The Bet Game

Chapter 2 – She’s gotta be kidding me

The Porsche moved through the city like a held breath, fast, controlled, the engine a low growl beneath the silence.

Sebastian looked like he could devour anything that came near him at the moment. His mouth twitched in anger with every turn of his hand on the wheel.

Turned out he took over the wheel because he couldn't contain the happy moments the two thought they were having. But unfortunately, the big man's lost his patience to teach them a very memorable lesson.

“Hey,hey... Keep it steady man. You look like you could get us killed.”

“Ahahh… don't puncture him if you don't want him to explode.”

“You both seem to be having a good time, right?”

“Hell no…” Chris immediately denied “Why would we want to anger the already-angry Almighty Sebastian?”

“But, I must say the girl is beautiful.” Lucas butted in.

The temperature inside the car dropped several degrees.

“What? That was not a lie bro. Unless he is blimd blind.”

“He sure, no doubt, is blind.” Chris added.

“Hmm…yes he is. As I was saying, she is beautiful and…fierce…and…and…What’s that word again?” Lucas asked when he couldn't find any other word to describe her.

“Daring.” Chris added

“Yes! Daring. I've never seen a girl so daring like that. I must say, Sebastian is no match for that girl.

This went on and on like he was never there to begin with.

Stopped. Tires shrieking against asphalt, the whole vehicle jolting on its suspension like it had hit a wall.

Chris's palms slammed against the back of the front seat.

"What the…”

“What the hell, man!!” Lucas shouted.

“Are you crazy?” Chris at the back almost barked.

“Get out!”

“What? Dude! We are in the middle of nowhere…” Chris declared, after assessing where on earth they were. They were still far from home.

“You know your way home, don't you?”

Fearing what he’s capable of doing, without wasting any more time they unbuckled their seatbelts and opened the door. No one angers Sebastian Crane. Not even his friends.

There was a brief moment where they both stood on the pavement watching the Porsche pull away calmly now, irritatingly steady, and then its taillights vanished around the corner and left them in the kind of quiet that makes a city feel very large.

“That guy…is really something. Is he that angry? Over one girl?”

“The girl really did him bad, obviously. First day at a club and he's raging. He's really annoying. We don't have to take him out next time.”

“But to be honest, she's the only girl I've seen so far that could actually make him this angry.” Lucas said.

“I bet if he could ever handle her. And I don't even think I've seen her in the club before, I know almost everyone in that club. Probably a first timer. We might as well see her in that club when next we go. Don't you think?”

“Stop daydreaming Chris, do you think we'll ever see her there again? After what our dear friend did to her? And even if she comes, do you think she'll want to talk to us?”

“That is so true. Damn that boy!” Chris nods his head in realisation “Must he always be so annoying.”

“Save that for tomorrow. Now let's look for a way to go home. Or are you planning on trekking home?”

“Uhhhh…That boy…iyyynn…” Chris gritted his teeth.

Lucas groaned, pulling out his phone to call a car. "He's so annoying. We should never take him out again."

"We'll take him out again," Chris said

"We'll take him out again," Lucas agreed.

They walked in silence for a moment.

"That girl, though," Lucas said, almost to himself.

"I know," said Chris.

♥︎♥︎♥︎♥︎

Sebastian's POV

The bathroom was cold and bright and mercifully quiet.

He stood under the shower with his hands pressed flat against the tiles and let the water run over him. It was hot at first, then cooling by degrees as his mind refused to slow down, and tried to identify exactly what was wrong with him tonight.

This was the thing about Sebastian, he was good at identifying problems. Dissect the issue. Name it. Address it. Move on.

He named the issue now.

Pride. That was all this was. A stranger had talked back to him in a club hallway, and his pride had taken the hit, and now he was standing under a shower at midnight like a man who'd never been inconvenienced before.

Simple. Addressable. Move on.

Except.

Every time he closed his eyes, there she was.

Not like a memory. More like a photograph burned directly onto the inside of his eyelids. Porcelain skin that the neon lights hadn't been able to dim. Dark, almond-shaped eyes that held something careful in them, not coldness exactly, more like deliberateness. Like she chose very carefully what she let people see. Her hair tucked back from her face. The way she'd tilted her chin up when she'd told him to move, like she was made of something harder than he'd expected—

He yanked his hands through his wet hair. Hard.

What are you doing?

The girl had lasted thirty seconds in his presence and spent most of them telling him off. She had no idea who he was, which was one thing, but she clearly didn't care to find out, which was another thing entirely. She'd walked away without so much as a glance over her shoulder, as though he was simply the latest in a long line of minor inconveniences she'd been forced to navigate.

And he was standing in his shower at midnight thinking about her face.

She's gotta be kidding me.

Sebastian turned off the water. Toweled off. Wrapped the towel around his waist and padded out into the cool dark of his apartment. The skyline blinked through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city doing what it always did, indifferent and luminous and endlessly moving.

His phone buzzed on the nightstand. Then again. Then a rapid-fire series of notifications he already knew the source of without looking.

He picked it up.

"There is NO WAY you left us out there. Sebastian. There are no cabs."

"Please. Sebastian. We are literally standing in the dark."

"We won't say she's beautiful again. We swear."

"We won't say you're no match for her. On our mothers."

"...Your mother."

"F** you, Sebastian."

The messages kept coming. He read them once. A slow, satisfied feeling moved through his chest, the first genuinely good feeling he'd had all evening and he set the phone back down without responding.

“Next time, you'll think twice before running your mouths.”

He pulled on a t-shirt and sweats, carried his laptop to the bed, and opened the Crane & Hart files. There was a merger proposal due Monday morning. Real work. The kind that actually mattered.

He stared at the document. Read the same paragraph four times. Closed the laptop.

In the dark of his room, with only the city glow coming through the windows, Sebastian lay back and stared at the ceiling and told himself clearly, firmly, in the decisive tone that had never once failed him in a boardroom that he was not going to think about her again.

He was still telling himself this when he finally fell asleep.

He dreamed about dark eyes and the particular way someone's chin tilts up when they've decided, without any evidence or permission, that they are not afraid of you.