‘When was that?’ Her words rumble down the line like a giggle.
‘Never have I ever peed in a hot tub,’ I say, repeating Ben’s line from the game we played long ago. It was a chilly autumn day, and we were submerged to our shoulders, the inflatable table bobbing between us, filled with sodas and chips rather than the beers we’d usually sneak when Mel’s parents—and Ben—weren’t around.
‘He was fourteen,’ she says, laughing still.
‘And old enough to know better.’ What kind of person even admits to that kind of stuff? I’ll tell you who—Ben Monroe. The kid was a law onto himself. It’s like his parents never set boundaries for their blond-haired, blue-eyed son. And as a consequence, he became a pain in my ass. At least, until I left home for college.. . only to never make it to the US after meeting Liam that summer and opting to stay in the UK.
‘Why can’t he stay at the barracks?’ He’d joined the Army after university, that much I do recall, but I haven’t seen him in years.
‘Would you want to live in the hospital on your vacation time?’
She might have a point. ‘But I don’t even know him. Not these days.’
‘Of course, you know him.’ She scoffs. ‘Just because you haven’t seen him in a few years doesn’t mean you don’tknowhim.’
‘Why can’t he go stay at a hotel?’ Even I can hear how whiny that sounds. ‘Surely, he must have some friends he can hang with.’ Or maybe not because he was a vindictive shit. ‘Oh!’ I add suddenly, a thought occurring. ‘Your parents!’
‘I’m sure they would love him to go home, but he said he needs to stay close to the barracks. I think he said it’s in Regent’s Park. Im sure he’ll visit but he doesn’t want to stay with them. You know what Mum is like.’ Mel’s mom is lovely, though a little over the top. And I suppose Regent’s Park makes sense. It’s not too far away from where I live.
‘How long has he been away this time?’
‘Ten months,’ she answers quietly. ‘And he said he needed somewhere to stay to decompress.Needed,’ she reiterates. ‘And, well, I need you to do this for me because I said he could stay with me.’
‘And now your house is inhabitable,’ I answer flatly.
‘Exactly. And he doesn’t like Tim,’ she adds, halting my next suggestion that he stay at Tim’s place. ‘I don’t want to make things uncomfortable for him, not when he’s been living God knows where and doing God knows what all for his Queen and country.’
‘So you’d rather make things uncomfortable for me?’
‘How can you say that?’
‘He’s practically a stranger, Mel. Someone I no longer know!’ Maybe she should put in a call to Buckingham Palace to see if Queen Lizzie can spare him a room.
‘That’s not true. The three of us were practically raised together. That sort of makes you his sister, too.’
‘I must’ve been the sister he didn’t like,’ I grumble in an undertone.
‘What are you talking about? He used to follow you around like a puppy.’
‘One prone to bite my ankles and piss on my shoes.’
‘You know, he often asks how you are when he calls.’
‘Really?’ I answer sceptically.
‘Of course. Why are you being so weird about this?’
It might be the fact thatLittle Ben—as he was referred to in the neighbourhood in reference to his beanpole physique resembling Big Ben, the clock tower at Westminster—was just plain mean to me. I think I’m still scarred. Whether he was flushing my fish when I was twelve or pushing snails down the back of my shorts when I was sixteen or yelling in front of my first (and only) boyfriend that I had tube socks stuffed in my bra, he was a blight on my existence. And that kind of meanness doesn’t dilute with age.
Oh, God. That awful nickname he used to call me by.
And yes, okay, I was a late developer. Hence the socks.
‘Come on, Pen. He’s just spent months fighting for our liberties, and I’ve let him down. You don’t want to let him down, too, do you?’
‘You are a wicked, wicked person, Melody Monroe.’ She knows she’s got me because I, Penelope Abigail Ballantine, always do the right thing. Even when I don’t want to. It’s a curse, let me tell you.
‘You’re absolutely right. I am a wicked, wicked person. Possibly because my parents gave me a stripper’s name.’
