by Natalie Dean
He continued to stare at her, and for a moment, she was right back in high school, trying to have a social interaction that was completely out of her depth. Just when she thought she was going to literally melt from her embarrassment, Benji swallowed then gave her a slow nod.
“Sure, that sounds like it’d be nice.”
13
Benji
Benji paced nervously around the family room area of his bachelor’s cabin, practically wearing a hole in the floor but not really caring. It wasn’t like he had his boots on inside. If there was one thing Ma had drilled into him, it was that shoes were for outdoors, not indoors.
He couldn’t believe it. When Dani had marched up to him, all purpose and agitation, he had expected a sort of dressing down for staring at her so often. But it wasn’t like he could help it. Ever since that night, watching her sleep and seeing all the worry and weight that etched into her features even when she was unconscious, he couldn’t get her out of his head. He wanted to comfort her. To make things better.
He also wanted to get to know the smiling, laughing girl he saw in the grocery store. The woman behind all those defenses.
So yeah, he’d taken a couple of looks at her. Or maybe a couple dozen. Who was keeping track? It wasn’t his fault that she was suddenly around a whole lot more, appearing in the corners of his vision like a magnet.
Wait… what had gotten him on his tangent?
Oh right.
She’d asked him out.
It was about the last thing he had expected, and Benji groaned at the memory of how he had just stared at her like an utter buffoon. It was like there was a delay between his ears and his brain, trying to decipher the impossible words coming out of her mouth.
But no, apparently that all had been real, and he’d finally managed to fumble out a response.
He had a date with Dani Touhey.
He’d been floating on a cloud in the two days since, surprised at how excited he was. He hadn’t been on a date in years, mostly because it was a lot of work and seemed like a waste of both time and energy, but he found his attitude doing a quick one-eighty on that.
Except, now that his date was only two hours away, nerves had replaced every single positive emotion he’d had.
What if this went like the first time they met? What if he said something really stupid and she never wanted to talk to him again? What if this was her convoluted and polite way to tell him that she appreciated his help, but he needed to stop mooning over her at her family ranch?
Well… then he would. It would suck, that was for certain, but he would respect her wishes. Sure, it would be difficult, especially since he was so weirdly caught up with getting to know the real her, but that wouldn’t matter. If he made her uncomfortable, then he made her uncomfortable, and he would respect that.
God, he hoped he wasn’t making her uncomfortable.
He grabbed his phone from where it was sitting on his small kitchen counter and checked the time. If he left now, he’d get there a half hour early and that would be… not great. He needed to kill at least twenty minutes, preferably not pacing holes in his own floor.
“Come on, Benji. Get it together.”
Rubbing his face in his hands, he grabbed his suit jacket and headed out the door. He was going for a mix between fancy and casual, with nice pants, a plain T-shirt, and then a single-breasted suit-jacket on top of it. He normally never cared about his clothing. It was just something that his Ma had ordered from a catalog and eventually made its way into his closet. But he found himself wanting to impress Dani.
Which was pretty silly. She seemed to be the type of person who was the least swayed by things like designer clothes and nice cars and riches. In fact, it usually seemed to turn her off.
Not that he was looking to turn her on, or anything. It was just, he was… he wanted to make sure she knew that he put effort into it. Because she was worth the effort. A date with her was—
“Hey, you okay there? You look like you’re about to have an apoplexy.”
Benji looked up to realize that he had already gotten to the main house and was standing in the door with his shoes still on. Bart was lounging in the doorway that led to the kitchen, drinking a soda. Where he had gotten that to drink, Benji didn’t know, because Ma refused to buy such sugary treats and his older brother never went to town on his own.
“Where did you get contraband caffeine from?” he asked, trying to sound cool.
But his muscled brother shook his head and laughed. “Uh-uh. No changing the subject. What’s with the face?”
“This face?” Benji asked playfully. “You mean the one I was born with? The one that has the same DNA makeup as you?”
Bart drained his soda and tucked the bottle under his arm. He knew better than to throw it out where Ma would find it.
“Huh, I ain’t seen you this worked up since Tabitha needed surgery when you were a teen. What’s going on? Normally you’re about as cool as a cucumber.”
“Hey, Tabitha was one of the best cows we had, and I—”
“Changing the subject again.”
Bart crossed over to Benji and clapped him on the shoulder. While he was happy to see his veteran of a brother acting like a normal human being, Benji had gotten used to the foggy-eyed state the large man used to wander around in. It was strange to have him be so lucid and picking up on anything emotional.
“Come on, brother. I know I’ve been weird, but you can talk to me if you need to.” His face morphed into a sort of wistful smile that Benji had never seen before. “I’ve learned a lot about talking about things from Missy. I’m getting better at it.”
Benji saw his chance to get the attention off himself and went for it. Although he mentally complained about his middle child syndrome, he wasn’t sure he was comfortable with all the intense attention from the second oldest of his brothers.
“Oh yeah, how is she doing?”
Bart’s smile went even wider. “Man, so well. She’s back on muckraking and everyone in the barn loves her. She’s been saving up a lot of money and is thinking of opening her own rescue in town. Apparently, a lot of people will get hamsters or rabbits and not know how care-intensive those animals are, and her apartment is getting too full. She’s also thinking of holding classes to help educa—Wait a minute!” His eyes sharpened and he gave Benji a reproachful look. “You did it again.”
Benji snickered and ducked the playful punch his brother threw. “All right. You win. If even Missy can’t distract you, then you’re not gonna let go.”
“You got that right.”
“I have a date.”
Bart’s eyebrows practically shot all the way up to his hairline.
“Come on, it’s not that surprising,” Benji said.
“Benji, no offense, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you show interest in a woman since I shipped off. And even in high school, you seemed to mostly just like flirting with them and playing with their hair.”
“It was braiding their hair, and I liked the way it smelled, and doing something with my hands made me less nervous.”
“Uh-huh. That still doesn’t address the whole woman thing. I guess I assumed you were too chill to ever really care about anything like that.”
“I mean… that’s how I usually am. But with this girl, er, woman, it’s different.”
“Different how?”
Benji shrugged, feeling a bit put on-the-spot. “I don’t know. Different. I can tell she doesn’t give two beans about our money. And she’s impossibly strong and determined. I mean… you remember when there was a tornado when we were real young, and we had to go to the cellar with all our cousins?”
Bart nodded, his expression open and engaged. Huh, Missy really had been working with him on his listening.
“Yeah, I remember that.”
“Well, she’s like that.”
“A tornado?”
Benji shifted from foot to foot, feeling like his words weren’t doing her justice. He was
the fixer guy, the guy who got along with everyone, not a darn poet.
“Yeah.”
“…and her being a tornado makes you want to date her?”
A groan sounded from between his lips. “You’re making it sound terrible! When I say a tornado, it’s not that she’s destructive or kills people like a literal pillar of wind. I just mean it as in… well, she seems unstoppable. Like she’d fling anyone who dared stop her far, far away. There’s this, I dunno, inevitability to her that just draws me in. And I feel like…”
Oh boy, he hadn’t come into this conversation expecting to try to articulate why he couldn’t get the woman out of his head, but he was giving it his best shot.
“I feel like if I can make it through those winds, and that bluster, that there’ll be this perfect calm in the center of it, and that’s right where I want to be.”
To his surprise, Bart smiled again. It wasn’t quite as love-sick as his first grin, but it was quite proud.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you try so hard to describe anything in your entire life.”
Benji felt himself blush at that. “Yeah, well it’s important to me. I mean, I’d like it if she’d be important to me.”
Another supportive pat from his brother that felt more like a slap. Benji was pretty hardened from ranch life, but geez his brother was big. He’d clearly been hogging all the Thor-genes that were running through their heritage.
“Only one way to find out if she will. What time’s the date?”
Benji looked at his phone. “Huh, I actually should head out about now.”
“What’d you stop by here for if it was time to go already?”
“I came by to distract myself from feeling nervous. So, thanks. Your need to make this whole thing incredibly awkward was actually useful.”
Bart chuckled. “Well, you know me, I live to serve.”
“That’s about right.” Benji looked over his brother, taking him in from head to foot. Of course, the veteran was still undergoing treatment, but it was like he actually had his brother back. It was nice. “And I’m glad. You know that, right?”
“Huh, glad for what?”
“That you lived.”
A soft, unguarded expression crossed the man’s face. “You know what? Me too.”
It was entirely unplanned, but the two of them both leaned in for a hug. Benji felt his chest squeeze a bit, knowing that Dani would probably give anything to hug her injured brothers like he was right now.
Far too many times he had been forced to think about what it would be like to lose Bart. Now that the military man was safe at home, he wanted Dani to feel that same sort of solace. He wished he could march to the hospital and cure the two men he’d never met, but that was well out of his power.
The two pulled away and Benji gave his brother a solid nod then headed out the door. Actions often spoke louder than words, so that hug said everything much better than he ever could.
Benji pulled up, parking in the drive and walking up to the front door. If he was younger, he would have asked permission from the parents to take their daughter out—parents had always loved that—but he figured that Dani was a grown woman and wouldn’t appreciate that in the slightest.
So instead he settled on texting her that he was there while he walked up to the door. That way she’d have a little extra warning to put her shoes on and look in the mirror one last time. Although he couldn’t really imagine confident, prickly Dani giving two flying flips what he thought of her. In fact, he wouldn’t be surprised if she answered the door in her over—
The door opened, and his thoughts cut off as he realized who was standing there, looking up at him with the same uncertainty he was feeling.
It was Dani, of course. But it also was so completely not Dani that he could only stare at her for several solid moments. Her hair was loose from its always-present braid or ponytail, falling around her head and shoulders in soft waves. It was much longer than he ever thought it was, falling just to the neckline of the dress she was wearing.
That dress.
It was the prettiest shade of peach he had ever seen, cut close to her body on top and then flaring out in the rockabilly style. It hugged her body like a revelation, and he could see black stockings on her thick, shapely legs to match the lacey shrug over her muscled arms. Or were they thigh highs? He supposed there was only one way to find out…
“You’re here right on the dot,” she said.
Thankfully she interrupted his thoughts before they went somewhere they very much should not go. Especially not on a first date. It was only then he noticed she was wearing makeup. Lipstick, mascara, whatever it was that women did to make themselves look like God was shining a spotlight on one of his favorite creations. It was a simple, beautiful effect that he guessed probably was anything but simple to do.
Wow, she looked beautiful. All done up like a present and just for him. It made his blood rush through his body, and he coughed to cover his shocked reaction.
He didn’t think it worked.
“You look lovely,” he said, keeping his eyes on her pretty face and not swooping lower to the lacey, delicate neckline of the dress she was wearing. But Lord on High, it certainly was a temptation. They didn’t build women like her as often anymore. Or if they did, the world shamed them so much that they hid away, swaddled under too many layers.
It really was a sad state of affairs. Because the only thing that was more beautiful than a woman like Dani, was a woman who knew exactly what she was worth and loved herself to pieces.
“You are beautiful,” he managed to sputter, feeling like an absolute fool.
He was normally so funny, but all he felt like he could do was point and say things like he was a Cro-Magnon. You Woman. Smell good. We go food? Ugh. How embarrassing.
“Thanks,” she said, lifting her chin and squaring her shoulders in that way he liked.
Whenever she did it, he always felt like she was about to march off to battle.
“I figured since you were gracious enough to give me your time, I might as well doll myself up a bit.”
“Oh, well, you’re a doll no matter what you’re wearing.”
Wait. Had he really said that? What was wrong with him? He was twenty-seven years old, not a sixty-year-old man!
But to his surprise, Dani flushed at that. “Well, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a doll that’s built like me but thank you.”
That’s because you’re one of a kind.
He just barely resisted saying the cheesy line and instead offered her his arm.
“Shall we?”
They had agreed to go to dinner together. It allowed for more talking than a movie, and there was a nice diner in town.
Granted, it was the only diner in town, but that was all right by him. With his Ma’s good home cooking, they rarely went out, so he’d never gotten a chance to get tired of the greasy-spoon fair like most of the other locals.
He walked her to his truck, only letting go of her to open her door. He missed the contact instantly. Her hand was so soft, and she smelled like citrus. If he didn’t know better, he would think that she was made specifically to attract every part of him.
But that would be selfish. And he wasn’t selfish.
…even if she made him want to be a little selfish.
Once she was comfortably inside, he shut the door and crossed around to the driver’s side. It felt like his heart was beating a million miles a minute as he got in beside her and turned on the ignition.
His radio blared loud, startling the both of them, and she let out the cutest yelp before he could reach over and shut it off. Flushing a bit, he gave her what he hoped was a charming smile.
“Sorry about that. I drove over with my windows down.”
“That’s all right,” she said, hand over her heart. “I like to do that same thing. Granted, usually when I’m not so done up. It takes a whole lot of effort to make me look this presentable for public interaction.”
&
nbsp; “I bet,” he agreed, flattered that she had even tried at all for just a silly date with him.
But then he realized what he was agreeing with and quickly tried to backpedal.
“I mean, not that it would take a great deal of effort to make you look presentable. I’m just saying I guess I could understand it being inconvenient to get yourself into a dress and hosiery and—”
“Relax,” she said with a low chuckle. “And you’re right. Pantyhose are always a pain so I never wear them. These are stockings I got on clearance online. They have a faux garter belt attached to them so I don’t have to worry about them rolling down, and my legs are short enough that I don’t get thigh rub.”
She said it all so frankly, and Benji just focused his whole mind on driving into town and not exactly what thigh highs with attached garters might look like on her generous figure.
“Oh. I didn’t know that was a thing.”
“Me either, until I found them. I tell you, I don’t know what fat women did before the internet. I love several plus size shops they have in the city, but we don’t have a single one in our town.”
“You’re not fat,” Benji retorted instantly. He didn’t even think on that one.
“What? But I am.”
He opened his mouth to object further. He didn’t like her saying anything negative about herself when she basically looked like an enchanting and dangerous siren sitting right there next to him.
“You know, fat isn’t a bad thing. Or even a bad word. It’s just a descriptor. Just like someone might say you’re tall, or lanky, or have a nice face. I’m short, fat, and I have pretty great lips.”
She did have pretty great lips. Lips that he was very much not looking at while he watched the road.
“People treat it like an insult, or that it’s shameful, but it’s not. It’s just an adjective like any other. If people could just realize that and move on with their lives, well everyone would be a whole lot happier.”
“Fair enough,” Benji said with a nod as he thought it over.
He knew that the world liked to shame fat people, from concern over their health to discrimination with jobs and all of that, but he never really thought of the how, why or much else about it. He guessed there was a lot of negative connotations tied up in there that didn’t need to be. Fat was just that. Fat. Neither good nor bad nor really having any morality at all.