Chapter 9 #2
Some kind of noise between a yip and a holler came out muffled beneath the bed. Benny went from wiggling to winding backwards like a snake on the sand. The second his body was free, he sat up with a face ready to light the way for Santa’s sleigh.
Along with the bright shade of embarrassed was the instantly recognizable face of guilt.
“I didn't hear you get out of the shower,” he said.
Jack snorted.
“Clearly.”
Benny threw both hands up.
“Listen, I can explain.”
He used one hand to point to the floor and opened his mouth to, one would assume, explain. Instead, he saw the hand towel.
“What are you—? Why are—?” His eyes skirted up Jack’s chest before falling back to the towel again. “Where are your clothes?”
Atomic. Cherry. Red.
Jack pointed to his dresser behind him. “Oh, you know, I left them in the bathroom. Thought I’d give you a good surprise but—well, turns out you have that one in the bag.”
Jack slid his eyebrow high.
Benny’s gaze went everywhere but back to the towel. He pointed to the wall to the left and, red face and all, spoke words that had probably been meant for several breaths but instead got one.
“You told me I could come in here and I was thinking that it would be awkward if Dixon came home and I was just in the living room. So I came in here and then I saw the picture that was on the wall and tried to look at it better but you hung it up really high but I noticed it was just on a hook. So I figured I could just take it down and put it back, no harm no foul, but then I kind of dropped it and it hit my shoe so instead of staying on the floor it bounced off of me and went under there.”
Jack waited a beat to see if the man would pass out from lack of oxygen.
He sucked in a little breath but stayed standing.
“Well, did you get it?” he asked.
Benny gave him a questioning look.
“Get what?”
“The picture.”
“The picture,” he repeated. Then, if possible, the red of his face pulsed. “Oh yeah, the picture. No! Hold on.”
He dropped to the floor so quickly, Jack’s hand went out on reflex to try and steady him. Benny, unobservant as he was in panic mode, Army-crawled back under his bed. This time, all but the bottom of his shoes could be seen sticking out.
Jack, dripping across the floor, went to his dresser and pulled out a pair of boxers.
“Avert your eyes little one,” he warned the man as Benny retreated just as Jack was in between clothing options. At this point he was afraid if any more awkward pressure was applied to Benny, he might combust.
Then again, it wasn’t his job to make every space safe for the man.
Jack said he was good when, in reality, he only had the boxers on.
Benny didn’t seem to notice. He was inspecting the frame with a furrowed, but relieved brow.
“This is a pretty sturdy frame. Nothing’s broken,” he reported. “You would have thought at least the glass would crack with how the thing flew under there.”
Jack walked over and peered down at the star of the show.
“Can’t say I’ve ever had anyone care about this one enough to make it fly,” he admitted. “Why the interest?”
Jack knew the answer before he asked it. Or, at least, assumed he did.
It was of Jack, Dixon, and Dixon’s parents, standing outside of the bar during Christmas.
Everyone was smiling and dressed in ridiculous, Christmas-themed printed pajama sets, something his aunt had insisted on.
The only person not wearing some reindeer or Santa-detailed fabric was the woman standing at Jack’s side.
Felicity had on a red dress, black boots, and that smile that never stayed away long.
Jack now made sure his gaze didn’t linger on her.
Instead, he took the picture and hung it back on the wall as Benny confirmed his suspicion.
“I was just curious, I guess. About Felicity.” He perched on the edge of the bed and sighed. “I don't really know much about her, and now I feel like she’s going to be a topic I can’t avoid. What's she like? You know, as a human.”
“Tough for both of us, all I know about her is as a werewolf,” he joked.
Benny wasn’t amused.
His face was also losing its unnatural color.
He didn’t even seem to mind that Jack was one flap-opening away from showing off Jack Junior. He genuinely was asking. So, Jack decided to give the same respect as he went for a pair of his jeans.
“She’s fine, I guess. Really work driven, always respectful to the elderly, no road rage.
She’s nice when you earn it and even if she’s mad, you wouldn’t know it.
Unless she wants you to, that is. She’s good at—what’s that word—masking.
I think a bomb could go off next to her and she’d be smiling like it was her wedding day. ”
Jack zipped his jeans and internally winced at his last choice of words.
Now that she was about to have one of those, and with Benny’s true love, the joke comparison didn’t exactly feel joke-like.
“She must be more than fine if she still has a place on your wall despite the breakup. Not to mention, you didn’t ask me to fake-date until you found out she was the one who Marcus was marrying.”
Jack felt a flare of defensiveness.
“Me agreeing to the deal wasn’t about her.”
Benny didn’t look convinced.
“Okay, I admit, some of it might be about her, but not because I’m offended that her and Marcus are tying the knot.”
“You want to prove her wrong about the bar.”
Jack had already put a shirt on, but in that moment, with Benny staring, he felt like he was still somehow undressed.
He nodded.
“She said Cassidy’s was a building and one day I’d look around and see that I gave up an actual life to stay there.” He shrugged. “Hell, she might be right but if the bar fails, there’s no way I can deny that she isn’t. I want to try and avoid that, if I can.”
Jack felt the old anger, and hurt, rise a little at his admission.
It was the truth.
He didn’t want to date Felicity.
He wanted to prove her wrong.
Benny, now his normal coloring, sighed.