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Chapter Twenty-Four: Calling the Bet


I had a long night. It took hours of staring into the dark berating myself silently before I'd finally fallen asleep. My dreams had haunted me, piling on more remorse, and by the time I woke up, my stomach had turned and twisted its way into nausea. I opened my eyes, expecting to find it still dark, expecting Becky to still be there, but instead I found light and an empty bed. I crawled across it quickly and dove for the bathroom door that connected to my bedroom. I landed on my knees in front of the toilet and threw up all the anxiety I'd bottled up overnight. I stayed there until my knees ached and my stomach was empty of everything except a tight, knotted feeling that ached and persisted.

Finally I peeled myself off the floor and moved back to the room. I found Becky's clothes were missing, and I pulled a fresh pair of boxers out of the drawer and tugged them on. I moved down the stairs, and every place that we'd left clothes along the way from the door to the bedroom had only mine remaining.

In the kitchen, I found a note scrawled across a pad of paper on the table.

I had to go to work, you looked too peaceful to wake-up. See you at 3:30? Thank you for last night. I love you. - B

She'd underlined the word love twice, and drawn a heart beside the B.

I took a deep breath. Okay. So I'd just tell her when I picked her up. No excuses this time. And speaking of no excuses... I went back to the stairs and grabbed my jeans, pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and texted Chris.

We need to talk.

I went back downstairs and made a piece of toast in hopes that it would settle my stomach, even though I knew the only thing that would really settle my stomach was telling Becky the truth.

My phone rang. It was Chris.

"Hey," I said, "We need to talk."

"Okay."

"Where can I meet you?" I asked.

"There's a place on Central --"

"Fresh Oasis?"

"Yeah."

"Not there," I answered firmly.

"Got a thing against smoothies?" Chris teased.

"I'll explain it to you when we talk."

Forty minutes later and I was waiting for Chris in a pizza place downtown. It was crowded, and it took a good twenty more minutes before I got a booth. Chris came in a couple moments after I'd sat down and slid into the bench across from me. He threw a handful of Polaroids down on the table. They were revealing shots of women. I quickly threw my hands over the pictures, pushing them together to cover them up. "What the fuck man?" I asked.

"I assumed that's what the talk was about?" Chris said, "Proof? Speaking of, where's yours?"

"I wasn't gonna ask about proof," I replied.

"Oh." Chris looked a little disappointed. I had a feeling he'd been hoping he'd get to brag about all his conquests. "What was this about then?" he asked.

"I need to call off the bet," I said.

Chris looked surprised. "Call off the bet?" he said, "Why?"

"Because, I don't think we should be doing this. It's wrong."

"What's the matter, running out of sluts to bang? Is it not as easy as you thought?" Chris laughed.

I shook my head. "No, that's not it," I said, "Although I do have to admit, it wasn't as easy as I'd thought it would be. In fact, it'd been rather hellish for me overall." I looked down at the photos in my hands that Chris had handed me. I absently flipped through them.

"Funny enough it was easier than I thought it would be," Chris said, shrugging. "But hey if you wanna call it off while I'm winning, that's fine by me. I'll win by default."

"You aren't in the lead right now," I said, "We're tied."

"No we aren't. I took the lead the other day."

"No, you tied the other day."

"I took the lead, stop being a sore sport," Chris answered, "You're the one pussy-footing out of the bet," he reminded me with a smirk.

"I ain't pussy-footing out of nothing," I argued, my temperature heating up. Remember that thing about Chris and the buttons I mentioned before, how he always managed to push just the right ones to really piss me off? Yeah. "Even if you had been winning," I added forcefully, "I had sex with a girl last night. So even if, we'd still be tied. And as a matter of a fact --" I pulled up my text history with Chris and held up my phone for him to see it, "I am winning."

"Well no wonder you wanna call it quits early, then," Chris snorted. "You're scared you'll lose. You must really be getting hard up." He paused. "And where's your proof? You've got mine right there. Lemme see yours." He snatched the phone away from me and started clicking around in it.

"Gimme that," I snapped and I grabbed for it, but he hit my hand and the pictures he'd thrown on the table went flying out of them, landing on the floor. I launched after them to pick them up before they got into the wrong hands. We were in a family place after all.

As I scrambled on the floor for the pictures of bare chested ladies Chris had slept with, I heard him howl, "Who's this dog?"

I looked up. He was holding up my phone with a picture of Becky on it.

"Gimme that," I snapped again, the fist full of pictures securely in my hands. I grabbed at my phone and Chris let me have it. I sat back down and shoved the pictures back at him. But in the motion of pushing them back, I realized I recognized one of the faces in the pictures he'd supplied, and I pulled it back.

I looked down at the image for a long moment, then I looked up at Chris. "You're so full of crap," I hissed.

"What?" he asked, trying to look cool, but looking nervous instead.

"This is Scarlett Johansson," I said, jabbing my finger at the picture.

Chris looked like he was about to puke.

"This leaked like all over the Internet like a year ago..." I flipped to the next one. "And this one's Ashley Green..." I looked up at him. "You mother fucker. You haven't been sleeping with anyone. You've been lying to me."

"Well c'mon now man, it's not like you were really banging people that didn't know you. You were getting it way too easy. I had to have some chance of winning. So I padded myself with a couple points."

"None of mine knew who I was, I didn't pad myself or lie to win the bet," I said hotly. I threw the pictures at him.

"Please, that's bullcrap, you can't tell me that none of the girls you fucked in the last couple weeks knew who you were. You're Nick Carter, and no amount of black hair dye and fake-ass glasses is gonna hide that."

The people in the booth behind Chris turned and glanced over their shoulders when he'd said my name.

"Although that one there, I gotta give you credit for that one whether she knew you or not." He motioned at my phone, "I mean, you really did get desperate, huh? Sleeping with an ugly bitch like that? Jesus Christ, man, she's either a really good fuck or you were just the most desperate son of a bitch I've ever met. Have some pride, dude..." Chris laughed.

I've never felt so angry in my entire life.

"Take it back." I snarled under my breath.

Chris looked moderately surprised, "What?" his laughter died.

"Take. It. Back. Now."

He stared at me for a long moment, then he choked back a laugh, "Oh my fucking holy hell, you can't be serious. That bitch is what you're calling this all off for? What're you like, in love with her now? Is that some weird ass fetish you're just discovering? Ugly fat chicks?"

I leaped across the table.

And fifteen minutes later, I was face-down and bloody-nosed on the floor, a cop kneeling over me, handcuffing my wrists behind my back.