Nine Ben
nine
Ben
Dissonance crashed through Ben’s mind, like twelve angry pianos all out of tune.
What the hell was Arya Nazeri doing here?
Ben closed his mouth when he realized it was hanging open. And forced himself to stop staring. He couldn’t help it. Even though he was royally pissed off at Arya, that didn’t change the fact that he was fucking sexy, and Ben liked looking at sexy men.
Arya looked absolutely incredible in a well-tailored red suit that complemented his bronze skin and the length of his limbs. He looked way better than anyone deserved after ghosting Ben like that.
And, shit, now Ben was thinking about their night together. Remembering how Arya’s lips had felt against his, how Arya’s hand had felt around his cock, the scent of bergamot that lingered on Ben’s love seat the next morning…
Great. Now he was getting hard under the table in a committee meeting. His first one.
No. No. He wasn’t going to let Arya ruin this. He was here for a reason. The KC Phil had signed him because he was a phenomenal cellist, a great addition to any orchestra. He was a professional.
He could handle a weird encounter with a random hookup from back home.
Arya seemed just as surprised to see Ben. Panic flashed across his features, his eyebrows shooting up, digging furrows in his forehead. He promptly dropped his iPad with a muttered “Shit! Sorry!”
“You good?” asked the woman behind Arya. She had a confident air, with curly black hair, big boobs, and sparkling blue eyes. And actually, now that Ben studied her, he was pretty sure he’d seen her around the vineyard back home, too.
What higher power had he managed to piss off that the production company that had come to his family vineyard had been from Kansas Fucking City?
He must’ve been paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate.
Ben took a deep breath, schooled his features, clicked his pen, and set it next to his notepad. He was a tenure-track musician at the Kansas City Philharmonic. He could handle this.
Arya was the one who’d done something wrong here. Not Ben. So he should be the one sweating.
Sure enough, when Ben glanced up from his notepad, Arya’s cheeks were flushed as he tapped around on his iPad, mumbling something to his colleague.
She leaned into Arya and muttered something too quiet for Ben to hear, but Arya waved her off, straightened in his chair, and took a deep breath.
When he looked up, Ben was stunned by the change.
His smile radiated confidence as he took in the committee members—his gaze lingering a bit on Ben—before he settled on Maurizio, the Philharmonic’s development coordinator, who was technically in charge of the ball.
Maurizio was tall—like really tall—and today they wore tight dress pants, a button-up shirt, and a bow tie. They had an accent Ben hadn’t yet managed to place (he was thinking maybe Italian, but maybe Argentinian), though they also had the sort of tiny dog that Ben associated with the French.
Was Maurizio French?
“Arya,” Maurizio began, “I’d like to introduce you to our newest committee member. This is Ben Liu, our new assistant principal cello. He’s joining us from the San Francisco Orchestra. Ben, this is Arya Nazeri, our event planner.”
To his credit, Arya kept his face perfectly neutral. Not even a hint that he’d kissed Ben, stroked Ben’s dick, spent hours talking to Ben late into the night about how anxious he was about turning forty.
He might as well have been a stranger.
“Nice to meet you, Ben. This is Carley Hammond, who’ll be production managing the ball.”
“Nice to meet you, too,” Ben said, proud of himself for keeping his own voice even. Maybe he could act as well. Was he becoming a double threat?
Arya cleared his throat and started tapping on his iPad. “So, last time we met, you, Maurizio, said you weren’t totally satisfied with the staging. I’ve put together a couple concepts for you to look at here…”
If Ben wasn’t so pissed off, he might’ve been impressed. Arya knew his stuff. He ran the meeting, helped the committee members reach consensus, even solved three problems before Brenda (the box office manager, another committee member) could spiral about them.
Actually, scratch that. Ben was impressed, despite being pissed off.
He shouldn’t have been surprised. His parents wouldn’t let just any old event company use their vineyard—in fact, Ben could count on one hand the number of times they had done so, and that was usually for a family friend’s wedding, not some corporate sales meeting after-party.
The fact remained, though: Ben was pissed off, and even though he told himself to be professional, he couldn’t help trying to poke holes in every single point Arya brought up.
Worse yet, Arya handled that with professionalism and grace, smiling patiently and explaining why his solution was the most practical, cost-effective, or, more often than not, both.
When the meeting finally ended and everyone filtered out, Ben stayed at the table stewing, because now he wasn’t just pissed off at Arya, he was pissed off at himself, too.
He was a fucking adult, not some temperamental child.
He needed a moment to collect himself, to get used to the idea he’d have to be seeing Arya once a week now.
Unfortunately, he didn’t get that moment, because he heard Arya tell Carley, “I’ll be right out. I need to discuss something with Ben.”
Carley arched an eyebrow but nodded, gathered her laptop, and left.
Arya let out a heavy sigh, fixed his cuffs, and stared at the table. But then he looked up and met Ben’s eyes.
“So. Should we talk about it here, or is there a better place and time?”
Well, shit. Apparently they were doing this now.
Ben couldn’t decide if he was relieved to get everything out in the open or pissed off at being put on the spot.
Actually, he could decide, and it was both. He contained multitudes.
He crossed his arms, noting with some satisfaction the way Arya’s eyes darted down to his chest. Ben was wearing one of his waffle shirts today, and they did make his chest and arms look nice.
Arya closed the door, cleared his throat, and sat back down.
Before he could speak, Ben cut him off.
“So.” Except Ben didn’t know what else to say. He figured he’d have a little more time to plan out this confrontation. He’d planned to stew on it all weekend, in fact! And now Arya had stolen his fucking thunder.
When it became clear he had nothing else to say, Arya said, “I’m sorry.”
Ben was so surprised he dropped his arms. And his stern expression.
He’d expected Arya to beg Ben not to say anything. Or list a dozen reasons why ghosting him was fine. Not flat-out apologize.
“What?” Ben asked. His brain still couldn’t wrap itself around what Arya had said.
“I apologize,” Arya said more firmly. “It was shitty to leave without saying goodbye, and I’m sorry. It was nothing personal, though I don’t say that as justification, only fact. Regardless, I didn’t think we’d see each other again, and at the time it seemed simpler to just ghost.”
“Simpler?” What about the whole situation was supposed to be simple, exactly?
Arya adjusted his tie again. “Simpler than finding some awkward way to say goodbye. I mean, it was just casual, right? You literally asked me to kiss you to piss off your ex.”
Ben’s chest started to burn. What about after? What about their chemistry?
“It started that way, sure, but I thought we connected.”
Arya’s face did a funny thing. He rubbed at his bald head.
“I did have a nice night. But I thought we lived halfway across the country from each other. And at the end of the day, I don’t date.”
Ben blinked at Arya.
What kind of person didn’t date?
“And to be honest, I’ve had to give that speech so many times, I figured I could save us both the trouble by slipping out in the morning. Besides, you looked so cozy. I didn’t want to wake you.”
How did Arya manage to be so flattering and infuriating in the same breath?
Still…
Still, at least Arya was being honest.
That was better than stringing him along and then asking for an open relationship.
Ben wanted to be angry. No, he was still angry. But he also supposed he… understood. At least a little bit.
Even if it hurt, knowing the thing he’d felt didn’t go both ways. That all Arya wanted was to get off.
Arya was right about one thing: It had pissed off Justin. Ben hadn’t heard a peep from his ex since that night.
His anger didn’t vanish, but it did cool somewhat.
“All right,” Ben finally said. “So what now?”
They still had to work together.
Arya gave him a small smile. A friendly one, not the smoldering one he’d used when they were getting each other off, nor the soft, sleepy one that had graced him when they stayed up all night talking about being forty. It was a nice smile.
“We’re professionals. We can work together. I still want to make this ball a success, and you do, too. You’re my client. We don’t have to be anything more than that. That said, if you’re not comfortable, I can have Carley run the meetings.”
Ben shook his head. That would raise too many questions. What kind of impression would it make, him getting their event planner to quit after a single meeting, just because Ben was pissed off that a one-night stand hadn’t lasted past the morning?
“No,” Ben said. “No, it’s fine. You’re our event planner. Don’t stop on my account.”
“All right,” Arya said, standing and fixing his cuffs. “And it goes without saying, we’re not hooking up again.”
He said it so simply, it caught Ben off guard and he let out a laugh.
“Obviously.”
“Great. Well, if you have any questions about the ball, you have my contact information now. I’ll see you at the next meeting, yeah?”
“Right.” Ben crossed his arms again, then uncrossed them and rested his palms on the table instead.
This hadn’t gone anything like how he’d thought.
And he couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“See you.”