Chapter 24
Bennett
That evening, I don’t feel like cooking.
“Let’s go out,” I say to Zoe. “What do you feel like having?”
“Ooh, you know what I’ve been craving?” she says. “Doubles. Have you ever tried them? One of my exes introduced me to this place in Scarborough, and it’s the best.”
I have no idea what they are, but if she wants them, it’s fine with me. I don’t feel like making any decisions. Telling her everything was more draining than I thought it would be, but I’m glad I did it.
By the time we get in the car, it’s dark outside. Despite the fact that it’s Sunday evening, traffic isn’t great, and it takes longer than it should to get there. I don’t feel frustrated, though. Time seems to pass differently today.
If Zoe had wanted to go somewhere expensive, that would have been okay with me, but the Trinidadian restaurant is a simple place with counter service…and a bit of a line. Clearly, she’s not the only one who likes the food.
I find myself wondering about her exes as we wait. How many does she have? A lot more than me, I suspect, even if I’m eight years older than her. I don’t feel any jealousy, just curiosity. I want to know everything I can about her.
This is the first time that’s happened since Ginny. With other women, I drew clear boundaries, and I was never tempted to cross them. Never tempted to wonder.
Zoe orders two doubles, and I do the same. We take a seat near the front of the restaurant as we wait for our food. Behind me, a group of young people are debating the merits of different roti shops.
Zoe reaches across the table and loosely covers my hand with hers. She’s wearing a sweatshirt, and her hair is pulled back. I remember when we went up north and she borrowed my hoodie. Seeing her in my clothes? It stirred something inside me, even if I pretended otherwise.
And so much has happened since.
That was over a month ago, and she’ll be moving out soon. There’s a hollowness in my chest at the thought, but this was always the plan. In fact, she wasn’t supposed to stay this long.
“December first is a Monday,” I say, my voice a bit rough. “You can move out the following weekend if that’s easier for you.”
“I’ve already booked the moving van and requested the day off.”
I should have mentioned it earlier. Bought myself a few more precious days.
She smiles at me. “But thank you. For everything.”
She’s always given her smiles freely, even at the beginning, when I wasn’t exactly welcoming.
Her smiles are often genuine, but I know sometimes they’re armor—and I can understand that.
Your expression doesn’t necessarily reflect what you feel on the inside, as I know all too well.
And there might be times when you’re not entirely sure what’s genuine and what isn’t, even when it comes to yourself.
The doubles—curried chickpeas on fried dough—feel like comfort food, even if I’ve never had them before. Zoe licks a little tamarind chutney off her finger, and my gaze zeroes in on her mouth.
“Do you like them?” she asks.
“I do.”
“I’ve only ever had them here. My ex insisted this place is the best in Toronto, so I haven’t bothered going anywhere else, even if it’s annoying to get here by transit.”
Previous relationships can leave marks on us in so many ways.
When we’re done eating, we toss out our garbage and stack our trays in the allotted spot. I take her hand as we exit the restaurant because I want to. Because it feels right.
Because I can’t seem to do otherwise.
We’re halfway across the parking lot when someone says, “Bennett!”
I turn. It takes me a split second to recognize the person, even though I see her five days a week. My brain is slow today, and this is the first time I’ve seen her outside of work.
“Petra.” I nod, then greet her wife, whom I’ve met twice before.
After a beat of silence, I realize I should introduce Zoe. Petra’s eyes are sparkling. She’s obviously very intrigued, though I know she won’t say as much.
“This is Zoe,” I say. “My girlfriend.” The words come out of my mouth effortlessly.
A car honks, and we part. As Zoe and I move toward my car, Petra and her wife head to a hot pot restaurant. They wave at us.
“Petra is my assistant,” I explain to Zoe.
“Does this mean everyone at work will know about me tomorrow?”
“Possibly.”
She doesn’t question my decision to assign her a label, rather than just introducing her by name.
We were holding hands, so Petra would have made certain assumptions anyway.
If Zoe did question it, I’d say there’s a very small chance that my parents could hear about it, and so this is better for our act.
Though it does pain me to think of it as an act. What I feel for her is very, very real.
We’re silent on the drive back, which is faster than the drive out. There’s something peaceful about driving at night. Just me and the lights…and the woman sitting next to me.
Back at home, I take off my jacket and slide on my slippers.
Zoe does the same, then starts to walk toward the kitchen, but I reach for her hand and pull her against me.
I trace the curve of her cheekbones, the line of her jaw.
I don’t understand how all of her features add up to something so breathtaking, how exactly that works.
I just know that I find her utterly lovely.
She parts her lips, then closes them. I brush my finger over her bottom lip, and her tongue darts out and gives me the tiniest of licks. She giggles afterward.
“Zoe,” I say softly.
I place my fingertip under her chin, tilting it up. She simply stands there, looking up at me with her deep brown eyes.
Zoe Shen barreled into my life two months ago, upsetting my carefully controlled existence, yet I have no regrets. She’s given herself so easily, and I’m in awe of her.
For the first time in years, I feel like I’m truly living.
I dip my head and slip my hand into her hair. Her breathing becomes heavier. My lips are so close to hers, and she doesn’t try to close the distance between us. I know she won’t. She respects the line I’ve drawn, but I’m sure she’s thought about it.
Probably not as much as I have.
I can’t bear to continue this way. I need to know what it’s like to kiss her; I don’t want to hold anything back.
Experimentally, I brush my lips over her mouth. She releases a gasp that makes blood rush to my cock. I move my lips in the other direction, and she does it again.
It’s magic.
I press my mouth to hers. Just one, slow kiss. She returns the kiss but doesn’t try for anything longer.
My breath is shaky as I pull back. “I’m out of practice.”
“That’s okay.”
I kiss her again, opening and closing my mouth over hers. It feels momentous…but not wrong. No, it doesn’t feel wrong at all, and now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. I tilt my head to adjust the angle, and I sweep my tongue over her upper lip. She shudders against me.
“Bennett…”
Something about the way she says my name…it completely undoes me. I crush her against me and kiss her fiercely. I don’t know how I’ve gone over a decade without this. How is that possible?
Yet at the same time, I feel like I couldn’t have done this earlier. No, I had to wait for her, this irrepressible woman who has smashed my control to smithereens.
I can’t conceal anything from her now.
I thrust a hand under her sweatshirt and T-shirt because I’m desperate to feel warm skin.
But more than anything, I’m desperate to keep my mouth on hers.
I just keep kissing her and kissing her and kissing her.
It’s like I’m trying to communicate something urgent in those kisses, but no matter how much I kiss her, it’s still not enough to say everything I feel.
Her tongue brushes over mine, and I moan as I pull her even closer. I’m losing myself in this kiss, drowning in it, but at the same time, it’s the answer to everything.
I cling to it. Cling to her.
She slows the pace, and I let her, happy for her to take the lead, as long as she doesn’t move her mouth away from mine.
When she presses her hips against my thighs, I pick her up.
The angle is a little different, and I want to explore everything with her.
Her head is above mine now, and she’s the one who has to tilt down to kiss me.
“Bennett,” she says again, and I feel the movement of her lips against mine more than I actually hear it, but I know she’s saying my name.
She shifts her mouth to my neck and kisses me there.
Seconds later, her lips are back on mine, and I’ve already missed her.
When she starts rubbing herself against me, I make sure my arms are firm around her back before walking up the stairs.
I keep kissing her as I bring her closer to our bedroom.
I keep kissing her as I kick open the door and put her down on the bed.
I settle on top of her as I continue the kiss, only coming up for air when she takes off my shirt.
I kiss Zoe as I enter her, as I slowly fuck her. I kiss her as she climaxes, I kiss her as I follow her a few seconds later. I kiss her as I pull out.
I dispose of the condom and return to bed…and then I go right back to kissing her.
I could do this forever.
When Zoe comes downstairs on Monday morning, I give her a goodbye kiss on the lips. I have to force myself to pull back, to not get lost in the kiss. When she smiles up at me afterward, I want to dive back in, but I make myself walk backward to the door.
Petra is already at the office when I arrive.
“How was your weekend?” she asks. “How was Vancouver?”
“It was good,” I say. “Very good.”
“Very good?” Her expression is mischievous, but she doesn’t say anything more.
When I take a break to eat my lunch, I text Zoe. She uses an obscene amount of emojis in her response, and it makes me smile.
In the years after I lost Ginny, I couldn’t even consider a relationship. Someone asked me a year later about dating again, and the look I gave in response made them afraid to speak to me for months. Some people might be ready within a year, but I wasn’t.
For the longest time, the idea of dating just made my skin crawl. I decided that casual sex was all I wanted—and I didn’t even have a great deal of that. When my parents started to gently ask about my love life, I tried to change the topic.
But now…
My mother calls at six thirty.
“Are you still at the office?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, “but I’m leaving soon.”
“That’s good. You can’t keep a girlfriend if you work all the time.”
Twenty years ago, it was the opposite: my parents were afraid that a girlfriend would distract me when I was supposed to devote myself to my studies.
“We’ll go to the same place for your birthdays this year?” she asks. “Clifton says it’s okay with him, but he wants to do it on Friday night.”
“That’s fine.”
“Will you bring Zoe?”
Well. I didn’t even have to suggest it myself, but I’m not surprised.
“Yes,” I say.
“Ah, I’m so excited to meet her! She must be very special.”
I swallow. “She is.”
“We were worried for so long—”
“You know, not everyone has to get married and we—”
“Aiyah! I know. But I can’t imagine you being single forever, knowing what you were like with Ginny.” She pauses. “Are you engaged?”
“It’s still too early to think about that.”
Especially when we aren’t officially together.
But it feels like we are; it certainly doesn’t feel like I’m faking anything.
“If you’re going to have kids,” she says, “you can’t wait too long—”
“She’s younger than me.”
“How much?”
“Eight years,” I say.
“Younger than Clifton, then. I guess that’s good. She has a bit of time.”
“Don’t bring up fertility or marriage or any other inappropriate topics on Friday, okay?”
The last thing I need is for her to scare Zoe off.
She clicks her tongue. “You think I don’t know how to behave myself? I will be model mother-in-law material.”
“You see, right there—”
“It was a joke! You don’t get my jokes?”
I find myself laughing. “One more thing. Please don’t tell Clifton that she’s coming.”
“Yes, I noticed he was a bit weird about it.” I can’t see her, but she’s probably shaking her head. “I wish you two got along.”
She still says this every now and then, and I try not to let it bother me. It’s not like her words are accompanied by any suggestions to make more effort with Clifton. She doesn’t expect me to change my behavior; she just wishes the situation were different.
I talk to her for a few more minutes, and then I drive home.
I now feel excited at the end of each workday. I like going home to Zoe, and I don’t want this to end. She’s going to move out soon, but perhaps we could keep seeing each other—for real, this time.
As I turn onto my street, I debate whether I should talk to her about it tonight, but I think I should wait until after we meet my family. We should see our plan through to the end.
When I step inside the house, there’s music playing. Yes, it’s definitely different from when I lived alone. Mittens greets me, and we head to the kitchen, where Zoe is dancing and singing along to the music as she stirs something in the wok.
She turns around and drops the spoon. “Oh my god! I didn’t hear you come in. I was too busy singing along to One Direction.”
“This is One Direction?”
“Yeah. It came out when I was in high school.”
That makes me feel old.
She continues to shimmy her hips as she bends over to pick up the spoon, and I’m sure it’s no accident that she’s sticking her ass in my direction. She tosses the spoon into the sink, then throws her arms around me and kisses me like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
I want to keep her in my life. I want it so badly.
Yet I’m a little afraid that she won’t agree, even though we fit together so well. After what happened with my brother, she said she wouldn’t be interested in a relationship for a while, but I have to believe there’s a chance.
I need to believe.
I never expected to feel this way again, but here I am.