She hiccupped, and I leaned my head on her shoulder, smirking. “I love you too.” Then I whispered, “Do we know he isn’t a serial killer?”
Cameron shrugged. “He’s so freaking hot.”
I laughed.
“All right, girls,” Ben said. “I don’t know where I’m going.”
“Doesn’t look like it’s going to be home with me,” Cameron said.
Ben interlaced his fingers with mine. “Doesn’t look like it. I think I’ve found the last girl I ever want to go home with.”
I closed my eyes, feeling myself smile, and took a deep breath, wanting to memorize the moment. My best friend, the new love of my life. And then I groaned.
“What?” Ben asked. “Was that too much?”
“For me,” Cameron said. “In fact, I’m probably going to barf on the floorboard. But I would assume she just remembered she has a fiancé that is busting up her plans to shack up with you tonight.”
I slapped her leg. “That is so tacky, Cameron. I am not going to do that,” I hissed.
“Rip off the Band-Aid, baby,” Cameron said, producing two beers from her purse and handing me one.
We clinked the bottles, and I looked at Ben, feeling my heart melt. Whatwasit about him?
“Hey,” he said. “If you aren’t sure, I can just take you home. You can sleep on it.” He stopped at a stoplight, put his lips softly on mine and said, “But I promise you that I wouldn’t let you dump your fiancé if I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be together.”
Cameron laughed. “God, you’re really too much for me. We never would have made it. But Ann, she loves all that sappy horseshit.”
I called Holden, feeling stone-cold sober. “The wedding is off,” I said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you.”
And do you know what he said back? “Is this about the cruise control?”
“Yeah, Holden,” I said. “It’s totally about the cruise control.”
Then I hung up, Cameron cranked up the radio and the three of us sang “Don’t Stop Believing” at the top of our lungs. We dropped Cameron off, and, before she half fell out of the truck, she drunk whispered, “Listen. Holden schmolden. Ben Hampton is a foooxxxx. And you just know he’s crazy awesome in bed. Text me later.”
Then she slammed the door. “Will she be all right?” Ben asked.
I laughed. “Oh yeah. This is basically sober for her.”
He put the truck into gear and said, “She’s right, you know.”
“How’s that?”
“I am awesome in bed.”
I raised my eyebrow. “Oh, yeah? You sure about that?”
He shrugged. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
It disturbed me how much I wanted to know. But I also got thosenervous butterflies in my stomach because I hoped he knew I wasn’t going to sleep with some guy I just met, no matter how taken with him I was. Which is why I was so relieved when Ben pulled into the parking lot under the bright yellow sign of Waffle House. “I’m in more of a sleep mood than a waffle mood,” I said.
But Ben took my hand and pulled me out through the driver’s seat anyway. And I realized that I would have followed that man anywhere.
We walked into the brightly lit restaurant and Ben called, “Hey, Hilda,” to the aproned woman standing behind the counter with her pad in her hand. She had to have been in her seventies, and wouldn’t have weighed eighty-nine pounds soaking wet. But she lit up like a schoolgirl when she saw Ben.
“Well, hey there, handsome,” she said, her voice raspy from what sounded like decades of smoking. “The usual?”
He nodded.
