Beginner's Luck (Chance of a Lifetime, #1)

by Kate Clayborn

“Ben Tucker,” he says when he answers, his voice a deep rumble. It seems to scrape me in the same place it had last week, right at the base of my spine.

Even if I wasn’t sitting up in my bed with these papers, tangible evidence of her genius all around me, I’d know Kit was smart as all hell, just from being around her at the yard. She had a way of looking over what I’d brought her, a cataloguing curiosity in her expression, and I got the sense she didn’t miss anything. Whatever she was holding in her hands got her full attention, and she devoted her senses to the task—she’d run the edge of her fingertip along the filigree of a hinge, tap one of her short nails against a switch plate while she held it up to her ear, then she’d look it over, again, as if memorizing it. It was transfixing, the attention she paid to small things,

His grin should look cocky. It probably is cocky, but somehow he wears it well, without malice or intention. He looks— pleased, like, what a treat to be asked, what fun to have a crazy almost-stranger invite you into her hot mess of a house to look around.

I’m transfixed watching him, how tactile he is, how focused. It’s the hardest thing not to think about what those traits might be like in another context.

I realize I’m less angry at Dr. Singh than I am at the very idea that he brought up, that I could be doing so much more. This is what Ben has said to me almost every time he’s tried to sell me on Beaumont, that I’m wasting my talent, that I have no vision. And this is basically what Alex said to me too— staying in one place, everything easy.

Who are these men, anyways, to tell me what I should be doing, what my talent is good for, what’s easy? Who are these men to say that I have to live a life where work takes over, where I’m always worried about the next thing? Who are these men who think having vision means making money, making things? And who are these fucking men to tell me what’s easy? What’s easy about becoming a part of a community, about reading the local paper every week, making sure you try something new, even if it’s scary and you have to go by yourself? What’s easy about making best friends, about forming relationships that are going to last, when someone has your back and you have theirs? What’s easy about trying to make a home for yourself, when you’ve never had one before?

“I can’t tell you how much I don’t care. I won’t even look. Just— please. Get naked.” This makes me laugh, the desperate, growly quality to the way he’s talking. I hadn’t expected him to be this way either, all his calm charm stripped away. It’s funny, messy, the way my clothes come off, him pulling my bra off while I push my jeans down, limbs tangling, whispered curses when I remember I have to kick off my shoes. Ben is laughing too, and oh, God—it’s so fun with Ben, everything is always so fun and easy with him, even first-time sex with him, when usually I feel these whispers of awkwardness being naked with someone for the first time.

“Have you talked to him again?” I ask, but then I’m taking a bite of my food, and— fuck, this sandwich. It’s really good. I think I just made a sex-adjacent noise about it.

I want to tell her not to get her hopes up, that it’ll be good shrimp cocktail but terrible conversation, but I bite my tongue, on dickwad patrol of myself.

But Kit makes me want everything, makes me want to be her best friend, her safe place, her family, and the guy who can fuck her until she doesn’t remember her own name.

Now, though, to have Kit—it feels as if I have that someone, someone who gives you that little room to complain in, but doesn’t hold it against you later.