Becky nibbled on her bottom lip. “I want to work. I need to work. I’m not one of those women that spends other people’s money or sits around waiting for her man to come home. And if you think that’s me then that doesn’t build my confidence in you, Damon. I’m terrified I’ve done the wrong thing saying I’ll stay with you. I don’t like who I become when I’m with you, Damon. I became jealous and insecure.”
He ran his fingers through his hair, feeling like he wanted to yank it out. Caleb moaned as the car slowed and he drove down his street. “Damon, I didn’t think they would do it. I told the guys that today would not be the right time. To leave you and Becky alone to have some time, but they didn’t listen. They have organized a barbeque. You’ve been acting weird, Damon, and we’ve all been worried.” They drove up his driveway and Damon saw the cars. His teammates were at his house. “All the guys have been wondering why you were leaving as soon as the games were done and avoiding everyone. After yesterday they now think it’s because of Becky.”
Fucking hell, he didn’t need this. Damon glanced at Becky to see her eyes widen and her pink skin turn white. “Why on earth didn’t you stop this, Caleb?”
“I told them not to. They all think you’ve been spending all your time with Becky. I didn’t know what you wanted me to tell them. So all I said was not to do this, but no one listened. Even the coach is in on this.”
He looked at Becky as Caleb parked. There were so many things he wanted to say her, but Damon knew it had to wait. “What do you want to do? I wanted you to myself. Now you’re going to get ambushed by my friends and teammates. What do you want to tell them? The truth?”
“I’m not happy about you two being together.” Jacob said, butting in before Becky could answer. “But you need to remember here in Chicago everything you do and say goes to the press. I’d like to say everyone we know wouldn’t talk to the press, but we know that’s not true.” Jacob turned to face him and Becky. “I can’t be here. I need time.” He stared at Becky. “Before you ran from Vegas without even a proper goodbye I was going to come and see you. I wanted you for myself. Damon knows how I feel about you. I thought you felt something for me, too.”
“I…I…um…I’m sorry, Jacob, I didn’t know. I thought of you as a brother. You didn’t show interest in me. It was only when I got home and thought about everything that I saw things differently. That I wished things turned out differently. But I lo—”
Damon felt sick as he listened to the exchange before him. Opening his SUV door, he got out and almost ran to his house. Just great, he was another person’s mistake.
Chapter Nine
Becky looked at Jacob. A time or two she had wished she’d fallen for him and not Damon, especially when she saw a magazine with Damon in it with a sexy blonde. “But I love Damon. You and Caleb are my friends and I love you like brothers, but from the start it’s always been Damon.” Becky looked over to see what Damon thought of her words. He wasn’t there. She saw him enter his house.
Closing her eyes, she turned back to Jacob. Opening her eyes, she sighed. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I hope you didn’t think I encouraged you. I truly didn’t mean to hurt you. I figured out a lot while I lay in hospital last night. I was scared. I ran because I started to see what your life was really like. I figured out who you were. I started to become unsure of myself. I questioned things I haven’t since I was younger.” Becky needed to find Damon and tell him all this. “I saw what my life could be like.” She left it at that. Becky needed to talk to Damon. She couldn’t run anymore.
She’d wandered through the house and her heart sped up as she walked into a big room with photos and trophies. Hanging on the wall was a picture of her and Damon with Belle and the Beast. Becky found Damon in the back of his house, in his backyard. Damon was surrounded by a group of guys. He had a bottle of vodka in one hand and each man had a shot glass. He caught her gaze and nodded, and poured the vodka in the shot glass he held with his other hand, and then filled his friends’ glasses. Damon stared at her for a moment, then one of the men said something and he raised his glass in salute to her and swallowed it.
Groaning when she realized she’d done this all wrong, Becky turned and went back inside. She’d made a mess of everything. Damon had taken what she’d said to Jacob wrong. She knew his history. She shouldn’t have said anything. She should have waited to talk to Damon first and told him why she ran. Going back to the room with their picture, she told herself she wasn’t running again, that she was giving time for Damon to cool down. Sitting on the black leather sofa, she sat there staring up at the photo.