Page 79 of Counter Bet

Ben stares at me in disbelief. “Madam Ham?”

“Yep,” I reply. “She was a feisty little thing.”

Dallas laughs. She wades over to me and wraps her arms around my midriff, resting her chin on my shoulder. “I like your crazy.”

I sigh contentedly, smiling at her over my shoulder.

She pecks my lips. “So we buy a dog and name it something ridiculous. What else do you envision in our future?”

“We’ll live in a house on the beach and have breakfast on the porch every morning. We’ll be the crazy neighbors who set the alarm early to watch the sunrise together because life is short. We don’t want to miss out on those seemingly insignificant but beautiful things in life. Oh, and I’m going to co-own an art gallery with Matt.”

Dallas presses her lips to my shoulder.

Ben joins us, stroking his palms down my arms.

My words hang in the air. A toddler squeals with laughter at the water’s edge.

Ben buries his nose in my wet hair. “I don’t talk about my personal life much because there’s not much to say. My parents are alive. They don’t beat me, so I don’t like to complain. I’ve got it better than many kids where I’m from, but my parents are absent. My mom struggles with severe depression and is so strung out on medication it’s like she’s not even here. My dad is no better. He drinks, and struggles to hold down jobs, and is hardly ever home.

We never had much. I’ve gone without meals plenty of times because my dad drinks the money away, and my mom won’t leave her bedroom.” He shakes his head, deep in thought. “What I’m trying to say is that we come from different worlds, Em. You and I—we’ve gone to the same school our whole lives. You were always this unattainable, larger-than-life girl who had everything.”

I shake my head. “That’s not true, Ben.”

“I know that now, Em, but we didn’t talk. You never struggled for a meal, and you never had to go to school in clothes that didn’t fit you because your parents couldn’t be bothered to buy you new ones. You wear designer clothes, drive a top market car, and your family is one of the wealthiest families in town. You can have any guy you want. Girls fall over themselves to be your friend. You never struggled for anything, or so I thought.

It never dawned on me that maybe your struggle is on the inside. I shouldn’t have judged you. You’re one of the humblest people I’ve met. You’re never mean. You care about others, and when you talk about a future for us, even a hypothetical one, it makes me want to believe in more.

In my world, you learn early that there is no point in dreaming. We’re stuck children who become stuck parents. We never leave the town we grew up in, and thirty years down the line, we’re washed-up carbon copies of our parents. I meant what I said to Rick earlier. I want to be better for you! I want to be someone deserving of you.”

I swallow thickly. My cheeks are wet with tears.

“Nothing can touch us as long as we stick together,” Dallas whispers against my shoulder.

I’m too emotional to answer.

Ben strokes his thumb over my bottom lip. “You’re turning blue. Let’s get out of the water for a bit.”

* * *

We lie on the sand, swapping childhood stories. I soon find out that Dallas and her brother learned how to surf when she was eight. Ben tells me Nina taught him how to tie his shoelaces when they first met in the skatepark. She’d seen him struggle and crouched down beside him.

I tell them about last year when Hailey and I decided to prank the football team by putting laxatives in their sports drinks before practice. The footballers still don’t know who the culprits are. In fact, they falsely accused the basketball team. Haily and I still laugh about it. We plan to sprinkle itching powder in their football uniforms, but gaining access to their gear has proven difficult, especially after our last stunt.

I lie with my head on Ben’s stomach, enjoying the afternoon sun on my face.

Dallas is on a mission to bury my legs and feet in the sand. “Apart from Rick and now Ben, of course.” She winks. “Did you ever crush on any other boys at school?”

I wiggle my toes, disturbing the sand. My big toe, with its pink nail polish, peeks out. “Well, don’t tell Rick, but I crushed on Sam for a while last year before he graduated.”

“Sam?” Ben asks, amused. “Rick’s older brother?”

I laugh. “What? He’s hot, okay! I don’t have to justify myself to you, Ben.” I poke him in the side.

“At least he’s not a footballer,” he says drily.

“New to town, remember. Tell me about this Sam guy,” Dallas says and scoops more sand over my feet until my big toe is no longer peeking out.

Ben shifts behind me, scratching the side of his jaw. “Sam plays drums in a local band that sounds like an unsupervised group of toddlers with pans and cutlery.”

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