“Does the museum library meet your standards?” He’s grinning at me, his lips mere inches from mine, and I relish in the anticipation.
“The museum library meets my standards,” I confirm, biting my lip as a sly smile forms on my lips.
His mouth comes down on mine with an urgency that reminds me we’re in public, not in my bedroom, and the thought heightens everything about his touch. His grip on my hair tightens ever so slightly and I welcome it, digging my fingers into his shoulder. His arm winds around my back, pulling us closer, and I take advantage of our proximity, pressing my chest against his. Breaking our kiss, his lips trail my neck first, then continue lower before my logic intercepts my arousal.
“We don’t have time,” I remind him, remembering we’re in the back of this underground library at a very public museum. “Anyone could walk by.”
He looks up at me, his eyes molten chocolate, swirling with unbridled desire that almost makes me take it back. “Or you could let me do this now… and we can finish the rest later.” Helicks his lips before rolling them together, but it does nothing to suppress the eagerness rolling off him. I know he sees the moment I let myself have this, have him, because he stops stifling his smile, holding my gaze as his hand slips up my dress.
I try to calm the flush that is still on my cheeks, sipping my ice water with a vengeance. The heat still radiates there, just like I still feel the intensity of the orgasm Ben just gave me in a library. Alibrary. I suppress the giggle that almost escapes as I remember the “Sh!” I heard just after I finished, and now I’m blushing. Again. I glance up at Ben as he reaches for a fry, popping it into his mouth with amusement.
“Remind me to shock you more often, Beckett.” He smiles smugly, his cockiness surprisingly charming to me at this moment.Not surprisingly, I think to myself.Not surprising at all. I love him.
The thought comes but doesn’t go, and I know worry must be etched in my expression because concern is etched in his.
“What happened, Liv?”
I shake my head vigorously, unwilling to open that can of worms. That thought was intrusive and orgasm induced. I know better than to pay it any mind.
“Just remembered I need to call my mom,” I offer, and it’s not a complete lie. I do need to call her, even if she can’t make the time to call me. He nods, understanding crossing his face, and I feel bad for not being honest. There’s a part of me that feels like he deserves every unbridled truth I have. It’s the same part that thinks I love him.
“The mom who’s never really around?” he recalls our conversation at his favorite diner, and I give him a curt smile.
“The one and only,” I sigh. “It’s not as sad as you think it is. I don’t miss having a present mom because I never had one.” I shrug, hoping my explanation suffices. My mother takes up so little of my mental energy, just as I’m sure I take up very little of hers.
“You don’t think you might have… missed out on something?” His question is cautious, like he still can’t place my attitude toward her.
“I mean, I probably did. It isn’t a love thing… I know she loves me. But I think she felt like she had to have me? And then she did and it was kind of a disappointment. Not me— I could disappoint no one.” I sarcastically roll my eyes, hoping to lighten what I’ve just shared. “Just the whole motherhood thing. She’s there when she needs to be, but otherwise it’s just me and my dad.” He hums in acknowledgement, and I know he’s done pressing.
“Our mom was kind of like that but… the opposite. Like motherhood happened to her and it overwhelmed her. Instead of getting ahead of it or out of it, she kind of just drowned.” He’s looking just past me, a haunted look taking root in his eyes.
“Will never really talked about your parents. I kind of assumed it was because they were perfect.” I scoff at my misguided notions about their family, wondering how different my life would be if I had considered they were anything but.
“Yeah well, he really got the short end of the stick.” He leans back in his chair, running a hand through his hair. “I was so young when she had Will, but I remember how dark it was. How she barely held him, how the nanny would pace up and down trying to calm him down and she would be sitting on our balcony, just staring into the forest. I see it for what it was— depression. But I also wasn’t the kid who got that version of her, for whatever reason. It had nothing to do with Will, it was just chance.”
I think about a young Will, trying to connect with a mother battling her own demons, a mother still learning how to be this new person and effectively being ignored. It breaks my heart all over again.
“I’m so sorry. I never knew.”
“You can’t know something no one ever shared,” he tells me. “Besides, as soon as she was medicated, she tried her best to make it up to him. He can’t always see it; he thinks she’s being overdramatic or overbearing but… she’s just trying to show him she cares.”
“She sounds like a good mother,” I say, because she does, and because I can hear in his voice his need to defend her.
“I mean, like I said, we all have our shit, but she is. We summer in the Hamptons, which Will thinks is just some family tradition, but we only started doing it when I was seven, so he can’t remember a time we didn’t when we were kids,” he’s smiling to himself, a memory playing in his mind. “She would take us crab hunting at night. We’d be scared shitless until we finally caught one. We’d get ice cream sundaes on the boardwalk for breakfast and she’d make us promise not to mention a word to Dan.” He laughs, the fondness of those summers evident in the way his shoulders relax the more he talks. “As we got older, the mother-son outings kind of petered out, except for Albert’s. It’s her favorite place on the boardwalk and Will’s too, so I guess it just kind of stuck.” His eyes gleam with a distant, childlike happiness, and I think he’s right that I missed out on something.
“Having one magical summer is a gift, but having a whole childhood full of them? It’s really beautiful that she gave you guys that.” At my insight his shoulders sag.
“I haven’t been since before I left. Haven’t really seen her, either. Just on the occasional holiday.”
I place my hand over his on our table, tilting my head to the side. “That’s the great thing about a tradition. It doesn’t justdisappear when you stop honoring it; it sits there, just waiting for you to come back to it.”
His eyes squint at me, his mouth turning up at the corners. “Where’d you get this wisdom from, Beckett?”
“Definitely notmymother.” The laugh that escapes me surprises even myself, the realization that we’re sharing such heavy parts of ourselves with each other filling my heart with joy.
“So do you guys have a lot of traditions?”
“Not really. Thanksgiving with me and my dad is the big one, but even Christmas is inconsistent. Sometimes my mom’s side wants to see us, sometimes my dad’s does. But theideaof a tradition makes me feel cozy inside, so I just started making some for myself.”
