flipping the envelope over, my stomach fell to the faded orange linoleum under my feet.

It was from the scholarship foundation.

If I received the scholarship, it could solve all my problems. I’d be able to go to school without breaking my back to pay for tuition, assuming I could find a way to cover it in the first place. It had been a long time since I felt this kind of fear, but this letter was literally what stood between me and my dream of getting out of here.

“You okay?” Beck stopped going through the mail to look up at me.

“I—” I couldn’t tell him what was in my hands. Not yet. The only person I had shared the scholarship with was Astrid. It was our thing. Whether I got the scholarship or not, I had this undeniable urge to open it with her. “Nothing. I zoned out for a minute. Are you taking Astrid to school today?”

Beck started to lower his head back to the mail, but snapped it back up, suspicion written all over his face. “Yeah…I was getting ready to leave. Why?”

“Can I take her today? There’s something I want to do with her.” My fingers curled around the letter, until I caught myself. This could be the one most precious object in my life. I didn’t want to put wrinkles in it, not knowing what it could represent.

Beck simply studied me for several moments, then sighed deeply. “You’re going to try and date her too, aren’t you?”

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