Page 109 of Bet On Me, Daddy

“What’s your point?”

“My point is, I don’t know a single Daddy worth his salt who wouldn’t worry his ass off over his babygirl working that much. It has nothing to do with Beckett being a rich, entitled asshole, though you won’t get any argument from me on that front, either.”

Unease settled like a rock in Ruby’s stomach. “You think I overreacted.”

“I think Beckett’s actions triggered a completely understandable reaction to some very deep-seated trauma. So, no, I don’t think you necessarily overreacted, but I do think you and Beckett need to talk about what happened. Do you have a therapist?”

“I do. Dr. Jenn.”

“Good. This afternoon, you’re going to give her a call and have her fit you in for an emergency session as soon as possible. If your insurance doesn’t cover it, I will.”

“Oh, I can’t let you do that.”

“Of course you can. Because that’s what friends do. They take care of us, when we can’t take care of ourselves. Let me be your friend, Ruby. Seems to me like we could both use as many as we could get these days.”

CHAPTER 36

BECKETT

“Well. When you fuck up, you fuck all the way up.”

Stretched out on Ice’s couch, Beckett opened his eyes just enough to glare at his smirking friend. “You don’t have to sound so damn happy about it.”

“I’m not happy. I am, however, wondering how you didn’t see this blowing up in your face.”

“What the hell was I supposed to do, Ice? She’s sick. And she’smine. It’s my job to take care of her.” An old, familiar grief welled up inside him, threatening to choke him. “I already failed at it once. I can’t do it again.”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Sitting up straighter in the armchair he’d been lazing in during their talk, Ice frowned. “Who said you failed at anything? Just because she got sick doesn’t mean you failed, dude.”

Shit. He’d been so mired in his own grief he hadn’t even realized he’d said that. But now that he had, he really didn’t have much of a choice but to come clean.

So he swallowed hard against the emotion that had wrapped itself around his throat and prepared to share his deepest, most painful secrets with the man he considered his best friend. “Not Ruby. Grace. My wife.”

In the year or so he’d known Elias ‘Ice’ Turner, he’d never actually seen him speechless.

Until now.

For several long seconds, Ice simply stared at him, his mouth hanging slightly open until he finally shook his head as if he was physically shaking off the shock. “I beg your finest fucking pardon. Did you just say you have awife? As in, ‘til death do we part, for richer or poorer, all that shit’ kind of wife?”

“Yes.”

“Since when?”

“High school. Well, about two days after graduation, technically.”

Leaning back in his chair, Ice let out a long, low whistle. “You move fast.”

“Not really,” Beckett answered with a shrug. “We were childhood sweethearts. Met when we were about five, grew up next door to each other. I told my dad when I was seven I was going to marry her, and I meant it. You know what it’s like, when you see her and you just know she’s the one. It was like that with you and Silver.”

“Yeah but we were sixteen. It’s a little different.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, she was my whole fucking world from the word go, Ice. There was never anyone else, not even in school. Not for me, not for her. We just… clicked. She was my submissive, before we even had a word for what we were doing. Bratty as hell, because she loved it when I spanked her, since back then I was too nervous to punish her too harshly. Worried I’d push her away if I was too ‘mean’. So really her ‘punishments’ were more like foreplay, which was just how she liked it.”

“How the times have changed.”

“Yeah.” Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Beckett nodded. “There’s a reason for that. When we were just out ofcollege, she took this job she hated, because it was supposed to fast track her career. I wanted her to quit, begged her to find something else, anything else. But she was determined thatthiswas it. And so I backed off. Pretended I didn’t see how fucking exhausted she was, all the goddamn time.”

At some point during his confession, Ice had gotten up and retrieved a bottle of water from the fridge. Beckett glanced up as Ice pressed the cold glass into his hand. “Thanks.”

---