Chapter 11 Ella
Iwas nervous when Ben pulled up. I hadn’t seen him in five days, and I worried that all the preparation I’d done to gird myself against his good looks wouldn’t be enough.
I stayed on the bottom porch step as his Jeep rolled to a stop, watching the dogs barrel through the snow toward him.
He got out of the vehicle and leaned down to greet them.
I took deep, bracing breaths in and out, praying that Megan was right and prolonged exposure to him would raise my tolerance, like an assassin taking larger and larger doses of poison, so if an enemy slipped her some, it wouldn’t kill her.
Ben rose from his crouch, waved hello, and then pulled a backpack out of the Jeep – probably his snow gear, since he was in jeans and a flannel jacket.
He turned and ambled up the driveway toward the freshly-shoveled front walk, backpack thrown over a shoulder, one hand on the strap, the other in his jacket pocket.
He looked like he could have been walking a runway.
Jacket by Tom Ford. Backpack by Ralph Lauren. Body by Battle Ropes.
Don’t think of the battle ropes!
I shifted my focus away from his broad chest. The dogs jumped around his legs, saying hello to their new friend.
Sam had a red frisbee in his mouth, and the way he whined around it could easily be interpreted as throw it, throw it, throw it!
I had no idea where he found that thing. I thought we lost it three storms ago.
Ben slowed, took the toy from Sam’s mouth, curled into himself like an Olympian competing for the gold in discus, and unfurled his upper body, his arm a fulcrum, the frisbee shooting out of his hand at a speed that took even the dogs back.
They paused, watching it. If Fred could have whistled in appreciation, he would have.
Then they were gone, tearing through the yard as they tried to catch up with it.
The frisbee just kept going, defying the laws of physics, gliding above the snow like it was a hoverboard.
Yup, we were definitely going to lose it this time.
I’d probably come across it half a mile deep in the woods during a summer run.
“Good morning,” Ben said from way too close.
I’d been so distracted watching the red blur disappear into the trees that I hadn’t heard him approach. He stood by the railing. With me on the lowest step, we were almost at eye level.
I smiled in greeting, trying to think of knitting or folding laundry or whatever inane action would keep my mind in a nice, neutral place.
He wore a white beanie pushed back on his forehead, the salt-bleached ends of his wavy locks sticking out from beneath it.
His jacket was unzipped a little, exposing the long, muscular lines of his neck.
Vacuuming. Mowing the lawn. Hand washing pots and pans. Think of scrubbing grease, Ella!
“Hi!” I said, belatedly. “Come on in.”
I led him inside, leaving the dogs to their search. Ben set his backpack down on the bench and took his jacket off. I glanced quickly away from him.
“This is really nice,” he said from somewhere overhead. The man was an absolute giant.
“Thank you.”
I looked at the cabin’s interior, spread out before us, trying to see it from fresh eyes.
To the right was the living room. Comfy couches framed the dwindling fire, with thick-knit blankets draped casually over them, inviting you to sit down and bundle up.
To the left was the kitchen, the hallway that led to the spare room, and the narrow stairs that climbed up to my bedroom.
Ben would probably bump his head on the exposed beams up there.
“Coffee?” I asked. In my head, I chased the image of Ben out of my bedroom with a broom.
“No thanks. Trying to cut back.”
“Anything else? Hot chocolate? Tea?”
“Do you have decaf tea?” he asked.
“I do.”
I led him into the kitchen.
“No Christmas tree?” he asked. “Or did you already take it down?”
“No tree. I tried to put one up last year. The dogs were convinced a squirrel was hiding in the upper branches and tore it down an hour after I’d added the last string of lights. It took me forever to find all the pieces of broken ornaments.”
I thought that visual would get at least a chuckle out of him. Nothing.
Hmm.
I put the tea kettle on the stove and turned to see him plop down on one of the barstools I kept tucked beneath my kitchen island.
He wore a dark t-shirt with a band’s logo pulled tight across his chest. The soft cotton hugged his biceps.
He had a traditional Polynesian tattoo that started from the elbow of his left arm and disappeared beneath his sleeve.
I tried to be as clinical as possible in taking all this in and failed spectacularly.
“How was the rest of your visit with your sister?” he asked.
“Pretty uneventful, aside from dinner at Jacob’s house the day after Christmas. All of us crammed into his dining room for a send-off celebration.”
“Send off?”
“Jacob spends every January in Somalia, volunteering for a non-profit.”
“That’s where he was adopted from, right?”
I nodded. “Their dry season is just starting, and with the famines they’ve had lately, they need all the help they can get. He splits his time between pro-bono doctor work and digging wells.”
His eyebrows rose. “Oh, wow.”
I turned back around and rummaged through a cupboard for some tea. “Yup. Jacob is a wow kind of guy. Dave, Jane’s husband, wrote a pretty amazing article about his work last year, and the whole community has come together to donate to the charity he volunteers for.”
“It’s great that he has so much support.”
I grimaced. “Don’t be too impressed. At least some of it is guilt money.
Jacob was the first of us to go to school here, and he didn’t have an easy time of it.
He was the only Black kid in his class and one of three in the whole school.
The fact that he was adopted and our parents are well-off didn’t help. ”
“But things are better now?” Ben asked.
I nodded. “It helps that he’s one of the few local doctors and these people might have to literally put their lives in his hands at some point.
And I do think a lot of that initial shittiness was ignorance.
It lends credence to those studies about why people in cities are more accepting of those who don’t look like themselves, or pray to the same god, or speak the same language.
Exposure to different skin colors and cultures is key. Especially from a young age.”
“I’m sure technology has helped with that up here,” he said.
“It has to some degree,” I told him, grabbing two mugs off the shelf.
“This part of Maine felt like we were a decade behind the rest of the country when I was growing up. We only had six TV channels until the late nineties. Now these kids have satellite TV and high-speed internet connections and social media. From a young age, they’re exposed to people who don’t look or sound like they do.
It’s like everyone is now being raised in one giant virtual city. ”
“Hopefully all this turmoil we’ve had lately is just the death rattle of the older, more intolerant generations.”
“Amen,” I said. I really hoped he was right.
The tea kettle whistled. I turned the stove off and moved it to a potholder to cool down. “What kind of tea do you want? I have chamomile, peppermint, rooibos, and honeybush.”
“I’m here for some rooibos,” he said.
I plopped a bag of it in one mug, dropped a peppermint bag in the other, filled them with water, and reached across the island to set Ben’s in front of him.
A woof came from outside. I let my tea steep and went to let the dogs in.
They didn’t have the frisbee with them. It might have been my imagination, but they looked a little forlorn about that, so I rubbed them down extra good and told them that I didn’t care that they couldn’t find it, they were still the best dogs in the whole world. They seemed to perk up some after that.
Ben’s back was to me when I re-emerged from the entryway a few minutes later. My gaze roved over him as I approached. Maybe if I drank in the sight of him when he wasn’t looking, I wouldn’t keep getting overwhelmed when he was.
Sam trotted past me and planted himself at Ben’s side.
Ben reached down and scratched him behind the ears.
Fred followed me into the kitchen, where I stopped to pick up my tea.
I meant to join Ben on a bar stool, but Fred flopped down onto my feet, keeping me where I was.
My toes were a little cold, so I leaned against the countertop and tucked them further under Fred’s side to warm them up.
I looked up at Ben. Our eyes met. It was easier this time than it had been a few minutes ago.
Megan might be right, after all. I was thankful for that.
Because I really liked him. Aside from the fact that I found him wildly attractive, he was just my kind of person.
He was kind, considerate, witty, and intelligent.
Everything all of my closest friends had ever been.
I didn’t want to screw this up by letting my stupid crush get in the way.
“How much did you get done on the house the past few days?” I asked. He’d been a ghost on his social media accounts, so I assumed he’d been working his ass off.
He broke eye contact and looked down at Sam. “Not as much as I wanted to.”
“Let me know if you need help. This is a slower time of year for me in the shop, mostly calendar orders, which I printed a ton of in advance.”
He glanced back up. “I might do that. Jack said you’re pretty good with a hammer.”
“I am. He’s taught me a lot. Well, him and YouTube. I did most of the work in here myself.”
He swiveled on his stool to take in the open layout. “I bet it's nice and toasty in here even when the power goes out.”
“It is. I bet it’s a bitch to keep your place warm when it does.”
He turned back, grinning. “I have a big ass generator.”
“Cheater.”
“I’m surprised you don’t have one.”