Page 31 of All Bets Are Off

“I’m still going to mess with you for the rest of the weekend,” he says, squeezing my fingers and then pushing my hand away from his. He stands and stretches out his shoulders, and it’s like the brief moment of vulnerability is over and done with already. Our feud resumes—just with lower stakes than before.

“Do whatever you want,” I say with indifference as I rise from the couch, but there’s a giddy feeling of anticipation in my stomach. Now that I have my bracelet back, it’d be so easy for us to go our separate ways . . . Except I want Jameson to keep popping up in my peripheral vision all weekend.

“Do whatever I want?” he challenges. There’s only a sliver of space between us and he steps even closer, heightening the tension that lingers in the air. “What if I wanted to kiss you again?”

My breath hitches in my throat and I don’t know where I even find the confidence to respond. My eyes trail down his bare chest, over the lines of muscle, then back to his mouth. “Do you want to kiss me again?”

Fuck, my heart is hammering so hard, I feel nauseous. Jameson is so close to me, I think I may get lost in his gorgeous green eyes. He cups a hand around my jaw, his fingers slipping into my hair. Leaning in closer, his softly parted lips linger only a touch away from mine.

“Only if it’s real this time,” he whispers.

I draw my mouth close to his ear, letting the warmth of my breath dance over his skin. “Who said it wasn’t real before?”

Jameson’s lips find mine, but not in the same frenzied way as before. It’s agonizingly slow, his mouth softly capturing mine with a tender gracefulness as his hand remains on my jaw. The tips of his fingers massage my hair, and I press a hand to his hot, bare chest as I brace myself for the kiss to deepen, for the same crazed hunger I felt in his touch earlier, but it never comes. Almost as quickly as our lips met, Jameson pulls away again.

My eyes flicker open to meet his. It’s not what I was expecting, but the way he just kissed me with such delicacy and restraint . . . Why did that feel so, so much hotter than the wilder kiss from before? It was like it kind of meant something, but I don’t know what.

“Huh,” I say, stupidly.

Jameson laughs and brushes his thumb back and forth over my jaw. “Huh? That’s your response?”

“Maybe I should go now,” I say, turning my face away and breaking the intense eye contact before I start blushing and saying more dumb shit. I grab my purse from the couch, then reach around Jameson to pluck the final peanut butter cup from the table. No way in hell I’m leaving it behind.

“You don’t want to stay?” Jameson asks as I walk away, and when I glance back at him over my shoulder, I see that same vulnerability in his eyes once again. “I don’t want to be alone, Evie.”

Ah, fuck.

I could never bear to be alone, either.

16

Adelaide

Burying my face in my hands, I smother my tears the best I can as my chest heaves.

There’s been this awful feeling of dread in my stomach from the moment Liam first mentioned the idea of rescheduling his bachelor party to be here in Las Vegas alongside my own, and now all of that tension that’s been building inside of me fizzes over. I’m a blubbering mess, spilling over with all of the emotions I’ve been holding back.

“Addy,” Connor whispers, “is it okay if I touch you? Is it okay if I . . . if I hug you?”

I nod against my hands, and a moment later, I feel Connor sit on the edge of the bed next to me and slip his arms around my trembling body. They’re strong and protective, and he rests his chin on the crown of my head, his hand in my hair. He holds me like I’m fragile, like he’s afraid I’ll crumble into pieces and slip through his fingers like dust.

“How did you know?” I sob. It’s the question I’ve been wondering all night since he first cornered me back in the casino.

Connor squeezes me that little bit tighter and murmurs into my hair, “Because Liam was no longer a friend of mine the night he confessed.”

I drop my hands from my face and tilt my head up to look at him now. “Confessed?”

“Liam and I always keep in touch,” Connor says, dark eyes staring back at me. “Every now and again, we’ll call and check in on each other. I was on my first deployment in Okinawa, and I was in the mess hall grabbing some lunch. It was kind of weird for him to be calling then, because I knew it was super late back home. Like, one-two in the morning kind of late. I could tell he was wasted—stammering one second, rambling the next. Told him not to bother me if he’s out getting hammered at a bar, and just as I went to hang up—and I’ll never forget this—he said, ‘I hit her.’”

I part my lips and blink at him through wet eyelashes. I recall that first time Liam raised a hand to me, and after his apologies and promises, I took myself off to get cleaned up and crawled into bed, numb with shock, while he sat downstairs in our kitchen drinking whisky straight out of the bottle long into the night. I had no idea he called Connor.

“I asked, ‘You hit Adelaide?’” Connor continues, “and he instantly broke down. He was a fucking mess, Addy, and I did what I was supposed to as his best friend. I reassured him everything would be okay, that he could fix it, that one mistake didn’t make him a bad person. But the second that call ended? I vowed never to forgive him.” He shakes his head, the muscle in his jaw twitching with anger.

“But . . . you guys still talk? You agreed to be his best man at the wedding? You’re here?” As far as I knew, nothing had changed in recent years between the two of them. Liam still spoke so fondly of Connor, was always so pleased to hear from him, even counted down the days until their rare reunions.

“Because I was worried about you,” he says, his voice nothing more than a soft breath. His arms are still wrapped tightly around me, my head resting against his chest as I look up at him. There’s no hiding the adrenaline pumping through him; his heartbeat pounds in my ear. “I wanted to keep an eye on things, or at least keep an eye on things the best I possibly could from seven thousand miles away. Whenever I talked to Liam, I hung on to his every word, waiting for him to tell me he’d fucked up again. Listening out for any sort of sign that things weren’t okay, but he was only ever happy when he spoke about you and the wedding and the rest of it. Never again did we talk about what he’d told me, so I convinced myself it really was just a mistake, and that he’d never hurt you again.”

“When did you realize he had?” I whisper.