On top of my disastrous date with Ben, if that’s what it was—our outing or dinner or whatever—I’d gotten my period. Every time I looked in the mirror, I obsessed over the giant zit on my forehead and how Hunnie had called out my white shorts. I wanted to follow up with her on the internship but was too chickenshit.
After using the bathroom, I sat down in one of the mismatched chairs in the back of the Bean by the patio doors, looking at my phone and willing it to ring. Then I remembered I was in Vermont and not New York. Thinking of the looks I would get for chatting on the phone inside the Bean made me laugh . . . until my phone actually did ring.
Slipping out the patio door, I picked up this call. “Hi, Mom. How are you?”
“Murphy.” She said my name grimly as usual.
I imagined her lips pursed as she said it. I could almost see her disdain, so deep that it must be creasing her Botoxed forehead.
“Hiya, Mom,” I said, not sure why I tried to add some cheerfulness.
“Please don’t hiya me. Your father and I are worried. When will you come back? You know he’s supporting the next candidate for governor, and we need you to attend some events with us. It will be good for you. We can clear you of all those rumors and maybe you’ll meet someone . . . decent.”
Pacing the parking lot, I wished I hadn’t answered. It was always the same thing. “Mom, it wasn’t a rumor. I lost my job because of something I did.”
“You told them you didn’t know he was a student there, so you’re cleared. It’s time to hold your head up and go about the life you’re supposed to live.”
Of course, I didn’t know when I met Preston Parker online that he was a transfer student at Columbia where I was an advisor. He’d said he was twenty-five before I went out with him. It was only for a few casual dates, and I had no idea what I was doing was wrong, but I did it. And then one thing led to another, and the next thing I knew, my reputation was ruined.
“Mom, listen. I’m here in Vermont, so don’t tell me what I need to be doing. If I’m right, you and Dad wanted me to leave.” Tears pricked painfully behind my eyes, so I thought about mud and rocks, hiking, and getting dirty to shake them off.
“We wanted you to take some space from us. Maybe go to the Bahamas and come back ready to be who we need you to be. Your family name is depending on it.”
“I didn’t have many choices, Mom. I had no money or job. I’d spent it all in New York on stuff I didn’t need because I thought there was more coming. But then you froze my trust fund.”
“Only until you did what we wanted.”
“Oh my God.” I stomped my foot, then quickly glanced around to make sure no one saw. Sure enough, standing twenty feet away was Ben Rooney, wearing his scrubs and looking freshly rumpled.
Closing my eyes, I willed him away. For the fastest second known to man, I worried about my hair, and then I remembered his challenge last night to let it all go. With my mom in my ear, it was even more difficult.
“Listen, Mom, I’m okay. I’m figuring out who I am and what I want in life, and discovering all of this on my own. I even have a lead on a social media position here.” I definitely need to call Hunnie. An internship is better than nothing.
“It doesn’t matter what you want. Don’t you get that, Murphy?”
That was my mom, Lyssa Landon, CEO of my destiny and staunch believer in we don’t have a choice in life.
“It does matter. I have to go,” I said, quickly disconnecting the call as Ben approached.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey. I’m on a quick break and have to get back in there. I can even take your mug, if you want.” I pointed to the red Yeti in his hand.
“Don’t be like that,” he said, not making eye contact.
“Like what? Like the help? That’s what I am. I make the coffee, and you drink it.”
“No, like we didn’t have words last night, and you’re taking them all personally. It’s obvious.”
“They were personal, Ben. I don’t think I could interpret it any other way.”
“I know. Shit,” he muttered and kicked some gravel with his foot. “I’m sorry. Listen, it was wrong of me. I can’t knock the way you were raised if I despised people doing the same to me.” Looking up, he said, “By the way, you okay? I saw you having some sort of hissy fit over here.”
“Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but I just had the usual lovely conversation over the phone with my mom, and I’m not in the mood for this right now. Zara will need me back. If you don’t want to give me your mug, I’ll see you in there.”
I turned on my heel and headed back inside through the patio doors, not waiting to see if Ben followed or used the main entrance.
9
Murphy
“Look, I’m sorry,” Ben said as I got out of my car at home later that night.
Standing near where I usually park, he was no longer in scrubs. He was freshly showered, his hair wet, wearing another pair of khaki cargo shorts, a white T-shirt, and running shoes. His woodsy scent begged for me to get close, but I resisted the urge.
“Stalk much?” I said while yanking the seat forward to get my bag.
“A little WD-40 may help that.”
“Whatever. I know it’s probably better off in the junk yard, but it’s mine. Let it go,” I said, somewhat snippy. “I know how this looks, poor little rich girl who grew up being chauffeured around in Escalades now hits rock bottom.”
As I locked the car and slammed the door shut, I caught a good whiff of myself—coffee and grime—and wondered if Zara had ever thought about putting in a shower so we could clean up before we left work. I laughed at the ridiculous thought as I made my way to my door, ignoring Ben trailing behind me.
“Murph, slow down. I’m sorry. Shit, I seem to be saying that a lot. This is new for me. Seeing you, remembering how I really liked you—all of you, even the part who was used to being chauffeured around. It’s just, you’re different now. I want to believe you’re better suited for me, and better for yourself too. God, I know how bad that sounds.”
Turning in my doorway, I glared at him. “Better suited? Better for me? What does that mean? I’m still me, a person . . . and I’ve always been one. I need to try to stop punishing myself for having to live under my parents’ rule. And you have to stop holding it against me.”
Hadn’t I treated him differently at Pressman? He wasn’t wrong that I was better now.
Ben caught me off guard, running his palm down my cheek, and I looked up at him. “I see you get it now.”
“Am I that obvious? Jeez, I thought I’d been taught better. My poker face is supposed to be perfect.” Putting a pin in my thoughts, I spied one of my neighbors parking, and said, “Let’s go in.”
Ben walked over the threshold, this time with no surprise in his expression.
“Give me a sec, okay?” I said. “I have to put this down and run to the bathroom.”
“No problem.”
I decided to take a little longer, wiping off my body with a Burt’s Bees makeup-remover wipe—a small luxury I still splurged on. It would have to do. Quickly, I changed into a pair of old J. Crew shorts and a loose off-the-shoulder gray T-shirt. Finger-combing my hair and spritzing on some Chanel perfume, a leftover Christmas gift from my mom, I did my best to look and smell somewhat appealing.
“Okay,” I said, walking back into the tiny living space of my place.
Ben looked up from a photo of my friend Jordana and me hugging, glassy-eyed and bushy-tailed for lack of a better description. “I remember this. You and,” he said, snapping his fingers, “Jordana, that’s it. You guys went to a hayride for the other school nearby . . . Wallace Prep . . . and got so drunk. Jordana spent the night hanging over the garbage can in the custodian’s closet.”
Although I’d kept the picture, Jordana was a friend from my past life. We occasionally texted or called, sent birthday cards, but she was living the good life in New York and I was here in Vermont. She was one of the o
nes who didn’t turn on me completely, but she still distanced herself a little now that I wasn’t one of them.
“We did. Bobby Williams asked me, and of course I was dying to go to the Wallace hayride. It was supposedly an epic event. Sadly, one I don’t remember much of to this day. I didn’t know Bobby was going to slip grain alcohol in my water bottle. Jordana was a mess. Her date talked her into smoking some bad weed.”
Ben nodded. “You called me when you got back and needed help.”
“I know. You were the only one I trusted not to blow our cover. I’m sorry. It was probably wrong of me to call. I trusted you, though. That had to mean something.”
“But not with you,” he said. “You didn’t trust me with all of you. You only gave me parts of you, little bits—your fiascos, bad grades, and anxieties. Which is why I’m here to say I’m sorry. Again. I didn’t mean to end things so abruptly last night. I’m not excusing your behavior from back then, but I don’t want to act that way too. Seeing the way people acted at Pressman, holier-than-thou and shit, I vowed to never be that way.”
Not wanting Ben to belittle himself on my behalf, I said, “It’s okay. I get that we’re from different worlds, and always have been. Look, I know I was a bitch then, but I’m trying not to be one now. It’s just I’ve been thrust into some strange limbo between your world and mine. It’s hard to shake some of the old thinking, but I’m trying to be better. That’s the truth.”
I fell on my sword because this was Ben, and although it had been well over a decade since we’d seen each other, it was like we were lost in time. With his hair as messy as it was back then, his perfectly scruffy jaw, his feelings out in the open, all I wanted to do was reach out and run my hand over his cheek and put my lips on his.
It was a force I didn’t recognize. A desire that had always been there, but was absolutely burning right now.
“That’s why I’m standing here. You deserve a second chance, Murph. It’s no secret that my heart belonged to you in high school, which is kind of crazy because nothing ever happened. But here we are, all these years later, grown adults, and I’m still carrying a torch for you.”
“Ben, please, listen to me. I was wrong back then. I know it. But I am who I am, and there are things I’ve done, things you don’t seem to know about, that you shouldn’t be a part of.”
“Stop. Like I said, I’m not concerned with all of that. Unless you have an exotic communicable disease.” He leaned in and ran his lips across my cheek.
“Ben.” I tried to escape his hold, but he kept me close. “I’m not used to this. Silly Ben, Confident Ben, Doctor Ben, all these Bens wrapped up in one package. And a very fit one at that.”
“Get used to it. I’m coming after you, Murphy. I’m dropping all the bullshit, the past and where we came from, because I want to know this you.” He planted a quick closed-mouth kiss on me. “Forgive me?”
I nodded, not wanting to lose contact with his lips. For as much as Ben gave me a headache from the hot-then-cold vibes, I was sure I did the same.
Oh well, I wasn’t going to turn down kisses from Absolutely Delectable Ben.
“Dinner?” Ben asked later, leaning against my hideous green kitchen counter after our kissing and not-enough-making-out session.
It didn’t get much further than our tongues tangling and Ben’s palm grazing my side cleavage before he’d said, “Let’s slow things down.” When I groaned, embarrassing myself, he added, “It’s not like I don’t want more.”
I suggested a drink before remembering all I had was crappy wine, but he took me up on it.
“So, you had to work today?” I asked, pulling down two wineglasses.
“Yep. Low man on the totem pole in my practice, so I get the crappy weekend calls. Broken hip, return offender. Poor guy lives alone, won’t listen about getting help, keeps getting up on a ladder to change his light bulbs. Second time this year I’ve fixed him up. I’m hoping his family steps in this time.”
“Aw, poor guy.”
“Yep. I was out on an early morning hike with a buddy and stopover at my mom’s, but work called.”
“Wait? Can you drink that?” I motioned toward the secondhand-store wineglass I’d just handed him.
“Yes. We switch off at five o’clock. Someone else is on for the next twenty-four hours. I do have to go in and do rounds in the morning, but right now, I’m hungry and grateful for the vino.”
I took him in, his blue eyes bright, his hair an unruly mess.
“What?” he asked, giving me a curious look.
“Just looking at you,” I said boldly.
“Oh yeah?”
“I would’ve recognized you anywhere.”
“I’m pretty sure I knew who you were right away. You look pretty damn good yourself.” He slipped his arm around me and pulled me close, whispering the last part in my ear. “But before anything else, I have to eat.”
“Oh,” I said, disappointed. I wasn’t sure when I’d turned into such a vixen. Even when I’d supposedly seduced a student, it was a slow-burn thing. We’d texted through a dating app, then met for coffee a few times.
“It’s been fourteen years. I think that classifies as slow burn.” My eyes grew wide. “Wait, did I say that out loud?”
“You did, but you don’t have to go into any details until you’re ready, Murph. I’m serious, I don’t know what the hell went on with you, but I want you to tell me yourself.” His stomach rumbled through the last part. “How about Chinese takeout? I know you like it. Remember you guys used to order it all the time in the dorms on Sunday nights?”
Ben switched gears, steering away from my transgressions, and I didn’t know if that was for my benefit or simply the way he was. An unfamiliar emotion swept through me at the thought of what a decent guy he was.
Sensing myself being taken over by feelings, I said quickly, “They have that here? Good Chinese food?”
This earned me a laugh and a wink. “We may not be the Big Apple, but we’ve got everything you need right here in sleepy little Vermont.”
As Ben pulled up a menu on his phone, I wondered why I’d been such a loser and hadn’t given him a chance back then.
Then I remembered. I’d been a snobby bitch, for lack of a better word.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as he handed me the phone with the menu.
“For what? Doubting we have good Chinese here?”
I swallowed, feeling a lump of regret the size of a peach pit slide down my throat, and decided to put myself out there. “I’m sorry for how I acted back at Pressman. We keep circling around it—the past, what happened, how sorry I am, how you did the best you could. Honestly, Ben, you have nothing to be sorry about or to regret. You came there with the best of intentions, and most people treated you crappy. Maybe me the most.”
He frowned at me. “Don’t say that. You were nice to me . . . in private.”
“Just don’t. Please don’t make excuses. Shoot,” I said, picking at a loose cuticle.
Damn. I’m going to make a mess of my home manicure, but it’s too late to worry about that.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into me.” I waved at my cracked, faded countertop. “You’re starving, and we’re stuck in this tiny excuse of a kitchen. Maybe it’s talking about Chinese food, reminding me of when we used to order, and you never joined in.”
I’d just had this memory the other day, but I didn’t mention it.
“Or maybe it’s just the day I’ve had. My mom, she’s a piece of work. She taught me to always be this nice person, but that only applied to people in my same social bracket. Everyone else got a fake smile. I tried to be somewhere in the middle with you, but I couldn’t make it happen outside of our dorm rooms or the library.”
“You tried,” he said, rushing to my defense again.
“No, I didn’t try hard enough. And for that, I’m sorry.”
“You know what? I wasn’t always easy back then either. My home life, my lack of what everyone else had
, was like a nasty chip I carried on my shoulder. But I don’t want to keep circling on the issue either. Let’s put an end to this. I’m an adult now, all grown up with my own money and career, and you’re doing your thing, making your way in the world. Let’s eat takeout as the people we are now, and leave those two in our past.”
My shoulders dropped. “Okay.” I didn’t know how Ben did it, but he seemed to render me speechless often.
“Go on,” he said, pointing to his phone in my hand. “See what you might like.”
Swiping at his screen, I scanned the menu. “Oh, this place is even better. More Thai than Chinese. It’s Thai, you knew that, right? Pho house . . . mmm, looks delicious. I love pad Thai.”
Ben grinned. “We’re very advanced here. I usually get the fried rice, so I think of it as Chinese takeout. Fried rice is my weakness. You need to try it. Give me the phone, and I’ll call.” He took the phone back, saying he also loved the ginger chicken. “Should we get a few things and share?”
“Great.”
And just like that, it was so easy. Ben ordered the food, told them he’d be there in twenty minutes, and ordered me to relax with a glass of wine before he was out the door.
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yep. The owner is a patient of mine, and I like to say hi. I’ll have wine when I get back. It’s a bit of a drive from here, but I need to support them.”
As I poured myself a cheap glass of vino, I couldn’t help but wonder, Is this a date? It was my second night eating with Ben, which was more than I’d done with a man since fleeing New York.
Shit. I swore silently, another transgression my mom would lecture me about.
I could hear her now. Ladies don’t swear. Especially those in the public eye.
Good thing I’m not in the public eye anymore.
Although, if she had her way, I’d be back before I knew it. I needed something to hold me here more firmly. My mom would have no problem steamrolling into the Bean and berating Zara—with a smile on her face—and have her begging for me to pack up and leave.
Friendzoned (The Busy Bean) Page 7