Chapter Twenty-Five
Ava
Three days later, I headed over to Ben’s place on a Tuesday afternoon. I did tell Jules where I was going and, after her initial look of disbelief, she told me to keep the knives far away from him.
I pulled up in front of his apartment downtown, more nervous than I had any right to be. If I was just going to help a friend, or even an acquaintance, I would be excited to share my love of cooking with them. The fact that a storm of butterflies took up residence in my stomach was a huge red flag, and I already regretted agreeing to help him.
He lived in a quaint brick building, in the same style as many of the downtown storefronts, a rich red brick that connected the buildings in a seamless fa?ade. The navy blue front door opened to a common hallway that couldn’t have been more opposite the one in Jules’s complex. Tidy and clean, with red, white, and blue nautical decor sprinkled along the walls and on a credenza near the mailboxes, I can’t help but wonder if that theme was specific to summer or a year-round statement.
Climbing the wood and wrought-iron steps, I took a deep breath to steady myself and knocked on 2A. The white door opened. Ben grinned as his eyes landed on me.
“I was worried you wouldn’t come.”
I pointed my finger at him. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“On the contrary,” he opened the door wider, stepping aside and ushering me into his living room, “I was hoping to make you enjoy it.”
I stopped mid-step, wondering what exactly he meant by that, my pulse picking up a beat. This wasn’t some sort of weird attempt at getting me on a date, was it?
Before I could ask for clarification, he continued. “I have wine, classic rock, and snacks. You’re doing me a huge favor here, and I want you to know I appreciate it. Cabernet or moscato?”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. He was just being nice—a Ben quality I was still getting used to after shunning him as a traitor for so many years. “Moscato, please.”
He leveled me a look as he grabbed the bottle. “You’re not one of those people who only likes sweet wine, are you?”
“I sell desserts for a living,” I reminded him. “What do you think?”
He laughed, a sound that went straight to my chest. “Touché.”
I took a moment to look around his apartment while he poured us wine, noting that he had chosen red. Everything was a neutral color, with clean, modern lines. A brown leather sofa, one of those straight flat ones that looked like it wouldn’t be much more comfortable than a slab of stone, sat in the center of the main living area in front of a flat-screen TV.
Nothing hung on the walls. No plants, no knick-knacks. The room was so bare even a Spartan would’ve been uncomfortable with this level of minimalism.
Ben walked up next to me, handing me a generously filled wine glass and giving me side eye. “Is it that bad?”
“Yes,” I told him, deciding not to hold back. “How long have you lived here?”
He rolled his lips together thoughtfully, reminding me of how we’d almost kissed in the attic not so very long ago. Judging by the way it distracted me, it was apparently an urge I needed to continue working to suppress.
His eyes were so blue. Had they always been that shade? They reminded me of the lake on a bright summer day, not a cloud in the sky.
“Six years,” he answered at last. “I don’t spend much time here, though, other than sleeping, and I never intended to stay long.”
Yup, that was about how it looked. “I can see why,” I teased, smiling so he knew I didn’t mean it as an insult. “What do you do on the weekends if you aren’t here?”
“I do quite a few showings on the weekend. And when I’m not working I often visit my mom to help her with this and that. My dad’s gone for long stretches for work, so I mow the lawn for her and things like that.”
I nodded, somehow still surprised at the fact that Ben was spending his free time helping his mom. I shouldn’t have been, of course. The more I learned about him, the more I realized that he was genuinely a nice guy and I had completely misjudged him.
“I’m not at home a lot, either,” I offered. “I only take one day off each week, and I use it to run errands. Shall we?” I asked, turning toward the kitchen.
Ben sighed. “Alright, but go easy on me. It’s my first time.”
I snorted in amusement, both at his joke and at the idea that he’d never cooked before. “How have you never cooked? You eat at least two meals a day, right?”
He shrugged, a movement that drew my attention to his broad shoulders. “I eat out or buy microwave meals.”
“You eat out.” I set my wine glass down on his countertop and narrowed my eyes at him, gesturing to his incredibly fit body. “There’s no way you eat out for every meal, every day.”
A wolfish grin spread across his squared jaw. “Why not?”
He was baiting me. He knew what I meant. My crazy gesticulating couldn’t possibly be misinterpreted. When I didn’t answer right away, he took a step toward me, the look in his eyes positively wicked. “What did you mean by that, Ava?”
Why was this nonsense working? I felt my face flush, felt my senses heighten, growing more aware of him the closer he got. “You’re really going to make me say it?”
His mouth might have been smiling, but his eyes burned straight through me. He stopped an arm’s length away, sipping his wine and leaning against the counter beside me. “Tell me what you meant, and I’ll let you pick the first song.”
I shouldn’t have played along. I shouldn’t have encouraged the flirting. But when he looked at me like that, his blue eyes smoldering into sapphire embers, I forgot everything except the pounding in my chest.
“I meant that no one could have a body like that while eating out all the time.”
He rolled his lips again, like he wanted to say something but was physically holding it in. “I don’t eat pizza and burgers,” he explained in a thick voice. “And, clearly, it’s possible.” He pulled up Spotify on his phone and handed it to me.
“Either you’re eating a lot of salads, or you live at the gym.” I didn’t give him time to answer before clicking play, the absolutely killer opening chords of “The Immigrant Song” breaking the growing tension. “Now, then,” I picked my wine back up, “what are we making?”
Ben wasn’t joking about not knowing how to cook. I didn’t believe it was possible for someone to have lived almost thirty years without chopping an onion, but I stood corrected. Luckily, the dishes his mom had selected were simple and straightforward, with very few specialty techniques he needed to learn. Cooking was the easy part.
Spending the evening with Ben proved more difficult.
Even in a roomy apartment kitchen, we still kept bumping into each other and sharing counter space. I hadn’t eaten much earlier in the day and, two glasses of wine in, I was starting to feel it. Not just the wine, but the constant pull of wanting to be closer to Ben, even when he was standing next to me trying not to slice his fingers instead of the potatoes.
It took two hours, but eventually we had the potatoes boiling and the chicken roasting. In spite of his protests about ruining the whole thing just like last time, I’d convinced Ben to roast some carrots and asparagus with the chicken so that we would have a complete meal by the end.
While we waited on everything to cook, I started gathering dishes to wash. Ben caught on quickly, hurrying to get a cutting board before I did. Instead he got there at the same time as me.
I spun to get out of the way.
He changed course to avoid what had been heading toward a full-on collision.
And we ended up face-to-face, him pinning me against the kitchen island.
The smart thing would’ve been to move before I lost my good sense. But, unfortunately, my brain wasn’t functional at this point and therefore my good sense was long gone.
His eyes clouded, his lids drooping lazily as he took a deep, shuddering breath.
My heart pounded so loudly I could hear it in my ears, those damn butterflies returning full force in my stomach. We stood there in shock for a moment, hanging in a pregnant pause like a rollercoaster at the top of the climb. Then we moved at the same time.
His hands grabbed my waist, pulling me against him as his lips captured mine possessively.
The scent of amber and vetiver rose up again, mixed with something else I couldn’t name–something so intoxicating I forgot everything but the devouring pressure of his hands, his lips, his body. I should not love the taste and feel of Ben, yet I couldn’t seem to get enough of him. My hands snaked their way over his broad shoulders, my fingers brushing the soft bristles of hair at the nape of his neck. I sank into him.
His hands roamed, exploring my body as his tongue did my mouth.
I came alive. A fire long forgotten rose up deep inside me, begging. Burning.
The kiss ended as abruptly as it began, leaving both of us gasping for breath in stunned silence. So many thoughts and feelings flooded me all at once, but only one worked its way to the surface.
There was no way I could continue denying that I wanted Benjamin McKinley.