by Amelia Wilde
4
Bennett
I’m not a big wine drinker, but if last night was any indication, you can get yourself good and drunk on it if you drink it fast enough and order a second bottle.
Which is exactly what Eva did.
Which is how she ended up in my apartment after our lengthy dinner ended.
And to be clear, I didn’t mind it. The hiccups were cute as hell and so was she, swaying like she was wearing heels when in fact she was wearing those flat shoes that have nothing to do with dancing. I’d been torn about it, you know. I’d rather die in a nuclear blast than take advantage of her, but it didn’t seem right to put her in a cab alone. It didn’t even seem right to drop her off at her door. So when she leaned her head against my shoulder in the back of a surprisingly clean yellow cab and said, “I don’t think I should go home...”
I didn’t argue is what I’m saying.
I took that gorgeous mystery of a woman back to my apartment, supplied her with a T-shirt that looked unbelievably oversized and painfully sexy, but because I am a man of fucking honor, I only crawled in beside her and listened to her breathing even out.
Eva Lipton sleeps curled on her side, her red hair spilling over the pillow behind her. It was wild watching the last of the day’s tension leave her muscles. I haven’t seen anyone relax that fast in my bed for a long, long time. I praised the past version of myself for not buying a shitty mattress when I had the chance, because it was perfect for her. She hadn’t really moved when I got up an hour ago and came out to the living room to work.
I have two jobs.
One job is the one that pays me. My natural obsession with getting the facts made becoming a fact-checker after I left the Army a no-brainer. It’s a lot of sifting through the deep corners of the Internet and confirming details that seem insignificant until they’re not. The company I work for publishes information on all kinds of content—they contract with groups in the public and private sectors—and more than once they’ve saved those groups from embarrassing mistakes or, worse, lawsuits. They pay me well and I can work from anywhere with an Internet connection, which means I can work on my second and more important job: getting to the bottom of how I got there in the first place.
To the Army.
And it all comes back to my father, only no matter how much of my time I devote to it, I can’t make sense of the man’s tangled webs. Tangled is probably an understatement. His life was full of crossed wires and strange mistakes for a man like him. He was too smart for what happened. But everything starts with him, because—
There’s a rustling from the bedroom that might as well be a bullhorn in the early morning hush of my apartment. Without thinking of it, I’ve been listening to this sound since the moment I came out to the living room and sank into my worn-in armchair. I’ve been working through the latest project, but most of my attention was really on the dim haze of the bedroom, waiting, waiting....
The sun has barely risen, and I’ve learned another thing about Eva Lipton: even when she’s waking up in someone else’s bed, she is still graceful. Quiet as a mouse, actually, which makes me curious about...how she is at other times.
My one-bedroom apartment has, through some inexplicable miracle, two bathrooms, one in the entry hall and one attached to the bedroom. I’m sure Eva’s appreciating that right now. She must have gone in there, because I hear water running. Then more rustling. Getting dressed?
She pads out into view in bare feet, her flats dangling from her fingertips and her other hand clutching the handle of her purse. Sneaking. She’s going to tiptoe to the door and sprint if she can get away with it.
Well.
“Hey.”
Eva startles and claps her hand over her mouth to hide her sharp breath. “Christ. You scared me.”
I can’t help smiling at the sight of her. It’s a compulsion, but I try to keep it to a minimum. “Where did you think I was?”
She bites her lips. “I don’t know. Getting coffee, hopefully.”
“And you were hoping to be gone before I got back.”
“Yes, and...” Her voice trails off.
“What else were you hoping?”
Eva turns her face toward the enormous picture window, the light making her cheeks a deeper shade of pink. She looks deliciously rumpled like this. From sleeping in my bed. My heart pounds at the memory of it and it just ended. “I was hoping I could sneak out of this...mortifying situation without seeing you.”
I thread my hands behind my head. “Nothing mortifying happened last night.”
“Not for you.”
“It’s a little embarrassing to have to be such a gentleman.”
“Oh, please.” She scoffs. “You loved being a gentleman.”
“I promise you, Eva, I had a very love-hate relationship with being a gentleman. Right now, it’s trending heavily toward hate.”
Eva’s blush deepens and I want more than anything to take her back into that bedroom in the light of day and really see her. Stripped. Naked. Pink and perfect and exposed. She’d have no secrets then, and in this moment I don’t care if it makes me dishonorable; I want it like I wanted water when we were in that fucking Humvee out in the desert. I want her.
For a moment I think she might part those lips and flirt back, but something in her face shifts and changes. It’s the worst when you can see a moment slipping through your fingers. It’s almost as bad as when a moment you’ve dreaded actually comes, exploding up through the ground, all hellfire and destruction and you’re thinking, Why, why? What’s the point of all this? But it’s way too late for your Humvee, not to mention the two of your buddies up in the front.
“Stay.” I let the suggestion fall softly between us, standing up at the same time and stretching out my legs. “It’s still early. You haven’t missed anything yet.”
She didn’t stay.
And yes, it was one of the greater disappointments of my lifetime. Once, when I was seven, my parents took me to the elementary school game night. There was a drawing for prizes, and one of those prizes was a detective kit. I wanted that thing more than I’d ever wanted anything, and I’d busted ass all night tearing up the games for tickets. You already know what happened at the end of the night. I didn’t win the detective kit. In fact, this asshole named Peter Kulls won it and he gloated over it all the way out to his family’s Jeep.
What happened with Eva hurt worse than that, though I’m still not sure why. I’ve known her all of thirty seconds. I let her sleep in my bed out of the sheer goodness of my heart and not any other motive whatsoever.
Eva turned her face away from the light, lips slightly parted, and I swore I could see her getting ready to agree. I didn’t care if she wanted to go to bed or preferred to perch herself on my sofa, as long as she stayed. But instead, she pinned those lips together, this look coming into her eyes, a cross between shame and distrust that just about killed me.
“I have to go.” Her voice bounced off the wall behind me, an echo like a ripple in water.
I stood where I was. “I’m not stopping you.”
Then I doubled down on all of it. It was five steps to the door. Flipped the lock. Pulled it open. The air from the hallway shifted in our direction, and as she went by me, it lifted stray locks of her hair.
I let her walk away.
She didn’t look back.
“What are you moping about?”
The voice that interrupts my thoughts belongs to one Ash Montgomery, who deployed for the first time three months after we did. He never talks about any women, but he has the kind of face that must attract them like moths to a streetlight. He’s also tall, a little taller than I am. Occasionally, he’s funny, and he’s usually reliable, and sometimes pays for rounds of everyone’s drink. A decent guy, if a little cagey.
He’s come up beside me by the window.
“Since when does looking at this beautiful view count as moping?”
Ash laughs out loud. “You’re right. It’s stunning down there.”
Mack’s Bar is not in the finest neighborhood ever to grace the earth, and down there in the pool of light from a street lamp, a couple is fighting, jabbing fingers at one another. I take another swig of my beer.
“Tell me you’re not still thinking about that IED.”
I shoot him a look that says you’re being fucking stupid. “No, man, I’m done with all that.”
“What’s the faraway look for, then?”
Ash has been going to this veterans support group since it started six months ago, around the time I moved back to the city. He thought it was bullshit at first, but he’s moved on to asking questions, which I can appreciate, being...who I am. It helps that we rent out the top floor of a bar in Brooklyn for the meetings. That means there’s easy access to beer, and it’s pretty casual. Sometimes, we end up playing cards, and most nights nobody talks about being in the service. Still, it’s a good feeling to be around these guys every other Saturday from eight o’clock onward.
Ash clears his throat and tries again. “You got somebody on your mind, or are you just being cagey to fuck with me?”
“I’m not fucking with you.” I wasn’t, though I want to ask Ash the same question. He missed four meetings in a row then came back with a frown on his face and a rigid way to his posture that made me think his chest hurt. My natural instinct is to press him until I know what happened, but that’s usually not a good strategy at a fucking support group. And I’m never going to know what happened to him if I’m not honest. “It’s somebody. Somebody who stayed the night last night.”
This perks Ash right up, his blue eyes going wide. “What kind of somebody?”
“She’s—” Hundreds of words bubble up to the tip of my tongue and I swallow them all down with another draw of my beer. Eva was so embarrassed this morning that she couldn’t bring herself to look at me on the way out. How can I tell any of this to Ash? I can’t sell her mortification out like that. It would be different if she were my wife, maybe, but...maybe not. “She’s somebody,” I settle on.
Ash makes a disgusted noise in the back of his throat and shakes his head. “Cryptic. You’re such a dick. Why else are we here, if we’re not going to talk?”
“Oh, you want to talk? Where were you the last— Hang on.”
My phone is the thing that cuts me off. I dig it out of my pocket to see what it is, conscious of Ash watching.
“Wow,” Ash says, faux disappointment ringing in his voice. “The fact that you’d interrupt our therapeutic conversation to answer a text message is hardly supportive of you, Ben—”
“Shut your damn mouth. Nobody texts me while I’m at these things.”
He raises his eyebrows. “Oh, so it must be more important than the person standing in front of you right now.”
“Undoubtedly.”
“Asshole.” He laughs. “You coming to the thing next weekend?”
“I’m good.” I swipe at the screen to reveal the text message.
And I’ll be damned.
It’s from Eva.
5
Eva
It was all a huge mistake. Going to the party in the first place. Leaving it for dinner with Ben. Somehow—and I don’t remember exactly how, but I have a hazy memory of saying something ridiculous and thinking he’d just drop me off at home—staying over at Ben’s.
But the biggest error I’ve made in this entire situation was coming back to my own apartment.
The damn thing feels like it’s closing in. It felt smaller from the moment I stepped inside. Wrong, even though I’ve spent most of my time the last few weeks fussing over every detail. I hate the throw pillows I got last week, and they seemed so funny at the time. One says sit your ass down; it has a line drawing of a donkey. And the other says you are what you eat, so I am pizza. I have no fucking idea. They seemed right at the time, and now they seem like something I should have had in my college dorm. And I would have, only I agonized over every penny back then. Needlessly. But there’s no point in beating myself up over decisions I made in college. Or the throw pillows, really, though I do hate them now. I turn them so they’re both facing in.
I pace through my little collection of rooms, irritated with myself for being liked this. I have a nice apartment. The book deals were big enough that I finally got myself a place with ceilings that didn’t brush the top of my head when I walked through the living room. It has big, floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over Bryant Park, and I did the whole thing in a shade of white that makes me think of flannel sheets.
I’m supposed to be happy.
And now, in my flannel sheet apartment, all I can think about is Ben Powell’s eyes. To describe them as “brown” would be such a cop-out. They are brown, but they’re multifaceted in a way that I’ve only ever seen in green eyes, or blue. Somehow, his eyes have flecks of...gold. Yes. It must be gold, and streaks of amber. Unlike anything else I’ve ever seen.
I want to see them again.
So now, hands trembling, I send a text.
Eva: I made a mistake.
I send it, and then I pace furiously back through my apartment again, swallowing down my nerves and a fresh wave of embarrassment. Could I be any more cryptic and ridiculous? I’m already steeped in enough mystery, being a writer, and people get sick of that shit. As they should. I should have just told him what I want. I should have just stayed over in the first place. His voice was calming, and now my apartment is a blank white echo chamber that I hate with the burning passion of a thousand suns. I have already tried music, which grated against my ears, but now the quiet is too loud. And...there’s the text I’ve sent.
I’m about to turn my phone off and pretend I didn’t do it when his answer pops up on my screen.
Ben: Was it sending this text?
Eva: Ha
I actually do laugh, a short, sharp thing.
Eva: Maybe
Ben: You know, it would be easier to open the kimono
Eva: I’m not wearing a kimono
Ben: What are you wearing?
I look out over Bryant Park, at all those happy, carefree people strolling across the grass, and tap out my reply.
Eva: Even if I were wearing a kimono, I wouldn’t open it
Ben: What about just...telling me with words?
Eva: I’m using plenty of words right now, don’t you think?
Ben: Tell me what you want, Eva. He follows this up with a gif of a man with his hand by his ear, an exaggerated I’m listening.
Eva: I don’t know what I want. I don’t even know why I’m texting you
Ben: It’s because you miss me. Obviously...
I take a deep breath. I’ve already come this far, so there’s no sense in hauling myself back out of the water now.
Eva: I miss last night.
Ben: Coy
Eva: I’m not being coy, I’m being...
I’m losing it, is what’s happening. Twin desires rage at the pit of my gut. On the one hand, I want to shut this down and pretend this isn’t happening, but it is happening. And on the other hand...I need him. And not in some pathetic “I need your calming presence nearby” way, though that is true, but in the way that my body aches to be next to his. And not just for his presence. I’ve never felt this obsessed with a man’s body before.
Plus, there’s nobody else I can call. I’m not going to call happy, perfect Whitney, and there’s nobody else. No parents. No sister. Because of me.
That’s not what I want to talk to Ben about, though. Not Ben, and not anyone else.
I thought I wanted to be alone, but I do not, not with the blank page on my computer screen taunting me.
The blank text message screen on my phone taunts me in the same way. No matter what I do, someone is always waiting for me to say something. This time, it’s Ben.
I was vague with him last night at the restaurant.
I swallow the last of my pride.
Eva: Can you come over?
The buzzer rings on my intercom an hour later,
and even though I’m expecting it, it makes me jump. I swear, I can feel each individual vein in my body, the blood rushing through it, getting warm, getting hot.
I push the button. “Hello?”
“It’s me,” he says.
I buzz him in.
The wait for him to ride the elevator up to my floor is almost as bad as the entire preceding hour. Once I knew he was coming, I sprinted for the shower. Normally, I set aside an evening to wash my hair because it’s so curly, but not this time. I did my Under Extreme Pressure wash and dry, determined it mostly a success, and spent the rest of the time choosing an outfit. I want to correct the impression I gave him last night—of some lush who drank herself into sleeping over—but not overcorrect. So I don’t go with a skirt suit. I go with a dress—an A-line I got from ModCloth that, upon closer examination, has books printed on it. Maybe, if I can fake it, he won’t see what’s really going on.
I wait in the middle of the living room, not right next to the door, so when he knocks I can casually walk across and call “coming.”
My heart thuds—one, two—against my ribcage.
I open the door and as soon as I do, Ben is moving past me into the apartment.
“What have you already tried?” He reaches for something in his pocket. “For the writer’s block?”
I shut the door and flip the deadbolt all while staring after him. “How did you know I have writer’s block?”
“I had a conversation—” Ben stops, does a double take. “Were you going somewhere?”
The dress—of course, the dress. It’s ten o’clock. Ben’s eyes rake over it, and I see his approval on his face.
“No. Not really. I didn’t have any plans.”
He nods. “You look beautiful.” Before I can answer, he goes on. “Whitney told me you were a writer.”
I cover my face with my hands. “Oh, God. Whitney can’t keep her mouth shut about anything, and now you probably know—”
“I know you’re a writer. Plus, we covered that at dinner.”