23. BEN
23
BEN
“ W here have you been?” I asked Sofia when she shifted closer to me again. Fuck, I loved the way her body pressed against mine, as if she’d been carved to fit me perfectly.
Stop it.
I wasn’t supposed to think about Sofia as perfect. At least, not perfect for me. No one could be—I might have been a Blackwood but underneath the fancy title and all that came with it, I was trash and no one deserved that shit.
Although, when I was with Sofia, I felt like maybe I could be the one to deserve that shit. I could deserve love, a happily ever after, someone like Sofia by my side so that we were a team…
“We were just powdering our noses,” Sofia said with a small smile.
I grinned at her. Powdering noses was just another word for gossiping. Had they been gossiping about me?
I glanced at Amy, and her eyes locked on mine, saying all kinds of things I couldn’t decipher. I wanted to catch her alone and see what she had to say about Sofia, about what they might have been talking about. A part of me hoped Amy approved of Sofia.
What are you thinking?
The thought had just popped into my head, and it pulled me up short. Why would I care that my friends approved of her?
Because you want her around.
Fuck, arguing with the little voice in my head wasn’t going to work because no matter which way I looked at it, it was true. I wanted Sofia around long term. I wasn’t going to be stupid and use terms like girlfriend but when I looked at her… I thought mine .
I shook off the thoughts and tried to focus on the conversation that had turned to light, tipsy banter again. I could do tipsy banter—it was safe and I was good at it. It was better that I let myself get distracted by the conversation rather than thinking too much, because now that we were drinking, my mind overrode me and I started thinking about things that I didn’t allow myself to think about when I was sober.
I had to shake myself a second time to get rid of the thoughts.
Amy’s eyes were on me again, and when I glanced up at her, she mouthed, Are you okay?
I nodded. I was more than okay. If she had even the slightest idea, she would pick up and run with it, and I didn’t mind it. In fact, I wanted to talk to her about it, brag a little, gush a little…
What was happening to me?
“How about a shooter?” Amy asked me. “I really want something that will burn its way through my family drama and make me forget.”
I snorted. “You’re never going to get away from family drama, but I’m always ready for something to drink.”
Amy smiled at me and stood, looking at Luke and Sofia. “Excuse us, we’ll be right back.” She smiled sweetly at Luke and then at Sofia. “You’re going to be cool?”
“We’re totally cool,” Luke said.
Amy rolled her eyes at her brother, but she smiled at Sofia—it was a warm smile. I trusted that Sofia would be fine with Luke. If there were people I could trust with my life in this world—aside from my brothers—it was Luke and Amy.
“What are we having?” I asked when we got to the bar.
“I don’t care.” She shrugged. “Choose something. I just wanted to get you alone.” She waggled her eyebrows at me.
I chuckled. “I should be used to your cunning by now.”
Amy smiled cheekily at me, and I turned to the bartender, ordering tequila. If Amy was going to let me choose, then we were going to do this right. Besides, Amy wasn’t scared to drink.
“So?” I asked when I turned back to her while the bartender got us a bottle of Herradura Tequila. It was smooth on the tongue and one of my favorite kinds. I wasn’t a tequila connoisseur, but I was going to get the best of the best because I could .
“So, what?”
I groaned. “You’re going to make me say it, huh?”
“Say what?” Amy asked, feigning ignorance.
“What do you think of her?” I asked. “Sofia, in case you weren’t clear on that.”
Amy laughed, enjoying making me say it. I didn’t mind as much as she thought.
“I think she’s great,” Amy said.
“Really?”
Amy nodded, and the tequila arrived. We lifted the shot glasses and clinked them against each other, making eye contact before throwing them back.
“Really,” Amy said. “She brings out a different side of you. She softens you up a little, shows the man underneath the mask. He doesn’t come out to play as often as he should.”
I snorted. “You’re making me sound like I have a split personality.”
Amy chuckled. “No, just a very cautious one. I like seeing you like this, so open and relaxed.”
I didn’t know how to answer her. I didn’t realize that it was so clear that I felt comfortable around Sofia, but Amy was right. Sofia did bring out a different side of me.
“What do you think of her?” Amy asked. “I think that’s more important.”
I shrugged. “I mean, I like her.”
“You like her?” Amy asked, incredulous.
It was much more than that.
“Well, I really like her, if that satisfies you more.”
Amy crinkled her nose, not satisfied, but whatever.
“It’s not going to last, though.”
“What do you mean, ‘it’s not going to last’?”
I lifted a hand for the bartender to bring more tequila.
“It’s just pretend, Aimz. I told you that. This isn’t something we can keep doing long term.”
“Well, not the pretend part,” Amy said and she glanced at the bartender. Maybe she was against the idea of more tequila, but if she wanted to get into the deep stuff, then she was going to drink it with me. “But the being with Sofia part.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, I get what you’re saying. But it’s just not that simple. We can’t date, she’s an employee of the company.”
“And if she wasn’t?”
“I can’t just fire her because I want her,” I said.
Amy opened her mouth to say something but she shook her head, catching herself.
“No, I guess not.”
I narrowed my eyes at her. “What were you going to say?”
“Nothing important,” Amy said, shaking her head. “You know you can work around whatever you think the problem is—why you can’t date after this.”
“I can’t work around myself,” I muttered and picked up the second shot of tequila.
Amy frowned. “What are you talking about? You can’t still think that just because of your past you’re not worth this relationship. You know that you’re way beyond that, you’ve recreated yourself.”
“You don’t know her the way I do, Amy,” I said, throwing back the shot before Amy even had a chance. I needed the alcohol. “She’s perfect. And she deserves a lot better than me.”
“You’re selling yourself short.”
“I’m being realistic.”
Amy put her hand on my arm. “Ben, you’re blind if you can’t see what’s happening here. It’s not so bad to be loved by someone. You deserve so much more than you realize, and if you let this end after the project… you’re an idiot.”
I shrugged. I couldn’t explain it to Amy, even with alcohol in my system. Yeah, she knew about my past and how I saw myself because of it. But what she didn’t know was that even though Sofia made me want to be the best version of myself, she still deserved better. I could fool myself for a short while, believe that this was going to work out, that I could have someone like her in my life, but the facts were that I wasn’t good enough.
My parents didn’t want me for a reason.
They kept the others no matter how hard shit got, but they gave me away.
What did that say about me?
Something about who I was just wasn’t good enough. I looked like a Blackwood. I’d been polished and mounted and shone just like a Blackwood. But I’d been adopted last, I’d been overlooked for years, and no matter how much you polished a fake diamond, it would never be the real deal.
No one would understand that.
And if anyone deserved the real deal , it was Sofia.