by Lauren Layne
I don’t mean to sell Lance short. He was there for me the entire time.
But it was Ben who really got me through that terrible time.
Ben who’d grieved with me, as though my mom and dad were his parents.
I’ve met Ben’s actual parents a handful of times. At parent weekends, for graduation, and so forth. I even stayed at his dad and stepmom’s for a full week one summer when I went out to visit. They were nice.
His mom is nice, too, in a controlling, intense kind of way.
But my parents? My parents are awesome. My house was totally the house where other kids wanted to come over to do homework, and where my volleyball team always wanted to do their slumber parties. Not because they were lax, Do whatever you want, kids! parents, but because they talked to me and my friends like we were people, not children.
And none of my friends benefited quite so much from their coolness as Ben. From the day I took him home my first month of college for a home-cooked meal and to do laundry (dorm laundry rooms are the worst), Ben had taken to my parents, and they to him.
I’m an only child, and though they never once indicated that they wanted more kids, I definitely got the impression that if they had a son, they’d want him to be like Ben.
He never tries to kiss their ass or impress them, and that only impresses them all the more.
And they’d never, ever admit it—again, because they’re cool like that—but I’m pretty sure they preferred Ben to Lance.
Just slightly.
They were never anything less than perfectly nice to Lance when I brought him home for dinner, but my dad’s offbeat humor went over Lance’s head more often than not. And Lance, while well-intentioned, was far too deferential to my mother, who prefers someone who talks straight with her.
So tonight, I bring my parents a treat.
I bring them Ben.
“You sure it’s cool that I’m tagging along?” Ben asks for the twelfth time, as I pull my Prius into my parents’ driveway.
“Actually, no,” I say, giving him a sad look. “Maybe stay in the car?”
“You know what I mean,” he says, grabbing the bottle of wine we brought with us and shoving open the car door. “Usually Lance goes with you to family dinners.”
I pause and look at him in surprise. His tone isn’t quite petulant, but it’s…something, and for the first time I wonder if Ben felt left out when Lance and I started getting serious, and I started taking him over to family dinners.
In college, I always brought Ben with me when I went home, but after graduation, Lance and I started to feel like more of a thing, so I brought him instead. Obviously. He was my boyfriend.
“You know you could have come with us,” I say, shutting the car door.
“Yeah, that would have been awesome. Sitting in the backseat on the way over. Squeezing in a fifth chair at the table.”
“You came over all the time when Mom was sick,” I say.
And he had. I’d never loved my best friend more than when he volunteered—no, insisted—on helping out with some of Mom’s chemo appointments.
“Sure, because Lancelot wasn’t there,” he said, giving me a shit-eating grin.
I pinch his arm as we wipe our feet on the doormat, but the gesture practically breaks a nail because he’s all muscle.
He knows I hate it when he calls Lance Lancelot.
“We’re here,” I holler, kicking off my shoes the second we get inside, making my way toward the kitchen.
“Honey!” Mom says, looking particularly glowing and radiant in a bright green turtleneck and jeans.
Her hug is warm and friendly, as always, but her hug for Ben is warmer and friendlier.
I roll my eyes as the two of them gab like long-separated best friends and head into the family room, where my dad is perched on the edge of his leather recliner. No doubt he started to get up when he heard my shout, only to become riveted by whatever sport was on.
“No. NoNoNoNo, YES! Yes!”
I glance at the TV. Baseball. Blerg.
I kiss my dad on the head and wait patiently for him to confirm that whatever call earned his YES! would stand. My dad loves sports. Not like the usual-guy level of sports adoration, but like, he freaking loves all things baseball, football, basketball, tennis, golf, you name it.
He played, like, every possible sport in high school, and baseball in college. He’s got crazy-good athletic skills, none of which he passed on to his only child.
But he loves me more than sports. I know, because he mutes the TV and stands up to give me a big hug and a long, searching look, even though something exciting is happening on the screen behind him.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
I nod. “Mom told you?”
My dad and I have a great relationship, but when it came time to tell my parents that Lance had dumped me, I opted for my mom, who is a little better at doling out relationship advice than dear old dad.
His hands rub my upper arms. “Breakups are hard, but it’ll all work out the way it’s supposed to.”
“I know,” I say, even though I’m only half-convinced that he’s right.
It’s been a week and a half since Lance dumped me, and the truth is, it’s gotten worse, not better. I’m over the anger and, for the most part, over the crying, but the emptiness…the longing. That’s still there.
“Jimbo!”
We both turn as Ben enters the room, and they do the fist-bump thing that Ben taught my dad a few years ago, then Ben throws himself on the couch and reaches for the remote to unmute the TV. “Damn. Close game.”
My dad’s eyes light up, but at the last minute, he glances at me.
I smile and wave a hand as I head back toward the kitchen. “Do your thing. Mom and I are going to go drink wine and man-bash.”
“Leave me off your hit list!” Ben calls after me. “Remember who pulled your disgusting hair clog out of the shower drain today!”
I poke my head back in the room. “Will do. And you remember who does your laundry, and most of the dishes, and keeps you stocked in that nasty protein powder you like, and who got rid of your latest psycho sugar baby—”
Ben turns the baseball game up to an ear-blasting decibel, and I grin, having proved my point.
Although, truth? I don’t so much mind the household chores. I may have a touch of neat freak running through these bones.
My mom’s pouring us each a glass of sauvignon blanc when I return to the kitchen.
To my surprise, she jerks her head toward the living room at the front of the house—a room we, like most families, use at Christmas and…that’s it. We usually talk in the kitchen as she cooks and I pretend to help.
“Enchiladas are in the oven, salad’s already made,” she explains. “Besides, I want someone to appreciate the new throw pillows I splurged on. Your father’s compliments ended at They’re pink.”
I follow her into the room. “Silly Dad. They’re clearly raspberry.”
She lifts a glass to me. “Vindication! Thank you.”
I look her over as we settle into opposite chairs, but I do so subtly, knowing that she’s trying so hard to put being sick behind her. As well she should, because she looks amazing.
“So,” she says, the second I take a sip of wine. “Has he called yet?”
I shake my head, knowing immediately that she’s asking about Lance. “Nothing. Not even a freaking text since the night he dumped me.”
Mom purses her lips. “I suppose that’s not such a bad thing. A clean break is probably better than a long, drawn-out painfest.”
“That’s what I thought!” I exclaim, leaning forward. “And it’s so true in theory. But, in reality, it’s making me feel a little…forgettable. How can Lance just put, like, five years of togetherness out of his mind like that?” I snap my fingers.
She takes a sip of wine and watches me. “You miss him?”
I glance at my glass. “I miss…yeah, I guess.”
But my tone is
lukewarm, and her eyebrows lift. “Maybe you miss being in a relationship more than you miss Lance?”
I bite my fingernail. “Um, kind of…”
She gives me a puzzled look, and I know why. She and I have the type of relationship where I tell her everything. But right now, I’m holding back on her, and she knows it.
“I miss sex,” I blurt out, giving a frantic look toward the entry of the room to make sure my dad is still in sports heaven with Ben.
“Ah,” she says, sitting back in her seat.
To my relief, she looks merely understanding instead of uncomfortable. Seriously. She’s the best.
Mom purses her lips. “Was Lance…Was he—was it bad? With Lance I mean?”
“Not really,” I say, knowing what she’s asking. “It had become, um…infrequent, toward the end. Which I guess should have been a warning sign. But lately I’ve just been thinking, I’m young, I’m healthy, and I just want—”
“Sex,” she says.
I take a sip of wine. A big one. “Yeah. And please tell me you’re not going to call all your friends tomorrow and tell them your daughter’s a hussy,” I say, mostly joking.
She grins. “Please. If anything, I’ll be bragging about what an awesome mom I am for being able to have this conversation.”
“I can confirm that you are, in fact, awesome,” I say. “And, as such, I’m sure you have some sort of wisdom socked away about how physical relationships aren’t everything, and I just need to cool my jets until the right guy comes along?”
“Absolutely not,” she says with a shake of her head. “I’m far too cool and liberal for that. I didn’t just live through the seventies, I embraced them in every way.”
I can’t hide my wince, and she gives me an evil grin. “I see the daughter’s not quite as cool as the mother.”
“Definitely not,” I mutter into my wine. Thinking about my mother and free love, or whatever. Eek.
“Don’t worry. I’ll spare you my glory days at Berkeley,” she says. “But I can tell you this, based on my experience…your heart doesn’t need to be engaged to have, um, well, fun. But you’ll enjoy it much more if you at least like the person.”
“See, that’s the thing,” I say, scooting toward the edge of the chair. “I’ve been going around to bars with friends for a week now. Not looking for a random hookup, so much as seeing what’s out there. And…blech. I see a good-looking guy, but two minutes into a conversation I want out.”
She nods. “Chemistry is like anything in life. The more you look for it, the harder it is to find.”
I slump back. “That’s your advice? That it’s going to be hard?”
“Nooo,” she says slowly. “I’m just saying that maybe you’re looking for the wrong thing. You’re trying too hard to find raw animal magnetism when what you really need to be looking for is connection.”
“Raw animal magnetism, Mom? Really?”
“You know what I mean.” She waves her glass. “What I’m trying to say is…go to the bars, be twenty-four, have fun. But you’re a smart girl with a good head on your shoulders, which means a great body and a nice face is perhaps never going to be enough for you.”
“Great,” I mutter. “So I don’t get good sex until I meet my soulmate?”
She smiles. “No, I’m saying find someone who you can talk to. Someone who makes you laugh. I think you’ll realize that that’s what you find attractive.”
I sigh. “So you’re saying I can’t just bone an empty shell of a man?”
Mom smiles. “It’s never that simple. But if you ever find one particularly well-endowed—”
“My ears! My ears are burning!”
We glance toward the doorway to see an appalled-looking Ben with his hands over his ears.
He shakes his head. “Since I can never unhear that, there’s only one thing to be done.”
Somberly, he makes a pistol shape with his right hand and holds it to his temple before glancing at both of us. “I want it on my tombstone that I’m one of the well-endowed ones. You two owe it to me, since this conversation was my cause of death.”
I laugh and hold my wineglass up. “Please. Last night you spent fourteen minutes explaining how you can gauge a woman’s bra size based on how her breasts fit into your palms. You can handle this.”
He jabs a finger at me. “Don’t say bra with me and your mother in the same room.”
“Don’t fret, Benjamin,” Mom says, holding up her own glass. “And Parker has the right idea. Fetch us more wine, sweetie.”
He gives a butler-esque bow and accepts the wineglasses. “Are you guys going to start talking about balls the second my back’s turned?”
“Of course not, darling,” Mom says mildly. “Much easier to discuss balls when you’re facing us.”
“Mrs. Blanton, congratulations,” he says as he turns on his heel. “You’ve done the impossible and officially scandalized me. As such, you can’t get mad at me for the fact that I’ve already eaten the outside edge of the brownies sitting on the stove.”
“That’s fair,” Mom says with a laugh.
But I barely hear this last part of the exchange.
The world has gone completely silent around me, as though I’m deep in a bubble of dangerous thoughts. Very dangerous thoughts.
Ben leaves the room, but I continue to stare after him for several long seconds before I slowly lift a finger to my lip and tap thoughtfully.
What if my mom is on to something?
What if the right guy to scratch my sexual itch is the one who makes me laugh? The one I can talk to.
What if the right guy…
…Has been right in front of me?
Chapter 8
Ben
Parker’s mostly quiet on the drive home, which doesn’t really alarm me. We’re comfortable with each other’s silences. But she was quiet at dinner, too, and that’s unusual.
“Talk or mute?” I ask.
“Hmm?” she asks, not playing our usual game.
I glance at her more closely. “You’re being weird.”
She cuts me a look across the darkened car. Her expression is unreadable, and that worries me even more. I’m not good at very many things, but reading Parker has always been one of them.
That’s what happens when someone is best friend, carpool buddy, and roommate. You start to know them as well as you know yourself. Better, actually.
“You going out tonight?” she asks.
I shrug. “Haven’t decided. Why, you want to come?”
I’m silently hoping she’ll say no. Not because I don’t want to hang out with her, but because we’ve been “going out” more often than not lately, and while I’ve had a good time—mostly—I wouldn’t mind a quiet evening. Chilling with Parks on the couch with bad TV or a stupid movie sounds way better than getting dressed up and talking to strangers.
Still, one of the things about having a female best friend is that when she asks you to be a wingman, you’ve got to do it the way you would for a guy friend.
But there’s also an extra obligation of protection. She’d kill me if she knew it, but my reasons for tagging along aren’t so much about helping her get laid as they are making sure she doesn’t end up with some asshole.
So, no, I don’t want to go out tonight. But if she’s going, I’m going.
“Nah, I think I’m staying in,” she says. “I’m too full to even think about putting on anything other than pants with an elastic waist.”
“Second helping of lasagna catching up with you?” I ask, relaxing a little now that she’s not being all quiet and weird.
“Says the guy who had three.”
I pat my stomach. “I would never offend your mother by eating anything less than an obscene amount.”
Parker’s mom is a decent cook, but it’s not really about the quality of food so much as the homemade factor. I don’t miss much about home, but I do miss home-cooked meals. Of course, family dinners at my house weren’t quite as pleasant a
s they are at the Blantons’.
I could never decide which was worse, the lectures that ensued whenever I sat down to eat at my mother’s house, or the awkward silences as my dad tried to figure out how to talk to us when we were kids.
Parker’s fallen quiet again, and this time I let her stew.
Back at home, we both head into the kitchen, her to put leftovers in the fridge, me to get a glass of water.
I assume based on her quiet mood that she’s going to retreat to her bedroom, but instead she sits at our small kitchen table, tapping her fingernails and staring at a random spot on the wall.
I roll my eyes, pour her a glass of water and sit across from her. “Spill.”
Her eyes flick to mine and her lips purse, and I can tell she’s debating whether or not to follow my instructions.
“Fine.” I hold up my hands. “I’ve done my best-friend duty. I’m not going to beg you to talk. Call Lori or Casey if you want to be coaxed into it.”
I’m a good friend. But I have limits.
She grabs my wrist as I pass. “I want to talk to you about something.”
“Oh my God,” I mutter, fully annoyed with this girly fit. “Like I haven’t been trying to get you to talk for the past twenty minutes.”
She licks her lips and looks away as her fingers release my wrist.
I cross my arms and stare her down. She has about six seconds to spit out whatever has her all knotted up—
“Do you ever talk to the girls you sleep with?” Parker blurts out.
I lift an eyebrow. “You mean, do I remove their gag and allow them to speak? Only when they please me.”
Her foot sneaks out and nearly connects with my shin, but I dodge. “You know what I mean,” she says. “After you’re done saying whatever you need to to get in their pants, but before you begin your usual Get them out of here routine, do you talk to them?”
“Sure,” I say, completely unclear on where the heck she’s going with this.
“No, I mean do you really? Do you enjoy them?”
“I enjoy their—”
Parker holds up a hand. “No, I mean them as people. Do you like them?”