Betting On It

  Betting On It

  A Callahan Brewery Novel

  Book One

  Violet Blake

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Betting On It is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright 2014 by Violet Blake

  www.VioletBlake.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author, except where permitted by law.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-503-02847-0

  E-book ISBN: 978-0-692-31426-5

  First Edition November 2014

  For my favorite brew guy.

  Chapter One

  Tonight, at this very moment, I was supposed to be at my rehearsal dinner, toasting my wedding. My closest friends and family would gather around a table, and I—wearing a froofy dress my mother picked out—would smile and laugh at all the right moments. My loving fiancé would gaze adoringly at me, and I at him, and for those beautiful moments our eyes would meet, we’d know that our future was meant to be.

  Gag. Gross. And can I just say, so not happening now.

  Now I lived halfway across the country. Now I was broke. Now I was happy.

  And speaking of happy, my besties were waiting for me at our favorite bar for a late drink or three in downtown Fort Collins, Colorado.

  Still dressed in my work clothes, I had about ten seconds to decide what to wear. Standing in front of my teeny, cramped closet, I flicked hangers side to side, mentally putting together an outfit, paper doll style. My friends would no doubt come dressed to impress, and I didn’t want to be the only slob sitting around in running shorts and a CSU T-shirt.

  I settled on an orchid-colored dress that was fitted on top and flared at the hips, and shucked my clothes. My stupid near-death-experience scar peeked out of the top of my panties and waved at me, in all its three-inch fuchsia glory. No matter how much anti-scar cream I’d put on it, it just would not go away. The sooner I could forget all that, the better.

  Grimacing a little, I yanked on the dress and stuck my bare feet into black platform heels, then twirled in front of the mirror. Thank fuck I’d remembered to shave my legs this morning.

  I pulled my shoulder-length cinnamon-colored hair into a twist at the crown of my head, somewhat sour over the fact that it was so fine I couldn’t tease it into something more impressive. My bangs had grown long enough to tuck behind my ear—courtesy of a limited beauty budget—and a silver bobby pin was just enough to hold my hair in place.

  With the seconds ticking, I applied a subtle shimmery shadow to my lids, a dusting of blush, and slicked on pale pink gloss. Not bad.

  Somebody knocked on the door.

  Considering that it was Friday night and my apartment mates were perpetual party animals, my bets were on Keegan, my upstairs neighbor. Almost every week he stopped by to extend an invitation. I’m all for a good kegger, but my version of partying involved painting in the midst of a Lord of the Rings or Star Trek marathon.

  I kicked my discarded work shoes out of the way, then opened the door to find my best friends, Jessica and Emily.

  “What the hell?” Probably not the nicest way to greet my favorite people. In my defense, I couldn’t stop myself.

  Jessica and Emily Callahan had the same soft, pastel coloring, and standing next to each other it was obvious they were sisters. Jess grinned like the shark from Finding Nemo—in the next moment she could be my friend, or eat me alive. She air-kissed me and winked, then ensnared me in a hug. “Happy non-bachelorette party, beotch.”

  “Um, thanks?” Who threw a surprise fake bachelorette party—or whatever this was—for somebody the night before they were supposed to be married?

  “Aren’t we going out for drinks?” I’d dressed up and everything. Usually we all walked to The Crown Pub Friday after work, had a few drinks, griped, laughed, and had enough fun to forget the drudgery of the week. Tonight we’d decided to go to dinner at a new restaurant instead, hence my dressing up.

  “No way,” she said, her arms shrinking around me like one of those car compactors. Betsy Johnson’s latest perfume invaded my senses, lulling me into a false sense of sanctuary. “We’re bringing the party to you.”

  Yep. Definitely should’ve worn my Shark Bait nametag. It’s not like I wanted to celebrate not getting married and being disinherited. But my newfound independence was kind of a big deal. Still, not the kind of thing you just spring on somebody, ya know?

  Emily, who at twenty was a younger, more evil version of Jessica, handed me a hot-pink gift bag and guided me into the kitchen. “Enjoy,” she said, and set to work unscrewing caps from vodka bottles.

  I closed the door, all clear thought in a tailspin toward earth. At least I’d cleaned the place up a bit. Emily mixed drinks in a pitcher, Jessica arranged plates of finger food, and I searched my creaky cupboards for cups.

  Oh well. If you can’t beat ’em, you might as well get drunk with ’em.

  After we’d grabbed plates and arranged the food and drink in the center of the table, my fake bachelorette party began—although, it was woefully lacking in the male strippers department. Maybe next time.

  Jessica poured another round of pink birthday cake martinis from the pitcher. Already giddy from the first martini, I tossed back a few gulps and decided to show a little team spirit. Tonight was about fun, independence. Or something like that.

  Jessica sat and took a drink, but spilled a few drops from her glass onto her cobalt dress. “Shit.”

  Emily and I were discussing the new quarterback for the university’s football team—in a word, yum—and although I wasn’t a fan of football, when they pulled out a picture of him on the phone, I admit I felt a little verklempt.

  “I might just become a football fan this year,” I said, reading Sam Golding’s stats page. Six-feet-four, two hundred twenty-five pounds, and an appearance that was the perfect combination of nice, all-American guy and utterly masculine. I gulped my martini to wet my parched tongue. I don’t know if it was the drinks or the sugar rush, but he reminded me way too much of Jess and Emily’s cousin Sawyer Callahan.

  Aka, my long-term running partner, loyal friend, and all-time unrequited crush.

  And everything my ex, Ethan, was not.

  If Mr. Quarterback had lighter hair and blue eyes, he could easily pass for Sawyer from a distance. So I might have watched a few clips of him running shirtless, throwing balls, and giving an interview. And I might have superimposed Real Sawyer over his face. And I also might have—

  “Nobody’s going to judge
if you disappear with the phone into your bedroom for a few minutes.” Emily’s amusement resonated as bland, but the message flashing in her eyes in bright blue neon said, “busted.”

  Snapping myself out of it, an embarrassing high-pitched giggle betrayed my feigned nonchalance, and I handed her the phone. “Please. I just wanted to make sure he was a good pick for the team. Especially since I’m officially a Coloradoan now and want to show my, um, team spirit.”

  “Team spirit, my ass.” Jessica intercepted the phone. “I’ve already reserved a seat my dad’s suite at the stadium for the season, and I don’t know the difference between a touchdown and a fumble. You should come with me some time. Occasionally we get to meet the players.”

  “You’re on,” I said, even though I was sure I’d probably do something mortifying like puke on Sam’s shoes. Besides, and let’s be brutally honest here, I was in no place to have a relationship. The closest I got was with BOB—my battery-operated boyfriend—and he worked out just fine. Zero drama.

  Jessica returned to the table and said, casual as could be, “Funny, isn’t it, that he looks so much like a certain cousin of mine?”

  “What? You mean Sawyer? I guess, if you really squint.” I shrugged, my attempt at innocence falling as flat as the half-eaten baklava in front of me. When it came to Sawyer, I had it bad. Jessica knew it, too, but wisely stayed out of it. Besides, dating your best friend’s family tended to make things a bit murky. When it came to my friendship pool, I liked to keep things Health Department clean.

  Emily might as well have been holding a stun gun for all the impact her words had. “Don’t even try to pretend. You should’ve seen the way your cheeks got all red when you watched that video. Or the way your voice got all breathy when you said his name.”

  I closed my eyes and held up one of the Cosmo issues they’d brought to block my blazing hot mortification from their sassy smirks. “You guys…”

  “Your engagement was over five months ago. Not only that, but I think it’s safe to say it wasn’t the greatest love story in history anyway.” Jessica had pretty much nailed it. Of course I’d been torn up over ending the engagement. It ended on bad terms for one, but ending it had been more of a relief than a heartbreak.

  After I’d moved back to the city where I’d gone to college and reunited with my best friends, the realization of everything I’d been missing out on had become increasingly clear. I’d had no money, no job, and no prospects, but they’d been supportive in ways my family and former fiancé hadn’t.

  “Give me the pitcher,” Emily said, grabbing for it.

  When Jessica pushed it across the table she took it and topped off her glass before sending it over to Emily. “You’re a total hottie. You shouldn’t have any troubles getting a guy.”

  “Or girl,” Emily chimed in. She’d declared a few weeks ago she was experimenting with women at college, and wanted everybody to know it.

  “I don’t want a guy,” I said. “Or a girl. Or a relationship. I’m not even close to ready for that kind of thing.”

  Jessica nodded. “Nobody’s telling you to run out and get a new fiancé. Go out, experiment, see what’s out there.”

  “Or go for what’s already in front of you,” Emily said, her voice the perfect amalgamation of virtue and wickedness.

  I needed more alcohol. STAT. I refreshed my martini and took a nice, healthy swig. If I had to have this conversation, it would best be handled shit-faced. “I need to focus on me for a while. Get things in order. I can’t even think about dating somebody when I can barely afford Ramen.”

  Which reminded me, I’d forgotten to pay my rent this morning. Crap.

  Jessica shook her head the way doctors did when they had to tell families there was no hope for a loved one. “Sweetie, nobody said anything about dates or relationships. You’re twenty-three years old, and what you need is sex, sex, and more sex.”

  Probably.

  Emily broke a pita chip and stuck half of it in her mouth. “And aren’t you Miss Near-Death Experience girl? What’s the point of almost dying if you’re just going to go back to the way things were?”

  My head hurt. I should’ve had coffee instead of martinis for this conversation. “I did change. I dumped my fiancé—”

  “Because he’s a douche,” Jessica said. “But if you hadn’t had a near-death experience to reveal his true colors, you would’ve been miserable married to somebody who treated you like that.”

  “Right,” I said, “but I realized on my own we weren’t probably right for each other. So there’s that. And I moved across the country—you can’t forget that.”

  They didn’t know the whole story. They never would, no matter how much I loved them. What had happened a few months ago left me with nothing but pain, humiliation. But I’d moved past it, for the most part. I got an apartment, got a job, and I worked my butt off. No complaints coming from me. My big girl panties were on so snug I had a wedgie.

  “Which is why,” Emily continued, “we have a plan.”

  Jessica walked into my tiny bedroom and stopped in front of a five-by-five box I’d rested against the wall. It was something I’d really rather forget, but I couldn’t let it go, so there it was, all wrapped and part of the décor. She picked it up and carried it to the chair she’d been sitting in.

  “This is why you have to get out of this rut.” She used the cake knife to tear through the packing tape. She tossed the cardboard aside and set to work on the foam packing.

  “Jess, please.” My voice came out tense, a parched, desperate squeak.

  She shook her head and peeled the foam wrapping away. When it was gone she turned it around. Emily stared, nodding appreciatively.

  The knots in my stomach twisted like a family of baby eels. Not only was this a painting I’d done, but it was a self portrait. And I happened to be naked.

  “That’s you?” Emily asked, regarding me and then the painting as if something weren’t quite adding up.

  “She painted it for her ex,” Jessica explained, tapping a pale blue nail on the gilt frame. “Gorgeous, right?”

  “I’d hit that,” Emily said.

  “Thanks, Em.”

  She couldn’t stop staring at it, though. “You painted a boudoir portrait for him? I mean, wow. Most girls do the photo session, but this…this is phenomenal.”

  I shrugged. “I was way too shy for a photo session, so I took a few shots of myself to use for reference, and…there you go.”

  “Wow.” She downed the rest of her drink in one gulp.

  In the painting, I laid on my back on a cabernet velvet chaise lounge, my knees bent with my feet resting on the top of the furniture. My torso twisted to show off my breasts, and a few yards of black pearls draped over my curves. And yeah, I’d gone full monty. Only a very sheer cascade of tulle covered my girl parts.

  The thing was embarrassing to me now. It’d been packaged like that because the framer had done so, only to be opened when Ethan got it. It’s not like I could hang it in my home, and it wasn’t exactly the type of gift you could give just anybody. But after the shit-ton of money I’d spent having it framed, throwing it away seemed like a waste.

  Jessica raised her empty glass into the air like a scimitar. The only thing missing? A Viking-worthy battle cry. “Time for gifts!”

  Emily seemed to catch on to whatever it was Jessica implied, because her eyes widened and she fanned her face with her napkin. She grabbed my arm and dragged me to the couch—the harder she pulled the more I wanted to run. This was so not okay. She sat me down, put a party hat on my head, and set three big paper gift bags on the coffee table in front of me like sentries. And the gift-givers were even more scary, arranged on my chairs like judges about to sentence me to…something.

  Either way I was frightened.

  Jessica clapped her hands together. “I know you aren’t much of a present person, but we pitched in to get you the most epic gift you could ask for.”

  Her words only added to my l
evel of anxiety. This was the “friend” who thought a good Christmas gift our junior year had been an afternoon with a gigolo. He’d been very sweet and was content to chat with me about art history for three hours while I blushed so hard I thought I’d sweat blood.

  Jess put her hands over mine, holding me as if I were about to drift away. “No matter how crazy you think we are, think about it before you say no. We wouldn’t do anything we didn’t think would make you stronger.”

  “Sweet fuck,” I breathed. I had an inkling that since she was about to blow me away with whatever I was about to open she possibly felt it was appropriate to sugarcoat with pledges of friendship and girl power.

  She gripped my hands tighter, probably sensing that I was about to show her exactly how good of a track star I used to be. “The rest of your life is ahead of you. The Blair who bent over backward to make everybody else happy can now find a little happiness herself.”

  More applause. Excitement swirled through the room, and it was infectious. My friends didn’t seem to have malicious intent. Now I freaking had to know what was inside. I kind of hoped it was a bazooka so it would be over with quick and painless.

  I tugged at one end of the ribbon and it fell away, covering my toes. Fingers shaking, I dove into the bag and pulled out a package wrapped in silver tissue paper. I placed it on the table and unwrapped it.

  “Oh…wow,” I said, my voice a squeak. “A vibrator? You really shouldn’t have.”

  Emily grumbled. “Not just any vibrator. This, love, is an AA-783, aka The Screamer.”

  That vibrator wasn’t the only thing in this room about to scream.

  I blinked a few times, trying to register. When in doubt, go for politeness. “Thank you.”

  I moved to the other bag, my hand shaking so hard I thought it would just rip through the paper. Inside the second bag was a riding crop with feathers at one end, and three-inch leather strips at the other, and another sex toy—this one a remote-controlled bullet. Another tissue-wrapped gift at the bottom turned out to be velvety Velcro bonds.

  Sex toys. This wasn’t so bad. BOB needed some companions anyway. I wasn’t the best company lately. “It’s…beautiful?”