“Hi,” he said.
I looked up at him, thankful our backs were to Jane, because I knew that the look on my face would give her way too much ammunition. “Hi.”
“You doing okay?” he asked, voice low so it wouldn’t carry.
“Okayish,” I said. “You?”
He exhaled. “Okayish too. I think.”
“That was a lot.”
He frowned. “Too much?”
I moved the wooden spoon to my left hand and wrapped my right one around his elbow, careless now of what Jane thought. “No. Not too much. Never too much.”
He leaned toward me. “Come over tonight.”
I stared at him from inches away. “I thought you didn’t...?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t have to be like that. Truthfully? This was almost too much for me. I could use some company after it all.”
“I’ll come over,” I told him.
Chapter 16: Ben
Istepped out of the front door at the sight of Ella’s truck turning onto my driveway. The night air nipped at my skin with teeth made of frost. I took a deep breath, feeling like my lungs were about to freeze. Our local news station warned that temperatures were going to plummet over the next few days as a polar vortex roared down from Canada.
They had a name for it up here: killing cold.
Ella pulled into the golden nimbus of porchlight and put the truck in park. She cut the engine and hopped out, and I took the stairs down to meet her.
She turned to me as I approached. “I am wearing the world’s ugliest underwear.”
What the fuck?
Her breath misted in front of her face when she spoke. “I thought I would throw that out there now, since you said yesterday that you don’t think that, uh…” she looked at me, shifted her gaze toward the vicinity of my belt, and then gestured back and forth between us several times, her hand at crotch level, “…that this is a good idea.”
I started to smile but bit my lip when I realized she was dead serious.
I will not laugh. I will not laugh.
Ella opened the back door of her truck. “Anyway, I felt like there was some tension at Jane’s earlier, maybe, and after everything you just talked about, I’m not sure if you’re emotionally vulnerable right now, and I don’t want to take advantage of that or anything.”
I wasn’t emotionally vulnerable, but it was sweet of her to care so much about my mental state that she was trying to sabotage herself with the mention of hideous panties. And yet, somehow, it made me want her even more. How to tell her that her plan was backfiring?
She unbuckled the dogs. They jumped down, gave me sniff in greeting, and then raced out into the night, crashing through the snow.
“Is your underwear supposed to be a deterrent?” I asked, unable to keep the teasing edge from my tone.
She shut the truck door and turned to me. “Yes. Or, they would be, if you saw them.” Her eyes squeezed shut for a second. She looked like she might be wincing. “They’re, like, Great Aunt Muriel level ugly.”
I ambled over and smiled down at her. “I don’t have a Great Aunt Muriel.”
“Then picture the largest, plainest pair of threadbare women’s underwear you possibly can.” She held out her hands to demonstrate their size. Impressive. “Now cover them in paint stains – long story, please don’t ask.”
I wanted to ask. So bad.
“And imagine them on the oldest woman you know.”
