I Bet You(37)

I recall our conversation at Sugar’s when Connor texted me. “No, I had too much to do. Why? What are you saying?”

He glares at me. “You know what I’m saying. Do you really want him?”

I don’t say a word. I’m afraid of revealing too much.

He lets out a heavy exhale. “I haven’t had sex with anyone since last semester—since all that shit happened. It’s the biggest dry spell I’ve ever had since I was a teenager.”

Oh.

“Four months,” he tells me.

“Is it because you can’t get it up?”

He throws back his head and laughs and then sobers. “Fuck no. I’m hard as nails right now. For you.”

I toss a glance down at his pants, and yep, there it is. My body gets hot.

“I just…I’ve been trying to focus on doing everything right with football…until you.” His ocean-colored eyes swirl with emotion. “And, dammit, I don’t want to hurt you. You’re a nice girl—a virgin, even—and I don’t know how the hell to deal with—”

“I don’t want to be hurt either, Ryker.” My chest feels heavy, as if someone has poured concrete on it.

“I won’t let it get that far, Red. We’re friends, and that’s something.” I watch as he seems to gather himself, shutting the cabinet door he left open and pushing his glass back from the edge of the counter. His eyes find mine. “It’s late. I need to go.”

I frown. “You’re leaving after that little bomb? Now?”

He gives me a curt nod, his jaw grinding as if he’s keeping words from coming out. “Goodbye, Red.”

And then he’s walking down the hall and opening my door and slipping into the night.

I’m rooted to the floor. I realize he didn’t even ask to see my journal when he won the bet.

But that doesn’t matter.

My breath catches as the truth hits me.

Ryker Voss hasn’t been with a girl in months, and I’m the one he wants.

But he’s afraid.

I am too.

I don’t need a quarterback fucking up my life.

Tangled emotions rise up, and I suck in a shuddering breath. No matter what I tell myself, he’s stealing my heart, bit by bit, and it’s going to take everything I have to resist falling.





The next day, I hop in my car and cruise to the Chi Omega house. Now that I have Ryker and Connor coming to the party, I signed up via email to help with the planning committee.

I park by the curb and waltz inside, putting my purse on the pink high-backed Queen Anne style armchair next to the door. My eyes take in the oak paneling, medallion wallpaper, and Victorian furnishings.

This place needs a Property Brothers makeover, but it’s the same one my mom pledged. My gaze lingers on the chair where I just dumped my purse. I’ve seen pictures of that very piece of furniture in my mom’s albums, and it makes me feel close to her. She was here…just like I am.

I hear crying as I walk down the hall. The sound comes from the common area where we have our meetings. Usually those doors are open, but today they’re closed.

I tap lightly on the wood. “Hello?”

When I don’t get a reply, I try the door, but it’s locked.

I chalk it up to sorority house drama when Keri, one of the pledges, appears next to me.

“It’s Margo,” she whispers furtively.

I frown. “Our president?”

She nods. “She’s been in there for half an hour. We were talking about the theme for the party, and she just ran out of the meeting.”

I scratch my head. Margo’s the kind of girl who eats metal shavings for breakfast and spits them at girls she doesn’t like afterward. She never cries.

Keri shrugs. “The planning committee chairperson said we’d just proceed without her.”

“I wouldn’t count her out yet,” I say then nod my head toward the room past the kitchen, a sunroom where we have a copy machine, a couple of laptops, and a bulletin board. “Why don’t you head back to the meeting, and I’ll meet you there.”

Keri wavers. “They sent me back here to report on how she is—”

“Tell them she’s fine and will be there in a minute.”

Pledges. Margo and I may not be best friends, but we’ve been together for three years, and no freshman pledge is going to be talking about her and why she’s crying. She hasn’t been here long enough.

She reads my face and scurries off.

I tap on the door again. “Margo. It’s me, Penelope. Let me in.”

“Go away.”

Her voice is wobbly, and I sigh. “As soon as you open the door.”

I hear sniffling and guilt brushes over me.

“Open the door or I’m going to go get a hairpin and pick the lock, and you know, it might just mess up these old antique doors. I know how much pride you take in our house—”

The door flings open, and my mouth gapes at what I see. The normally coiffed and cool Margo is a mess with smudged mascara and stray hairs poking out from under her headband. Even her clothes are askew, as if she’s been lying down. My eyes take in a fuzzy blanket draped over the couch in the back along with a pile of potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers.

“Why do you care?” she snaps.