Chapter 9
Bennett
Actually, it’s better than fine, if I’m honest with myself. While this isn’t my favorite time of year, it is fun to drive this car with the top down on a nice day. The sky is blue and dotted with cumulus clouds.
I’m focused on the road, but Zoe seems to be having a good time, too. She’s wearing jeans, a light sweater, an infinity scarf, and big sunglasses. Her hair is tied back.
I take the correct exit, and we soon arrive at the cidery.
It’s somewhat busy, and we have to wait in line for our drinks.
I have a taste of the dry cider—maybe I can buy cans to take home—and get something non-alcoholic to drink now.
Zoe opts for a flight and chooses the most off-the-wall things on offer.
Her favorite is a gingery cider. We take our seats, side by side, on the patio, where it’s pleasantly warm in the sun.
“Ooh, they have cornhole,” she says.
There are, indeed, a small number of people making use of the cornhole boards set up on the grass. I have no idea how to play.
“As soon as someone leaves,” she whispers, “we’re grabbing their boards.”
I’m tempted to pull out my phone and answer a few emails until then, but I think it would be rude, even on a pretend date.
“So,” Zoe says, “we need to talk about the touching situation.”
“The…touching situation.”
I don’t know why I regularly find myself repeating her words. I guess it’s because she keeps saying surprising things and I have to make sure I heard her correctly.
“Yes!” She lowers her voice. “It would be suspicious if we aren’t able to touch each other without you freezing or flinching.”
“Why are you talking so quietly?”
“In case we know someone here and they overhear us.”
I glance around. “I don’t know anyone.”
“Still! Just in case.”
The problem is that I have to lean slightly closer to make out her words. I don’t particularly like being this close to her.
“How about you do the touching this time?” she suggests. “Put your arm on the back of my chair.” She shifts her chair so it’s pressed against mine.
Okay, here it goes.
I rest my left arm behind her. She leans backward, her blue sweater brushing my arm.
This isn’t so bad.
“Now,” she says, “run your fingers along my upper arm.”
I give her arm an efficient stroke.
“Bennett!” she says. “That was all wrong. You’re supposed to linger.
” When I don’t reply, she shifts away from me.
“Look, if this is something you really don’t want to do, we can try to pull it off without any touching.
After all, you seem like the sort of man who’d conduct himself very properly in public. ”
“Properly.” There I go, repeating her words again.
“I just mean, maybe you’re the sort who wouldn’t dare have a second of physical contact with a girlfriend in front of his parents. Not even a brush of hands under the table.”
I can’t help reaching under the rickety patio table with my right hand. When I cover her hand with mine, it instantly becomes clear why I’ve been reluctant to touch Zoe. I didn’t allow the words to form in my brain before, but I do now.
I’m afraid that if I start, I’ll never want to stop.
My left hand moves of its own accord, two fingers sliding up her arm, almost to her shoulder, before leisurely descending to her elbow.
Although she’s wearing a sweater, it practically feels like I’m caressing bare skin, and desire sizzles through me.
Such a simple touch shouldn’t affect me like this, yet it does—and that annoys the hell out of me. Still, I can’t pull back.
Why? Why is this happening with her?
I lean closer, my lips approaching her ear, and I’m filled with the ridiculous urge to nibble on her earlobe.
Instead, I ask, “Is that enough physical contact for you?”
She swallows, and I swear she squeezes her thighs together.
Or maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part because I want her to be as affected by me as I am by her. Outwardly, I keep myself controlled, but my pulse has sped up, and I want to move my fingers up to her neck, to her cheek. Would she react if I did?
“Zoe,” I say, “I asked you a question.”
“Yes! This is enough. It’s good. Very good.”
Are you sure you don’t want more?
But that’s a question I keep to myself.
She suddenly jumps up. I feel disoriented, but I still manage to grab a hold of our drinks as the table shakes. She hurries over to a cornhole board, which two people have just vacated, and I follow. I bring my glass and her flight, setting them on a high table by the game.
“You’ll be red, and I’ll be blue,” she says as she gathers up the four blue beanbags. “Do you know how to play?”
When I shake my head, she explains it to me. You get three points if you toss your beanbag in the hole, one if it lands on the board, and zero if you miss the board. Your points cancel so that only one person can score in each inning. The first to twenty-one wins.
Sounds straightforward enough.
Unfortunately, my lack of experience with tossing beanbags means that my first one lands on the grass. My second hits the board, then falls to the grass. Zoe’s second beanbag, on the other hand, lands right in the hole, and she raises her hands in victory.
I do not find it cute. Definitely not.
I manage to get my next two beanbags on the board, as does Zoe, and she ends the inning with three points.
We walk to the board where (some) of our beanbags have landed and gather them up, then start pitching in the opposite direction.
She says that since she scored the last inning, she goes first, and I don’t look up the rules to see if that’s correct.
I’m beginning to get the hang of this, though. My next throw goes in the hole, and Zoe holds up her hand for a high-five. I hit it, careful not to linger.
At the end of that inning, I score two.
“Getting to twenty-one will take a while,” she says.
“We can play to ten instead.”
“No, we’re doing this properly. I thought you were very proper, after all.”
God. Very few people bother to tease me, aside from Gil…and Clifton, but there’s nothing good-natured about my brother’s teasing. Zoe, however, is very good-natured, and if we were in a real relationship, I might…
I shut that thought down. I don’t know why it popped into my mind.
My first beanbag goes into the hole, and the second lands on the board. The third and fourth go in. I end the inning with six points.
“Maybe getting to twenty-one won’t take long after all,” I say.
Zoe giggles. “Oh, it’s on.”
She takes a swig from one of her glasses, then picks up her beanbags. I, on the other hand, am distracted by her ass as she bends over. I could say that I’m just getting into my role as her fake boyfriend, but I’m not good at lying to myself.
Seriously, why is this happening to me?
She gains another four points in the next inning, which shrinks my lead to one.
This time, I purposely turn away when she starts picking up the beanbags.
I look around at the other people here. There are a few kids running around.
A group of couples in their thirties and forties.
A small dog sleeping under a picnic table.
The sun peeks out from behind the clouds, and thanks to its warmth—plus the small amount of physical exertion I’ve been doing—I decide to push up my sleeves. I’m about to crouch down to grab my beanbags when I notice Zoe staring at my forearms.
Then the unthinkable happens: I smile.
Alas, this unusual occurrence doesn’t escape her notice. Her gaze meets mine, and she positively beams at me, like my smile has contributed greatly to her own happiness.
Dear god. How appalling.
I hope she doesn’t realize why I accidentally smiled.
Both of our first throws are misses, but I end the inning with two points.
We inch toward twenty-one. A score of twelve points in an inning is theoretically possible, if one person gets all their beanbags in the hole and the other keeps missing the board, but it’s unlikely.
So I don’t feel like I’m within distance of winning until I’m at sixteen and Zoe is at twelve.
The next inning is a bust, though: she scores one point.
In the following inning, her first beanbag lands on the grass and mine lands in the hole. Her second one also lands in the hole. Before I make my throw, she downs the last of her cider and licks her lips. I can’t help following the motion of her tongue.
Wait a second. Is she doing this on purpose?
My beanbag misses the board completely.
In frustration, I push down my sleeves, then slowly roll up the left one. When I start rolling up the right one, I look toward Zoe. Her lips are parted and it’s so fucking pretty. I wish I could kiss her…
Shit. This was supposed to distract her, not me, and I definitely shouldn’t be thinking of kissing anyone. That’s something I haven’t done in a long, long time.
Focus, Bennett.
To my satisfaction, her next throw is a miss, whereas mine lands in the hole. I won’t be a sore loser if I lose at a lawn game that I didn’t even know how to play until twenty minutes ago. But since I always try my best to win—no other reason, of course—I unroll one of my sleeves.
Zoe doesn’t throw her beanbag, not yet. No, she’s watching me out of the corner of her eye, and she keeps watching as I slowly push that sleeve back up. To my distress, it makes me feel more powerful than anything else has in a long, long time.
“What on earth are you doing?” she asks.
I gesture at the sky. “The sun keeps hiding behind the clouds, then coming back out.”
“Mm-hmm.” She draws out those two syllables, and they hold a deep amount of skepticism. She puts a hand—the one not holding the final beanbag—on her hip. “I’m sure that’s exactly what you were doing.”
“What are you implying?”
She freezes, and I’m not going to push her, not now. In fact, even though I asked her that question, I don’t particularly want her to answer it.
“Nothing,” she says breezily, then throws her beanbag.
It lands on the edge of the board.
Okay. If I can get three points, then I win the game.
I take a deep breath before tossing my beanbag. It sails through the air and lands directly in the hole.
I did it.
“Aren’t you going to celebrate?” Zoe asks. “You won.”
“Celebrate? I don’t celebrate.”
She circles her hand around my wrist and lifts it up. Not very high, though, because she’s quite a bit shorter than me.
“Dear god,” I say, deadpan. Admittedly, this is partly for her amusement. To my consternation, I’m not as irritated by her actions as I ought to be.
“Wasn’t that fun?” She lets go of my wrist and spins around, and I wish I didn’t enjoy this so damn much, but I do, even as I miss the absence of her touch.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
Being with her is stirring up some complicated feelings, and I really don’t appreciate it. Outside of work, my life is supposed to be predictable, but that’s changed with Zoe.
How the hell am I going to survive the next few weeks of living together?