Page 114 of Bet On Me, Daddy

Ruby

Yeah. I’m home.

No sooner had she sent the text, than a knock sounded at her door.

Cocky sonofabitch, wasn’t he?

Annoyed that she found that so damn attractive about him, that she still foundanythingabout him attractive, she stomped out to the living room, yanking the door open to glare at him. “What if I’d said no?”

“I was really hoping you wouldn’t.”

He looked… different, somehow. Sad, which tore at her heart more than she wanted it to, but there was something else. And it was that something else that had curiosity pushing aside common sense as she gestured for him to come inside. “Well. Come in, I guess.”

Turning her back on him, she made her way over to the couch, where she wrapped herself up one of her grandmother’s blankets for a bit of comfort.

Beckett didn’t sit. He paced her tiny living room, nervous energy pouring off him in waves. Ruby pulled her blanket tighter around her, a shield of sorts against the crashing waves of his emotions.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he stopped to meet her gaze. “I owe you an apology. And an explanation.”

“I’ll take the apology, but there’s nothing you can say to explain what you did, Beckett. You took away my choices about a major life event, and then you lied to me about it. Nothing explains that.”

“I know. But I’d like to tell you, anyway.”

There was something in his voice that stopped her before she could issue a sarcastic response. Something deeper than just sadness over an ended relationship. Something that made her own chest ache just to hear it. And she realized, with a mixture of sympathy and fear, that he was ready to talk abouther.

“All right. Tell me.”

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply, as if he was gathering his courage. And when he opened his eyes again, she saw that same something she’d heard in his voice, and she nearly wept at the depth of his pain. “Her name was Grace. I loved her more than I thought I’d ever love anyone. I loved her, so fucking much, right up until the day she died.”

CHAPTER 38

RUBY

Wrapped up in her grandmother’s blanket on the old, uncomfortable couch she’d bought secondhand when she’d first moved into her apartment, she listened to the man she loved talk about another woman.

About the love of his life.

She listened to him talk about meeting her for the first time when he was five years old, when he crashed his bike in her front yard the day she moved into the neighborhood. About the fight he got into with another boy on the playground in second grade because the boy had the nerve to say he and Grace had gotten married on the swings.

First dances, first kisses, every single ‘first’ he’d had to give, he’d given it to her. And with every one, Ruby’s heart broke a little bit more for the boy he’d been. The boy who had met his soulmate while crying over a skinned knee, and never looked back.

And the man who’d lost her, far too soon.

When he finished, they sat in silence for a long while, simply watching each other. “Beckett… I don’t know what to say, other than I’m so sorry. I can’t even imagine…”

“Thank you.” Shoving his hands in his pockets, he resumed his pacing, slower now, more thoughtful. “That’s the second time this week I’ve told that story. I thought it might be easier, but it wasn’t.”

“Who was the first?”

“Ice.”

Shock had her mouth falling open. “You never told yourbest friendyou had a whole wife at one point?”

“Never came up.”

“Men,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. “What did Ice have to say?”

“He told me it wasn’t my fault.”

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