The Bet (The Bet 1)

Of course she was. If he would have been thinking rationally, he would have realized that the first place to look should have been the tree house.

Whenever she’d had a bad day at school she would rush over to their house, drop her backpack onto the kitchen counter, snatch a cookie from the jar, and climb up into the tree house.

Sometimes it was hours before she’d emerge.

But when she did, Kacey was always happier, as if the day at school no longer mattered.

He sighed and climbed slowly up the ladder until he pulled himself up into the tree house.

Kacey was sitting in the corner, her arms wrapped around her knees.

“Sorry.” She bit down on her lip and sighed. “I just needed to think, so I came out here.”

“Yeah well, that makes two of us. I don’t suppose you snatched cookies from the kitchen too?”

She reached to her side and pulled out a baggie with three chocolate chip cookies. “Of course.”

He took one from the bag and smiled. “Kace.”

She looked up.

“I had a really good speech for you. I mean, it was fantastic — something that would bring you to tears…”

“No doubt,” she agreed, taking a bite of her cookie.

“But sitting here, looking at you, all I really want to do is kiss you and make the sadness go away. I know what happened earlier was awkward, but I hope your feelings weren’t hurt. What Jake said was…”

Kacey laughed. “What Jake said was exactly what I would expect. I know he doesn’t want to get married, and we both know I’m not insane enough to want to marry him either.”

Travis exhaled in relief.

“But…” Kacey shook her head.

He didn’t like the sound of her voice.

“…But, I don’t know. It hurts all over again for some reason. Isn’t that silly?”

He knew he probably wasn’t going to get another opportunity, so he asked, “What happened between you two?”

Her face froze, and her breathing threatened to stop. “He, um…” She nervously pushed away hair from her face and bit her lip. “We… had…” A tear ran down her cheek.

Alarmed, Travis grasped her wrists and pulled her into his lap, rocking her back and forth. “What? Tell me.” He rubbed her arms with his hands.

“We slept together.”

His heart stopped. Anger and frustration as well as jealousy jerked through his body with such force he wasn’t sure if he wanted to go shoot his brother or blame himself, even though it wasn’t his fault. Still he felt responsible for Kacey. He always had.

“In college?” He was thankful he was able to ask without screaming.

She nodded in his arms. “It was horrible.”

Thank God.

“We were still so young, and it was a stupid mistake, and we both felt so bad and stupid. It was so confusing! The next morning all I wanted to do was call my best friend, but he wasn’t my best friend anymore. I didn’t know what he was, and then that next day was when your parents called to tell me that Mom and Dad had had an accident. I couldn’t tell anyone. I felt so ashamed.” She began to softly cry in his arms, as he kissed her hair and rocked her.

****

Kacey wasn’t sure why she was spilling her deepest secrets to Travis, but it seemed time to let everything out into the open. She was tired of keeping it inside, tired of trying to be strong when really she felt so scared and weak most of the time.