Chapter 15
FIFTEEN
Efa
The build-up to this trip has been the best. The idea of being with Bennett for an extended period of time has me… fizzing inside. If I wasn’t a little afraid of where we’re going—and being forced to shit in the woods—I might actually be giddy.
I’m cross-legged in the passenger seat of a huge SUV, noticing fewer and fewer houses as we keep driving. We seem to have been going for hours.
“We must be nearly there by now,” I say.
Bennett chuckles. “Not even a little bit.”
I groan. “Why don’t you just tell me where we’re headed and then I can track how long it will take to get there?”
“You said you wanted to have some fun this summer. Not knowing where you’re going to end up is part of the adventure.”
I laugh out loud thinking of how Eira, my sister, would react to that statement. Bennett would be put in the box marked Serial Killer for sure. “If you say so.”
“Let me in on the joke,” he says.
I grin at him, slightly delighted that he can read me so well.
“Just that if my sister was here, she’d assume you were driving me into the woods to murder me.”
He nods. “Yeah, I get that. Haven’t known you that long. Won’t tell you where we’re going. Secret identity. You haven’t met any of my friends. It doesn’t look good.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “You have friends?” I say in mock shock. “Bennett Fordham, I don’t believe you.”
He laughs. “That’s the part you focus on in all that? I hate to disappoint you, but it’s true.”
“I can’t imagine you’d trust anyone enough to have actual friends.” I reach over and place my palm on his forehead like I’m checking for a temperature. “Are you sure they’re not hired help?”
“Oh I wouldn’t want to hire them.” He catches my hand as I lower it, twisting his fingers through mine. “Total bunch of reprobates. Known them since business school.”
As he faces the windscreen, I take in the lines at the corners of his eyes, the twitch at the corner of his mouth. Happy Bennett is a sight to behold.
“But I trust them,” he says. “With my life.”
“It’s nice you have that. I feel the same about my brother and sister. But I’m not sure about my friends.”
“Really? I would have thought you have a thousand friends. I should be the one alone in my hermit cave.”
“Nope. It’s my name over the cave entrance. Not that I’m a hermit. Just that I can be a bit slow to let people in.”
“Really?” he asks.
“Really. Somehow not with you. But usually. Since my uncle stole our inheritance.” I’d already told him the full story: After my parents died, their assets were put in trust for us to have when we each turned twenty-five. Everything had seemed okay until Eira’s twenty-fifth birthday. She was expecting to inherit, and instead we found out our uncle was a crook and had taken everything.
“Yeah, that makes sense. I’m still confused about him leaving all the money to you when he died. How does that make sense?”
“When we were going through the house, we found a letter he’d written, apologizing. He wrote it when he knew he didn’t have long to live. He said he’d never had any intention of taking the money, but he’d gotten addicted to the way people treated him differently when he was managing the estate. He said it wasn’t the luxury lifestyle so much as how people looked at you when you had all the accoutrements of wealth.”
“Accoutrements of wealth, huh?”
I beam at him. “Big-Word Efa, that’s what they call me.”
He chuckles. “I bet they do.” He taps his fingers on the steering wheel. “It’s interesting that he felt the shift and… got addicted to it. I think one of the reasons I have the friendship circle I do is that we all share similar attitudes toward wealth. None of us especially likes the special treatment… although Leo might be the exception.”
He ends his sentence, but I can tell there’s more. Something deeper. Something that’s been there a long time. “I bet your mum was treated differently before and after she was famous.”
“I imagine she was. I never knew her as anything but movie star Kathleen Fordham.”
“She was a movie star, even to her son?”
“No, but she was successful from before I was born. She didn’t act like anything but a mother with me. And she was as present in my life as a working mother could be in her situation. I have no resentment there.” He slides a hand over my thigh. Although we haven’t spoken about it in detail, it’s like he knows there’s some resentment inside me for my parents—the lack of attention they paid any of us.
“My resentment was all directed at the people around her. From a really young age, I just knew these people didn’t love my mother the way they pretended to. I saw through it. Maybe I picked up on how her relationships changed subtly and not so subtly, depending on her box office success. Or failure. She had her fair share of bombs back in the day.”
“So you’re careful about who you trust. That makes sense,” I say. I can’t help but wonder whether his reaction is still ruling his life, making it more difficult than it should be. “And here we are, driving hours out of the city so we can just… be.”
“It’s not always like this. Usually I can go about my day and no one knows who I am. But there have been a couple of break-ins at my apartment building, and it feels like someone’s definitely watching. Waiting. Until I figure out who and why, I’m taking precautions.”
I nod resolutely. “Precautions that involve a flushing toilet?” I ask.
He chuckles. “Maybe. Maybe not.”
“Why are you being so secretive?” I ask. He won’t tell me anything about where we’re going except that it’s in the country. What does that even mean? I’m betting the American version of the country is very different to the British version, which is full of sheep, stone cottages, and roads only wide enough for one car to pass along.
His eyes slice to mine and then he smiles. “I just want you to be surprised.”
“I’m going to be surprised if we’re sleeping under canvas and eating cold baked beans out of a can. And not in a good way.”
He laughs out loud. “Why does it feel kinda good to torture you?”
“Because you’re a serial killer in the making?”
He shakes his head but doesn’t say anything. I want to ask him what he’s thinking. I want to know whether he feels as comfortable with me as I do with him. I want to slip inside his brain and understand what exactly is going on in there.
“Is it a log cabin?” I ask.
He nods. “It is, actually.”
“That’s how I imagine America in the woods. At least we won’t be under canvas.” After a beat, I ask, “Will we sleep in a bed? Or on the floor?” I ask.
“Oh, I don’t have any intention of sleeping very much at all.” His hand rides high up my thigh, and I feel the heat spreading across my chest and up my neck.
“Sounds like my kind of log cabin.”