Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Ben
“ C ome on, Jer, move your ass.”
“Yeah, man, why so slow? It’s almost like you’re old or something,” Jordan says as he jogs alongside me.
The three of us are out for a run along the lake. This has been an excellent morning, so I have energy to burn, and Jordan can run for hours barely breaking a sweat, but Jeremy is dragging ass today.
“Fuck you both. It’s fucking hot.”
I poke him in the ribs. “Weren’t you, like, a professional athlete or something once upon a time?”
“Yeah, on ice. Where it’s cold. And I’m not a professional athlete anymore,” he grumbles darkly. It’s a rare display of irritation for my normally upbeat best friend, so I am immediately on guard.
“You okay, man?”
“Fine. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.”
“You want to talk about it?”
“I absolutely do not. Anyway, I think we have more important things to talk about.”
“Fucking right, we do,” says Jordan, aiming a wide grin right at me. “You and Hallie. Spill it, Benj.”
“Yeah, Benj. Spill,” Jeremy mocks.
“You guys are worse than old ladies in a hair salon.”
“Yeah, but we’re your old ladies, so give us the goods, dude.”
I know they’ll never let up, so I just go with, “I told her.”
“You told her what?” asks Jeremy.
“Everything.”
They both stop running and turn to me.
“Like, everything, everything?” Jeremy stands with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath.
“Everything, everything. I told her I’ve had feelings for her since we were eighteen. I told her I want to give us a try and see what happens.”
Jordan lets out a low whistle. “Jesus, when you go big, you really go big. And what did she say?”
“She said she wants to try.”
“Fuck yes she did.” Jeremy stands up and swings an arm around my shoulders. “How do you feel?”
“Happy. A bit of disbelief. Scared shitless she’ll change her mind, or I’ll do something to screw it up. I don’t know. How the fuck are you supposed to feel when you kiss the girl of your dreams for the first time?”
“The first time I kissed Allie, I felt like I was about to either pass out or come in my pants like a teenager. So…maybe kind of like that?”
“Yeah, that’s about right. I don’t know. I kissed her, and it was like realizing a piece of me has been missing all this time, and I didn’t even know. I found it last night. Now that I know what we can be like together, I don’t think I’ll ever be right again without her. But that’s way too much fucking pressure to put on us when we’ve barely started.”
Jordan just shrugs. “So don’t put that pressure on it. I’ve known Hallie as long as I’ve known you, and I’ve never seen her smile the way she did this morning. So obviously, it felt right to her, too. Just go with it. See what happens. You’ve been waiting eleven years, and you’ve finally got your girl. Just enjoy it. Take it one day at a time.”
He’s right. I know he’s right. I have to smother my instinct to go from zero to sixty and dump my feelings all over Hallie before she’s ready for them. She needs time to catch up. But now that the lid I’ve kept on those feelings for all these years has been loosened, it wants to blow all the way off.
I scrub my hands over my sweaty face. “Fuck. Yeah, you’re right. One day at a time.”
“From the look on Hallie’s face this morning, I think you did more than just kiss her. Don’t think we’re going to let that pitch sail by.” Jordan might be the champion shit-stirrer of the group, but when Jeremy is in the right mood, he gives Jordan a run for his money.
“Oh yeah, looked like you brought your A-game straight to Hallie’s room last night.”
“Do we need to make a stop in town for condoms? I know it’s been forever since you got any. Yours are probably all expired.”
“I would say you could borrow some of mine, but I fuck my girl bare. We’re all committed and shit.”
I slap Jordan across the back of his head. “If Allie knew you were talking about her like that, she would string you up by your balls.” I’m mostly joking, and I know he is too. I have never seen a guy who loves his girl as much as Jordan loves Allie. He worships every inch of her and the ground she walks on.
“Probably, but it turns me on when she gets angry. Sometimes I make her mad on purpose just to see it.”
“You and Allie are so fucking weird. Come on, let’s keep going, or my knee is going to lock up.” Jeremy starts walking, and Jordan and I both follow. “And Ben can tell us more about last night.”
“It is definitely story time.”
“Worse than the old ladies for sure,” I mumble under my breath.
There’s a knock on my door just as I’m pulling on clothes after my shower. I open it, and Julie is standing there with her “we need to talk” face on. I sigh. Just when I thought maybe I was done with deep conversations for the day.
“Mom said you were up here getting changed. I thought maybe we could talk.” Nailed it. We may not have the twin telepathy thing, but I know her faces.
“Yeah, Jules, we should talk.” I step back and let her in, closing the door behind her. She sits cross-legged on my bed. I take a seat across from her, our knees touching, just like we used to do when we were kids. We just look at each other for a second, and I’m not sure where to start.
I take a deep breath and start to talk at the exact same time she does.
“Jules, I…”
“Hallie told us…”
We both laugh, and that breaks the tension.
“Let me go first, Jules, okay?”
She nods.
“I wanted to tell you with Hallie this morning, but she wanted to tell you herself. We weren’t keeping anything from you, I swear. Last night was the first time anything happened.”
“Hallie may not have been keeping anything from me, but you were, weren’t you?”
“What do you mean?” I know exactly what she means, but I want to hear it from her. I also haven’t gotten all the details from Hallie about their conversation, so I don’t know how much Julie knows.
“It may have started for her last night, but I think it started a long time ago for you.”
“She told you?”
“She didn’t have to. I know you, Benj. From the look of the two of you this morning and from what Hallie told me, last night was more than just a little kissing between friends. And you wouldn’t make that kind of move on a whim. You’re more careful than that. For last night to have happened the way Hallie told me it did, you have to have been thinking about it for a long, long time.”
Why do sisters have to be so damn smart and perceptive?
“I have been.”
“How long?”
I know I’m not getting out of here without telling her everything, so I just mumble, “Eleven years.”
Julie looks at me, slack jawed. “I’m sorry, did you say eleven years?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus fuck, Ben. Hallie left out some key details during morning story time.”
“Well, what did she tell you?” Now I’m extra curious, because if she didn’t tell them that, then she must have told them about…
“She told us you know exactly what to do with your mouth, which is information I did not need to know about my brother.”
The caveman part of my brain lights up at this information, and I start thinking about what I can do with my mouth again at the earliest opportunity.
Julie slaps my shoulder. “I see where your mind just went, and fucking gross, Ben. Think dirty thoughts about Hallie on your own time. This is my time.”
I clear my throat and try to shake out the images flooding my brain—images I have no business having in my head while I’m talking to my sister. Also known as Hallie’s other best friend.
“Sorry, Jules. That was weird. This whole thing is a little weird. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. Are you mad?”
“I’m not mad. I’m trying hard not to be offended that you and Hallie both thought I wouldn’t be happy for you. I’ll tell you what I told her. I love you both so much, and I want you to be happy. If being together like this and exploring whatever this is between you makes you happy, that’s good enough for me. I guess I’m just wondering how it’s possible that all of this has been inside you this whole time, and I never saw it. And maybe I’m a little sad you didn’t feel like you could share it with me. I get it, but still. We tell each other everything.”
“I know we do, but this felt like a secret I had to keep. I couldn’t let it out because I was afraid it could mess things up for everyone if I did. And Jules, you didn’t see it because I didn’t want you to. I didn’t want anyone to. Even you, and especially Hallie. I never told Jeremy or Jordan either. But the last couple of weeks…” I trail off, wondering what even to say next. One look at Julie’s sad face, and I know I owe it to her to give her everything. “My feelings got too big, and they took on a life of their own. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. Like I told Hallie, I think eleven years was my limit.”
“I understand, Ben. I really do. So, what happens now?”
“Now, we’re going to give it a shot—being together, I mean—figuring out what all this means and what it looks like.”
Julie studies me. “But you’ve already figured it out. Haven’t you?”
“You’re too fucking smart for your own good, Jules. Yeah, I’ve figured it out. I know what we could be, but I’ve had more than a decade to work it all through. Hallie has had less than a day, and she deserves the time to work it out on her own, too. I don’t want to dump all my feelings on her before she’s had time to get her footing.”
Julie’s eyes gloss over. It’s so unusual for her that I reach out and pull her into me. She buries her head in my shoulder, and I hear her sniffle. After a couple of seconds, she pulls away.
“I’m sorry, ignore me.”
“What is it, Jules?”
She swipes her fingers under her eyes. “I’m fine. I swear. You are just such a good person, Ben. My favorite person. And Hallie is my best friend. My second favorite person. You are lucky to have each other, whatever this turns out to be.”
Jules abhors showing any kind of vulnerability and would rather die than tell me what she’s worried about. But I hear what she’s saying without her having to say it. I pull her back into me for another hug.
“No matter what happens, you always have me. And Hallie too. You’ll never be left behind.”
She takes a deep breath and pulls away again.
“Thanks, Benj,” she whispers. “I needed to hear that.”
“Maybe we do have a little of that twin telepathy after all.”
She looks like herself again as she grabs my hand and pulls me up from the bed.
“Come on. Let’s go downstairs and make Jeremy bartend an early happy hour. I think we all could use a drink, and he mixes better than you do.”
She tosses me a wicked grin, then flies out of the room, yelling for Jeremy on the way down. I follow behind her, thinking that a drink I don’t have to make myself sounds great and plotting a way to get Hallie alone later so that we can pick up right where we left off last night.