Page 7 of Betting on her Best Friend
Chapter Two
What a shitty day.
He woke up to a broken coffeemaker and didn’t have time to stop for his mandatory dose of caffeine on the way in because road construction had fucked up the Diagonal, making him late as hell. The morning meeting with his dad had been about Karlson throwing yet another wrench in their plans because the guy was too arrogant to let them do their jobs and insisted on micromanaging the entire project.
Then Dylan learned an entire shipment of building materials had mysteriously disappeared en route to the site. Now all he needed was a random rainstorm to further hinder the crew’s progress and the day could officially be called a shit show.
“Hey, kiddo. You going to tell me what’s wrong or make me drag it out of you?”
Dylan looked up from his clipboard to find his twin sister. Barely older than him, she made a game out of calling him names that implied they were separated by years instead of minutes. She had a spitfire personality with a brain to match and an uncanny ability to make people talk when they didn’t want to. If he couldn’t escape her within the first sixty seconds, he’d have no hope of keeping his problems bottled up like the rest of the male population.
“Thanks, sis, but I don’t have time to talk.” He held up the several rolls of blueprints he was holding. “Have to get these up to Dad, or he’ll have my ass in a sling.”
“Hey, you,” she called to a random guy in a hard hat, then took the plans right out of Dylan’s hands. “Can you take these up to George for me lickety-split?” She hit him with her hundred-watt smile and the guy jumped to do her bidding like she’d promised to grant his every wish.
Turning back to him, she flicked her light brown hair over her shoulder and said, “There. Now you have time.”
Dylan heaved a resigned sigh. He knew better than to fight her. Once she sniffed blood, she wouldn’t give up until you sliced open your chest and bled the whole sordid story. Thankfully, she wasn’t so much a shark as she was a surgeon. Maddie had a pretty good track record at putting people back together after they bared their problems to her.
So, he sucked it up and told her about the dinner with Alyssa and what she told him she planned to do on her weekend retreat. “I’m worried about her. She’s not very street savvy. What if she gets into some kind of trouble?”
“Which is code for you’re all messed in the head because you let her leave without telling her how you truly feel.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “What are you talking about?”
“Come on, Dylan. You’re not as slick as you think. Everyone knows you’ve carried a torch for that girl since the beginning of time. Even the dinosaurs knew it.”
The frustration from the night before had never left. He’d simply beat it into submission long enough to get a few hours of sleep. Now it coursed through his body again, stronger than ever. He snatched his baseball hat off and whipped it against his thigh, displacing a fine layer of sawdust before slapping it on his head backward.
“I’ve wanted to tell her at least a hundred times,” he said, remembering the night before. “I keep putting her in the fridge so I can take her out and smell her. But what I really want to do is taste her and enjoy every creamy bite, you know what I mean?”
Blinking a few times, she finally said, “Honey, not even Freud would know what you mean.” Maddie placed her palm against his forehead. “Have you been hydrating? I think you might have heatstroke.”
Pulling her hand away, Dylan pinned her with a confused glare. “What? No, listen, I want to be with her, but you know about her dad. Always leaving her and her mom. Never being faithful. I don’t have that faithful gene either, just like our Dad. Being with Alyssa would be the most selfish thing I could ever do, because eventually, I’d screw it up.”
“Oh, now I get it,” she said, dripping with her well-known sarcasm. “I’m sorry, I thought we were in the real world, but we obviously took a wrong turn into Crazy Town.”
“Maddie—”
“Don’t ‘Maddie’ me, junior.” Dylan mentally winced at her scolding tone. “What would ever put such a ridiculous notion in your head?”
He released a sigh and dragged a hand over his face, noticing the stubble on his jaw that he hadn’t had the energy to shave that morning. Did he really want to open this can of worms with his tough-as-nails, take-no-prisoners twin? Glancing over, he took in her stance—hands planted firmly on her cocked hips, fingers drumming as she waited for his answer—and tried to gauge what her reaction might be to the shit in his head he called “perfectly good reasons.”
Then he noticed the contradicting warmth and concern in her eyes. If anyone could understand where he was coming from, it was her.
“I’ve seen what happens when a man wanders. Aly swears she believes in romance, but have you seen her ever fall for a guy? No, she’s scared shitless of a real relationship. And we both know I’d wander. I can’t help it. Dad couldn’t stick with one woman, and neither can I. A marriage to someone like us only ends in disaster.”
The starch left her body. “Not if you love each other, it doesn’t have to. I’m older than you,” Dylan rolled his eyes, “and that automatically makes me wiser, so listen up. Basing your future on Dad’s past is a lousy idea. You’re nothing like him, no matter how much you think otherwise. I love the guy, but he’s not marriage material. He’s too selfish. But you don’t have a selfish bone in your body.”
“I date women for a very specific reason, Maddie, you know that. How is that not selfish?”
“Please, give me a little credit. I know you better than anyone, including you, apparently.” She crossed her arms over her chest, daring him to dispute her claim. “You might have a new girl for every month of the year, but you never lead them to believe it’s anything other than some temporary fun. And I also know that when one of them decides they want something more, it really bothers you when they end up hurt. Like with this last girl.”
Dylan thought to argue her points, but knew it’d just be a waste of breath. He could bullshit a lot of people, but his twin wasn’t one of them.
Maybe she was right. Maybe he wasn’t as much like his father as he’d always assumed. He shook his head. Just because their reasons for having short-lived relationships were different, didn’t mean the outcome wasn’t the same. Dylan had never had even a spark of wanting something real and lasting with anyone. The thought of it made him break out in a sweat. The only kind of relationship he was good at was the fun-and-done kind.
A sudden idea took root. If Alyssa just needed someone to scratch her itch, why couldn’t he volunteer? She wasn’t looking for anything serious right now, so maybe they could both indulge for a little while away from home and go back to being friends when they returned. At least this way she wouldn’t be sleeping with some stranger who wouldn’t take care of her needs and he’d have the memory of loving her to last a lifetime. It was the perfect solution to both their problems.
“Sis, you’re a genius. I gotta go. Cover me with Dad, okay? I have to catch a flight to Vegas.”
“What are you going to tell her?” Maddie asked as he kissed her on the cheek.
A big smile spread over his face, and he began walking backward. “That I want her crème brûlée.”
