Chapter 13 Ella
Please don’t let it be super awkward now, please don’t let it be super awkward now, please don’t let it be super awkward now.
This mantra had been running through my mind since I climbed into the truck.
I was on my way over to Ben’s. Less than twenty-four hours had passed since I almost word vomited how gorgeous I thought he was all over his sitting room.
Instead of continuing down that ruinous path, I’d taken a hard right around “You know what you look like” and turned it into a joke about how Ben was a giant of a man.
I couldn’t recall my exact words, but I thought they might have been vaguely insulting.
I must have blacked out from panic. Either that or my brain was trying to save me from the embarrassment of remembering whatever bullshit I made up to cover my near-slip.
It had been touch-and-go for a few minutes after.
Ben looked like he wanted to press the issue for some reason, maybe to further embarrass me?
Get me to blush again? But that would seem cruel of him, and he’d never shown the slightest inclination for cruelty.
Or maybe he knew about the monster of a crush I’d been desperately trying to banish to a vault in the back of my mind.
Crap. That was it. He wanted to press the issue to get it out in the open.
His would probably be the kindest, gentlest rejection of all time. “Listen, Ella. You’re an incredible woman. I really like you. But not in that way…” Or something equally flattering before leading into a flat-out denial.
“Whyyy?” I muttered.
I rolled to a stop at the one light in town – of course it was red again – and leaned my forehead against the steering wheel.
I should have just said it. Told him that he looked like something out of a wet dream.
Then he could have gently put me down, I could get over this crush, and we could go on being friends without this stupid tension coming between us.
Maybe I could still say something. Work up my courage and slip my attraction to him into conversation somehow.
I decided to practice. “Why, yes, this paint color turned out quite nice. Have you thought about putting the couch over here instead? I sometimes think about you naked, but I’m getting better at suppressing. ”
Super casual. Definitely not at all creepy.
I needed to call Megan. She was smarter than me. Stacey could help too. With their combined IQs, they might be able to save me from myself. It would have to be tonight. They were both at work now. I’d just have to muddle through today as best I could.
The car behind me honked. I jerked my head up. The light had changed to green.
I waved an apology through the back window and put my foot on the gas pedal. In the rearview mirror, an elderly woman emphatically flipped me off. “Well, fuck you too, Mrs. Barnsdale,” I said, recognizing my eighth grade English teacher.
I spent the entire climb out of the valley in a suspended state of dread, terrified that I’d somehow ruined everything.
I didn’t go straight to Ben’s, but to Jack’s first. He was watching the dogs for me again.
If Ben decided to keep Boots and Doodle, I’d bring Fred and Sam by and introduce them.
I just didn’t want to do that prematurely if it didn’t work out.
My dogs formed attachments much quicker than others.
I blamed their sled dog origins and strong pack instinct.
“Thanks for watching the boys,” I told Jack a few minutes later.
“My pleasure,” he said, leaning down to rub Fred’s side. “Those two Samoyed puppies sure are cute. I stopped by Ben’s last night and got to spend some time with them. If that man doesn’t keep them, I call dibs.”
“I’ll let Jen know they’ll have a home either way.” Be cool, Ella. Just be cool. “How, uh, how was Ben doing?”
Jack gave me a funny look. “Probably the same as when you left an hour before?”
“Good, okay, yeah. Just checking.”
Jack’s lips lifted in an ominous grin. “What’d you do, Ella?”
“What? Nothing! I brought him puppies. I wanted to make sure he was okay with them afterward.”
“Yuh-huh,” he said, not in the market for the particular brand of bullshit I was selling.
“Okay, well, thanks again for watching the dogs. I’ll see you later.” I gave him a quick hug goodbye and raced to my truck, pursued by the sound of his laughter.
“Knew you two would hit it off!” he yelled before I could get my door shut.
I jammed the truck into reverse, checked to make sure I was clear of the doggos, and then took off out of there.
That interfering, match-making busybody.
For months Jack had been nagging me about finding someone.
Dropping wisdom-filled guilt bombs about life being too short to spend it alone.
I should have realized he’d meant business.
I should have known what he was doing the night he introduced me to Ben. He’d been trying to set us up.
I was so going to get him back for this.
Wait a second. Did Ben know that we’d been set up? He might soon, if Jack mentioned my awkwardness to him, or if he took to teasing him the same way he did me. I needed to get ahead of this and set Jack straight before he made the situation even worse with his good intentions.
Ben was on the front steps when I pulled into his driveway. We planned to paint the spare bedroom he wanted his parents to stay in, and he wore the paint-speckled running pants I’d come to love and loathe in equal measure. Because, dayum, the man’s ass looked good in them.
He pointed to the left of the porch. I slowed my truck to a stop further back than normal, assuming the puppies were somewhere in the direction he’d indicated.
At the sound of my door closing, two splashes of color emerged from a snowbank by the house.
Boots and Doodle. If not for those collars, they’d blend right in.
They caught sight of me and bounded over, barking excitedly in their squeaky puppy voices.
My embarrassment and worry evaporated. They looked like someone had animated a pair of overstuffed white teddy bears.
Their ears flopped forward and backward with every leap.
Those curlicue tails whipped left and right over their hindquarters.
Boots hit a patch of ice and slipped, his back legs skirting sideways before he could get them under his control.
The cuteness. It was too much. I leaned down and petted them with both hands when they reached me, trying to contain my overwhelming desire to squee in a way that would make Anabel proud.
Ben ambled off the porch, grinning as he approached. “Don’t let them fool you. The little monsters kept me up most of the night.”
I would have worried he regretted letting them stay, but he was staring down at them with the kind of open affection that told me they’d already won him over. “Did they cry?” I asked. “Fred and Sam cried so bad the first night I had them.”
“They did a little. Mostly they just wouldn’t settle down. They wanted to sniff everything, make nests in the blankets, play with their toys, chew my beard.” He raked his fingers through his facial hair. “I should shave this thing off.”
Now was my chance. I took a steadying breath, and with all the bravery I could muster, I said, “On behalf of womenkind, don’t you dare.”
He paused, hand still at his chin, gaze shifting from the puppies to me. His lips crooked up on one side in a lazy half-grin I’d never seen before. A grin that made me think of primal things.
“I guess I keep the beard,” he said.
Well, this was backfiring. Maybe it wasn’t clear enough that I thought he was attractive? That I wanted him? That this was his chance to shoot me down?
“Okay then,” I said. I reached down and lifted Doodle. I needed to hold this puppy right now, because if I left my hands free, I might do something awkward with them. Like wrap them in Ben’s jacket and mush our faces together.
He picked up Boots, and together we went inside to towel them off.
“I figured I could put the puppies in the sitting room while we paint,” he said. “You know, to keep them away from the open cans and the fumes. All their stuff is in there.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
I shrugged off my coat and turned to hang it up. Something grazed the back of my neck. I froze, sure I was imagining it. A piece of hair must have come free from my messy bun to torment me into thinking Ben was touching me.
There was a tug on the neckline of my sweater. Not my hair. I was either about to be assaulted by a giant spider, or he was actually touching me.
“Your tag is sticking out,” he said from just behind my shoulder.
Warmth blossomed along the back of my neck and ran an inch down my spine as he used those long fingers of his to tuck the tag back in. I shivered in response. I knew he could feel it, because he was taking his sweet time pulling his hand back out of my shirt.
“Thank you,” I said, a little breathless.
“You’re welcome,” Ben answered, voice pitched low.
I almost shuddered again, because in that octave, there was a little bass growl to it that did things to me.
He stepped away, and the warmth disappeared from my skin.
…or maybe he wanted to push the subject yesterday because he wanted you to be the first one to say something. Maybe he likes you as more than a friend too.
I mentally clamped a hand over the mouth of my subconscious and dropped it into the same deep, dark, inescapable oubliette I kept my crush. I gave them both the finger, Mrs. Barnsdale style, and slammed the lid of their prison shut.
You two play nice now.
“Want some coffee or anything before we get to work?” Ben asked.
I turned to face him, not making eye contact. The only reason my cheeks weren’t vermillion was because I was still in shock. “I’ll take a glass of water,” I told him. Suddenly, I was parched.