Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Whit
I walked into our lunch date exactly on time at half past noon, the shiny Country superstar Whit Grantham version of myself readied after some deep breathing in the car on the way, but Ben was already there.
“Is my watch slow?” I asked as he held the door for me.
“I doubt it. I just walked in.”
And then, he did it—what I imagined he’d do if we were really dating. What I’d told him to do. He was doing just that.
But my heart still skipped a beat, my breath catching as he leaned down with one hand on my upper arm, pressed a soft kiss to my cheek, then pulled back to look in my eyes.
“Good to see you.” His voice sounded somehow deeper, richer, more .
“Good to see you, too.” Why had the words been breathless ?
Just then, the hostess gestured for us to follow her, only hesitating a second when she registered I was me.
We got settled in our seats, the din of the restaurant mostly covering the Is that Whit Grantham? and the Who’s the guy? shimmering around us. She sat us in a booth out of the way, which I appreciated on one hand, because we did need to talk, but on another, we needed to be seen.
“It’s October—a nice enough day. We can walk a few blocks holding hands after this and make sure someone snaps a photo,” he said quietly over his menu when he saw me looking around. He’d probably realized no one could see us without walking out of the way.
“Good idea.”
After we’d ordered, we chatted about our mornings. Both of us had been to church, though different ones. If he was surprised to find I went to church, he didn’t show it—after all, I’d had the same thought about him when he’d walked out of church to pick up the phone the first time we’d talked, and I hadn’t mentioned it.
And then, the time for the questions came.
“Can I ask you about your family?”
His tone was quiet before he took a bite of his burger. The sight of the big meat and cheese sandwich caused a pang of envy I didn’t often experience since most industry people wouldn’t be caught dead eating a cheeseburger. A bite of my grilled salmon went into my mouth. Pretty good.
Ain’t no cheeseburger, that’s for sure.
“I can tell you about them, but probably not here , just in case.” My tone held caution—would he pick up on it?
Realistically, nowhere but my own house was truly safe. We’d have to save that another for day.
“Well, then, why don’t you ask me some questions, and maybe in there somewhere, I can find some to ask you?” He grabbed a fry, ate it, and watched as my gaze followed it to his mouth.
“Okay. Favorite food.”
“Burgers. Or anything my mom makes. You?”
“I have a typical sweet tooth. Baked goods. Ice cream. Cobbler. Oh, Lord, do I love cobbler.” I never ate those things, especially not anymore, but I did love them.
“Candy?”
“No. Not so much.”
“Well, at least you have that going for you,” he said with a smile, then grabbed another fry.
“Siblings?” I asked, then took a bite while he answered.
“Two older sisters. Bridgette is thirty, married, one child. My middle sister is Beatrice, but we’ve always called her Bea. She’s twenty-eight, an actual genius, single, extremely shy. And then, me.”
“All B names,” I said, far too excited by the discovery. “Is your mom Becky?”
He grinned. “Nope.”
“Bailey?”
“No.”
“Beth?”
“How long are you going to keep guessing?”
“Betty?”
“You’re not going to guess.”
He did a little half-smile with just one side of his mouth curving up, and if I hadn’t been distracted by the hunt for his mother’s name, I might have noticed the little flutter in my belly at the sight of it directed at me.
“Belinda? Babs? Barbara? Belle?” The smile grew on my face with each suggestion.
“Do you want to keep at it? Or should I tell you?” He seemed to be enjoying this as much as me .
“Tell me. Please.” I was leaning over the table, clutching my fork like a life line, then upon realizing this, relaxed my hold on the utensil and eased back into my seat—how had I gotten so riled up by that and been totally unaware of anything else around me?
“It’s Jane.”
“ What? ”
“Why are you so shocked? It’s a perfectly common name,” he said, even as he chuckled to himself.
“You said it was a B name!” I said, far too loud.
He shook his head, totally pleased with himself. “No, I didn’t. You assumed.”
“So why all B names?”
“I’m not sure there’s a reason other than they got started with Bridgette and kept it going. My dad’s name is Paul, so… there’s really no logic behind it. We all have M middle names, too.”
“Really? So all the same initials. That seems annoying.”
He was so open about his family. It made me want to tell him about mine, except the few people who knew anything about them likely pitied me—not something I wanted. I’d give him the shortest summary possible at some point and leave out the rest.
“I never knew any different,” he said simply.
“So what are the names?”
“Bridgette Michelle, Beatrice Marie, and Benjamin Michael,” he said, then bowed slightly to me with a formal flourish of his hand.
“Very nice. Benjamin Michael Holder is a sturdy sounding name,” I mused aloud.
His close-lipped smile looked uncertain. “ Sturdy , huh? I guess I’ll take it. ”
“It suits you.” And it did. He seemed solid and comfortable.
“Thanks, I think.” The doubt in his voice rang clear.
I threw my napkin at him. “Stop. Sturdy is good. You don’t want to be the opposite of sturdy. That’d make you… rickety.”
“Well, that’s true. I’d never want to be called rickety, so sturdy, it is.” He wadded up my napkin and tossed it back at me. “Do you have siblings?”
“I’m one of those dreaded only children, if you can believe it,” I admitted. Just that wasn’t giving too much away.
“I can’t imagine growing up without sisters to boss me around,” he said, his face soft like he was remembering something specific.
“Well, my parents did enough of that. Anyway, this is questions for you, right?”
He nodded, his mouth full of food.
“Why did you join the Army?”
He swallowed and took a big breath, one that seemed heavy for some reason I didn’t know about yet, and fiddled with his untouched silverware as he spoke. “I grew up wanting to go into the Army. My uncle had been in for most of my childhood, and I thought it was so cool. My dad was a consultant, regular business job, and he’d never discouraged my interest. By the time I got to college, I recognized I had no real interests, no passions, no clear career route except for the military. I joined ROTC and commissioned when I graduated.”
“So you’ve always wanted to be a soldier?”
“I guess.” His eyes met mine and then flickered away almost immediately.
What is that about?
“Any particular reason you sound… uncertain about that?” I prodded.
His lips pressed together in a regretful expression. “Hard to explain. I’m in an odd place with my career right now.”
He seemed like he wanted to say more, but stopped.
“How so?” I asked, hoping he’d tell me. I hadn’t been forthcoming about myself, but I wanted to know everything about him.
He hesitated for a minute, his gaze sliding over me, evaluating. “I had a bad deployment, and the year since has been challenging, to say the least. All of that and a large helping of therapy have led me to a point where I’m not sure I want to continue, but I have no idea what else I’d do.”
He reached for his water and gulped down several swallows before looking at me again.
“That seems like a really important thing to discover, even though I’m sure it’s a hard place to be.” It sounded awful. Whatever hardships I faced, at least I was doing what I loved—making music, creating, performing.
“It is. And your cousin isn’t going to let me go quietly, if I decide not to continue.” He studied his plate, dipped his last fry in his ketchup, and ate it, still not looking at me.
“Are you and Reese pretty close, then?”
I’d wondered about that. For him to show up at Reese’s house when I was there meant Reese trusted him. They’d seemed very friendly during my visit, and for my gruff, unsociable cousin, that was rare. It spoke highly of Ben, too—another factor in my choice to move forward with him.
“You haven’t talked with him… about me?” he asked, his wrinkled brow showing me his surprise.
“No… not yet, anyway. Is he going to tell me a bunch of st uff that’ll make me regret dating you?” I asked, only partly joking.
In truth, I’d called and left a message, but hadn’t heard back. Reese was notoriously slow to return a phone call, particularly after he’d messaged to ask if it was urgent, and I’d said no.
Ben pushed his plate back and leaned on his forearms. He used a low, smooth voice when he said, “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know, Whit. I already told you I’m far from perfect, and I mean that. I hope the truth of me won’t make you regret it, but we should deal with that soon so you don’t.”
Whatever it was, he was nervous about me knowing, but sure that I should know. Someplace in me knew it had to do with his deployment, with the loss of his friend—but I only knew about that because I’d stumbled upon him that night over a year ago when he was too drunk to realize he’d been spilling all his most intimate thoughts to me. There was an odd kind of humiliation in the fact that he didn’t even remember, though I’d been in disguise and he’d been truly drunk.
“I’m not worried, but I do want to know, whenever you’re ready to tell me.”