Chapter 25
TWENTY-FIVE
Ben
As soon as I walk into my apartment, I smell the unmistakable scent of freshly baked cookies, and I grin to myself.
It’s good to know Avril’s home. Not her home, of course.
But it’s good to know she’s here. When I got back from meeting Bray last night, I wasn’t sure if she was back or not.
I assumed she was asleep in bed, as her bedroom door was closed, so I tried not to make a sound and went straight to bed myself.
As I close the door, there’s a crash in the kitchen.
“Fuck!” Avril yells out.
I race to the kitchen, push the door open and find Avril scowling at the floor.
“You okay?” I ask.
At her feet are a tray of burnt cookies.
“I burned myself. And the cookies.”
I bite back a smile. She’s pissed. And she’s cute when she’s pissed.
“Let’s have a look,” I say, stepping toward her.
She stares at her finger.
“Get it under some cold water,” I say, taking her wrist and turning on the tap. I make sure the water pressure isn’t too aggressive and plunge her hand under the water. The burn doesn’t look too bad, but it needs the heat taken out of it.
“I’m fine,” she says, as she tries to twist away from me, and she inadvertently knocks her hip against my thigh. Our eyes lock and she freezes.
Is she thinking what I’m thinking? Is she remembering how our bodies felt as they slid against each other when we weren’t wearing any clothes at all? Is she hoping it will happen again? Am I?
I’m no less confused about any of it than I was when she ran out on me after our night together.
I don’t know what she wants, but I don’t know what I want either.
I have no track record in holding down a relationship—I haven’t even tried.
The idea of having a girlfriend is not something I want in the abstract, but Avril?
I definitely want her. I just don’t know how to mesh those things together.
She twists her wrist, trying to free herself from me, but I hold her firm.
“You need to keep your hand under here,” I say. “It will stop the burn spreading deeper into the skin.”
“You’re being dramatic,” she says.
“I’m not the one who dropped cookies all over the floor and dropped the F bomb.”
“That’s not dramatic. That’s an accident.” She has an answer for everything, and I kind of love it.
“I mean it,” I say. “If I let go of your wrist, will you keep your hand under? I’ve had a long day at work and I don’t want to spend the night in the ER because your skin is falling off because you wouldn’t keep your hand under the tap.”
“No, not dramatic at all,” she mumbles, her gaze focused on her burnt finger.
I let go of her wrist, even though I don’t want to.
Even though I’d rather wrap my arms around her waist and bury my head into her neck.
I take the oven glove from where it’s hanging by the cabinet, and pick up the tray and slide it onto the counter.
I don’t say it, but if she’d used the oven glove and not the tea towel, she might not have burned herself.
“You had an urge to bake cookies?” I ask.
“I guess,” she says. “I was trying…I’m not a baker.”
“I’m going to trash these,” I say, tipping them into the bin.
“Oh, I wanted to save them.”
I snap my head around to see if she’s actually lost her mind. She’s grinning at me, and I roll my eyes.
“Let’s try another batch. What recipe were you using?”
“No recipe,” she replies. “They came in a can.”
“They came in a can?” I ask, narrowing my eyes.
“You know, open the tube, cut the cookie dough into slices, and bake.”
My expression must give away exactly what I’m thinking, because she says, “What? I didn’t have much time and I wanted to make cookies.”
“Cookies don’t take much time to make. But you weren’t making cookies. You were heating up premade cookie dough.”
She sighs. “Okay, cookie police. Can I turn off the faucet now?”
“No,” I say and head to the pantry, to pull out flour and sugar. Then I head back to get the vanilla extract, baking soda, and the chocolate.
“What are you doing?”
“Making cookies. Like actually making them rather than opening a can and pretending to make them.”
“Snob,” she snaps.
I set to work, making a recipe that I haven’t made for years. I recall the measurements like I made them yesterday, but I don’t think I’ve made these since before I went to university.
“Will they have sprinkles?” she asks, from where she’s still leaning over the sink.
“Nope. Because cookies need to be chocolate chip or they need not exist.” I cream the butter and sugar together in the same way my grandmother taught me years before I ever went into the kitchen with my dad.
“Are you serious?” she asks. “Are you saying white chocolate and lemon cookies shouldn’t exist? Because if you are, I don’t think I can even look at you.”
I chuckle. “Okay, you can have that one, at a push. But it’s right on the boundary of being ridiculous.”
“A sprinkle cookie isn’t ridiculous.”
“Maybe not if you’re five years old. But at your age, it definitely is.”
“Rude,” she says.
“Facts,” I counter.
“I suppose I can live with chocolate chip.”
“Who said I’m making them for you?” I glance up with a grin, expecting her to be trying not to smile, but her expression is half shock, half sadness.
What did I miss?
She looks away.
“Avril,” I say. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” she says unconvincingly. “But don’t think you’re giving those chocolate chip cookies away. I’m eating them or no one is.”
Is that what bothered her? The fact she thought I might give the cookies away? It can’t be. She must have known I was kidding.
“I might share them with you,” I say. “You can even have first pick of the batch.”
Silence winds between us.
Finally, I speak. “I feel like I haven’t seen you properly in…” Since we had sex, I don’t say. “What have you been up to?”
She shrugs. “Working. You?”
“Same. I met with my brother last night.”
“You said. How was it?” she asks.
I think about her question. “It was good.”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“No, I’m sure it was good. But…”
“What?” she asks, and she jumps up onto the counter like she did the first night I met her.
I smile at the memory. “Keep that finger under the water.”
She just stares at me like she wants to kill me. What does it say about me that I want to kiss her into next week right now? “Tell me about Bray,” she says.
“He’s a good guy. He’s always been a good guy. I think I wrote him off as being…”
She doesn’t try to fill the gap for me and it feels good that the silences can feel so comfortable between us.
I never realized how a comfortable silence can mean so much more than lots of words until I lived with Avril.
She’s taught me that hanging out, watching TV, talking and not talking, can be so intimate. It feels so safe with her.
“I don’t know. I think I underestimated him.”
“Underestimated him how?”
“I wrote him off as just a good guy. I never quite understood why he came to New York and didn’t stay in the British suburbs and marry an English rose and have kids and…settle down.”
“Because that’s what good guys do? What does that make you?”
I start mixing the wet ingredients into my dry mixture. “I don’t know. I just thought I was driven by other stuff. He was my kid brother. I just…”
“You thought he was the protected baby of the family?” she suggests.
I meet her gaze. I know she feels written off and underestimated, but I don’t think that’s the way Worth or Poppy sees her.
But she has to believe it, not me. “Not quite,” I say.
“I just didn’t…I was so caught up in my life, in protecting myself, I don’t think I realized how kick-ass my brother was.
He’s taking his company public in a few months.
He’s the CEO. I thought he just worked in tech doing…
I don’t know, some nine-to-five office job.
Someone who liked to watch sports and drink beer.
Turns out he’s built an online betting company that’s worth a lot of money.
” Today, I did a bit more digging into my brother’s career.
He’s really successful, and I feel like a fucking idiot for not having realized.
“You never knew?”
I wince. “I know. I’ve not been a very good brother to him.”
“I’m not saying that, but how come you didn’t know? You know everything about everybody who’s anything.”
“I think it’s because he’s not interested in anything but his business. He doesn’t seek out the limelight or the adoration like a lot of people in business do. He’s just kept his head down and worked hard. And I missed all of it.”
She looks at me thoughtfully. “You know, he might quite like the fact that you two don’t talk business when you get together.”
“Maybe,” I say. “But, I’m not sure what we do talk about. It’s fine not to talk about business, but I don’t think we really talked about anything. We just had a few jokes and took the piss out of each other.”
“Aren’t you talking about every male friendship ever?”
I think back to the dinner at Worth’s house. “No,” I say. “And I don’t think you think that, either. That’s how male friendships are depicted on TV and in the movies, but that’s not what my relationship with Deacon is like, and I don’t think Worth has those superficial bromances, either.”
“Worth doesn’t ever do superficial. Not ever.”
“Right,” I say. “But that’s what Bray and I have done since…” I think about it. “Since things got difficult.”
“Since your dad died?”
I shake my head. “Before then. The restaurant closing, going back to England. Our family broke. My dad died, and my brother and I stopped communicating.”
“You were protecting yourselves.”
“Right. But we’re adults now. Neither of us is in a place where we need to be protecting ourselves.” I let the words sink in as I scoop cookie dough out of the bowl. “We don’t need to run or build walls or…” I sigh.
“So now what?” she asks. “Now you know he’s wildly successful, you want to get to know him better?”
“Wow,” I say, a little hurt that she would think that about me, let alone say it.
“I was kidding. Sorry. I didn’t mean that you use people.”
Didn’t she? Wasn’t that exactly what she was saying?
I press down the cookie dough on the counter. “Your finger is probably fine now,” I say.
“Oh, okay,” she says, then turns the tap off and dries her hand on the tea towel she used to take the tray of her so-called cookies out of the oven.
I expect her to make an excuse and leave, but she doesn’t. She stays perched on the countertop.
“I really didn’t mean that. It was a low blow and I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re so well connected to everyone who’s anyone in New York.”
“You’re right. I am. But people use me. Not the other way around.”
“What?” she says.
I glance back at her, and she looks totally confused.
“People come to me with problems and I help fix them. Yes, I charge them, but I’m providing a service.”
“You see that as people using you?” she asks. “Isn’t that exactly what you want? Haven’t you made yourself indispensable to people?”
“Absolutely. I’ve worked hard to make sure I have something people want. But it’s a trade. People don’t come to me for a catch-up and beer unless they want something.”
“Right,” she says.
“But it’s how everything in my life works.”
“Isn’t it how everything in everyone’s life works?”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so,” I say. “At Worth’s house earlier in the week, the people weren’t there because they thought it might be useful to them, or because it would benefit their business. They were there to enjoy each other’s company.”
She frowns, and I slide the cookie tray into the oven and shut the door.
“And you don’t hang out with anyone just because you enjoy their company?”
“Deacon. And I kept in touch with Bray because I wanted to make sure he was okay.” I don’t know why I’m spilling all this to Avril.
It’s like I can’t stop. But finding out all this stuff about Bray really makes me see how much I’m missing in my life.
I’m not sure if it’s being with Avril these last few days that’s made me see things differently.
Maybe it was seeing her with her brother and sister and all their friends, or maybe I’m just getting older, but I don’t want to continue living my life the way I have been.
“Right,” she says. “So business is one thing, but your personal life is another. Everyone uses each other in business. Or not uses exactly, but everyone’s trying to get somewhere and do something. It’s different when it’s friends and family.”
It’s good that Avril so clearly sees the distinction. I don’t, or at least I hadn’t until recently. For the longest time, my business life has been my entire life. I haven’t had anything else. But now? Now I realize that even though I’ve built everything I dreamed of, I still want more.
Avril’s lucky she has the people around her that she does.
It makes me happy that she’s surrounded by people who really care about her.
She deserves that. She’s special. But it stokes sadness in me.
Jealousy even. I want that love and trust that she has.
I want comfortable silences and people who you hang out with just because you want to spend time with them.
It’s not enough anymore to be running from fear. I want to be running toward something.