Don't You Dare (Reckless Games #1)

by C.E. Ricci

I’m desperate for some air, some space to get myself under control before I do something insanely stupid. Like crying right in front of him. Or telling him I want more.

I’ve gone and fucking done it now. Proven that, no matter how hard I try, I can’t turn off my feelings for him. There’s only one way to survive being so stupidly in love with him. We have to stop. Otherwise, I’ll destroy everything.

My attention moves from the screen down to the field again, where my heart might as well stop. Because instead of looking at the scoreboard, where images of his loved ones are flashing, he’s staring at me. Not his mom or sister. Me.

The tiniest part of me still hopes and prays I’ll turn around. It doesn’t matter, though. Because I’m already gone.

But in this picture…I swear, I can see that same emotion written on his face. Love. It’s not the kind of love two best friends have for each other, either. It’s the deeper kind. The complete infatuation. The get-married-and-grow-old-together kind of love. Two-halves-of-a-whole love. And…my other half just bolted from the stadium like his life depends on it.

“By doing this,” I whisper, “you’re making sure it does. You’re taking everything we have the chance to be and throwing it away without even trying.” He shakes his head, halting before me. “We don’t have the chance to be anything, Keene. We never have.” The words are a punch to the gut, and I’m left slightly breathless. “How can you say that?” “Because it’s the truth.” A scoff leaves me. “Right.” He glowers. “Don’t fuck with me about this.” “Why not? We both know it’s bullshit.” “It’s not!” he snaps right back. “It’s not, because I can’t be what you need me to be, Keene!” It’s on the tip of my tongue to scream at him, shout from the top of my lungs that he already is everything I need. Every want and desire and craving and wish I have all leads straight back to him. If only he wasn’t too fucking blind to see it. “I’m not asking you to be my protector or my savior or anything of the sort. I’m just asking you to be my best friend, the way you always have been.” My throat constricts, the vice on my heart tightening. “I’m just asking you to lo—” “I can’t,” he growls, cutting me off before I can utter the word again, just four letters long.

“You have everything to give me. You’re my best friend, for fuck’s sake! God, Pen, you’re supposed to know me better than anyone, yet somehow you’re too blind to see I’m—” “Stop,” he cuts me off, his head shaking again. “Please, stop.” In love with you,

“You’re kidding, right? Crossing lines? Don’t you think it’s a little too late for that?” “Kee—” “No, Pen. Shut up and listen to how stupid you sound. Lines haven’t just been crossed. They’ve been blurred for a while now, and I think you know it.” I pause for a brief moment, shaking my head. “And let’s not forget the way they were fucking obliterated the moment your dick slid inside me the very first time. Because best friends don’t screw each other.”

My best friend. My other half, if only he’d just try. “You’re such a fucking coward, Aspen.”

“You’ve always been the brave one. Always willing to jump without fear. But that’s not me, Kee. I can’t give you that because I’m not capable of it. Of anything you’re asking for.” Every word slices through me with an aim for my heart. It cuts and cuts and cuts some more until there’s nothing but a shredded, bloody hunk of meat left in my chest.

Tears prick at my eyes, and I blink them away before they dare to spill over. “You might think that, but you’re wrong. You’ve shown me. When we were on the coast, with every single thing you planned out for us. Or when you skipped class with me. Or every time you drive me to practice or watch one of my games or take a bath with me after a rough day or let me pick the music in the car. Each one of those acts is proof that you’re more than capable of giving me every fucking thing I could want or need.”

“So…you’re on the verge of losing your best friend—and possibly the love of your life—just because things aren’t playing out the way you thought they should?” I open to my mouth to deny it, but when she puts it like that, I feel like a fucking idiot. Thankfully, she spares me the humiliation of having to admit it aloud, continuing with her point. “I hate to break it to you, sweetie, but life never goes according to plan. Not for a single person I’ve ever met. Which is why you have to learn to adjust, take things as they come.”

Because, despite what I told Keene outside the stadium that day, I don’t regret him or the time we had together. I don’t regret helping him or loving him or anything that transpired between us. I just hate that I couldn’t protect him the way I always have in the past.

“There are far worse things in the world than falling in love, Aspen. No matter who it’s with.”

She rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but he’s yours, Kee Kee. Always has been.”

“Two months, Pen,”

“That’s just it, though! You made this about you, when we could’ve figured it out together!” he snaps, his cheeks beginning to tint with anger. “Just like everything else before that day, we could’ve walked that path together. Leaned on each other the way we have since we were kids. You’re the one who took that away from us. You chose to run away when shit got tough instead of trusting me to be there to catch you when you fell!”

“You did the trip—our trip—without me?” Nodding again, I whisper, “I did.”

“Hear me out. Please. I know I fucked up—” “Fucked up? That’s what you wanna call it?” His scoff turns into a laugh of disbelief as he rips his hand from my hold. “You didn’t fuck up. You fucking destroyed everything we had. Years of friendship, out the window. And for what? Because you were embarrassed? Because you were afraid?” “Of course I was afraid, Keene! If the world knew, that made it real. And if it was real…” I trail off, words evading me once again at the most inopportune time. Keene doesn’t seem to have that issue though, laying into me with fire in his eyes. “It was real whether the world knew it or not. You felt it as much as I did, the shift between us. And in the end, you’re still the one who chose to walk away. You’re the one who couldn’t handle it. Who was too afraid.” “I know—” “No, I don’t think you do, Pen,” he snaps, anguish written all over his features. “Because if you knew anything, you wouldn’t have walked away when I needed you most. When we needed each other.” There it is again, the ripple of guilt when I hear him say those words. I needed you.

No matter when or where, we had each other, and that was all we’d ever need. But when it was time to prove it? To put up or shut up? To stand together as a team, us against the world? I blew it. Tossed it in the air like a hand grenade with a lit fuse and bolted from the line of fire. Knowing that is punishment enough to last a lifetime, especially if it causes damage to us that’s too deep to repair. There’s only one way to find out.

“No, Pen. I can’t anymore.”

“Please, baby.” My voice is barely a whisper over the pouring rain. “I have no right to ask for this from you. But please. Just one more time.” “You don’t deserve it.” “I know I don’t.” “You’re lucky I’m even entertaining this right now.” I nod sadly. “I know.” He scoffs out a laugh. “You keep saying that, but I don’t think you do, Pen. Sometimes I swear you don’t remember that you weren’t the only one outed in front of thousands of people that day. I was too.” A grimace mars his face as he shakes his head, eyes full of so many emotions, I can’t possibly place them all. “And you wanna know what was worse than having that image flash up on the scoreboard without my knowledge? Watching you walk away from me like I meant nothing to you.” Another crack forms within me. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

“Because…” He lets out a sigh and rubs his forehead. “Because I can forgive you, but I can’t just forget it happened. You hurt me, Pen. And I didn’t just lose the guy I was sleeping with that day in the parking lot when you walked away from me. I also lost my best friend.” “That wasn’t my intention. That’s why I’m here, asking this of you. Begging you. Daring you to show me what an idiot I was for ever walking away. Nothing is more important than you, fucking nothing.” He smiles sadly. “Your pride. Your fears. Those were more important.” “Not anymore.” “I wish I could believe you.” My eyes sink closed, a cool wind whipping over my exposed skin and making me shiver. “I dare you to let me show you we can go back to how it was before.” A look of surprise crosses his face before flickering into something like irritation. “Before we had sex? Before everyone found out? Before—” “Before I was stupid enough to give up the only person who’s ever meant anything to me. I’m done running from this or fighting it. There’s no use anyway.”

“It was always gonna be you and me in the end.”

No, no, no. I’m losing him.

“Let me go, Pen. Please, just let me go.” I can’t.

“I dare you to let me love you the way you deserve to be loved. Wholly. Completely. And out in the open, where the world can see.” My throat constricts around the words, but I continue to push them out anyway. “I love you. I’m so stupidly in love with you. And I dare you to love me too.”

“I already did, Pen,” he whispers, voice mangled and raw. “But it wasn’t enough to make you stay.”

“You’ve seen me push people away, time and time again. Never letting them see me for who I really am because I was too afraid of giving them that kind of power. To know what makes me tick or how to hurt me, so I put on the armor.” My thumb brushes his lips, my attention locked on them as I speak. “But you’ve always known where the cracks were. Just like you’ve always known how to protect them. Fill them with pieces of yourself. And when you did? You made it impossible to live without you.” The ache in my chest eases with every word pouring from my mouth, so I let them go. Give him every vulnerable part of myself that’s always been his to begin with. “You’re the thing I can’t live without, and I’ll wait for, fight for, and chase you to the ends of the fucking Earth to prove it to you. So please, just tell me you’ll give me another chance. Please tell me I haven’t fucked up enough to lose the one person on this planet that was made for me, and me alone, to love.”

But every single night? He sends me a single text with three words in it. I love you. Every. Fucking. Night.

“You and me, Kee. It’s always been you and me.”

I nod in agreement before capturing his lips, this time in a kiss of promise. A promise of a lifetime of friendship and love. Of being everything each other needs. “It’s always been us,” I whisper against his mouth. “Walking away from you was the worst thing I’ve ever done. I’ll regret that time apart and the way I hurt you for the rest of my life. And while I know I can’t change it now, I’ll make damn sure to prove it’ll never happen again.”

“I love you,” he whispers against my mouth, like it’s a secret just for me. But I don’t want it to be a secret anymore. I want the entire world to know I’m his the same way he’s mine. That he’s always been mine, even when I was too stupid or stubborn or blind to see it. It’s always been us. Ever since the beginning. “I love you,” I tell him, reeling him in for another kiss. “So much more than you’ll ever know.”

We both laugh then, and I pepper his face and lips with more kisses, a ridiculous amount of happiness radiating through me. How can I not be happy when I’m fortunate enough to call my best friend and roommate the love of my life?

He’s my other half. My unexpected inevitable. My fucking everything.

I smile at him—the love of my life—while

I’m talking all the way back to high school. To that game of Don’t You Dare, where I ended up kissing my best friend. It’s hard not to laugh, looking back at how this all started between us. It was never meant to be more than a dare. A kiss between two best friends, and nothing more. Yet that stupid little dare ended up giving me the kind of love I could only dream about, and a life together that we never imagined. And what Pen and I have now? I’ve realized it’s only just the beginning.

My eyes meet Pen’s again the second I step out of the dugout, and from his expression alone, I know what he’s thinking. He wants to know if I’ll make good on the dare he gave me during our car ride to the stadium earlier. And while I can’t really guarantee my success with doubling on my first major league at-bat, I sure as hell plan to try. But he’s not the only one who’ll be tossing out dares today. Little does he know, I have the biggest dare of all to ask him later tonight. To let me love him, for the rest of our lives. Good thing, when it comes to dares, he always—always—says yes. THE END