Chapter Twenty-Three
Ava
Never in my life had I considered myself attracted to Ben. When I met him, he was dating Jules. After that, he was the enemy for breaking her heart. Now, I didn’t know what he was, other than very, very close and very, very hot.
It had been years since someone had looked at me the way he was, so it took me the space of a few, intoxicating breaths to realize that he wanted to kiss me. Ben wanted to kiss me.
Ben wanted to kiss me .
I snapped out of it the moment I realized how wrong that was. He may not be the enemy anymore, but he was my best friend’s ex and that felt like a major betrayal of Jules. Stepping backward and out of his hands, I quickly broke whatever bizarre spell had fallen over us.
It was Ben, for crying out loud.
“I should get some pictures up here for Jules,” I told him, my voice weaker than it should have been. “Is that okay?”
The cloudiness left his eyes, and just like that, we were back to being Ava and Ben again. “Yeah. Go for it.”
I snapped a handful of mediocre shots of the playroom with my phone, trying not to freak out about what I was fairly certain was almost a kiss. Ben thinking about kissing me was one thing.
But me wanting it was a whole other kind of problem.
Ben helped me take a few quick measurements of the room so I could give Jules something to work with—I knew she’d have fun with this space. Then I got out of there faster than cold cream ruins caramel.
The drive home left me in a panicked mess. How could I have let that happen? Would Jules be furious that I almost kissed Ben? Should I even tell her?
It wasn’t like I was planning on dating him or anything. Sure, he was handsome as hell and I’d enjoyed chatting with him, but at the end of the day he was still off-limits. My friendships with the girls were the most important things in my life, the only part of my past that had made it into my present more or less intact. I wasn’t about to mess that up over some stupid boy.
By the time I got home, I’d determined not to upset Jules over it, because there was really nothing to get upset over. Now all I had to do was get by Jules without tipping her off that I was out-of-sorts and hiding it. With anyone else, it would be easy. But Jules always had a sense for people. Of all the girls, she’d be the one to notice.
I walked into the kitchen to find paint samples and flooring squares scattered over every available inch of the tiny two-person table. Jules leaned over her project, her hair thrown back in a giant claw clip and three paint swatches in her hand. She stopped working the moment I stepped into the room, her full attention now on me.
“How’d it go?” she asked excitedly. “Did you get everything?”
“Good,” I replied, doing my very best not to sound half-hearted about it. “I got measurements and pictures of everything on your list, and then some.”
Her grey-green eyes narrowed at me, her head tilting ever so slightly. “What’s wrong?”
Damnit.
“Wrong?” I repeated her question. “Nothing. Why?”
“You’re usually jumping with enthusiasm over anything to do with the B&B,” she replied in a suspicious tone. “Did something happen?”
Oh, God. I was only home for a solid minute and she’d already figured me out.
I took a deep breath as inconspicuously as I could. “I’m just tired,” I lied. “It’s been a long day.”
The look on her face told me she didn’t quite buy it, so I hurried to get the pictures up on my phone to distract her from her interrogation. Handing her the measurements I’d written down, we swiped through at least fifty photos before reaching the first one of the attic playroom.
“What is this ?” she asked, grabbing the phone and zooming the picture. “ Where is this?”
Deep breath. “So, apparently there’s a secret passageway in the upstairs hall that leads to the attic,” I explained carefully. “It’s currently a playroom because Ben forgot it existed until we were measuring one of the rooms nearby.”
Jules’s eyes went wide. “Tell me everything . Did you get pictures of the secret door?”
Crap. “No, I didn’t think of it. I can get some the next time I go over. It was just a rectangle cut into the wainscoting. He pushed on it to open it.”
“How could he forget something like that?” Jules scoffed, still scrolling the pictures.
I shrugged. He seemed intent on putting as much distance as possible between himself and his childhood memories. “He said he hadn’t been in the house since his grandma died.”
“Still.” Jules shook her head. “I wouldn’t forget a playroom like that.” She went back to the first picture of the attic. “Alright, walk me through it.”
We spent the next half hour going over every detail of the room. Jules had a thousand questions, and I only had about half a dozen answers. Apparently, I hadn’t been paying very close attention to the room, despite inspecting it from end to end before playing Connect Four with Ben.
Looking back, I could see now where that might have seemed like flirting. I hadn’t meant it that way at the time, though after the direction the night took I couldn’t help but wonder if it had been something subconscious.
When Ben entered the attic, he froze. I wasn’t fully versed in Ben McKinley’s expressions, but I could tell when someone was getting into their own head. The far-off stare, pained expression, and sudden silence were all pretty easy to interpret. When I struggled to pull him out of it through conversation, a game seemed like the perfect distraction—harmless, unexpected, and engaging. And it totally worked. He unfroze, and even talked about what had held him up in the first place.
But that was where trouble began.
Because I shouldn’t care what was going on in Ben’s head. I shouldn’t feel the need to help him push past a painful memory.
“Ava.” Jules called loudly, not quite shouting. She looked expectant, like she’d asked a question and was waiting for my answer.
“I’m sorry, can you say that again?” I asked.
“Are you sure you’re alright?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.
“It’s weird having to spend so much time with Ben, isn’t it?” she ventured, clearly unwilling to accept my lies about being fine. “Is it too much? Maybe we can convince Riley to move up here sooner and she can take over dealing with him. Family friends, and all that.”
“It is weird,” I agreed, and it wasn’t even a lie. But it was weird in a very different way than what Jules meant. And getting weirder. “But I’ll be okay. He’s not mean or grumpy or anything. I just haven’t had to talk to him so much.”
“Well I really appreciate you handling everything with him. I know it’s a lot, but I just can’t face him yet, you know?”
I did not know. It was the strangest feeling. Jules was closer to me than ever while living in my house. Yet, somehow, it felt like the distance between us was only growing.
“I don’t think he’d be weird about it,” I told her.
“I don’t think so, either,” she agreed. “But that’s not the problem.”
That surprised me. “Then what is?”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot since coming back to Cedar Springs. You know how whenever we get together, it feels like we’re just picking back up where we left off? Like no time has passed?”
I nodded, getting a sense of where she was headed.
“Being back here, it feels the same. But not in a good way. All the awkwardness, all the drama, all the discomfort that I felt senior year, it’s like it all happened yesterday and I’m still reeling. I feel like I just walked back into high school, and I’d like to get my feet under me a little more before I tackle it properly.”
I put my hand on her shoulder, offering a supportive smile. “Take all the time you need. And in the meantime, let’s talk about what we can do with this secret room.”
“Oh my goodness, there are so many possibilities,” Jules gushed. “I’ve already started a mental list, and I’m going to need help choosing.”
Sitting down opposite Jules, I grabbed the notebook with the room measurements from her and started jotting down our ideas, basking in the glory of finally having one of my friends back for good. The more Jules and I laughed and brainstormed, the more it reaffirmed my initial feelings on Ben.
No boy was worth the risk of losing my girls.