Chapter 13
It’s another week before we go out again, another lazy Sunday. Ben told me to dress warm and I was tempted to put on as many layers as I could, just to tell him I did as he requested. Turns out, I like bratting a little too much.
When I open the front door of the building and slip outside, he’s leaning against the building wearing a woolen coat with a gray scarf draped over his shoulders. His breath clouds the air as his lips part, eyes sweeping down my body.
I pop a hip, hand on my waist as I glance down at my legs covered in thick, knitted thigh-highs and my black heeled boots. “Want me to do a spin for you?”
Ben lets out a huff of a laugh, pushing away from the building to reach out and grab my wrist. He tugs me in close until my hands land on his chest and my fingers slip underneath the open coat and grab at his sweater. His knuckles sweep over the inch of bare skin between the thigh-highs and my pleated skirt, a shiver tracking down my spine at the cold touch of his fingers.
“I said dress warm.” He buries his head in my neck, lips brushing the skin above the collar of my jacket.
“I’m plenty warm, thank you.”
“When you beg me to take you home and warm you up, I’m saying I told you so.”
I roll my eyes, hand sliding off his chest to reach around and tug on the strands of his hair. I pull him away from peppering kisses over my neck before I don’t want to go anywhere but to bed.
“And how did I already know you get off on that?” I tut, pushing him with a gentle shove as I step back from him.
He straightens up like it pains him, hands shoving into the pockets of his jacket to fish for his car key. “Just a good guess.”
We fall in step toward his car across the street. The Jaguar again. He follows me around the side of the car and opens the door for me. I have to ignore how warm and fuzzy that makes me feel. It’s so simple and ridiculous and sweet. I run my finger along the top of the door, my gaze sliding up to him with a smile before sliding into the passenger seat and clicking my seat belt into place.
I pull my purse from my shoulder and drop it onto the floor by my feet. My mouth just decides now is a good time to spill my thoughts like an overflowing cup. “So where are we going? The ferry? The Botanical Gardens? You know I could probably name every flower in there without looking at any placards. Or are we getting something to eat? You didn’t say not to eat beforehand. Are we getting street food? I fucking love tacos—”
“Wollman Rink,” Ben interjects, starting the car and pressing the button next to my seat to turn on the seat warmer for me. “I’ll take you to the garden some other time when they put all the lights up, and you can tell me about every flower there. And yes, we’re getting something to eat.”
Leaning back into the seat, I settle with a sense of calm as his hand slides over my thigh even as he starts to drive.
“Are we going ice skating?”
“Yes. Do you know how to skate?” he asks, glancing over at me.
I nod. “Yeah, I do. Just haven’t been since I was a teenager probably. Not sure I won’t fall flat on my face.”
“You can hold onto me.”
“I’ll probably drag you down with me.”
“I won’t let you fall, I promise.”
I’m holding him to that.
The traffic is surprisingly light, and it’s only twenty minutes in the car before we pull into a parking garage and walk down the block to the park. I’ll die before admitting my legs are already cold just from the walk over. Admittedly, I wouldn’t have worn a skirt had he told me where we were going ahead of time.
By the time we get our skates at the rink, the sun is dipping in the sky and they’ve turned on the string lights that line the boards. It feels like we’re stepping into something magical with the chill of the frosty ice in the air.
I lace up my skates alongside Ben, watching as he pulls at the strings with practiced precision.
“Do you skate often?” I ask, tilting my head as I yank the hem of my thigh-highs up my legs as far as they’ll stretch before standing on wobbly legs.
He reaches out an arm to steady me, pulling me upright into his chest as he brushes a strand of hair behind my ear where it’s escaped my ponytail.
“I used to play hockey in college. I like getting back on the ice every now and then.”
“Oh, you’re good, good then. This is about to be embarrassing.”
His laugh whispers the hair over my neck as he leans in and presses his lips below my ear. “Just hold onto me, you’ll be fine.”
Yeah, like I’m actually going to let go now that I recall what it feels like to try and gain my balance on the blades as we walk from the benches to the open gate in the boards.
I fist my hand in Ben’s jacket as he steps forward onto the ice first, his hands on my forearms as he helps me step down. I slide forward as he glides backwards. I nearly shriek when my legs widen, and I can feel the cold air rushing up between my thighs as I stare down at the ice like it’s going to swallow me whole.
“Look up,” he instructs. “Bend your knees a bit.”
He corrects my course, and I manage to not yank him down into the ice even as he continues to glide backward.
“Fuck you,” I hiss even though I’m thankful he’s not letting go of me.
“Later, little bird.” He winks at me, lips tipping up into a smirk.
“Promises, promises,” I drawl.
“I’ll make good on it.”
I ignore the way his hands slip down to my wrists and my heart rate ticks up as he threads our fingers together to pull me along with him. I keep my hold on his hand as loose as possible with my wrist tilted back, my stomach churning almost violently at the thought of him feeling the raised skin of the scars on my palms.
Thankfully, it doesn’t take long before I find my footing and begin to glide each foot forward until I can manage to skate up close to him without falling over.
Ben does a fancy little turn till he’s taking the spot next to me, but leaves one of our hands connected. It pains me to think about how good it feels to have him hold my hand. To allow him so close to the physical manifestation of a lot of my anxieties. Instead of squeezing his hand, I give him a little nudge with my shoulder.
“So, you played hockey in college?”
“I did, up until I had to drop everything except for my classes senior year of my undergrad to help take care of my dad when he got sick. I couldn’t handle hockey plus my internship hours on top of things at home.”
“Oh.” I turn my gaze on the other pairs, couples, and families with kids who circle the rink with us in varying levels of expertise. “Is it insensitive to ask if he hadn’t gotten sick, do you think you would have gone pro?”
He’s silent for a long while. I turn to look at him when he tightens the grip on my hand, but I pull my fingers lax.
“I’m not sure I was good enough, to be honest. I might have thought about it a lot back in the day, but it’s hard to say without being in the moment.”
I bite my cheek. “That’s fair. I’m sure you were better than you think, though.”
Ben shakes his head, lip twitching up out of the corner of my eye. “If you’re going to say you wish you would have been able to see me play, you would have been a toddler at the time. So no, I don’t really want to think about that.”
I huff out a laugh, icy breeze skating past my cheek and fluttering the loose hairs from my ponytail as someone picks up the pace to pass around us.
“I mean, I wasn’t going to say it. But whatever, old man.”
He gives me a withering look, and I bump into his arm with my shoulder as gently as I can without knocking myself off balance.
We skate side by side a lot slower than most of the other pairs, but I don’t mind. Even with my freezing legs and toes that don’t feel warm enough despite my fuzzy boot socks.
“So, you went to college for architecture, then?” I ask. “Is that always what you wanted to do other than playing hockey?”
“I wanted to be an engineer for a while, but shifted to architecture when Fred’s father handed him the keys to his construction company at our high school graduation. It was the smartest move I could have made. We worked a partnership out of it eventually.”
“And do you like it?”
Ben lets loose a sigh. “I do, though sometimes I can’t stand the politics of it. Names matter more than skill or experience, and that’s something that’ll never change.”
Makes sense. That kind of thing follows most career paths, most aspects of the world, and it’s a shame.
My throat bobs with the way I swallow a lung full of air, my chest seizing up as I vibrate with the need to fill the space, the air.
“I thought about being an investigative journalist once”—in the eighth grade—“but wasn’t sure if I could potentially spend months working on one report, let alone years. Then I flipped to publishing, but the thought of reading something I don’t actually like and then having to give constructive criticism on it left me having a panic attack in the guidance counselor’s office.”
“What did you end up studying?”
“Psychology.” I wince. The thought of it brings a stomach ache; I barely muddled through the latter half of the classes.
“But?” he asks, picking up on the change in my tone.
“I couldn’t afford to change my major again and start over with classes. I didn’t do anything to help myself because my heart wasn’t in it, and I didn’t get an internship, so I graduated with zero experience. Doesn’t bode well for job seeking in that field.”
“So…flowers?”
“Flowers are easy. Even though there are so many and the names can be exasperating, they just click in my brain like nothing else.” I sigh, my eyes closing for half a second before a divot in the ice nearly causes me to trip and bring Ben down with me. He yanks me upright and into his side. His hand tightens over mine to flatten our palms, and I jerk my wrist back on instinct like I’ve been burned.
But it’s too late. I’ve been about as obvious about my discomfort with my hand in his as I could be without outright telling him I don’t want him to touch me. I’ve always lacked subtlety.
Self-preservation burns through my veins as he lifts my hand in his now brutal grip, not allowing me any escape. He brings our hands up, and I don’t even realize we’ve stopped moving until people continually skate past us. My heart leaps up my throat when he flips my hand and his thumb brushes over the raised skin decorating my palm in little crescent moon shapes.
His eyes flicker up to mine, and it’s hard to read him as his lips part with a cold puff of air and he reaches for my other hand. I acquiesce and flinch as he brings them both up to his mouth to press a kiss to each palm. Then he threads our fingers together and turns to glide forward on the ice again.
My heart thunders in my chest.
“You’re not going to ask?”
“If you wanted me to know, then you’d tell me.”
Silence bleeds in the air as we resume skating, and I can barely stand it. I can feel my lungs tightening up, the chill in the air making it difficult to take a deep breath. If I had still been going to my therapist, perhaps I’d have a better coping technique. Maybe I’d have one at all. But I don’t know how to deal with Ben being so respectful. Which is a crime in and of itself.
Historically, I’ve always had a problem verbalizing my anxiety—my feelings about anything. It’s why I turned to a physical outlet for my pain in the first place.
He squeezes my hand again, and it pulls me back down from where I’ve drifted away with thought.
“It’s... hard for me to talk about,” I begin, my lip catching between my teeth before I blow out a raspberry. “But I think I’d like to tell you. Maybe just an abridged version. But I’m not doing it so you’ll feel sorry for me—the last thing I want is pity.”
He stays quiet, just the presence of him gliding closer so I can feel the heat of his arm pressed against mine.
“A few years ago, my parents called the police on me when I came home from college to get my things from my childhood bedroom. I was arrested for trespassing and criminal tampering.” My teeth ache from the way my jaw starts to grind. “Trespassing and tampering with their property because, according to them, I was no daughter of theirs. That ship sailed when I turned eighteen and supported my older sister having twins with a man they disapproved of instead of convincing her to get the abortion they wanted for her.”
Ben squeezes my hand. “That seems ridiculous.”
“It was—remains so to this day. The fact that my sister, who was nineteen at the time, was being coerced to have an abortion in exchange for remaining under their roof, a part of their life, was insane. Instead, they threw away their relationship with both of their daughters and their grandchildren.”
It burns me up inside to think about it. About them. The words keep spilling out my mouth because now that I’m talking, it feels so good.
“My parents raised me in my sister’s shadow all my life, the spare, but I was never perfect”—the word comes out cracked, no matter how hard I try to reign it in—“like they wanted me to be. But suddenly, I was front and center, the backup little toy they always wanted when she became irredeemable. Like she’d never existed in the first place. I couldn’t stand it.”
My breath comes out in a harsh exhale. I bring my hand up and uncurl my fingers to look at the raised skin that decorates my palm in a mix of silver and pink. I can still feel the sharp bite of pain as my nails would cut in—a way to ease the hurt, the anger, the anxiety I would feel, but couldn’t voice aloud.
“I would curl my hands into fists so hard I’d bleed and bleed. It was easy to hide. I never wanted what they did for me. Never wanted to follow the path they laid out for me. So I finally made my choice, and it cost me. But I’d make it again every time. I flew away.”
Ben pulls us to a stop at the gate in the boards, guides me through it until I’m on steady ground, and he pulls my chin up to look at him. I realize my eyes are wet with tears, and he’s blurry beneath each blink.
“Because you were a bird, and you wanted to be free of your cage.”
My eyes close for a moment, and I nod. I can still hear the buzzing of the tattoo machine as it moved over the skin of my ribs, just beneath my heart, and inked the delicate hummingbird that rests there. The one that I flaunted in front of my parents while the cops were dragging me away from their house for breaking and entering when all I did was use the same key I’d had since I was fifteen.
“I don’t want to call you strong, because you are so much more than that.” Ben feathers his thumb over my jaw, drawing me in as I lean up and hook my fingers in the front of his jacket. The set of his mouth is terse, focused, as he pulls me into the embrace of his soothing presence. “We’re more than just the sum of the people who made us. No one can shape who you are except you. Don’t let the weeds cast a shadow on the beautiful flowers blooming in your garden.”
The words blanket me, and my heart thuds a little harder. It cools the burn in my veins, like a salve on my open wounds, and all I can choke out is, “Thank you.”
He runs his thumbs beneath my eyes, catching the tears that cling to my eyelashes and brushing them away. His lips press into my forehead as he tugs me closer, until my nose is pressed to his neck and I can’t help but breathe him in. His cologne is already a comfort that I crave, and I want to steal all the comfiest clothes in his closet for myself.
I exhale a breath and clench my hands in his coat before pulling back to look up at him. Stepping back, my gaze casts around and no one is paying much attention to us, but my cheeks are burning all the same.
“Can we get greasy hamburgers now? Oh, and cheese fries, they’re my favorite,” I say on a sniffle.
He shakes his head on a laugh. “You’re done skating already?”
“Yeah, I’m fucking freezing. We’re eating, and then you’re taking me home.”
His eyes light up in a wicked gleam, lips tipping into a smirk as his hands fall to the curve of my ass as he drags me into him, cold fingers skimming the bare skin of my thighs. I fight the shudder that forces its way down my spine as I squirm my way out of his hold, until I’m barely within his grasp.
“I told you so, you little brat—”
I can’t resist the urge to stretch onto my tiptoes of my skates to press my lips to his. And he shuts right up.