11. Lady Boner
11
Lady Boner
I shouldn’t have come here, but my body wouldn’t obey my commands to shift gears and drive away. So here I sat, parked outside Ben’s house like a creepy stalker. I stared at the brick building, debating whether I should drive away and forget about this stupid plan. My foot refused to push the pedal down.
After rehearsal, I’d sat in the parking lot, staring at my phone where my texts to Ben had gone unanswered. I didn’t want to be a bother, and he clearly didn’t want to talk to me. Yet I was unable to resist the urge to make sure he was okay. He would do the same if the circumstances were reversed, but I still felt like a psycho as I stared at my steering wheel, unable to leave but not willing to approach the front door.
I was pathetic and, apparently, a sucker for torment as I shut off my truck and climbed out of the cab. Stopping at the front door, I didn’t even have a chance to ring the bell before it swung open to reveal Aunt June’s smiling face.
“I was wondering how long you were going to sit in that truck before you came in to say hello.”
I swallowed noisily, searching for some type of excuse. Usually I was pretty quick on my feet, but today must have been an off day for me because I simply stuttered out nonsense. “Oh, well, erm, I, uh…”
Giving me a knowing smile, she pulled me into the house with surprising strength and enveloped me in a motherly hug. “It’s good to see you, honey,” she said, and I patted her back awkwardly. “Ben didn’t tell me you were coming, but I’m glad you’re here.”
“He, um, doesn’t know,” I admitted as I pulled away from her affectionate embrace. “I texted him, but he, uh, ignored me.”
Yet here I was. It seemed even more pathetic now admitting it out loud.
“Don’t take it personally.” She patted my arm as she ushered me into the house. “I was called back in for tests today, and it worried him sick. It’s all routine, so he has nothing to get tied up about, but you know how he is.”
I had no idea what she meant, but I nodded, hoping I wouldn’t be quizzed on this later. “Uh-huh.”
“He’s downstairs pouting, but it’ll be good for him to have some company.” She shoved me enthusiastically through the kitchen like she feared I would change my mind and leave. “Go on down.”
I didn’t have the option of refusing as she manhandled me down the first few steps, and I didn’t hesitate for fear of tripping and tumbling down the stairs to my death. She watched me descend until I landed at the bottom, and I gave her a wave before shaking off my puzzlement over her overbearing actions.
Stopping in front of Ben’s closed door, I leaned in to press my ear against the wood. All was quiet on the other side of the door save for a rhythmic tapping. After waiting a moment for any sign of life from within, I knocked. The worst thing to happen would be Ben throwing me out and ending our friendship, which didn’t sound too terrible since our friendship was hazardous to begin with.
There was no response to my knock, and I repeated my action, rapping my knuckles against the wood harder. Still nothing. Was he actively ignoring anyone coming to the door? I hadn’t expected such childishness from him.
I jiggled the doorknob gently, finding it unlocked, and slowly cracked the door open. The last thing I wanted was to interrupt something I shouldn’t, but other than the tapping of a keyboard, the room was innocently silent.
Pushing the door open completely, I called out Ben’s name to ensure I wouldn’t startle him, but he didn’t hear me. He was completely unaware of my presence as he sat on his bed, his back to the headboard and earphones covering his ears. Eyes glued to his computer screen, he typed away, oblivious to me standing in his doorway.
I took the opportunity to enjoy the view before me, and what a view it was.
Ben wore a pair of dark gray sweatpants and, thank the sweet baby Jesus, nothing else. His bare torso gleamed under the warm glow of the ceiling light, and I swallowed thickly as I ran my gaze over his lean chest. He had the beginnings of chest hair on his pecs, and I was tempted to swipe my tongue along the dark blond trail of hair traveling from his belly button to the band of his sweats.
Damn these skinny jeans! I really needed to stop wearing tight pants around Ben because now that I’d witnessed him shirtless, I would forever be at half-mast in his presence. He was too attractive for his own good and the good of my mental health.
Irritated at my traitorous body’s reaction, I slammed his door with a forceful bang, and he jumped from the bed. His laptop fell to its side on the mattress as he landed on his feet in a defensive position. The earphones’ cord jerked from the computer, and the room immediately filled with loud, heavy metal music.
The blaring noise cut out when he twisted around and clicked the Space bar on his laptop. I ogled the muscles of his back as they shifted beneath his skin, and as he straightened to refocus on me, I tore my gaze from his naked torso.
“What are you listening to?” I demanded.
“Spotify,” he said, gesturing to his laptop. “I mean, that specifically was Black Sabbath.”
“You…” I rested my hands on my hips. “You are an enigma.”
The annoyance tightening his mouth loosened marginally. “Thanks?”
“I’m surprised you’re not deaf, though. My God,” I said.
“What are you doing?” He yanked his now-useless earphones off his head and dropped them on the mattress behind him.
“Well, I knocked but you, uh, didn’t hear me. Obviously.” I gestured to the door as I shifted my weight before stuffing my hands into my pockets. “Aunt June told me to come down.”
“Oh.”
His face was drawn, and as his hands landed on his hips, my gaze lowered unbidden to his waistband. Oh hell, he wasn’t wearing boxers underneath his sweatpants. Low-slung and barely hanging on, his pants offered the slightest peek at the darker hairs of his groin. He really was trying to kill me, wasn’t he?
I pinched my leg through my pocket to keep myself from hardening in my jeans as I lifted my eyes from his boxer-less hips. “I, uh, texted you, but you didn’t answer. I thought I’d come and… I mean, I just wanted…” Ben pulled his phone from his pocket as I drifted off, and his brow furrowed when he discovered the unread messages I sent him. “I’ll just head out since you seem busy.”
Mortified, I spun on my heels to follow through with my words, but he stopped me.
“Don’t.” He rubbed the back of his neck and motioned to his laptop. “I need to finish this, but stay.”
“It’s cool—”
“Please?”
After searching his gaze, I nodded, and his serious mask cracked, the ice in his expression melting. He smiled, a sad excuse for his normal, lopsided grin, but I smiled back tentatively.
“Just give me a minute to finish this.” He crawled onto his bed, giving me an incredible view of his ass as he did, and I bit back a groan.
He settled himself against his headboard, and I wandered toward the bed, stopping by the edge of the pool table and leaning my hip against it. I crossed my arms over my chest and made myself comfortable as Ben smirked.
“You can sit if you want,” he offered with a motion to the empty piece of mattress at his side.
My eyebrows shot up. He wanted me to sit on his bed with him on it, shirtless ? I deserved a medal for the self-control I was currently exercising.
“Okay,” I croaked as I ambled to the edge of the bed.
I gave him a moment to reconsider his invitation, but he merely cocked his head to the side innocently before pulling out his phone and plugging in his earphones. I sank down on the mattress and mirrored his position with my back against his headboard.
The back of his hand landed on my thigh as he offered his phone to me, and I froze under his touch. “Here. It will be a couple minutes, so you can listen to some music if you want.” I took the phone from his hand, and instead of removing it from my leg, he flipped it over and squeezed the spot above my knee. “Thanks, by the way.”
The heat of his hand on my leg almost broke my fragile control as I glanced up at his intense expression. “For what?” I whispered, my breath coming out shaky as I tried to quell the fluttering in my stomach.
“For worrying about me.”
His lopsided smirk made me scoff as I shoved his hand away. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Sure,” he said simply as he focused on his laptop once again, and I scowled at the smugness curving over his lips.
“I wasn’t worried,” I repeated, but he didn’t respond, his smile widening.
I squirmed on his bed as I settled his earphones on my head and searched through his music library. His shoulder rested inches from mine, and every time one of us shifted, they made contact. I hoped he didn’t notice the subtle touches or the stray glances. I shouldn’t have been checking him out, but you only live once and all that.
We sat side by side in silence, and I basked in the tranquility of his presence. I listened to a few of Ben’s playlists, but I was focused more on playing Mahjong than actually exploring his tastes. At some point, Ben lifted one side of the earphones off my ear and leaned in to hear what I was listening to. Bear’s Den played as Ben’s cheek hovered a centimeter from my face. My throat clicked. Ben glanced at me from the corner of his eye. I probably looked like a deer caught in headlights. He was so close.
The song ended, and Ben removed the earphones from my head completely. With the added distance, I remembered how to breathe as I handed his phone back to him.
Ben said, “I’m sorry about earlier.”
“It’s cool. Is, uh, everything okay?”
“I think so.” He fiddled with the ties of his sweatpants as he swallowed heavily. “Aunt June got a call from the doctor, and it freaked me out.”
“Why did she get a call from the doctor?”
“She had breast cancer a couple years ago, but she’s in remission now. Has been for about six months. She had some tests done, and the doctor called to have her come back in to redo a few of them, and…” His chin trembled, and he clenched his jaw to stop the emotional display.
He shifted ever so slightly until his shoulder pressed to mine, the heat of his skin burning me through my shirt. I understood his silent request and angled my body to push back into him, providing the comfort he quietly sought. He didn’t always explain things with words, but his silence spoke volumes.
He looked at me, expression raw. “I don’t want her to die too.”
The ocean in his eyes rolled and swirled with turmoil, but I didn’t turn away. He was unguarded in this moment, allowing me to view the extent of his brokenness, but instead of being afraid, it soothed me. His pain was familiar, the monsters swimming in his treacherous depths matching the demons lurking in mine. If I could survive my own, I didn’t have to fear his. We were both ruined, but it didn’t make us weak.
There was nothing I could say to make this better. So I reached out a trembling hand and curled it around his. He stared down at our hands. I stared at him.
Then I ruined everything by saying, “Cancer fucking sucks,” with the delicacy of a bulldozer.
Surprising us both, Ben coughed out a laugh.
“Sorry, that was insensitive,” I said. “I’m not good at this.”
“Oh God, Si,” Ben groaned, giving me a look overflowing with fondness, “never change.”
I chuckled self-consciously as he knocked his shoulder with mine, and I jostled him back with a sly grin. “So, I should stay a sexy smartass forever?”
“Most definitely.”
I grinned madly at the hidden compliment, and Ben’s phone chirped. Releasing my hand, he pulled it from his pocket, his smile flipping into a frown as he read the text. He’d barely replied before three more messages pinged, and he grunted in annoyance.
“You’re popular.”
His lips thinned as he flashed me his screen. “I don’t know how she got my number, but she won’t stop texting me.”
I grimaced at Alice’s name on his phone like I tasted something foul. “Gross. But not unexpected, seeing as she wants to bone you.”
He recoiled. “Bone?”
“Well, when a mommy and daddy love each other—”
“Shut up. She’s just inviting me to come to a party she’s throwing in a few weeks.”
“Yeah, where she’s planning to bone you.”
“Stop saying bone! She does not want that.”
“Oh Benji, you naive little gumdrop.” I patted his head as he glared at my condescension. “She has a raging lady boner for you. Just accept it.”
“Lady boner? That is so much worse.” He shoved me as I laughed. “And don’t call me Benji; I’m not a dog.”
With a mischievous wink and a naughty smirk, I started to sing. “Alice and Benji sittin’ in a tree.”
“I will hurt you so badly,” he threatened with a dangerous glower, but I merely cackled with glee as I sat on my knees and continued my song.
“Hetero kissing, nasty as can be.”
“Silas.” His husky growl made me shiver, but instead of heeding his warning, I stuck out my tongue and waggled my eyebrows suggestively.
I opened my mouth to continue my scandalous lyrics, but he lunged at me before I could, shoving me backward with an evil chuckle. An embarrassing yelp escaped my mouth as I tumbled off the bed and landed hard on my tailbone, my ass protesting as I curled into a ball with a groan.
Ben rested his chin on the edge of the mattress, peeking down at me with merriment dancing in his eyes. “I warned you.”
“I think you broke my ass,” I moaned, making him howl with laughter.
“That’s what he said,” Ben said between snickers.
We laughed until tears leaked from the corners of my eyes, and Ben clutched his stomach like the humor hurt his muscles. I sat on my poor, pained ass as the giggling blond rose to his feet and offered me a hand.
“How’s that broken ass of yours?”
“Fuck you.”
I slid my hand into his, noting the softness of his skin as our palms met, and he yanked me to my feet abruptly. As I stumbled forward from the sudden motion, my free hand landed on his sternum, and I jerked away from him like I touched a hot stove, mumbling an apology.
His face quirked in confusion, but he didn’t question my hurried withdrawal or my apology. “Will you come to the party with me?”
The change of subject jarred me. I blinked several times to center my brain away from the warmth of his skin. “What?”
Ben plucked a plain T-shirt from the floor and slipped it over his head. “Alice is throwing a party over Thanksgiving weekend, and she keeps bugging me to come. I don’t want to go alone.”
“You really think Alice wants me at her party?”
“Why wouldn’t she?”
I made a face. “Um, maybe because she filled my locker with glitter sophomore year? Not only did I have to walk around the entire day looking like I’d been bedazzled, but it also ruined my textbooks. At the end of the year, I paid a fine for damaging school property. I’m still finding glitter in my backpack, Ben. Glitter. Everywhere!”
“Why would she do that?”
I splayed my hands. “You tell me. I don’t call girls names because I’m a feminist, damn it! But for her, I’m tempted to make an exception.”
With a shake of his head, he stepped forward and reached out like he was going to embrace me. He stopped at the last second, eyeing me warily. “Can I hug you right now?”
I blinked. “What?”
“Are you cool with me hugging you?” he said again, but my brain kind of glitched.
I must have nodded or something because he was stepping toward me and wrapping his arms around my shoulders. He exhaled harshly against my ear.
“I’m sorry that happened to you. No one should treat you that way.”
I thawed, hesitantly circling his waist until my hands pressed to his back. “Thanks. It sucked.”
“Just like cancer,” he said solemnly, and I snorted into his shoulder.
“Cancer sucks worse.”
“Yeah, it does.” He squeezed me tighter, and my fingers dug into his back. I couldn’t stop myself turning into his neck and inhaling his spring soap and spearmint. I could have stayed there forever.
But Ben pulled away, and I let him go. “Please come to the party with me.”
“Parties aren’t really my thing.”
“I don’t like parties much either but having you there would make it bearable.” He pulled a piece of gum out of his pocket and popped it in his mouth before offering me a stick. “Kim and the others are going.”
“No one wants me there,” I denied as I accepted the gum, my will crumbling as his puppy-dog eyes begged me.
“I want you there.” My chest flooded with crackling pleasure as he smiled at me. “I’m the DD, so I won’t be drinking. We can stick together and watch the others get drunk and do embarrassing things. Plus, you can save me from Alice’s lady boner.”
I snickered with a resigned nod. “I guess there’s safety in numbers.”
His face lit up in triumph. “It would be practically irresponsible of you not to accompany me. You’d be throwing me to the wolves alone.”
“Fine. But you better not abandon me there!”
“I won’t.”
“Promise?”
My glare threatened death and dismemberment, and Ben rolled his eyes with a teasing huff as he held out his pinkie. I hesitated, feeling like an eleven-year-old child as I reached out and hooked my pinkie with his, and we both snickered.
“Promise.”