Chapter 2 #3
So I turn to the DJ, a teenager wearing a white blazer and white pants, moving to the rhythm even though no one dares to dance here.
And suddenly I'm not pressed between sinister green walls anymore.
I'm back at Fashion Club.
?
It was two nights after I met Mara in the café.
I went reluctantly, ego-bruised from moving back to San Francisco, and if I'm being honest, still crying over my ex at nights with a spoon and a tub of ice cream.
Mara insisted I needed a night out, though—and she picked the right place.
The air reminded me of my favorite teenage lip gloss called Careless Strawberry, and each bass drop thumped lower, promising to shake David out of my system.
The walls were fully tiled in tiny mosaic mirrors, hundred disco balls turning at the ceiling, but it was my silver bodysuit that caught every eye, when I walked in like a total snack.
That was the point. I already felt chewed up anyway, so might as well enjoy it.
And I don't know why, but when I turned toward the DJ booth, I thought of Ben—half-expecting him to be spinning tracks there, just like that first time I saw him.
Stupid. Of course he wasn't there.
Not stupid enough. Because he was on the dancefloor.
Shirtless under open white blazer, with white pants, he danced like it was his last night alive with that Italian swing in his hips that drew every woman's eyes. Mine too.
I came to play, but the second Ben caught my eye, the game changed.
We smirked, shaking our heads at the absurdity of life throwing us back at each other.
Then Mara waved him over, like it wasn't surreal enough already.
"Emma, my brother—Ben."
I nearly choked on my negroni. "Ben... is your brother?"
"Wait, you know Beniamino?" she shouted in her bell voice over the music.
"Beniamino?" I faced him. "I like that. You never told me your full name."
"I don't use it. And you do already know me—" And there it was, that smirky smile that undid me every time. "Ben Bellini."
Instead of hugging me, his fingers grazed my earring and the curve of my ear—an accident that clearly wasn't.
"Still chasing stars?" he asked, but it sounded like he was asking if I was still thinking about him.
If I remembered that a year ago, during one of those group nights when we still belonged to someone else, we once again ended up shoulder-to-shoulder, just the two of us tracing Orion's Belt.
Me, rambling about starlight being the past arriving late, and then him saying, “All I'm seeing is a striptease situation."
We both laughed at our private jokes and made faces you do with someone who already knows you're an idiot and loves you for it.
I continued with my dissertation, but he wasn't studying the sky anymore; he was watching me. And I pretended I didn't notice.
So yeah, I remembered.
"Always," I said, making sure he knows I don't mean stars.
?
"Beautiful earrings," I hear someone say.
The bass fades just as the silver bodysuit dissolves. I'm back in black.
"Are those sapphires?" One of the passing women asks and I realize my hand is on my ear, wanting it to be Ben's fingers.
"Yes. Thanks," I mutter.
"Come join us." She gestures to the women's table.
I sigh under my breath. Only my second least favorite place to be tonight.
I shuffle across the room, counting left-over glasses along the way to cope, making sure my champagne is mercifully refilled and raised to my mouth by the time I get there.
For the record, joining the circle is easier than I make it. No one cares if you're there. Just let them talk.
The topic turns to secrets: Someone's nanny got pregnant with their janitor, someone eloped to Ibiza, someone's plastic surgery.
And then it hits—that little devil that flares up when I've had just enough of pretending, and I picture myself standing up, clinking the glass.
"May I? I've a secret too. And he's way hotter than the surgeon who did your nose job.
Oh, and when I met my husband? I lied, because there was someone who occupied all my thoughts.
Even though I promised myself he wouldn't. To my defense, it's hard not to fall for a man who carries you in one arm, your shoes in the other, all across the city to Sea Cliff. .."
?
It was the same night, actually early morning by then.
I had his massive hand under my butt for about forty minutes, and it never even trembled, like I was weightless to him.
Then, out of nowhere, he stopped and said, "I'll carry you to your doorstep. Which house is yours?"
I slid down and glanced at the unfamiliar row of houses. "But I don't live here."
"You don't?" He frowned, scanning the street like it might rearrange itself. "I swear you said... Shit. I don't live here either."
"What?" I stared at him. Then started laughing, still a little buzzed, but mostly high on him, the dancing and silly talk we'd carried all night.
Watching me, he broke into laughter too. We weren't even that funny. The usual.
We decided to walk some more, going down the beach, pulled toward the red rust of Golden Gate Bridge paling with dawn.
I always loved coming to this place in the morning, but from then on it would gain another meaning forever.
"Was there anything else you wanted to be as a kid besides writer?" he asked, genuinely curious.
"A scientist." I pointed at the sky. "Of space. I believe in the stars. I think they have a pull on us, you know?"
"Yeah. Experienced it firsthand," he said, glancing at me somewhat suggestively.
I blinked away because the obvious follow-up did he mean me? Did he mean his own life? Did he mean the universe? was probably too much to ask aloud.
"They say we're made out of them," I said instead. "I was always obsessed with that. What's underneath."
He nodded thoughtfully. "I get that. First time I cut into someone in med school, I thought the same thing."
I scrunched my face, shoving his shoulder. "That's gross, and so not romantic."
I bolted barefoot down the hill, feeling the cold sand under my feet, and the wind ripping my hair. I wanted to escape him as much as I wanted him to chase me.
He did. Caught me almost instantly—long legs, unfair reflexes. His hand brushed the small of my back to slow me down and his eyes burned the way they always did when he teased.
"Didn't realize you wanted romance with me."
I stopped laughing too fast and went defensive, naturally. Waved at our outfits, at the deserted stretch of beach, and said, "I feel like we're on some cosmic mission."
His eyes ran over my tight outfit. "Mm. What mission?"
"Saving the world?" I offered, honestly not thinking much of it.
He tilted his head, licking his lips. "That your subtle way of saying you want to repopulate it with me?"
I huffed a shy laugh and took a step back.
He followed.
"You didn't answer my question."
One more step.
"Do you want romance with me?"
Then last, final.
"Do you want me to kiss you?" And suddenly he was there.
I tilted my head up, eyes on his lips, mine parting before I knew it and then—believe it or not—I said, "No."
Shocked even myself.
The smirk he gave me was slow, doubtful. "You sure?"
Was I sure? Hell no. My heart slammed against my ribs like it was ready to come out and scream the truth for me, but still, for reasons fully unknown, I couldn't get it out of me.
When I didn't say anything, he frowned, probably scanning his mental Rolodex for any time this had happened before.
I'm sure it hasn't. No woman hated herself like I did.
"It's just... it's only been a month since David. We dated for four years and, well, I'm still thinking about him." That part was true and I kicked the sand, hating to admit it and hating David's guts for screwing me up. "I don't want to drag anyone through my baggage. I want to be ready."
Ben's jaw tensed, as if he pictured breaking his nose. "David was a dick. He didn't deserve you."
I gave him a fleeting smile, basking in the fact that it made him so furious. "Thanks. Wish I'd figured that out before he started cheating with everyone."
Ben shook his head, falling into slow step again, and that's when he opened up too.
"After my last breakup, I jumped into another relationship. Thought it was different," he said and let out a mocking breath. "No. Same person in a different body. I could've moved mountains for her, and she would've complained they were on the wrong side. Then I found out she cheated."
I frowned. "That sucks. Sorry to hear that."
"I can't stand disloyalty," he hissed, his jaw tightening. Then he looked down and added, "Honestly, I'm still healing."
I thought wow, he didn't even care to be a tough guy, just said it as it was, and that vulnerability made me want to take back everything I said, kiss him, patch up all the broken pieces myself.
"Me too," I whispered. "It cuts deep when your best isn't enough."
"It breaks you. But life goes on, and you hope someone stays while you—"
"Put yourself back together?" I finished for him and he looked at me like he was surprised I guessed it right, then nodded.
"That's rare though," I said.
"Maybe."
The wind whipped against my skin and I shivered.
It took him one second to shrug off his blazer and set it on me while he sat half-naked.
I wanted to ask him if he wasn't cold, but then I realized the blazer was heated like some private sun, and his body ran on its own temperature, so I snuggled it, secretly hoping his scent would ingrain in my skin.
He slipped off his shoes by the heels and walked barefoot toward the water.
"I wish we'd met on a different timeline," he said over his shoulder. "But you know what? I can be there for you. Like... a friend."
"Friend?" I smirked. "What kind of friend? The once-a-year text kind—'Hey, you alive?' but somehow misses your housewarming, your divorce, and your funeral? Or the kind who's in on every joke, every meltdown, every midnight confession?"
"That one." He pointed, smiling. "I could be that for you. Could use one too."
"Thought you had enough friends?"