Page 57 of The Love Wager

“Fuck the money. Losing you tomorrow will hurt worse than any lost wager, red.”

She turns in my hold, and I drop it away. Her eyes lock on mine, searching for something as she remains silent.

I take the opening. “Tell me it meant more to you, too. Tell me that this is more than a bet to you.”

She swallows. “Brooks.” Her hand lies gently on my chest, regret radiating from it and sinking into my flesh like a sad memory.

Tears sting my eyes.

“This was my new beginning. Or, it was supposed to be. Now, it’s just…” she sighs. “It was a mistake.”

Mistake.

The word rings through my brain like a train horn. It seems I’m standing on the tracks, reality barreling toward me, and I can’t move. I’m stuck in the icky, heavy muck tugging me down, rooting me to my eventual demise.

“I’ll take you back.” Stepping back, I create space between us, trying to sober from her presence. From this night.

The ride back to the hotel is silent and tense. My hand itches to find hers. To bridge the gap between us that I forged.

But I leave her alone.

She clearly doesn’t feel the same, even if I thought something was there. If she does, she’s a damn good liar because I detected no feeling in the way she dismissed me.

I feel awful for what happened, and now I have to find a way to fix my mess and her mess because I’ll be damned if I go down and take her with me.

I’ll wager it all to see her smile again, even if she’s not beside me when she does so.

TWENTY-ONE

Indie

The truck ride back to the hotel feels like a slow, suffocating crawl through the worst kind of hell.One of my own making. Thank God I’m not driving because I’d never have been able to focus on the road with the stifling awkward energy rolling between us. Every bump in the pavement comes with a new wave of guilt and frustration that tonight went downhill so quickly.

It takes everything I have to keep the tears from slipping down my cheeks. I dig my fingernails into my palms, biting the corner of my lip so hard the coppery tang of blood trickles free. I will myself to keep it together, just a little while longer, until we can part ways.

The truck rolls to a stop at the bottom of the porch. Brooks reaches over mechanically to turn the volume dial down, even though the radio hasn’t been on this entire time.

“Indie, please. Don’t leave it like this,” he pleads, his tone thick with emotion.

“I’m sorry.” I gasp, pushing the words through my own emotionally clogged throat as I hop from the cab. Before I slam the door behind me, shutting out the closest thing to a realrelationship I’ve had in my adult life, I break. “I don’t regret a single second of knowing you, Brooks Holt.” I don’t let him respond, turning on my heels, booking it up the steps, and disappearing into the inn lobby.

The moment my hotel door clicks closed behind me, the fragile grip I’ve been holding onto snaps. The dam bursts, and everything I held back pours out in a messy, uncontrollable flood. My vision blurs the sad, lonely room around me.

Kicking off my heels, the sound of them hitting the wood floor barely reaches my ears as I stumble toward the bed on the other side of the room. I need to escape, to fall into the comfort of being busy and pretend none of it was real. Like if I close my eyes tight enough, I can erase the last few hours, and we can go back to when everything was still going as planned.

Tonight was supposed to be a celebration, a chance to finally breathe after a whirlwind of a week. Instead, it was a mess. A perfect storm of secrets unveiled, betrayal of those we love, and a plethora of regret. It didn’t turn out as I’d imagined for my last night here. And maybe that was on me.

I pushed Brooks to talk to Nick and convinced him to finally have the conversation with his brother that he’d been putting off for far too long. But if I hadn’t, maybe Taylor wouldn’t have overheard those damning words. Maybe I wouldn’t have felt like I’d been sucker-punched in the chest by a man I never intended on falling for in the first place.

Shaking my head, trying to clear the brain fog rolling in, I drag my suitcase from under the bed. I need a distraction from playing the scene we happened upon in the bathroom on repeat in my head. I throw it on the couch with more force than I mean to. The zipper catches on the fabric as I try to pry it open so I can start packing up.

I’m done with this room, this city, this feeling that I’m leaving a huge part of myself behind. My flight leaves first thingtomorrow morning and if I can avoid everyone long enough to get on the plane, maybe—just maybe—I can salvage whatever dignity I have left.

My phone buzzes against my chest for what feels like the tenth time. I don’t have to look to know it’s Brooks or Taylor. It's probably a mixture of both, trying to get through to me for different reasons. I don’t have the energy to face either of them.

Plucking my phone from the tight cup of my bridesmaid dress, I let it vibrate itself into oblivion on the end table. Ignoring the relentless buzzing, I continue collecting my belongings from around the room, packing them away like a physical representation of my own feelings.

I’d never been good at facing the aftermath of my own mistakes. Maybe once I was back home, away from Georgia, I could finally get a grip on all this and have the conversation with Taylor I’d been avoiding.

---