I hit send too quickly and immediately wanted to punch myself in the kidney. Adorable? Really, Ella?
Hopefully he didn’t read that and think I meant he was literally adorable. Hopefully he knew it was just an expression. That I used with people I knew. When I was being sarcastic and wanted to tease them about their naiveté. Because he and I went way back, so of coursehe knew that’s what I meant and not that I called him adorable in seriousness.
Oh, God. Why hadn’t he responded yet?
After what felt like a small eternity, my phone dinged.Ha! I’ll make sure to close off the rooms with fresh paint on the walls. And put away the fancy china.
He gave me a “Ha!”. That meant he knew it was a joke, right?
RIGHT?
I held my fingers over the screen and struggled to come up with a response. Neurotic wasn’t a word I’d use to describe myself, but after only a few interactions with this man, I was turning into a hot mess. And not in a good way.
I took a deep breath and typed,Ok, we’re leaving now. See you in a few.
Straight to the point. No way it could be misinterpreted. Good. I’d stick to texts like this in the future. Because otherwise, neurosis.
I spent the drive to his house deciding how to behave in front of him. “Act like yourself” didn’t apply here, since the whole pathological need to be liked thing would be detrimental to the leave-him-the-hell-alone approach I had settled on.
The trouble was, I had no idea how to not act like myself and still seem natural. I didn’t want him to think I was a weirdo if I came across as stiff and quiet when I’d been anything but during our first meeting. Not because I worried that it would make him dislike me, but because I didn’t want my sudden personality transplant to make him think that I was acting suspicious. Like, in a “My name is Ella Jones, and I’m going to post every word you say to me on the interwebs afterward” kind of way.
Maybe I could just be myself, but…less?
“Ugh, what does that even mean?” I asked thedogs.
Sam craned his head around and gave me a look like,I’m sorry, hooman. I cannot help you.
Or at least that’s how I interpreted it.
I was on my own then.
In the end, I decided to be more cautious than normal. To stick with self-deprecation and avoid teasing. I didn’t want him to think that I was flirting with him either. Or trying to ingratiate myself with him in some way. I suddenly felt for anyone with social anxiety.
I took the back way around the hill again, out of an abundance of caution. The dogs perked up when we neared Jack’s driveway, recognizing their surroundings. I rolled past his property, and their excited yips turned into whines. The look Fred gave me in the rearview mirror was borderline accusatory. Their complaining immediately cut off when I pulled into Ben’s driveway, because,ooh, new place!
I drove slowly, taking in the building’s façade. It was a huge, square, Federal-style farmhouse with a wraparound porch on the first floor. The last time I’d driven by, before Ben moved in, it had been yellow, but now it was a crisp, bright white with black shutters to add some contrast. The window frames were also black, and the elaborate corbels that had once connected the columns of the porch and the peaks of the roofline had been replaced with clean, straight pieces of darkly stained wood that matched the decking, giving the place a more modern finish. I really liked it.
It was funny how just a few coats of paint and some small upgrades could change the whole feel of a place. Before, it had looked dilapidated, run down. Now it looked lived in. Not merely a house, but a home. A very large home, that rambled back from its original square frame, telling the story of its past through the various additions that had been added to accommodate for a growing family.
The front door opened as I eased the truck to a stop. I looked away from it before Ben could appear and prepared myself for the reality of seeing him again. It was one thing to tell yourself to treat someone like a normal human when they looked like the offspring of a Polynesian god. It was another thing entirely to stick to that when faced with them.
I glanced back and saw him loping down the steps. He wore boots, faded jeans, and a long-sleeved green button-down. The wind picked up, flattening his clothes to his body, giving me a great view of the copious amount of muscle that rolled and bunched as he walked. It was like the male equivalent of the infamous Marilyn Monroe white dress scene fromThe Seven Year Itch.To make matters worse, his hair was loose, falling just past his shoulders in a glorious, wavy mass that was lighter at the tips than the roots. It fanned out around him like he was in a goddamn music video.
A gunmetal gray sky hung low over us. The smell of snow permeated the air. The wind was cold enough to steal your breath away. And yet, somehow, it was like the summer sun had broken through and shined a spotlight down on Ben. That deep bronze skin. That salt-bleached hair. That mega-watt smile.
“Oof.” It felt like I’d been punched in the stomach.
Stop it,I told myself.Think of all that he’s been through. Think of why he’s probably here. Not to be ogled by you.
I took a deep breath, turned off the truck, opened my door, and climbed out. “Hi, Ben.”
“Hi. Thanks again for this,” he said, coming over to the driver’s side.
He towered over me, one of the few men I’d ever met that made me feel small in comparison. This close, the green of his shirt brought out the green in his eyes.
Great. Just wonderful.
“You’re welcome,” I said, looking away. “You might want to stand back for a second while I let the dogs out. This is a new place, so they might be a little…enthusiastic.”
