"Terrible way to watch a game." A grin pulled at one corner of his mouth as he toed off his shoes. He pointed over my shoulder, toward the back of the house. "You got a bathroom back there? A shower, some towels? I smell like a wet newspaper and that's no treat."
Holy hell. I was the worst hostess. The absolute worst. If my aunt was here, she would've smacked my ass with a dish towel while simultaneously scooting some stuffed mushrooms under the broiler, mixing a pitcher of Manhattans, and asking whether Ben kept crystals. I didn't know how to stuff mushrooms and I doubted Ben wanted any fungus from me, and Manhattans were out of the question on account of what the fuck were Manhattans? And I wasn't getting into it with him on the topic of crystals.
To start with, I didn't have a Manhattan recipe at the ready. But more importantly, my aunt wasn't here. It was just me and Ben—and a zonked-out dog—and the whole night ahead of us.
"Come on," I said, waving toward Ben. "Let's get you warmed up."
With his free hand—because he couldn't possibly stop drawing my attention to the thumb tugging his waistband indecently low—he grabbed my elbow. Squeezed just a bit. "Yeah. Let's do that."
He followed me down the hall, toward the back of my home, his fingers loose around my elbow. I didn't know what I was going to do when we reached the bathroom. Was I going to watch him undress and then hop in the shower? Was I hopping in there with him?
I didn't devote much energy to answering those questions, instead pushing the door open and flipping on the lights. Before I could tear back the shower curtain, Ben hooked his arm around my waist, pulling me tight against his chest.
"I'm gonna rinse off," he said, his lips on the side of my neck. That spot was dangerous. Just real damn dangerous. I lost my sense and spatial awareness when touched there. "I'm not going to ask you to join me but I won't turn you away if you invite yourself in."
His lips brushed over that sensitive spot and Kenny Loggins's "Danger Zone" started playing in my head. He moved around me and reached into the shower stall. The sound of running water filled the room. I had a flash of the locker room scene from Top Gun but instead of Tom Cruise and Val Kilmer, it was Ben.
"I'll order some food. And get you a towel too," I said, stepping back. Distance was the key to keeping myself from jumping in there with him and I wasn't doing that right now. Naked and showering together was one hell of a leap. "I'll go do that now. Just leave your clothes on the sink. I'll toss them in the dryer when I come back."
I stepped back over the threshold, my hand curled around the door. Ben went right on grinning as he unbuckled his jeans. He knew I was thinking about bare skin and hot water. He knew it. That was the thing about Ben. He could read my mind from fifty feet away.
He pulled his t-shirt over his head, dropped it in the sink with a soggy thunk. There he was, shirtless.
A line of dark hair ran down the center of his muscled chest, his deep olive skin glowing under the overhead light.
One tattoo circled his bicep. Another ran from the ball of his shoulder down to his elbow. An arrow.
His torso's muscular cuts seemed to point toward his crotch.
His jeans hung low. Explicitly low.
He brought one hand to his waistband, the other to his zipper. "Medium rare. Brown rice. Extra provolone. No anchovies," he said.
"Huh-what?" I mumbled, my gaze glued to the space below his navel. I didn't even try to look up.
"Whatever you're ordering," he replied with a snicker. "Make mine medium rare. Or brown rice on the side. Or extra provolone if that's what you're feeling. No anchovies."
"Got it." Still staring. Still waiting for that zipper to come down. "Got it," I repeated. "No anchovies on the brown rice burger."
The zipper inched down but—dammit all to hell—his bright blue boxer briefs kept the goods under wraps. "Thanks, Magnolia," he sang. If a shit-eating grin had a tone of voice, it was that one.
Finally, I glanced up to meet Ben's sapphire gaze. "I'll be right back with that towel."
I closed the door but kept my hand on the knob for a minute. Maybe more. I needed every one of those seconds to catch my breath as I imagined Ben climbing into the shower. The water rushing over him, traveling down along his body's grooves. When I heard the curtain scraping along the rod and then back into place, I gripped the knob harder. Thought about turning it, pulling back the curtain, staring at him while he washed. I didn't even have to get in there to enjoy this. The visual impact would do it for me.
It would do just fine.
But I shook my head and turned toward the linen closet. I was getting him that towel and snatching his wet clothes, and I was ordering food—no anchovies—and then I'd get my fill of Ben. When he was clean and dry. And clothed.
Maybe it was silly to center around this point but I'd never had a man in my shower before. Not this one. Not here. The dognapper and I had lived together, as all slow-moving train wreck tragedies should. Peter refused to visit the suburbs because everything about him was a red flag. Rob was the only other man I'd welcomed into this house.
I yanked a towel out of the closet and pressed it to my face, squealing straight into terry cloth. It was a mix of frustration, hunger, happiness. All those things bubbling up into a cry that needed to go somewhere. It needed to escape me or else I'd burst.
The shower curtain screeched on the rod again and damn, I needed some WD-40 on that thing.
"I heard that," Ben called over the water.
"Heard what?" I yelled at the bathroom door. "I didn't say anything and this place isn't haunted. You're imagining things, Brock."
"Just get in here," he said, a laugh softening the command.
I pushed the door open a few inches, peeked inside. Ben leaned out of the shower stall, his shoulders looking like the broad side of a barn and his ink black hair plastered to his forehead.
"Something you needed?" I wagged the towel at him before dropping it on the closed toilet lid.
He sucked in a breath through his nose, his gaze heating me like a splash of liquid sunshine. "Yeah," he replied, his head bobbing in tiny degrees. "Yeah, pretty girl. I swore I wouldn't ask but I need you to get in here."
"I'm not having sex with you in there."
"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Who said anything about sex in the shower?" He was good enough to play hard at being offended. "Certainly wasn't me."
I traced the neck of my t-shirt. "Then what are you hoping will come from me squeezing in there with you? Because it is cozy."
He dropped his gaze, tilted his head toward the floor. "Just want to be close to you," he replied. "Just for a little while. Okay?"
I didn't know how it happened. I didn't know how I went from watching him through a crack in the door to pulling my t-shirt over my head or kicking off my shorts. I didn't know where I found the confidence to walk toward him as I dropped my panties, unhooked my bra and let my breasts bounce free while he drank up every inch of me. I didn't know how I stowed away the ever-present fear of being hurt, being used, being abandoned. And I didn't know how I pulled back that curtain and joined him under the hot water.
I didn't know, and I didn't care because I did it. I took what I wanted, and that didn't require an explanation.
I was leaping.
Chapter Twenty-Three
My dates loved their mimosas.
I mean, loved their mimosas. Honestly, I loved them too.
"Okay, okay," Tiel Walsh said, waving her hands over the brunch table as if she could sweep away the hodgepodge of half conversations percolating between us and her sisters-in-law, Andy, Shannon Halsted, and Lauren Walsh. "Start over. From the beginning. Whole story. How did you come to be seeing two men?"
"It's not that uncommon," Shannon said. "People do that. Dating isn't what it used to be and that's probably okay."
"I don't think people date, period," Andy argued. "They hook up and sometimes they hook up with the same few people over and over."
"This is depressing," Tiel murmured. "For many r
easons."
"Because you never hooked up with a bunch of dudes before getting married?" Lauren asked. "If it helps, I didn't either. Shannon and Andy did but that's because they have better game than we do."
"I think your game is just fine," I said to Lauren.
"You didn't know me when I was single," she argued, laughing. "My game was nonexistent. My game was Bambi-in-the-forest."
"Oh my god," Shannon grumbled. "You and the fragile fawn thing again. Just because you didn't slut it up in your single days doesn't mean you were innocent. I've heard the things you say to my brother and I've seen more than a few text messages too. Bambi you are not."
"Can we not call it 'slutting'?" Andy asked. "Women are allowed to seek out sexual partners and then have sex and also enjoy sex. None of that makes them slutty. None of that necessitates judgment. It's a normal, healthy part of life and it's not necessary to add value judgments."
"You're right," Shannon said, wagging her empty champagne flute at a passing waiter. "Even using it for fun—like, taking it away from slut-shamers and making it our own and eliminating their ability to wield it in a shame-y way—carries some shitty baggage. Because no one looks at the dude on the other side of all that sex and calls him a man slut."
"Thank you," Andy said. "I'm not trying to be a purist. I don't want to police the way people speak but I hate the way words are weaponized against women sometimes. I hate how fucking everything is weaponized against women when it suits others. I'm a little sensitive to all that noise right now."
"You're allowed to be sensitive," Shannon said. "You're allowed to feel your feelings. You're also allowed to drown them in champagne so long as you don't start telling me about the things you do with coconut oil when you're alone with my brother."
"What about the things that don't involve coconut oil?" Andy asked, her eyebrow arched like a Sephora ad.
"I don't want to hear about those either," Shannon said with an exaggerated shiver.
Lauren shifted to face me. "You must have a favorite. Or a slight preference. With your boys, not coconut oil. Right?"
She was the only sober one at the table by virtue of being extremely pregnant. By my count, she was at least seventeen months along. Had to be. She'd been pregnant forever. Since Nixon was in office, at least.
"How long have you been pregnant?" I asked. There was some slurring involved. It sounded like "How long 've be pregnant?" and ended with a hiccup.
To her credit, she smiled. That was the best thing about Matt Walsh's wife. She made everyone comfortable. She was good to people even when they hadn't earned her goodness.
"Eight-ish months. This kid has a few more weeks to go."
"Okay, good," I murmured, nodding hard enough to slap myself in the face with my ponytail.
"Back to the topic at hand," Andy announced, snapping her fingers. I wasn't certain but I got the impression she'd picked up that move from Patrick. He was a snapper. The snappiest.
Shannon leaned back against the booth with her champagne flute in hand. "Allow me to recap the key points, boss. Two guys. Both fun and pretty. Cool dudes. Big event with one of them coming up. Am I missing anything?"
"I showered with the firefighter last weekend," I confessed. "That was, uh, illustrative."
"Because you got your hands on the goods?" Lauren asked.
I hummed in agreement.
"Fun times," Tiel murmured.
"Yeah, mostly." I held up both hands as if I was weighing something. "My shower isn't big enough for too much fun. It was mostly like, 'Oh, hey, you're naked and I'm naked and we're both slippery so that's exciting but all we can do is stand here and be naked together.'" I dropped my hands, shrugged. "And then we ordered delivery from Beverly House of Pizza and watched the Yankees-Dodgers game and I scared him when I yelled at the television."
"I don't care how small the space is, how do you shower with someone and not have sex?" Tiel asked. "Not positive but I think I got pregnant in the shower."
"Will talks about getting me pregnant during shower sex but I don't think it's panned out that way for us," Shannon said.
"Chances are good that shower sex is to blame for this," Lauren said, patting her belly.
"Like you weren't trying on every damn surface in your apartment, Matt's office, and the entire city," Shannon said to her.
Lauren shrugged. "You never know what will do the trick."
"Topic at hand," Andy repeated.
"You're only saying that because you don't like shower sex," Lauren remarked.
"You're right," Andy replied. "I don't like it. I don't have pretty shiny blonde California girl hair like some people. My hair is complicated. My hair requires a protocol, a routine. And I refuse to have sex while wearing a shower cap."
"That's fair," Tiel said. "I wouldn't be able to say anything remotely dirty while wearing a shower cap."
Shannon rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. "I don't need to hear about the sex lives of my brothers, thank you."
"And my interest in getting pregnant is less than zero," Andy continued, ignoring Shannon. "So, if everyone is getting knocked up in the shower, I'll keep locking the bathroom door behind me."
"I'm with you on that," I replied. "The last thing I need is to get pregnant while figuring out what to do with these guys."
"It would either make the decision very easy or very difficult," Tiel said.
"Difficult," I replied. "It would be difficult. I'm sure of it. And regardless of any of that, I'm not ready for a real live baby child with one of these men."
"Okay, then," Tiel said. "What are you ready for?"
I blinked at her, my lips parted and words were waiting on my tongue. But I didn't say anything. I couldn't form the sounds. Instead, I swallowed it all down with a mouthful of boozy orange juice.
"Magnolia needs two things from us," Andy said, jumping in where I was flailing. "She needs help picking out a fancy dress, and some objective opinions on the dicks she's juggling."
"I am not juggling any dicks," I argued. "I'm merely rubbing them in showers."
"Oh, so there was more than one shower?" Tiel asked.
"And more than one dick?" Lauren asked.
“There was a sleepover,” I said, setting my glass down. ”Take the champagne away. I'm getting sloppy.”
"Moving on," Shannon murmured. "You need a dress. We know how to do that."
"What's the event?" Tiel asked. "Not that I'm very helpful on the fashion front but what are we dressing you for?"
"You are very helpful," I argued with a gesture toward her boho summer dress. "Your style is amazing."
"What's really amazing is that you two are friends," Shannon mused. "Of all the unlikely pairings."
"We are all unlikely," Andy said. "That we manage to love each other is the best thing."
"The boys are good. They're really good," Tiel said. "They're great but girlfriends are the best."
"You guys are too nice to me," I said, reaching for my napkin. I felt the prickle of tears behind my eyes and I needed to be ready. Magnolia plus champagne equaled sobby effusiveness. "Seriously, you're too nice to me. I thought you guys were going to hate me forever."
That was the straight truth. When I'd made the super massive epic mistake of kissing Sam, it was because I thought it was the right way to get his attention. I thought I was being bold and forward, taking charge the same way Andy and Shannon and Lauren take charge. They went for what they wanted and nothing held them back and I wanted to be that, even if only once.
I thought I was getting his attention when a short eternity of flirting seemed to float right over his head. But it hadn't floated over his head. He'd ignored my advances because he was in love with Tiel. And it was Tiel who'd walked in when I was jamming my tongue into his mouth.
I went for it but I didn't even know where I was going. I wasn't in love with Sam. I was flirting with him because he was there. He was a constant in my life—a single man who took me seriously as a landscape architect�
�and I was too fucked up and fucked over to realize he wasn't for me. Oh, god, not at all. I didn't have deep, angsty feelings of lust and longing for him. I thought he was quirky and fascinating, and we had a shared love of solving random architectural problems. He was a fixture in my life at a time when I desperately needed someone to pay attention to me. To validate my competence in my craft, to see me as an alluring woman.
I thought Sam could do all of that for me. I was wrong.
That kiss was a ridiculous intersection of very bad things. It wrecked Sam and Tiel's relationship for months. It killed my professional partnership with Sam. For a time, it killed my professional partnership with the entire Walsh Associates firm. I was persona non grata as far as they were concerned.
Except for Riley. The youngest Walsh at the firm knew I'd never intended to destroy relationships or harm anything. Riley was the one who brought them back around and forced them to see I wasn't trying to break up Sam and Tiel. I was just trying to be the girl who went for it. He forced them to see I hadn't done anything wrong, not really. Not intentionally. Not more than humiliating myself.
That was a tough time for me. I was embarrassed by my actions and wounded by the backlash. I struggled to keep my business going. It was difficult to pitch my services to clients when I felt so fucking worthless. This was a small town and that meant I constantly looked over my shoulder at the hopes of avoiding a Walsh or one of their allies. I was anxious all the time. Worried and ashamed and devastated that I'd worked this hard, and I was losing it all because I kissed a boy who didn't want me.
Somewhere along the way, Andy and I became friends. She kept me at arm's length at first, but Andy does that with everyone. Icy cold and distant was her thing. But just as gradually as a sapling grows into a tree so thick you can't get your arms around it or remember a time when it wasn't a deep-rooted anchor in your life, she grew into one of my best friends. And she brought her posse along with her.
When I thought about the steps I took and the mountain I climbed toward being all right with myself, Andy and her friends were the ones clearing the way and holding my hands. I wouldn't have made it here and I wouldn't have two men vying for my affection if not for these women. They were hard on me once upon a time and that was the ugly way of it—women were often hard on each other. Unnecessarily so. But when they came around, they came all the way around. Circled up so tight they pulled me back together and squeezed the darkness right out.
The Magnolia Chronicles: Adventures in Modern Dating Page 15