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The tears start falling, but I’m laughing now.
“Why are you crying?” He wipes my cheek with his thumb.
I start to turn away. “Because it’s embarrassing!”
He cups my face with his hand, and I feel the trail of his other hand as it slides from my waist, and up my back. There is a fire in his eyes, so intent on mine, his head dipping ever so slowly towards my lips. We are magnets pulling towards each other. I lift my head as he lowers his.
“What’s going on?”
Chapter 20
Mark
Millie and I both freeze. My blood turns to ice. I don’t know how long Ben has been standing there or how much he has heard. When it comes to Ben, it’s best you approach things as if he were a woodland creature. Slow movements. No loud sounds.
Millie steps away from me and puts a good three feet between us. I stand completely still, unable to move. I knew that this conversation would need to happen someday; I mean she is his sister, but I really wasn’t thinking it would be tonight. Not on our first actual date.
“Hey, Ben.” My voice seems way too high right now. “What are you doing here?”
His eyes are dark and calculating. “Picking up some ginger root for Belinda, she’s been having some rough morning sickness. What are you two doing here? Together?”
Millie thinks faster on her feet than I do. Just as I’m about to come clean about everything, she jumps in.
“Mark asked me to help him fix up his new place. He mentioned he liked some items that you and Belinda have so I brought him here to see if we could find anything.” She pauses. When Ben doesn’t say anything, she continues, “Since we had to come after work, I suggested we meet up for dinner and then walk around.”
I’m stunned. How did she come up with that so quickly? I don’t like lying to anyone, especially my best friend, but something of this magnitude will take a gentle hand. It may or may not need a full PowerPoint presentation complete with charts and graphs. Ben looks at me and then back to Millie. He’s not buying it. At least not fully.
“You two were looking pretty chummy on the dance floor.” Maybe it’s my guilty conscience, but I swear his eyes are burning into my soul.
That’s it. We’re caught. Game over.
Millie’s voice breaks through my panic. “Have you ever known anyone to get chummy during an REO Speedwagon song?”
“I guess not,” Ben concedes. His whole demeanor shifts. “So did you find anything you like?”
All eyes are on me. “Where?”
“At the market,” he says slowly, like it’s obvious, because, well, it is. We are literally standing in the middle of the market. “Millie said she was helping you fix up your place.”
That all-too-familiar pit is forming in my stomach again.
“We haven’t been here too long. Haven’t made it that far yet. We had dinner and were just finishing some ice cream while listening to the band play when we ran into you.” At least that part wasn’t a lie.
“Cool. Well, I need to get back home with this ginger.” He’s about to go when he turns back to face us. “There are lots of cool things here. I think we came and looked at least four or five times before we decided on any specific pieces. Let me know what pieces we have that you liked, and I can give you their information.”
“That would be great,” Millie says. “I’m sorry Belinda isn’t feeling well. Let me know if she needs anything.”
He nods.
“I’ll call you this weekend sometime,” I call as he turns and starts to walk back towards the parking lot. I hold my breath until I see him exit towards a row of cars.
I turn towards Millie. “Did I ask you to help me fix up my place?”
She shrugs. “I panicked. It was the first thing I could come up with.”
“No, I’m the one who panicked.”
“You do realize that I’m going to have to fix up your place now right? Because Ben will notice.”
