I TEXTED the girls as I walked into the dimly lit school. My fingers shook over the letters that came together to form the most incredible, unbelievable message.
Rory: Beckett asked me to hang out with him. Alone.
I had to focus on something innocuous, because simmering on the idea that Beckett had asked me to hang out with him would make my combust. Not with the football team, but just the two of us. It was monumental. Massive. A giant win for curvy girls everywhere. Even if I didn’t win the bet, I’d remember Merritt’s face for the rest of time.
I reached my locker, staring at its plain surface compared to all the athletes who had booster-club decorations plastered on every clear surface. The Academy had a strict code forbidding any other decoration, but Pam Alexander was the cheer coach, which probably had a big factor in the athletes’ exception.
Carson’s locker was near mine, and I took in the latest addition that read Beat the Cougars on a feather quill.
Our team was the Drafters since we were Emerson Academy after Ralph Waldo Emerson. It wasn’t the best mascot, but at least pens were pointy. It was better than Seaton, who’d changed their mascot to seaweed in their principal’s efforts to “go green.” Casey hated it.
My phone began chiming over and over again. So much for a distraction.
Jordan: OMG OMG OMG OMG
Zara: Told you he’d come to you! Callie: This is amazing!
Ginger: Holy hotness. Can you ask him to keep his football pants on?
Rory: Guys, I’m freaking out.
Rory: He’s so out of my league. I’m not equipped for this!
Zara: You so are. You’re the present. He’s a little boy on Christmas Day.
Jordan: Except not the creepy child part. Zara: eyeroll emoji
Callie: Are you pumped?
Ginger: OF COURSE SHE IS. HE’S BECKETT LANGLEY.
Rory: Not helping.
“Hey,” Beckett said.
And, oh man, his appearance really wasn’t helping. His fitted jeans accentuated his muscular legs, and his dark hair brought out the depths of his hazel eyes. Don’t even get me started on the way his long-sleeved shirt clung to his biceps. Holy puddle of drool.
Oh, yeah, he was waiting for me to talk. My cheeks heated, and I smiled. Way too big. Like, creepy big. “Um, hi, hey!”
Smooth, Rory. Real smooth.
He just smiled back like I hadn’t suddenly become a giggling, blushing psychopath. Tucking his hands into his pockets, he nodded his head over his shoulder and said, “Let’s get out of here?”
“Yeah.” I followed him down the hallway, toward the parking lot. “The school looks so weird at night,” I said. “It’s quiet.”
“Yeah. It is.”
Just then, there were shouts from down the hall as some of the other guys got to their lockers.
“Was quiet,” he corrected, and I laughed. “So,” I said. “Any plans?”
He lifted his eyebrows. “Ever heard of Dulce Periculum?”
My intrigue sparked. Everyone had heard of the death-wish club and their history of insane stunts. “Yeah, but I thought they were a myth.”
“Want to find out?”
My lips turned up. “Of course.”
We reached the doors to the parking lot, and I wrapped my coat tighter around me as we walked to his car. When we got there, he came to my side first and opened the door.
He opened my door?
I thought that was just something that happened in black and white movies—and on dates.
Dates.
My eyes flew open.
“Are you okay?” Beckett asked, his hand still on the door. I swallowed. Gulped. Like, out loud.
Beckett laughed.
“I’m fine.” I blushed and folded myself into his car, if only to hide my embarrassment. When Beckett got to the other side, he got out his phone. “What kind of music do you like?”
“Anything I can sing to.”
His eyebrows raised. “And that is?”
I shrugged. “Classic rock, gospel, indie folk, alt, eighties pop—” Laughing, he said, “Okay, so you like everything?”
“Except screamo. That might hurt my throat.”
“I can’t wait for this.” He picked a station and turned the dial until country music played through the speaker. His lips stayed firmly together.
“What?” I asked.
“Go on,” he said. “Let’s hear it.” “No way.” I shook my head.
“Come on, it’s just me.”
Just me? Did he really just say that? “Yeah, just the school’s quarterback and most popular guy.”
“Oh God.” He rolled his eyes. “Please don’t tell me you think I’m anything special?”
“Um, really?”
“What?” he asked. “I’m not. I can throw a ball and take a pretty picture. It’s not like I’m an amazing artist or laid back and funny or thoughtful like you.”
“Like me?” Was that who he’d been describing? He nodded.
“But you”—I shook my head. Was I really trying to convince Beckett Langley how amazing he was? “You could have any girl at Emerson.” I didn’t say including me.
He shook his head like the fact was annoying. “You mean my quarterback status and my rich dad could have any girl.”
“Don’t forget the hot bod,” I said before thinking. My cheeks and ears and neck instantly flushed red hot.
He winked at me. “That’s just a given.”
I laughed, but my heart hurt for him. Wasn’t that exactly what this bet was about? Proving someone like me could land a guy like him? Not because of his heart or his eye for beauty or creative soul but because of his status?
It may have started out like that, but now it was more. Beckett was exactly the kind of guy I’d dreamed of but never imagined I could have. And that thought scared the crap out of me. So, I did what I did best: diverted my attention to something easier to handle.
“So where is Dulce Periculum tonight?” I asked.
He put his car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. “I heard that they’re stunting out at Emerson Trails, but I’m not convinced. Why would they go somewhere so public?”
I shrugged. “What’s the point in showing off if no one can see?” He tapped his temple. “See? Smart.”
“My parents pay plenty of tuition to make sure of that.” He half snorted, half laughed. “Same.”
“Where will they be on the trails?”
His headlights panned over the parking lot of the trailhead. There weren’t any cars there, but the DP guys were smart. They wouldn’t leave their cars out for just anyone to find.
“My guess is near the riverbank where it curves near the trail, since that would account for a land and water stunt, but I have no idea.” He killed the engine and got out, and I walked along the empty parking lot with him toward the trailhead.
Emerson Trails started in one place but branched out into different paths that extended nearly ten miles a piece. I knew because my mom had made morning walks while Aiden trained for cross-country a summer ritual. Not that it had moved the needle on my weight.
“What’s wrong?” Beckett asked.
I stuffed my hands in my coat pockets and shook my head. “Nothing.” I forced a smile. “Just cold.”
He put his arm around me and rubbed my shoulder. The contact had the opposite effect and sent chills through my entire body. How could Beckett affect me so much through a down winter coat?
I had no idea, but here I was, shivering.
“Oh, I think—” He dug through his pockets and brought out a small plastic package. “Hand warmers. I have them left from skiing last year.”
Grateful, I took the packets from him and rolled them between my fingers in my pockets. “Thank you.”
“Of course.”
Dirt crunched beneath our feet as we walked down the dark path. My eyes had adjusted so I could see the lighter shades of the path and the darkness that lay behind the trees. It helped that I’d taken this way countless times over the summer with my mom pumping her arms beside me. Beckett was much better company. While Mom always shared her thoughts, Beckett’s simmered beneath the surface. I imagined all that could be behind his glittering hazel eyes.
“Why did you start coming to the football games?” he asked.
My eyebrows rose. That came out of nowhere. And I couldn’t believe he’d noticed. “How did you—”
“I pay attention more than people think.”
The way he said it made me look down. It was true. I always kind of thought Beckett was in this elite bubble separate from the rest of the real people in the school. The ones who didn’t look like famous actors or future politicians.
But his question was still there, and I answered it. “Because of you.” His head swung over to take me in. “Yeah?”
The cover of darkness emboldened me, giving me the courage I needed to keep walking beside him and not dodge behind a tree. “Yes. I like watching you play.”
“It’s the pants, isn’t it?”
“A little bit.” I laughed, thinking of Ginger’s chat from earlier. “But really it’s you.”
“Me?”
I nodded, scuffing my toe over the dirt. “You’re like the eye of a hurricane on the field—so focused while everyone moves around you. I
wish I had that much command over anything in my life.”
I used to have that kind of control—when my days included the safe routine of school and painting when I had a spare moment or two. But now? I’d been launched into a world I didn’t understand. One where Beckett Langley had asked me on what, by all indicators, was a date. How was that possible?
“Football and photography are the only time I feel that way. It’s like everything slows down, and I can just breathe.”
His lips caressed the words, and they danced in the air. I drank in each one, a thirsting woman longing for more of his poetry.
A black strap hung down from one of the trees, and Beckett held it between his fingers. “What is this?”
I pointed at the next tree. “This has one too.” I used my phone to illuminate the space before us, and black straps hung from almost every branch. “It’s almost like vines.”
Beckett’s eyes lit. “I think we found the place.” He slipped his fingers through mine and led me to a spot off the trail where we could sit on a fallen tree.
His body was so close to mine I could feel the warmth through his jeans. His arm went around me, holding my shoulders. Every part of me responded, moving into a flurry of excitement and electricity.
“Are you warm enough?” he asked low. I smiled, mostly to myself. “I am now.”
We sat quietly, the silence only punctuated by the slow flow of water in the nearby stream, until a thrashing sound started in the distance.
“Do you hear that?” Beckett whispered. I nodded. “That has to be them.”
We stilled, becoming a part of the forest around us as the noises became louder. In addition to the crash of snapping branches, there were shouts of joy as black-clad bodies worked their way through the ropes before us.
I’d never seen people move so gracefully or acrobatically. One held onto a rope and flipped through the air before grabbing the next. Several others made moves equally as stunning…flipping, sailing, and dancing through the air, barely touching the ground, if only to take a couple long strides and launch back into the sky. They were liquid magic, moving before our eyes.
Beckett’s arm tightened around me as we watched them, making the butterflies in my stomach copy the people before us.
As the final person passed, I heard him cry, “Audentes fortuna iuvat!”
Each of the others echoed the words.
After their forms had passed, along with their shouts, I asked Beckett, “What does that mean?” I couldn’t remember my Latin vocabulary words well enough.
His eyes met mine as he said, “Fortune favors the bold.”
And in that moment, I knew I had to be fearless or I’d lose the moment
—the feeling—forever.
I closed my eyes, leaned forward, and felt the charge in the air as his lips came closer to mine, barely touching.
“Audentes fortuna iuvat!” a straggler cried.
Beckett dropped his forehead to mine with a sigh, then turned to watch the second half of the show as Dulce Periculum swung back through the trees, living their adventure while I planned the next step of mine.
