Fool Me Twice by Lizzie Morton

 

 

Twenty-Nine

 

Becket

 

There were times in the past when I’d hate Coach Langford’s practices. He called them “character building,” but there were a few other words I would have used to describe them. Things have changed though. They’re still brutal, but they’re what keeps me getting up each morning, because it feels like there isn’t much else. These past six months there’s been nothing. I’ve shut myself off from the world, afraid that if I let myself feel something, I wouldn’t be able to stop. I wouldn’t be able to shut the pain out.

Today’s big game is my first since the accident. We’re in the locker room going through our usual routine, when the door flies open and in stalks my PR rep Shauna. My eyes zone straight in on the magazine in her hand. This can’t be good. Not if the last time we were in this kind of scenario is anything to go by.

“Woah, Shauna! If you wanted to catch a glimpse of my beef whistle, all you had to do was ask,” hollers Brad.

The rest of the team snicker under their breath. Brad’s an idiot, the rest of us know better than to cross her.

“You’re disgusting,” she snaps back, then throws the magazine down next to me on the bench. “You need to get your head out of your ass and read this.” That’s all I get before she spins on her heel and stalks out as quick as she came in.

The name of the magazine catches my eye.

Brad shuffles over, with an apprehensive look on his face. “Looks like she might finally have written the article. Coach will be happy. Let’s just pray she didn’t review your performance in the sack, or we’re fucked.”

I ignore him. All I can do is stare. As the weeks went by and nothing appeared, I assumed she was never going to write it. I wouldn’t have expected her to, not after what happened.

“Are you going to read it or what?” Brad asks nosily, never one for respecting boundaries.

“Not with you hovering over my shoulder like that.” I grab the magazine and dart away from him.

He holds up his hands laughing, then winks. “Whatever, man, I’ll read about the two she gave your performance later.”

Skipping through to the right page, I finally read the heading: The Becket Behind the Sex Tape. Not quite what Coach Langford and Shauna had in mind. This was meant to be some huge article, painting me in a different light to the world, not a reminder of my past indiscretions. Maybe I shouldn’t read it. If the heading is anything to go by, there’s a strong possibility I’m going to want to tear it to shreds. But I can’t stop myself, I have to know what she’s written.

 

Our romance was a plane crash. A disaster. It ended as quickly as it began.

I always thought one day, I’d meet my dream guy, the one that would sweep me off my feet, whispering sweet nothings in my ear.

What I got? The biggest douchebag in the NFL … or so I thought.

When I was assigned this article, I was intrigued, along with the rest of the world, to find out who the real Michael Becket was. We live in a society where we’re so focused on the Rich and the Famous, that we forget they’re normal people, experiencing normal things, normal emotions. Really, all they want is the same thing we do, to be happy.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind. The world has been anything but kind to Michael Becket. People have flaws, people have secrets. He is no exception to that rule. He’s one of the most famous football players in the world, and he’s as handsome in real life as he is on your screens. Perfectly handsome, perfectly flawed. But his story isn’t mine to tell.

What I can say? You should never judge a book by its cover.

 

That wasn’t what I was expecting.

Sitting down on the bench, I rub a hand over my face. I’m not quite sure what it means. Just like she didn’t expose all my secrets to the world the first time, she’s kept the real me hidden again. She didn’t have to. She could have used it as some sort of revenge. But she didn’t.

God, I hope it means what I think it does, because I miss her, every second of every day. She told me not to wait. I haven’t waited, I’ve been stuck, absorbed by all things Britney. My feelings haven’t changed in the time we’ve been apart. Without her, none of this—the fame, the fortune, none of it matters.

The locker room door flies open again. “Becket!” Coach barks. “My office, now!”

My mind starts racing, trying to figure out what I might have done to piss him off. I come up with nothing, apart from the article. Shoving the magazine in my locker, I close it before walking out of the room.

The sounds of the team singing, “Someone’s iiiin trooouuuble,” follow me out.

Assholes.

I knock on Coach’s office door.

“Come in!” he barks again. He really is in a shitty mood.

“You asked for me Coach?” I say as I step inside.

He looks up from where he’s sitting at his desk, his face unreadable. “Actually, I didn’t …”

The door behind me swings shut.

“I did.”

I close my eyes. I thought I’d never see her again. Not wanting to waste another second and risk her disappearing out of my life once more, I spin around to check she’s really here. “What are you doing here?” I snap, caught off guard. Ok, that didn’t come out quite as I intended. “Sorry, it’s just the last time I saw you, you told me you never wanted to see me again.”

She looks at me uncertainly, those big blue eyes brighter than I remember and says sheepishly, “I thought it would be a surprise. Maybe I should have let you know I was coming?”

I nod, and struggling to speak, reply, “That would have been good.” A heads up would have saved me from standing here, gawping like an idiot, unable to figure out what to say.

“Less of the small talk. You have a game in a couple of hours. Becket, you can’t screw it up,” says Coach Langford, reorganizing some of the papers on his desk, before standing up. “You can talk in here for a bit.” He turns to Britney, a smirk on his face. “Please don’t make any sex tapes, I don’t want my office getting tagged in them.”

When he’s gone, I stand silently, staring. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

She frowns. I’m being a bit of a dick towards her, but I don’t know what to do. I haven’t got a clue why she’s here. I don’t know how to act. I’m terrified if I open up, let her see how happy I am she’s here, she’ll throw it back in my face.

“I wanted to speak to you,” she replies.

“There are those little things called cellphones. You didn’t have to fly all the way here.”

“Would you have answered?”

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Exactly.”

I’m not sure when it happened, but we’re standing toe to toe. I look down, transfixed by the way her chest rises and falls. My heart skips a beat and I feel like I’m about to bring up the contents of my stomach. It’s not nerves about the game, it’s not even about the article. It’s her, this is what she does to me. The walls I put up, she bulldozed down. She makes me nervous, makes me feel things no one ever has, things I didn’t think I was capable of feeling, because I thought I was too broken. I thought I didn’t deserve anything better.

Having her here in front of me is agony. All I want to do is pull her in and kiss her till our lips are raw. The thought of telling her how I feel is what’s most terrifying, but it’s what I have to do if I stand a chance of keeping her in my life. “I lied to you …”

She literally throws her head back and laughs in my face. If it were anyone else, I’d be pissed. But the sound filling the room makes my heart pound and my blood race. “You’ve lied about a lot.”

I shake my head. “I only lied about my name. The rest I just avoided telling you. You got me, Brit, all of me. You got the sides to me that no one’s ever seen.”

I hear her breath catch in her throat. She wasn’t expecting me to be so open, but I’m done hiding things, after all, she now knows all of my deepest darkest secrets.

“So, what have you lied about?”

“That night in the alley, after I messed up at the awards. You asked me to fall with you …” I watch her throat bob when she swallows. “I told you I couldn’t and that was a lie. The truth is, Brit. I’d already fallen.”

 

***

 

Britney

 

When you love someone, really, truly love someone, you feel what they feel.

To the world, Becket’s a closed book. Not to me, not anymore. My heart aches for him because of the things he’s been through, the things he’s seen. He’s carried this burden all these years, sacrificed himself to protect the ones he loves. I meant what I wrote in the article. You never know a person’s true story unless they tell you. You should never judge a book by its cover. The Becket the world sees is not the man standing in front of me right now.

“I get why you didn’t, but you could have told me,” I say, looking up into his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

“For a while I blamed you, I thought it was all your fault. I had my eyes opened to the fact that I was blaming you for something that was out of your control.”

He looks down and shifts his weight on his feet. “I never should have gotten involved with you. If I hadn’t, this never would have happened.”

I place a hand under his chin, lifting it and urging him to look me in the eye. “The thought of never knowing you, never feeling all these things there are between us, scares me more than he does. I’ve had a shitty life, we both have, but you make it better. You make me want to fight for more.”

He leans in and places a gentle kiss on my lips. “I love you, Brit.”

“I love you more.”

The smirk is back. “How about we go longer than thirty seconds without fighting?”

I laugh again, something I’ve done more of in the last ten minutes, being around him, than I have in the past six months. It felt like I wasn’t capable of doing it without Becket in my life.

“I do have a couple of questions …”

He nods. “Ask whatever you need to.”

So, I ask, and he answers, with me sitting in his lap at Coach Langford’s desk. He tells me how everything came about and explains what really happened with the assault case. How he was fighting a battle he never should have had to take part in. How he still is.

The world might not love him, the player with no filter, the NFL’s number one asshole. But the reason they don’t love him is because they can’t see who he really is. The world isn’t important though. What matters is us together. Now we know each other’s truths, we can finally move forwards, fight our demons, win our battles. Together. We’ve spent a huge chunk of our lives facing things nobody should ever have to, alone. But now, we have each other.

I wrap my arms tightly around his waist, resting my head against his chest, breathing in his familiar scent. Lavender and birch. At first his heartbeat sounds erratic but then it settles to a slow steady rhythm.

“Did Abby know?” I ask.

He stills. “No. We had the kind of relationship where if there was an issue, we avoided it. We didn’t ask questions. It was the way it needed to be. For both of us.”

“Ok. Can I ask you one more question?”

“Go on …”

“What’s your real name?”

“Ben Miller.”

“Clever,” I reply, and his chest vibrates as he chuckles.

“What do I call you?”

“Michael Becket.” I lean back and look into his piercing green eyes. “I left Ben Miller behind a long time ago. This is who I am now. I actually have a question myself …”

“Ask away,” I reply. He’s answered all of my questions, it’s the least I can do. If we’re going to move forward, there can be no secrets.

“Why didn’t you think you could tell me that you’d been seeing the figure?”

I let out a huff of air before replying. “For the same reason you didn’t think you could tell me. To protect you from my past. Sometimes the best way to stay safe is to be oblivious.”

Becket nods with understanding. “Who did you think it was?”

I stare straight ahead, not quite able to meet his eye when I tell the next part to the story. “I’ve spent years trying to pay off my mom’s debts and I’d been struggling to keep up with payments. They’d turn up unannounced, I did whatever I could to get money and keep them away. But then I was so absorbed in what was happening with us, when I came to Jacksonville, I forgot I still owed some payments. I thought it was them coming to find me.”

“Do I need to be worried?” asks Becket, frowning.

“Not anymore. Neither do I. A couple of months after everything happened, the police came to my apartment …” Becket’s throat bobs as he swallows. “They found her, and she paid the price. Her debts aren’t mine anymore.”

“Is she …”

“Dead? Yes.”

“I’m sorry, Brit.”

“Don’t be. My mom was dead to me a long time ago. This was merely a technicality. I’m accepting it’s ok, that for now I still don’t forgive her for everything she did and what she put me through. Maybe one day, but not right now.”

Becket struggles to find a reply to the information I’ve just dumped on him, so I tilt my head and place a small kiss on his lips.

He groans and murmurs against my lips, “I missed you, Brit. I know I can be a prick and I’m not your knight in shining armor. I’m not perfect, but for you, I’ll try to be better.”

“You’re wrong.”

He pulls away his brow furrowed. “Why?”

“I don’t want perfect. I just want you.”

He tugs me back into his chest and places a kiss into my hair. “You’re sure about this?”

“Never been surer of anything in my life.”

He lifts me with him as he stands up from the chair, then backs me up against the office door. His lips crash down on mine. They’re soft. The kiss is anything but. Heat spreads through me and my body hums at how good it is feeling his body against mine again.

This is Becket, my Becket. He’s no longer wearing a mask.

The door rattles in its frame as we kiss frantically, desperate to make up for lost time. A fist hammers against it in response.

“Becket, if you even think about screwing her in my office, consider yourself out of the NFL.”

“Sorry, Coach.” He groans into my neck, “I want you.”

“Later…” I sigh, content but frustrated.

He pulls away and stares me straight in the eyes. “Promise you won’t disappear on me?”

“Promise.” He kisses me again.

Coach Langford bangs on the door. “Times up, Becket. Get your ass in the locker room with the rest of the team.”

Reluctantly, we separate and leave the room.

Later, I watch him on the field. Watch as he sprints ahead with his team and then looks back. His eyes scour thousands of people and then he finds me in the crowd, holds up his hand and waves. I don’t know much about what our future holds. Everything is still so uncertain.

But I do know one thing …

I might have fooled him once, but however long we’re together, however long we love each other, I’ll do my best never to fool him again.