Bad Boy Benefits: A Standalone Little Sister's Best Friend Romance

by JD Hawkins

  I give a slight wave to the two of them as they leave the shop, which is now a little busier, and then move into the backroom. On my desk I’ve laid out all the pieces I “discussed” with Maeve, with a brief plan to make some calls and check some prices and sketch out a few “inspired by” designs. But the second I sit down with the intention to start, I just end up losing myself in the memory all over again. Confused and excited and optimistic and concerned, without any real sense of what to do.

  Tell her, don’t tell her. Business one second, personal the next. Fucking one night, then the “agreement” the next. One minute she’s heading home with Asher, the next she’s coming here and pulling off her sweater at the slightest suggestion. Meanwhile I’m turning down hotties and even feeling guilty for looking at them, as if Maeve and I have been together for years.

  Something’s got to give. It’s got to. I’m just starting to worry it might be my sanity before anything else.

  20

  Maeve

  I let Mia choose the restaurant this week. Back when we used to do our regular “Thursday sessions,” part of the fun used to be the choice of place. I certainly enjoyed pulling humble, unassuming little Mia out to the hottest, most glamorous, and most exclusive places I could think of. And I’m sure she enjoyed dragging me to every relaxed, cheap dive bar and spicy-food-serving establishment equally. At some point we both agreed: the best food is rarely the most expensive, but there’s more to a dining experience than just the food.

  She decided to go easy on me tonight. Nothing too spicy, a relaxed Lebanese restaurant in Los Feliz, which I’m extremely glad about.

  Because tonight I’m going to tell her.

  I have to. I may not lead a life of many loyalties, but I keep the ones I have. The most precious one of all is my friendship with Mia. Since we’ve known each other, I’ve given her the rundown on every man in my life (and vice versa, though with Mia it tended to be more the absence of men in her life). And though I’ve rarely needed any guidance, Mia’s opinion is perhaps the only one that matters to me.

  More than that, everyone needs a venting board, and Mia has always been mine. Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that considering this is about her brother, and the fact that he and I have been hiding things from everyone for so long—but all the more reason to bring some fresh air to the situation. In the end, the “forbidden” nature of my affair with Toby has certainly added a lot of spice, but it would be spicy enough without, and there’s a point where danger turns from sexy to stupid.

  I’m early—as I always am when meeting Mia—but she’s even earlier. The restaurant is a simple, small place; tables crammed in close though there’s a pleasant enough atmosphere as I step inside. Natural pale woodgrain and simple furniture. Pastel-colored artwork on white walls. A large exposed window to the kitchen. Smart, I think, to make this small place feel light and airy. Intriguing music and chatter fill the space, so that even with the tables being close there’s a sense of privacy, as if this were the late stage of a dinner party with various groups splitting off rather than a public eatery.

  The place is only a third full, but still, I’m so focused on finding a suitable empty table that I miss Mia’s shock of red hair until she glances up and raises her arm like she’s in class.

  “Hey, sweetie,” I say, touching her on the shoulder as I pass and take a seat on the other side of the small table. I angle myself sideways so I can stretch my crossed legs.

  “Oh Maeve, you’re gonna love this place. The food is truly incredible.”

  “It smells good.”

  “Would you let me order for you? There’s some stuff on the menu I know you’d love.”

  “Go ahead, I’m happy to play guest.”

  As if she’s been bursting to do it since she came, she quickly gestures at the waiter (who’s been watching me since I stepped inside like I’m the first woman he’s ever seen). She barrages the man with a list of things, and I only speak up to ask for a glass of red wine.

  “So how are you?” I ask, once the waiter has departed with our order.

  “Pretty good. Colin’s mom is visiting us so we’re making the most of having her babysit. He’s out with the guys tonight.”

  I grin. “And my niece?”

  “She’s…” Mia starts and then sighs with a smile. “She’s a constant joy—emphasis on ‘constant.’ Colin and I are sharing the duties pretty evenly, which means we both take turns losing an entire night’s worth of sleep. Pretty tough when his new practice is really getting off the ground, and I’m still house hunting. Thank God for grandmas, right?”

  “Actually,” I say, “how long is your mother-in-law staying? I’m having a party this weekend. It would be wonderful if the two of you came. You should wear that sensational red dress of yours.”

  “Really? I thought you were done hosting parties?”

  I shrug. “I was, but the jewelry launch is in a few months, and they want me to put myself out there a bit, get in the gossip magazines. Thus, I’m going to invite only the hottest, biggest, flashiest A-listers—you being the first.”

  Mia laughs.

  “That sounds pretty exciting.”

  “Probably not,” I say, glancing over to notice that the waiter’s still looking at me. “The bigger the celebrity, the more boring. But the pictures will be good, and these days that’s all that matters.”

  “You could ask Toby to come,” Mia suggests. “He always livens things up.”

  I smile at her as our drinks arrive, along with the mezze platter.

  “Since when did he ever need an invitation?”

  We make small talk over the appetizers until the mains arrive. I interrogate Mia on her house hunting, on Colin’s new practice, on life with baby Alison. It’s always fun not to be the one answering the questions, and Mia has always been more open with me than I suspect she is with others.

  When the entrees come, on multiple plates that cover almost every inch of the table, we stop talking and get down to the serious eating, communicating via murmurs and expressions that would be indecent anywhere else but the dinner table or the bedroom.

  Only after half an hour of pigging out do we start to slow down, and devote a little more attention to our drinks.

  “God this is good,” Mia says as she takes another bit of manakish.

  “Oh honey, I think I’m going to have to shop for an entire wardrobe a size bigger after this.”

  Mia laughs, and still can’t resist chewing as she does so.

  I wait for the waiter to come over and refill our wine glasses before talking again.

  “So. Mia,” I say, setting the tone by using her name—a rare occurrence. “There’s something I wanted to tell you.”

  She puts her fork down and looks at me keenly. Before I can speak, however, she starts to smile, as if she knows something she shouldn’t.

  “What’s that look for?” I ask blankly.

  Mia shrugs and pretends to focus on the food again, but she can’t hide the smile. A terrible liar.

  “Oh…nothing… This food, it’s just…”

  “Let’s skip the dancing, sweetie,” I say. “What is it?”

  Mia looks up at me again, eyes full of mischief, and I can see she’s considering another attempt to throw me off the scent, but she smartly gives in.

  “I think I know what you want to tell me.”

  As if my gut wasn’t feeling heavy enough, I suddenly feel my heart sinking into it like a stone. My blood suddenly goes cold and now I’m the one trying to hide my true emotions.

  “Is that so?” I say nonchalantly.

  Mia purses her smiling lips as if highly amused. She makes a playfully guilty face and then nods.

  “Well go on then, tell me what’s on my mind,” I say, putting on my best performance of devil-may-care attitude even while my insides feel like a maelstrom of anxieties and falafel.

  Mia hunches up her shoulders, fills her cheeks, as if she’s blowing up with desire to talk
about it but is struggling to contain it. I watch her wrestle internally, that big smile still on her face, until she inevitably breaks, and sure enough, when she does, it’s like being barraged with how fast she’s talking.

  “Okay, well, I know I shouldn’t be telling you any of this. It’s really none of my business and I definitely don’t want you to feel like I’m all ‘in your business’ or getting in the middle of things or like some sort of weird third party that you have to consider whenever you’re doing whatever you’re doing. But, I mean, it’s not like you’re some weird distant acquaintance who I can just hear stuff about and be completely detached about, do you know what I mean?

  “It’s us. It’s you, Maeve, you’re like a sister to me, so I just want you to know that whatever I know, or end up saying—and by the way, you know I’m just a bad liar, and you really ambushed me with this, I swear I didn’t intend to tell you that I’d heard something—and I really did just overhear it, I wasn’t ‘digging’ for info or poking my nose in. I really did just overhear—but all right, then I asked Colin about it and he told me—but we’re married, right? And we’re both new to marriage, I guess, so it’s like, you talk about everything, right? Even as he was telling me I think he wasn’t sure but regardless—”

  “Honey, honey…” I interrupt, raising a palm to slow her down a little. “If you give yourself a heart attack before you get to the point I’ll never forgive you.”

  “Okay, whew… Sorry,” Mia says a little slower. She laughs gently, then paces herself a little before speaking again. “I overheard how great your date went with Asher.” I roll my eyes and Mia takes it as invitation to explain herself rather than seeing it for the relief it actually is. “I wasn’t listening, I swear. He was just in the other room and I guess he didn’t know I’d come home since Alison was with me and she was so quiet for once. Anyway, the way he was talking, I kinda couldn’t help but put two and two together.”

  “And surmise that Asher had swept me off my feet?”

  “Yeah! I mean, I kinda asked Colin about it afterwards, and he told me Asher said you were incredible, the evening was incredible. That you had this really unique and strong connection.”

  “And then emailed over a full transcription perhaps?”

  “Maeve,” Mia laughs, too happy about it to accept my mockery. “Apparently the only thing that made Asher wonder a bit was that at the end of the night you didn’t go home with him—”

  “Jesus Christ…”

  “But then I told Colin: that means it’s really serious! ‘Cause if Maeve was only half interested, she’d have had sex with him and forgotten him by breakfast. For her to not do anything, that’s when you know she’s hooked.”

  “And what do you think I’d do if I really didn’t like him? Ask for a threesome?”

  Mia freezes, as if she’s finally hearing how silly she sounds, and her smile drops.

  “Was I wrong? Did you actually not like him?”

  I take a moment before answering, looking aside and shrugging.

  “Asher’s a lovely guy,” I say sincerely. “How could any woman not like him? At least a little?”

  “Great!”

  “Hold on there, sweetie,” I say, palm up again. “The thing is…”

  I trail off at the end of the sentence, something I never do. I always know what I’m about to say before I say it, and there isn’t a lot I’m afraid to say. But Mia’s face stops me. She’s looking at me so earnestly, so happy at the idea of me meeting a nice guy, of her having helped me meet a guy I like. I want to tell her about Toby. I meant to tell her about Toby. For my own sake just as much as hers. For the ability to vent about something. Simply to honor our friendship and the strange situation she’s in—without even realizing it.

  Yet her sweet face and her innocent excitement at the idea of me and Asher makes it impossible. I don’t know how she’d take the fact that me and Toby have been fucking, but I’d wager certainly not as well as the idea of me and Asher hitting it off. Best-case scenario is that she just worries deeply for what will happen—and she’s already got plenty to worry about.

  Now, confronted with the moment I’d been certain of the second we arranged to meet, I realize that I shouldn’t tell her. This mess is my own to sort out.

  “The thing is…” I repeat. “It just doesn’t fit with my image right now to be dating a guy.”

  “What?” Maeve says incredulously. She might be a bad liar, but she’s still got something of a bullshit detector. “What do you mean?”

  Fortunately, I’m good at bullshit. It’s best when you wrap it up in a little truth.

  “Who do you think is going to buy my jewelry? Who do you think will see themselves in me as a brand? Single, independent, sexually mature women. Women with careers and libidos and who are tired of having to play the same old game of ‘fishing for a partner.’ Except it’s more than a brand to me. It is me.

  “My philosophy has always been to enjoy myself, to take more than I give to men, and be beautiful for the sake of beauty itself—not in the hopes of reward. Now my philosophy has become a message, a symbol. How would it look if, at the launch of that ‘symbol,’ I’m shacking up with a guy who I already know is going to be a three-month affair at most?”

  Mia sighs and leans back in her chair, finally a little deflated. She seems to think about it a bit, then shrugs as if getting the message.

  “Well, I can’t really say I’m that surprised.”

  I smile at her affectionately. “But you’re disappointed.”

  “Mostly because Asher will be. I sort of feel bad after hearing how into you he was.”

  “Asher will be fine, honey,” I say, waving it away and picking up a kafta as if to move the conversation on. “I’ll invite him to the party and speak to him myself—I’m good at letting men down by building them up. And anyway, how ridiculous to feel sorry for a man like that. I took my eyes from him for ten seconds at the exhibition and he had the arty girls crowding him like he was handing out free Chanel.”

  Mia laughs and digs in to her manakish once again. I breathe a silent sigh of relief that we’ve moved the conversation on—even if I’m still in the same exact mess I was in before.

  21

  Toby

  Maeve’s having a party. Apparently. And I’m not invited.

  I only hear about it when one of Hollywood’s most beautiful young actresses comes into the shop after hours for a private showing. Small talk about what we’re doing this weekend until she mentions Maeve’s name and my ears prick up. It’s not a common name, less so just to refer to her by her first.

  I call the director I sold the Ferrari to so I can ask him how it’s running, and casually drop in her name. He confirms he’s going, and asks if I am. I tell him I didn’t get an invite and he laughs. A Lakers player who drops by the shop, a British musician I visit for the final payment on a ring he bought, even a woman with a reality show who calls me asking for a certain piece—they all say the same thing. A big event, and they’ve all been invited.

  From the clientele, I’m guessing she’s going for something that’ll make the papers—probably it has to do with her jewelry line. I’m supposed to call her soon about the pieces, talk about potential designs, but it feels almost weird to call and talk business after what happened the last time we met. Now that she’s throwing a party everyone in town seems to have been invited to except for me, it feels even weirder.

  Maybe it’s her idea of a joke. I’ve got a reputation as the kind of guy who crashes parties. Or maybe she really doesn’t want me there. Maybe it’s the part of her life she’s reserving for Asher. The bigger part. The part she shows the world. And maybe I’m just a dirty little secret for her that she can barely admit even to herself.

  So here I am, lying in bed when I’ve been invited out to three different things, trying to resist the urge to look at her pictures online and jerk off to her. Going out of my mind with a problem I can’t even bug my sister about like I usually do. Anyw
ay, I know what she’d say. You always want only what you can’t have. Maybe she’d add a little your biggest problem is yourself.

  She’s probably right about that, too. If I called Maeve up right now with the best intentions in the world—to talk business, or to sort out this whole mess—I’d probably just end up doing what we did on the phone last time… Last time…

  My place is big, but it still feels claustrophobic. I need to blow off steam, but I don’t want to deal with any other people right now. I think about a midnight run around the block, but instead just pace until I let myself fall back onto the couch and bring up pictures of Maeve.

  And there she is. With Asher.

  It shouldn’t be a surprise. I know she went out with him days ago. I know Maeve is always having pictures taken whenever she goes out. I know she’s becoming a minor celebrity. But knowing something and seeing it right there are two completely different things. I almost throw my phone against the wall, and raise it as if about to, but then succumb and just bring it back before me to glare at the two of them.

  There are more than a couple of pictures, and in all of them Maeve looks comfortable, confident, content. Asher too. She always looks like that, but something about looking like that with him, with another man, fills me with a sense of wrongness. I glare at the images, and they pull at something inside of me, as if they have some sort of occult power to reach inside my body and tear my insides to shreds. As close to physical pain as images can get, and yet so much worse.

  I refuse to admit it to myself, and yet I can’t help doing so—they look great together. It’s painfully easy to imagine them getting along, building a connection, out and about in public while I’ve only been close to Maeve in secretive ways, always against the grain of the people around us. Suddenly the “forbidden” nature of me and Maeve doesn’t seem so arousing, so sexy, so enticing. Compared to the images of her and Asher, it just seems shameful and tragic.