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 backin 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.
