by Ann Lister
“Did anyone else see these besides your agent?” he asked.
Sydney shook her head.
“Well, next time you're talking to your agent, make sure you tell her the flag was at ‘half-mast’,” he said, and slid the computer back to her.
She shot him a look and Ben leaned in close.
“I wasn't fully erect,” he said. “However, had you followed through and kissed me, you'd be looking at a completely different photograph right now.”
“You're not mad?” she asked.
“Why would I be mad at that? I'm sure there are a lot worse photographs of me floating around on the internet,” he said, and moved back to the opposite side of the car.
“I'll tell you what does piss me off, Syd - you denying you feel anything whenever I get close to you. That really pushes me over the edge. How you can pretend like that is beyond me. It makes me wonder if you're inhuman.”
“Maybe I'm just not interested. Did you consider that?”
“Nice try. There was so much heat between us on the roof last night, I'm surprised our clothes didn't burst into flames. I won't waste my time pretending I didn't feel anything - especially, since you have a photograph that proves otherwise,” he grinned.
“But, even if that photograph didn't exist,” he said. “I'd still be happy to admit I was…moved. That was the hottest kiss I never got, Syd, and now you expect me to forget it happened? Impossible.” Ben sighed loudly, and rolled his head toward the window.
“I'll delete the file,” Sydney said quietly.
“Don't bother. You can keep them.”
Several minutes passed and neither spoke.
“Do you dislike all men, Syd, or just me?”
Sydney lifted her eyes from her computer. “I never said I disliked you, Ben.”
“Are you married?”
Sydney sat up straight. “I've already told you. I'm not with anyone.”
Ben smiled. “Your answer explains a lot.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you need to get yourself laid,” he said, his eyes meeting hers. “It might actually put a smile on your face.”
Sydney felt the heat rise in her cheeks, but remained in control.
“Is that how you explain your wonderful moods every day?” she asked.
“I haven't had sex in almost six months - by choice, but, I'm guessing it's been a lot longer for you.”
Sydney dropped her eyes to her computer keyboard and ignored the last part of his statement.
“Do you expect me to believe you haven't gotten laid in six months?” she asked. “You're forgetting, I've seen what goes on inside your tour bus and on the plane.”
“Have you seen me with anyone on that bus, or any other place, for that matter?”
“No.”
“Then don't assume you know what I've been up to,” he said. “Besides, it doesn't really matter what you believe about me, because you're obviously hell-bent on believing the worst.”
“Then, why bring it up at all?” she asked.
Ben's gaze went back outside. “I'm a nice guy, Syd, and if you spent five fucking minutes getting to know me - instead of hiding behind that computer, you'd realize that for yourself.”
Sydney closed the lid of her laptop. “My indifference has nothing to do with you personally. You seem nice enough, but, generally speaking, I don't like musicians.”
“Then, why do you continue to work with them, year after year?”
“Because the money I make is outrageous and I've been told I have a talent for it.”
“You do. The shots you get are unbelievable; which is why we waited so long to get you to work with us.”
His foot stretched across the car and kicked hers lightly.
“What do you think of me, Syd - personally speaking?”
Sydney skewed her face. “Why does it matter what I think of you?”
“I don't know, but it does. I guess I'm curious.”
Sydney turned toward the window. “I already told you, I think you're nice enough.”
“And that's all?”
Her eyes went back to him. “Yeah. That's all.”
Ben smiled at her. “Do you want to know what I think of you?”
“I already know,” she said. “The night you passed-out in my room, you made your feelings very clear.”
“So I did say something that night that offended you,” Ben said. “I'm almost afraid to know, but why don't you go ahead and tell me what I said?”
“It's not that big a deal. Let it go!”
“I've asked you a hundred times to tell me about our conversation that night and you've always denied there was any dialog worth repeating. Now, you're saying there was. So, which is it?” he asked.
“Never mind! The entire subject is pointless.”
“Damn it! Sometimes you can be such a…”
“A cold bitch?”
“That's not what I think,” he said. “I think that's what you want people to believe but, it's not what I see. I think you surround yourself with this cold exterior to keep people at arms length. Deep down, I think you want to be loved just like everyone else.”
“That's really what you think?” she asked. Her face scrunched in frustration.
Ben held her gaze. “I like you - a lot, and probably more than you'd like to know about.”
“You're right. I don't want to know about it,” she said. “We work together, Ben, that's where it begins and ends!”
“And…here we are, back to the yelling,” he said, and looked away from her.
“Let it go, Ben!”
“You can try and hide all you want, Syd, but I can see right through you. The lumberjack clothes you wear like a suit of armor doesn't fool me. I can still tell you're gorgeous, so your efforts to hide it haven't been successful.”
“Stop talking, Ben.”
His jaw tightened in anger.
The car came to a stop and the back door opened, flooding the car with sunlight. Sydney collected her things and stepped from the car, but Ben remained in his seat.
“Are you coming?” she asked him.
“If your mouth was on me, you'd already know the answer to that question,” he mumbled loud enough for her to hear.
“You're disgusting!”
Ben stepped from the car and grabbed her by the wrist, ignoring the fact that Mike and Laura were now standing next to the car beside them.
“Now I'm disgusting? Funny, you didn't seem disgusted last night!”
“Go to hell!” Sydney said. She jerked her hand free from his and disappeared inside the radio station.
Ben turned to Laura. “What are you looking at?”
“I take it, things didn't go well on the roof last night,” Laura said.
“I'm still working on her,” he said. “She'll come around.”
Laura shook her head. “I wish you'd find a damn bed and get it out of your systems or go back to ignoring each other! The tension between you is sickening.”
“She loves me. She just doesn't know it yet,” Ben said.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The station manager at KCBS radio met Ben's limo at the door and escorted him inside. After a series of introductions with the station crew in the outer office area, Ben was led into the studio. Sydney stayed close-by Ben and captured the meetings with candid and posed photographs.
Ben was directed to sit in a swivel chair in front of a table wired with several microphones. Once Ben was comfortable, the technician left the room to collect the notes for the interview. Ben turned to Sydney. She was standing a few feet from him, checking the available light using a hand-held meter.
“I'm sorry, Syd,” he said softly.
“I'll pretend to like you, and you can pretend to like me,” she said. “Everyone wins.”
“You call that winning?” Ben asked.
Their conversation was interrupted when two disc jockeys came into the room and hooked Ben up to a sound board and handed him a headset
. Sydney watched the technicians do the count down to going on-air, then took shots of Ben being interviewed from every conceivable angle before leaving the studio to watch from the other side of the glass partition.
“Sydney Willows?” a man asked.
Sydney stood up from her camera bag and faced the man.
“Oh, my God! Jeff!” she squealed. She embraced him tightly and kissed him on the lips with a loud smack. “Do you work here?”
“I've been here for the last six years selling commercial air time,” he said, rocking her back and forth in his arms. “God! I've missed you.”
Sydney had known Jeff Goldsmith since their college days at NYU. He was handsome in a ‘pretty’ kind of way, tall and slender with dark hair and deep blue eyes.
Ben watched Sydney and Jeff's interaction through the glass windows of the sound studio, anger and jealousy began to boil in his stomach. When a break finally came in the interview, he went to Sydney in the hallway. She was still laughing and touching the man in an affectionate way that rattled him to the core.
“What's going on?” Ben asked Sydney.
She clasped Jeff's hand and spun toward Ben. Her smile was dazzling.
“Ben, this is an old friend of mine, Jeff Goldsmith. I haven't seen him in…” she said, and turned to Jeff. “How long has it been, Jeff?”
“I think eight or nine years,” he said, his eyes never leaving Sydney's.
Ben nodded, clearly displeased with the situation and extended his hand to Jeff. “Since she won't do the introduction, I will. I'm Ben Gallo.”
Sydney's eyes went to Ben. It was something in his tone that unsettled her.
“I'm sorry, Ben. I guess I lost my manners,” she said.
In seconds, Sydney returned to her animated conversation with Jeff, leaving Ben feeling like an outsider. He shifted uneasily for a few minutes, then drifted back into the sound studio to talk with the two disc jockeys, but his eyes kept bouncing back to Sydney in the hallway. He couldn't keep his eyes off of her.
An hour and a half later, Ben had said good-bye to everyone at the radio station and was led to his limo. Sydney was nowhere in sight. Ben waited several minutes then sent Laura back inside to collect her. When Sydney finally returned to the car she was giddy and glowing, which only enhanced Ben's anger.
He kept his focus almost trance like out the window, and ignored Sydney for the first fifteen minutes of the ride. By then his frustration had built to a point he had to say something. He ran his fingers through his hair and sighed heavily. As usual, Sydney had busied herself with work on her laptop, logging in the digital images she had just taken.
“Well, that interview sucked,” he said.
She looked at him curiously, the smile on her face quickly fading.
“I thought it was fine,” she said.
“Had you been in the room, you would have heard how bad it really was.”
“They didn't want me to stay in the room with you, Ben, which is why I stayed in the hallway. Even still, I got the shots you wanted.”
“I was so distracted I couldn't concentrate on the God-damned questions.”
“What had you so distracted?” she asked. Her eyes never rose above her computer screen to meet his.
“You.”
Sydney wasn't sure what he meant by his comment or how to respond to it. She looked across the car at him, his eyes were pointed outside, his hands curled into tight fists in his lap.
Ben shifted in the seat, his foot tapped with nervous energy. After seeing Sydney with Jeff it was clear she didn't dislike all men - just him. The way she looked at Jeff was exactly how he wished she would look at him. He ached to have her melt against him the way she did against Jeff. He was jealous and he hated himself for it.
“Is Jeff an old boyfriend?” he finally asked.
A smile crept across her face. His foul mood made perfect sense to her now.
“Nope. He plays for the other team, Ben.”
“What do you mean?”
“Jeff is gay.”
Instantly his body language relaxed.
“If it means anything to you,” she said. “Jeff thought you were pretty cute. If you're interested, maybe I could fix you two up?”
“Yeah, that's just what I need.”
Silence filled the car.
“I'm sorry about what I said earlier,” Ben said softly.
“I already told you to forget about it.”
“What I said about your lumberjack clothing was out of line,” he said. “And, I suppose my comment about your mouth…”
Sydney dropped her eyes to her laptop. “I said: forget about it.”
Ben fidgeted and inched his way across the seat until he was directly opposite her, their feet almost touching on the car floor.
“I'm guessing at some point a musician broke your heart and now you hate all of us. That would justify why you're so guarded, and it might also explain your choice in clothing.”
Her eyes slowly lifted. “Don't assume you know my life story, Ben.”
“So, I am right?” he smiled.
“Stop it!” Anger began to contort her face.
“Syd, we've all had our hearts broken, but it doesn't mean we should hide behind walls and miss the chance of finding happiness with someone else.”
Sydney moved as far away from him as she could get and looked out her window. Tears began to pool in her eyes.
“Maybe I can show you some happiness,” he said, his voice full of hope.
“I don't think so,” she sniffed.
Sunlight danced across her cheek and glistened off her tears. Ben's heart sank at the sight of it.
“No matter what I say or do, it always seems to be wrong,” he said.
“Shut the hell up! Why can't you let this go?” she asked, wiping away her tears. "All I want to do is the job I was hired for and then go back to my room by myself. Is that too much to ask? I'm not here to make friends or pick-up lovers or dress like a slut. I just want to do my fucking job! Why must you keep pushing me like this? You don't know me! You don't know what I've been through - so let it go!"
The car came to a stop at the curb outside their hotel. Sydney bolted from the door before the doorman had a chance to open it and Ben ran after her. He called her name all the way to the elevator and managed to jump inside just as the door was closing.
"Syd…"
"You take one more step and I'll flatten your ass on the floor. Consider that your one and only warning," she said, wet tears marking her face.
Suddenly, the elevator door opened to her floor and Sydney disappeared before he had a chance to respond to her threat. She ran down the hall and pushed her pass key into the door.
“Talk to me, Syd. Please don't run off.”
She kept her back to him, pressed her forehead to the door and closed her eyes. “I am a third degree black belt, Ben. I'm not joking when I say I can hurt you - and I will, if you don't back the hell off and let go of this…whatever you think this is."
He came up behind her, close to her ear and whispered: “I only want to talk. Is there a crime in that?”
Sydney opened her door and stepped inside. “Maybe some other time, Ben. I'm not in the mood to talk.”
He used his foot to open the door wider and followed her inside, then closed the door behind him. He was pushing his luck, but was desperate to make things right with her.
Sydney dropped her camera bag onto one of the beds and faced him. “You've got five minutes to say what you feel is so important to say and then you're leaving.”
“Black belt?” he asked, smiling nervously.
“Third degree.”
He took a tentative step closer and shook his head. “I'm really sorry, Syd. I had no right to say those things to you.”
Sydney watched his movements, cautiously sizing up his motives. Although he did sound genuine, it was not in her to trust anything a man said - especially a musician.
Ben took another step, dangerously close t
o invading Sydney's comfort zone. She continued to eye him with suspicion. Every nerve ending in her body was on full alert, ready to attack if the need arose. His body was relaxed, his eyes focused intently on hers. He seemed harmless but she knew from experience, that didn't mean a damn thing.
He moved a few more painful inches closer, causing her to tip her head back in order to maintain eye contact. Her breath was coming in short bursts now, as was his.
“I'm not going to hurt you, Syd,” he said.
He bent toward her, his hands reaching for her face and then delicately cradling it in his palms. She closed her eyes and squeezed out fresh tears. His touch sent warmth through her and gave her a brief moment of calm, but then his mouth was on hers, taking more than she was ready to give. Instinctively she went into protective mode and stiffened, thrusting her knee into his groin. Ben fell to the floor at her feet. Silently, she stepped away.
“Jesus Christ!” he shouted. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
Sydney watched him roll around on the rug in a fetal position, grabbing at his crotch and moaning. She moved to the table by the window and sat down, her body beginning to shake from the reality of what she had done.
Ben cursed at her for a long time, finally rising to his knees and resting his chest against the bed mattress for support.
“Damn it! he said, still not able to stand. “I haven't been kicked in the balls since junior high and I didn't deserve it then, either.”
She watched him quietly. It was taking him much longer to recover than she had expected and remorse was beginning to eat at her.
“Do you need ice?” she asked.
He lifted his head from the mattress and glared at her. “Don't trouble yourself. I'll live,” he said, then lowered his face to the quilt. A few minutes later he attempted to stand again, but the pain forced him back to his knees.
“What the fuck happened in your past, Syd, to make you like this?”
Across the room Sydney covered her face and began to cry.
Ben carefully eased himself onto the end of the bed and carefully rolled onto his back. His hands continued to massage his stomach and groin. His breathing was almost back to normal.
“Do you really want to know?” Sydney asked.
He turned his head and saw her tears. She was sitting with her knees up to her chest in the chair, hugging them tightly, her chin resting on top. He forced himself onto his side to see her better.