Page 100 of Breaking All The Rules
Winona just rolled her eyes and shook her head. “What is wrong with all of you?” she demanded, stabbing a glance at every guy at the table. “No wonder you needed a Facebook campaign to attract women here.”
“Hey, I’m taken,” Tucker protested.
“Me too,” Clay said.
Everybody looked at Arlo. “How did this get to be my fault?” he asked before glaring at Austin. “First Bob and now them. Time to get your shit together.”
“And do what?” Austin demanded. “She wants what’s in LA. She has something to prove. She asked me to understand.”
“Christ on a cracker.” Arlo shook his head in utter disbelief.
“What a dumbass,” Clay agreed.
“What?” Austin snapped. “She’s a grown woman. She’s allowed to do what she wants and go where she wants. I was trying to be understanding. Setting her free to do what she needs to do and all that crap.”
Arlo turned his gaze to Winona. “I got nothing.”
She sighed and glanced sideways at Austin. “What Arlo means is…of course Bea is entitled to leave and live her own life far away from here, and you supporting her in that move is admirable and honorable, especially when you sacrificed your feelings. But she made that decision without all the information. Would she still have made it if she’d known that you love her?” Winona shrugged. “Maybe? I don’t know. But you gotta give her that choice, Austin. If you tell her and she doesn’t feel the same, then you’re no worse off than you are now.”
Austin doubted that. If he told her and she rejected him again, he was pretty sure he’d feel twice as shitty.
“But if she does feel the same?” Winona said, and the potential of that glimmered on the air between them.
What if Bea loved him, too?
“Yeah.” Arlo nodded. “What she said.”
Crap. His emotions seesawed between hope and despair. He knew there was something between them, something deeper than sex and the thrill of breaking some rules. He felt it every time they were together. And he’d thought she had, too… But was that love?
Did she love him? Or was that wishful thinking?
“Yeah, man,” Tucker said. “You gotta leave it all out on the field.”
“Right,” Clay enthused. “Go to LA, doofus. Tell her you love her. Go big or go home.”
A trickle of excitement seeped into Austin’s veins. He’d felt impotent for two weeks, torn between trying not to love her anymore and loving her too much to rock any boats. But, like Winona said, didn’t he owe it to himself and to his happiness to at least let her know how he felt? So she could have all the facts before deciding her future?
“If it works out, it’ll mean moving to LA,” Austin said, eyeing his brother. If Beatrice loved him, he’d move to the fucking North Pole if she wanted.
Clay shrugged. “So move.”
“I have contacts in the LAPD,” Arlo offered. “I could put in a good word.”
All his life, Austin had wanted to be chief of police in Credence, so following Bea would mean giving up on that dream. That was just the facts. Which made this decision a very big deal. Probably not one he should be making on a whim. But…ultimately, he wanted to be with Beatrice and that was that. Was he disappointed? Yes. Did he wish it was different? Yes. But life didn’t always work out the way you wanted, and who knew what opportunities might arise for him within the LAPD?
It wasn’t all SWAT and Vice.
It would be very different from being a small-town cop. There was no denying that it would be a huge change. But he wasn’t a stranger to city policing. He’d worked in Denver and yeah, LA was bigger with a much bigger crime problem, but he was good at his job and he would adjust.
“Mom will be disappointed.”
“Again, the machines with the wings,” Clay said.
Austin glanced around at his merry band of interventionists. God…was he really going to do this? Just turn up in LA and tell Beatrice he loved her and hope to God that made some kind of a difference?
The cast-iron steadiness of his gut told him he was. And there was no time like the present. “I’m going to need a few days off,” he said to Arlo.
“You got them.”
