Love to Hate You

by Jo Watson

  He unlocked the door and held it open for me like a gentlemen. “Pancakes, Sera. Innocent pancakes. There’s nothing sinister about batter being flung into a pan.”

  “Um, I don’t know. It’s all just a bit strange.”

  “What is?”

  “You and I. Pancakes at your place. In the morning. Before work. After everything that’s happened. It’s just a bit inappropriate.”

  “I don’t see anything inappropriate about this, it’s not like I’m inviting you in for sex.”

  “What?” All my blood immediately rushed in a southerly direction. “You can’t say stuff like that, Ben!”

  “I’m just trying to prove a point. Sex would be inappropriate, pancakes are not.” He smiled, he was clearly amused and enjoying the fact that he had worked me up. “Breakfast, Sera? Breakfast is not even a date meal. People don’t go out on dates to breakfast, it’s just …”

  “Innocent pancakes?”

  “Exactly.”

  I rubbed my forehead and I swear I felt an actual sweat bead icicle.

  “Please,” he said softly, almost under his breath.

  “Why are you doing this? Taking such an …” I could barely say the word out loud. “… an interest in me? Is it a joke? I mean, are you being serious?”

  Ben walked up to me. Close. Too close. “Why you? Are you being serious?”

  I nodded.

  “Okay …” he said moving even closer. Way, way too close. He deliberately, and very inappropriately, pressed his body into mine now and I tried to hold down a breathy gasp, but couldn’t manage it. “It may have something to do with the fact that I met the funniest, craziest, sexiest, most beautiful girl at a club the other night. We had such fun dancing together and then we had the best, the best, sex of my life and something about it just felt so different. And then, when I was about to go looking for her, she landed up right in front of me, at work and then next door. And now I can’t help wondering if it’s fate?”

  My face flushed red-hot at the out-loud acknowledgement of the sex we’d had. Yes, it had pretty much taken the cake for the best sex I’d ever had, too, and, yes, it had definitely felt different in some way. In a way I wasn’t sure I understood yet. I was rendered speechless by his confession. My tongue tied itself into knots and then the cat stole it.

  “I think this conversation has crossed over the inappropriate line,” I managed in a small voice.

  “Maybe just a little bit.”

  “I don’t date, Ben. And certainly not my boss.”

  “Why not?”

  “You don’t want to date me. Believe me.”

  “Why?”

  “If you knew the kind of complications I come with, you’d keep away.”

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

  I sighed loudly and shook my head; determined to stand my ground . . “No. It’s not going to happen.”

  He looked deflated for a moment and then smiled again. “Does that mean we can’t be friends either?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I promise I’ll be the perfect gentleman.”

  “Really?” I gave him a deliberately suspicious look. “You weren’t very gentlemanly the other night.”

  “Now who’s being inappropriate?” He paused and our eyes locked. It was the kind of eye lock that I felt like I never wanted to look away from.

  “You don’t even have to eat the pancakes.” His eyes crinkled into a smile.

  “Fine!” I let out a resigned sigh. Clearly he wasn’t going to give up. “Sure. Pancakes and coffee. Why not?” I followed the sentence with a shrug and followed him inside.

  His place looked amazing, not something I would have pictured. It didn’t have that cool bachelor pad thing going on; in fact it looked rather homey.

  “I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  “Thanks. I still have a few boxes to unpack, but getting there.” He rushed into the lounge and turned the big gas heater on.

  “Oh yes!” I rushed over to the heater, I was still freezing. I stood as close as I could to the thing without catching fire. Ben did the same and we both stood together huddling by the fire.

  “I’m glad you don’t go jogging in winter,” he said. “I would never consider going out with anyone who was clearly mad.”

  “You knew I didn’t jog?” I asked, knowing the answer to this already.

  “From the second JJ and Bruce told me, besides, I could see your little foot sticking out from behind the wall.”

  I smiled up at him, he was less than a foot away from me. “So you just decided it would be fun to what … come around, wake me and see how long it took for me to crack?”

  Ben’s eyes lit up and he leaned towards me. “No, I just thought it would be a good excuse to get you over for breakfast.”

  My heart jumped into my throat. This was so not friendly. “Really, so this whole thing was premeditated?”

  “Right down to the ingredients being ready and waiting for us.” He walked off towards the kitchen and I couldn’t help it, but I was flattered. More than flattered.

  “You really cook?” I asked trying to wipe the smile from my voice.

  “Only desserts.”

  “Interesting,” I said watching him expertly crack the eggs with one hand.

  “If you got to know me you would find I’m an interesting person.”

  “And arrogant.”

  “Some people find it charming.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it, like the entire female population of our office.” With my legs sufficiently warm I moved over to the kitchen and sat on a bar stool at the counter.

  “Tsk-tsk, Sera, do I sense a hint of jealousy in your voice?”

  “What? No. Absolutely not.”

  He turned and smiled at me slowly. That slightly skew heart-stopping smile that friends should not give each other.

  “You know, you’re such a … a …” I was searching for the right words. “A man-whore flirt. You go around flirting with everyone.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Oh please. Don’t act all innocent. The way you spoke to Becks and Angie yesterday, or can’t you help the fact that everything you say is laced with sexual innuendo, and don’t tell me you’re not in control of that husky sexy voice you do. Even your ‘hello’ speech was dripping with it.”

  Ben started to laugh. “I admit the speech I gave was.” His eyes twinkled. “But that was solely for your benefit.”

  “What?”

  “Didn’t you like my whole, I don’t want to be a backseat driver thing?” He laughed again as he whisked the batter.

  “You did that on purpose?”

  “Yup.” He turned and winked at me before spooning the batter into the hot pan.

  “So you recognized me straight away?”

  “The second I saw you.” He flipped the pancake over expertly.

  “How’s that even possible with what I was wearing? The wig?”

  “I’ve spent a long time wa—” He cut that sentence off so fast I almost didn’t hear it. “I’m good with faces,” he quickly corrected. For the first time since I’d known him, he sounded caught off guard. I got the distinct impression he wasn’t telling me something.

  “What do you mean, you spent—?”

  “Especially such a beautiful face,” he interrupted with a charming smile and husky tone.

  Stupidly, I forgot myself momentarily and felt my pulse start to race at the sudden compliment.

  “So what were you doing at a gay club anyway?” I asked. I’d been wondering this for a few days now.

  “My brother was performing.” He was putting the pancakes on a plate now, gluing them into a tower with generous dollops of chocolate sauce and berries and topping the whole thing with way too much syrup.

  “Who’s your brother?”

  “Miss Behave.”

  “NO!” I gasped “You’re kidding?”

  He shook his head.

  I burst out laughing. The guy
s were going to have a shit-fit when they found out—Miss Behave was JJ’s nemesis. Not that she knew that.

  “Have you seen her perform?” he asked, sliding the plate in front of me and leaning across the counter.

  “Oh indeed I have,” I said, looking down at the pile of sugar-coated calories in front of me.

  “You say it like there’s a juicy story behind it.”

  I smiled up at him. “Oh believe me. There is.”

  The truth was that over the past two months we’d all gone in disguise to a couple of different clubs to watch Miss Behave perform so JJ could scope out the competition. She was new on the drag club scene and JJ’s natural competitive streak was flaring.

  Ben looked at me curiously. “Now I am dying to know.” He pulled out a fork and passed it to me, it was a clear indication that we’d be sharing off the same plate. I suppose friends share, so why did it feel so damn intimate? The two of us sitting across the counter, after our early morning “run” sharing breakfast. I calmed myself by changing the subject.

  “Are you and your brother close?” I asked.

  “Very!”

  “So he might come and visit you here sometimes?”

  Ben looked slightly confused by the question. “I’m sure he’ll come.”

  “Well, then I’m pretty sure you’ll know the story behind it very soon.”

  I winked at him this time, but immediately wished I hadn’t, because his face lit up. I returned to the pancakes …

  “Mmmm. Oh my God these are …” I said, closing my eyes and taking in the flavors—Oh sweet sugar. Sugary-sugar fest—this was my kind of breakfast—I confess I eat chocolate for breakfast sometimes—I opened my eyes and looked at Ben, he was staring at me.

  “Has anyone ever told you how adorable you are when you eat?”

  “Um … you know that sounds mildly creepy and fetish-y, right?”

  “Am I creepy, Sera?”

  “Mmm, it’s borderline sometimes.” I looked at him closely. “The only reason you get away with it, is that you’re just so weird, people don’t know what to make of you.”

  Ben laughed, reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. My stomach flipped and I wanted to quickly change the subject again.

  “So how are you finding the new job?” I asked.

  “It’s going okay, we have that massive calendar shoot coming up soon and none of the creatives are really cracking the idea yet.”

  “Aaaah, the calendar shoot,” I said. It was infamous. One of the clients, a luxury car brand, did a once-a-year calendar shoot usually in amazing exotic locations and everyone wanted to be a part of the team that went. They only took a small group of people, and it was usually based on good work. It was almost a competition each year to see who would go.

  “It’s the only piece of work the CEO cares about. He never even looks at the other work we do. This is a bit of an ego trip for him, I think. He likes to hand out pretty, glossy calendars to people and watch them being shot with gorgeous models. And they always want to work with some pretentious, overpriced photographer flown in from Milan or something. As if they think our local photographers aren’t good enough.”

  “High stakes?” I asked.

  “Very, and not to be offensive, but you guys have been coming up with pretty lame ideas for the last few years. I really want to do something interesting this year, but no one is thinking outside the box.”

  “Lucky they have you to force them out of the box then.” I smiled at him, it felt so comfortable and natural talking to him about work like this. As if we had been colleagues for years.

  “I think Angie is probably the only one who’ll make it out the box.”

  At the mere sound of her name I stiffened up. I jumped up quickly. “I have to go.”

  “But you haven’t finished.”

  “I know, but I don’t want to be late for work.”

  “Really, afraid your boss might have to discipline you? And yes, that was a purposeful sexual innuendo, in case you were confused about it.”

  “Friends,” I corrected him. “Remember.”

  “Okay. Friends.” But his smile said something else entirely.

  “I’m going now,” I said and started walking towards the door but then turned around, went back to the kitchen and stole the plate of pancakes.

  “Friends share,” I said playfully and let myself out.

  16. Word At The Water Cooler …

  Coffee on the balcony was very eventful that morning.

  “NOOOOO!” JJ said as he paced. “Miss Behave. That bitch.”

  “Maybe you guys could become friends.” Bruce burst out laughing and I quickly followed. “Maybe you could do a duet together,” Bruce added in between more laughter.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “It’s hysterical,” I clarified.

  “No, this won’t do. This won’t do at all,” JJ said and walked off to his room.

  Bruce and I were left alone to imagine the antics that would ensue when Ben’s brother came to visit.

  “He’ll probably pull a Mission: Impossible and climb the walls to try get a look inside that apartment,” Bruce said.

  “I would pay good money to see that.”

  “So you and Ben, huh? Jogging? Pancakes?”

  “Just friends,” I said firmly.

  “Yeah right.” Bruce studied my face, probably looking for a sign of something telling. “Why don’t you just go out with him?”

  I shook my head. “I can’t. Not with all the shit in my life. Remember what happened with the last guy.”

  Bruce looked unconvinced. “You know, some people don’t care where you came from. Some of us don’t care that you lived in a trailer park and that you’re ‘trailer trash.’ Some of us think that makes you a better person than ninety-nine point nine percent of the people out there in the world who don’t know what it’s like to struggle to rise above your circumstances.”

  I hung my head. “I don’t know.”

  “You should give it a go.”

  “Do you know what all my colleagues think of people like me?” I asked. “Whenever we make a TV or radio ad one of the first things everyone says is, who is the target market? What LSM are they? How much money do they have?”

  LSM meant Living Standard Measurement, and, every time the ad was for anything lower than LSM 5, everyone started joking about having to “dumb it down.” Little did they know, they had an LSM lower than 5 sitting at the same table as them.

  “You of all people should know how judgmental and cruel people can be,” I said to Bruce.

  He nodded. “Perhaps. But if you don’t give it a try, you’ll never know.”

  “Maybe.”

  “It doesn’t even have to be a formal date. Start by knocking on his door. Take some pizza around or something, whatever. Or just pop in to say hi,” Bruce said.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  Bruce gave me a smile, patted me on the leg and got up. “Time to console JJ.” He started walking away and then stopped, “You should wear red lipstick to work today, just in case.”

  “In case what?” I asked, amused at the mere suggestion.

  He shrugged and gave me a small smile.

  I didn’t see Ben the entire day at work. He was out at meetings. I was actually grateful for this because it gave me the whole day to think about what Bruce had said, and I allowed my mind to wonder, to imagine what it would be like to actually go on a proper date with him.

  But not seeing Ben in the office didn’t mean he was absent. Every few moments I would hear his name being whispered. At one stage I saw two of the creatives rushing past looking frightened as they spoke about the calendar shoot. Clearly he still wasn’t winning with it. But the whispers of him weren’t just confined to work-related matters.

  “So I think Angie is going after him,” Becks said, sidling up to me conspiratorially.

  “Who?”

  “Ben. You should have seen her today, practically throwin
g herself at him. She was basically dry humping his desk.”

  “Gross.” Becks had such a way with words.

  “I know. She might as well have taken her clothes off right there and then and let him do her on the boardroom table.”

  “Okay. I think I’ve heard enough.” I shuffled in my seat. God, this conversation was making me feel all sorts of things I seriously shouldn’t be feeling!

  She continued. “Word at the water cooler—”

  “We don’t have a water cooler.”

  “Word at the metaphorical cooler,” she corrected, “Is she’s planning on fucking Ben at the calendar shoot.”

  Like I said, such a way with words.

  Vampira had obviously tuned her hearing for the word “Ben” because she was at the desk in seconds—had she flown here?

  “Slut.”

  Becks and I both turned and stared at her. She was wearing an unusual amount of black eyeliner that day and her lips were stained a very dark mauve. That was all she said before she slunk off again back to her seat in the shadows from whence the intriguing creature came.

  Becks turned to me. “She’s obviously talking about Angie, right?”

  “I hope so,” I replied.

  “I’m sure Angie can’t wait to be away with him on this shoot. And you know what they say, what happens on shoot, stays on shoot.”

  “Really, they say that?” I’d never heard this before.

  Becks nodded. “Last year she and Andrew hooked up.” She gave me a conspiratorial smile. Andrew was the previous Creative Director. “Apparently, everyone heard them going for it all night.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Yup. And she likes to have her hair pulled and let’s guys come all over her face.”

  “Stop! Okay! Enough.” I put my hand up. I didn’t need that image in my head, especially when the image of Andrew morphed into Ben.

  “Or maybe I’ll hook up with him.” She pouted playfully. “Since I’ll be there too.”

  “You will?”

  “Well, I am client service on the job and I’ve become a very indispensable member of his team.” She winked and went back to her desk and suddenly I was so damn jealous. Here I was stuck with trying to get the creatives and clients to agree on whether the new print ad for their toothpaste should show actual teeth in it, since apparently market research shows that exposed teeth can come across as aggressive.