Gen looks at me suspiciously, flashing a saccharine smile. “I’ve been everywhere, Livy. I know my way around.”
“Particularly places you’re not wanted, it seems,” I retort.
“Wanted…. unwanted… guess it depends on who you ask,” Gen taunts, batting her eyelashes. If I didn’t have two unfortunate years of experience with her, I’d assume her audacious comments were an act. But I knew better.
I rub my fingertips together to warm them up, hearing Lily’s voice in my head,“Don’t be mean to her Liv, she’s sad, like your dad says— sad people tend to prey on the happy.”
I push her out of my mind. “If you’re trying to imply that my boyfriend wants you here— I don’t know if you noticed, but he completely ignored your offer to get a drink and went outside with his brother. I know you may just be immune to his constant rejection to your advances by now, but watching it in real time is truly mortifying for everyone involved.” We square off, both shooting each other venomous looks before she shakes her head at me, raising her eyebrows slightly, as if I know nothing, as if I’m missing some sort of key piece of information, and when it comes to their relationship I probably am.
I try to ignore the women clamoring for their chance to be a part of Will’s life, but when it comes to him and Gen, how close they are, how she seems to know everything before I do when it comes to Will, it becomes difficult to fight off all of my insecurities. Especially when the alarm bells are ringing in my head that the rumors swirling about the two of them just might be true.
Grant gingerly puts his hand on my shoulder. “C’mon Liv, she’s not worth it.” He stares bullets at Gen and something in her face shifts. It’s almost indistinguishable, but I can tell those words from Grant meant something to her as he pulls me away.
“I’ll take a Lily.” I’m thankful for the heavy pour the bartenders here seem prone to. Grant stepped outside saying there was something he needed to take care of, and I assume it was related to a girl considering the complete lack of context he gave me. Alone at the bar, I take the drink, picking the lily out of the glass and rolling it between my fingertips in an attempt to warm them up.
“Can I just get an IPA?” A deep voice behind me finally inspires me to look up. I’m met with Ben’s heated brown eyes, the darkness of them mysterious in all the right ways. I feel the pulse in my throat quicken.
To be frank, Ben is handsome in a way Will can’t measure up to. Although Will’s boyishness is charming, flutter inducing even, Ben has a darkness to him that draws something deep inside of me. His devilish, molten gaze is so intense you might not be able to find your way out of it. His coolness starkly contrasts the warmth that rolls off him, enveloping me like a wave in the middle of July.
I sense his broad chest crowd the space behind me as he reaches over me to grab his beer, feeling his breath blow in steady streams against the back of head. My shoulders brush against his hard chest as he moves to sit next to me, and a breath hitches in my throat. The coolness that emerges behind my back is quickly replaced by his persistent warmth at my side as hetakes the seat next to me. His eyes flicker with worry as I stare back, too lost in all that he is to speak.
I swallow the lump that’s been lodged in my throat from the moment he sat down.
“Do you think anyone realized that drink is basically just a gin and tonic,” he asks, taking a long sip from his beer. I smile into my drink feeling his dark eyes assessing me.
“How’s Will doing?” I ask, staring straight ahead at the liquor lined shelves of the bar, knowing if I meet his eyes the warmth of the liquor and his molten gaze will make it impossible to hide the heat from my face. He sighs and I feel him shift in the seat beside me.
“Well, he’s definitely drunk,” he glances over in Will’s direction and we both spot him making small talk with a blonde girl in a shirt barely covering her chest. I roll my eyes and shake my head, not even surprised, feeling my face burn with shame, a knot forming in my throat.
Ben rests one arm on the bar, his muscled forearm making me feel lightheaded. I shouldn’t be looking at him like this, but there is something about the alcohol flowing through my system, and knowing my boyfriend is talking up a girl across the bar, that makes me feel less guilty about checking Ben out. The short sleeves of his heathered, forest green t-shirt cut right beneath the slight swell of his bicep, his muscles subtly twining down the length of his arm. I instantly feel his closeness, his scent perfectly capturing the humidity right before it rains. Leaves, dirt, air— a smell that only the earth could concoct. His hand lightly laying beside his glass, begging to be held, causes me to shift a bit in my seat.
“So is the bar remembrance thing a yearly thing— or?” We both know he’s trying to change the subject and I’m glad he’s picked up on the fact that I don’t want to acknowledge Will’s whereabouts.
“No,” I sigh, a frown stealing its way on my face and I bite my lip. “Grant put this together. Silly that I hadn’t thought of it before… it’s exactly the kind of thing she would’ve liked.” My mind drifts to the night Lily and I stumbled into a happy hour in the Hamptons. We were high school juniors, but Lily was able to twist her tiny frame and bat her eyes enough to earn us a few drinks on the house. Before rounding the block to make the wobbly walk back to the house, she spotted a bunch of wildflowers, ripped them out of the ground, and ran back to shove them at our gracious bartender.
“When did you guys meet?” His voice has softened, the only hint of any shyness on his behalf. I try to ignore the fact that Will tends to avoid conversations about my best friend and her sudden death. I justify it by the thought that Will was there when everything happened— he went to Lily’s funeral with me, he held my hand. Ben’s kindness in this moment is disarming, and I have never been disarmed.
“Aren’t I supposed to be the one interviewing you?” I say, cracking a smile that I hope conceals my sadness, and suddenly I feel the tears brimming in my eyes. I quickly blink them away while fixing my eyes back toward the liquor bottles.
What is going on with me?Since when am I emotionally disarmed by a complete stranger. Sure— a handsome stranger, a stranger who happens to be the brother of my boyfriend of two years, the boyfriend who is currently flirting with some random girl at my best friend's pseudo memorial— but still, this isn’t like me.
“I assume you were friends for a long time.” He says again hesitantly, as if he realizes his questions may have overstepped my boundaries.
A few tears fall from my eyes, I wipe them off before Ben can get a good look at a girl who’s apparently crumbling before him. “You could say that.”
I suddenly have the intrusive thought to lay my head on his shoulder, burying my face into his neck. He seems like he would feel soft yet firm. I straighten in my seat trying to shake off all the emotions flowing through me about Lily and apparently now Ben.
“I’m sorry Will is…” he trails off, adeptly changing the subject.
“A dick?” I laugh, and he reaches out, wiping a tear off my right cheek as if we’ve known each other for years and didn’t just meet a few days earlier. What's stranger is that I let him. My face flushes against his warmth and I feel a hum of electricity engulfing us as if there is some magnetic field pulling me toward him.
Our closeness registers as I take in the crowded bar with all of our peers and I sit myself firmly on my stool, careful to subtly correct the way I’d been leaning into Ben.
“Yeah, I guess you know him better than I do these days.” I glimpse a hint of sadness, but he quickly ushers it away.
“Ha,” I literally say as I scoff, “I know him so well that in the two years we’ve been together, this week was the first time I’ve met a single family member. The Chapmans are always too busy for me…” That’s how it seemed. Almost like they went out of their way to avoid me.
His eyebrows pull together, then relax in resignation. “Well, lucky for you, I’m not a Chapman. You don’t want to know them anyway.” His soft smile buffers whatever sadness dwells just beneath the surface of those words and I can’t help but offer a sympathetic one back.
