We’re the same age. My breath expels from me. “How did you know?”
“Your face,” he says with amusement. “Your thoughts are written all over it.”
“You are far too perceptive.” I move around a puddle and Ben keeps the umbrella over my head, even as his feet splash through the water. “Don’t get your feet wet!”
“They’ll survive.” He’s laughing at me now. “You’re a worrier, aren’t you?”
My throat tightens. “Maybe. I like to be prepared for things that might happen, I guess. I take it you’re not?”
Ben shrugs. “I used to be. But then I realized that things are going to happen, whether you worry about them or not. Life is too short to waste the good times worrying about when the bad things might hit.”
I stare down at the ground. “What if the bad things already hit?”
“Lightning never strikes twice.”
My throat tightens. “That’s not actually true, you know. It does. Often.”
Ben pauses beside me. I glance up to see him looking up at the early dawn sky. “I know. But does worrying about it change the fact that it might happen?”
No, it doesn’t.
But I can’t stop worrying. Can’t turn it off.
It’s always there.
I jump when warm fingers slip into mine. Ben squeezes my hand. “When was the last time you did something completely random, Emmy Marsters?”
I frown. “Like what?”
He shrugs. “Like… dancing?”
Blinking, I watch as his fingers slip from mine. He backs away from me, twirling my umbrella in his hands. “It’s raining.”
But Ben Bennett smiles back at me. “Only a little. Do something ridiculous with me, Emmy.”
I poke my tongue into my cheek. “Like what?”
He holds up my umbrella triumphantly. “Dance with me. In the rain.”
My brows knit together. “That’s ridiculous.”
He points the umbrella at me. “That is the point. To be absolutely, positively ridiculous.”
He’s backing away, and sudden nerves clench in my stomach as I glance up. “People might see us.”
It’s a weak argument, and he knows it, his smile growing. “Let them. Besides, this area is mostly commercial.”
“I can’t dance.”
His head tilts. “You wouldn’t be lying to me, would you?”
My face flushes. He’swaytoo perceptive. “There’s no music.”
“Not to worry.” His words are triumphant, and I watch in growing disbelief as he strolls over to a lamppost. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Ben—,”
He launches into a song, and my mouth falls open as he starts dancing down the wet street, twirling my umbrella in his hands. His voice is a deep, smooth baritone that rings out as he dances through a puddle, kicking the water up into sprays as I step out of range. “I really don't see the point in this.”
