30. Strange Bedfellows
30
Strange Bedfellows
MORNING LIGHT POURED in between the violet curtains as I woke up, and I rolled over to check my phone. Eight thirty. Thursday, April 13. Today was my dad’s funeral. I hugged a pillow tightly to my chest, and buried my face into it—when I remembered Ben.
He was lying beside me, eyes closed, still as stone. Ghosts didn’t breathe, and they didn’t sleep, either, but there were the beginnings of dark circles under his eyes. There was a bit of stubble on his cheeks, too, and I thoughtlessly reached to touch it when he opened his eyes.
I retracted my hand quickly. A blush crept up my face. “You’re awake—sorry. Of course you are, you don’t sleep. Good morning.”
“Good morning,” he replied softly. “Sleep well?”
I nodded, and hugged the pillow to my chest tighter. “I don’t want to go today.”
“I know. I’ll be there.”
“Promise?”
He nodded. “Though I don’t know how much it’ll help.”
“More than you think,” I replied, pressing my mouth into the pillow, my words muffled. He looked doubtful, so I pushed the pillow down and added, “I don’t feel so sharp or raw with you around. I feel . . . okay. I haven’t felt that in so long—like I don’t need to put on any masks for you. I don’t have to pretend to be cool or cute or—or
normal
.”
His eyes softened. “I like being around you, too.”
“Because I’m the only one who can see you.”
“Yes,” he replied, and my heart began to sink into my chest, until he added, “but not because I’m a ghost, Florence.” Then he reached to brush a strand of hair out of my face. When his fingertips passed through my cheek, it felt like a bloom of cold. I shivered—I couldn’t help myself. He retracted his hand, his lips pursed together. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I haven’t finished that manuscript. I don’t know when I will. I—I feel like I just keep failing you.”
“There’s more to life than work, and you are grieving for your dad right now. Asking you to do that . . . no. I don’t expect you to kill yourself trying to finish it.”
“Says the workaholic.”
“I wish I wasn’t. I wish I’d taken a vacation—done
something.
” He rolled onto his back, and stared at the popcorn ceiling. He swallowed hard, and his Adam’s apple bobbed in trepidation. “I wish . . . I had closed my office door after you walked in and kissed you until you saw stars.”
I let out a squeak. “You do
not
!”
“Oh yes I do,” he replied. “I would’ve asked first.”
I could imagine that, in some alternate timeline. Where he stood, and shut the door behind me, and knelt down beside where
I sat, clutching a cactus, and asked me in this exact soft, growling voice—“May I kiss you, Florence Day?”
And I would’ve said yes.
I shook my head fervently. “No—no
way
. I—I had unwashed hair! And I wore my Goodwill tweed coat! And my scarf had
coffee stains
on it!”
“And you were sexy as hell. But you couldn’t meet my gaze,” he said with a laugh. “I thought you hated me.”
“Hated you? Ben.” I pushed myself up onto my elbow to look him in the eyes, and said very seriously, “I wanted to climb you.”
He barked a laugh, loud and bright. “Climb me!”
“Like a goddamn tree,” I moaned regretfully.
Let me die of mortification here
, I thought. At least then I wouldn’t have to attend the graveside service today. “I couldn’t look at you because I was having a minor crisis in my head
over
you. I mean—here you were, this gorgeous new editor, and I had to do the one thing that no author in the
history
of books wants to do: admit that I hadn’t finished the novel.”
“To be fair, I
did
know that the ghostwriter would be coming to meet me,” he pointed out as I rolled over to the edge of the bed and pushed myself to sit up. He followed me with his eyes as I went over to my suitcase and began digging through it for today’s clothes. “A woman named Florence Day.”
“And there I was showing up with a cactus.”
“Which you promptly told me to stick up my ass, basically, when you left.”
“I know, I feel bad about that. It was a good cactus.” I cocked my head. “I don’t remember you at many publishing functions, though. Didn’t you go to any?”
“Not many, but I
did
go to the publisher of Faux’s party for the release of
Dante’s Motorbike
.”
I picked my dress out of the suitcase and froze. “Wait—a few years ago?”
“Yeah. You had on those heels with the red bottoms? You couldn’t walk in them to save your life.”
“Louboutins,” I corrected absently, hanging the outfit over me as I judged whether I needed tights or knee-highs, but my mind was years away—back in that cramped private library, feet throbbing from those shoes. “You were there? That was the party where I met . . .”
Lee
.
He nodded at the unspoken name, his hand absently going to the ring around his neck. He rubbed at it thoughtfully. “You were in the library and I can’t remember how many times I told myself to just go over there. To talk to you. This stranger whose name I didn’t even know.”
“A novel idea.”
“For
me
, it was. But I’d just met Laura, too, and I’m nothing if not torturously monogamous. And then . . . the moment was gone. Lee walked up to you, and that was it.”
To think, he had been there since the beginning. We had passed each other like ships at sea and I never knew. All of my heartache could have been circumvented—all of his pain could have been mended. What kind of people would we have been if he had found me in that library? Or if I had mingled with Rose and found him instead?
“I wish we had met instead,” I whispered.
“I would’ve been terrible for you,” he replied, shaking his head. His voice was softer, closer. He’d gotten out of bed and came around toward me. I watched him in the mirror, and his eyes were trained on the carpet. He couldn’t meet mine. “I would’ve been terrible for everyone. I was terrible for myself.”
“Laura cheating on you wasn’t your fault.”
He didn’t respond.
“It wasn’t. It was hers. You told me that after that you felt like she deserved better. Someone who would keep her from cheating but—you’re wrong.” I took a deep breath because this was something I had to come to understand, too. That worth wasn’t dependent on someone else’s love for you, or your usefulness, or what you could do for them. “It’s not her who deserves better. It’s
you
, Ben.”
He swallowed thickly. “How come when I told myself the same thing a thousand times I didn’t believe me, but when you say it, it feels true?”
“Because I’m rarely wrong.”
“You did say romance was dead.”
I tilted my head, looking at his reflection in the mirror. “Aren’t you?”
He chuckled, and finally looked up again, and his eyes were a warm, melted ocher. Like in the dandelion field. “I don’t think this is what you meant,” he replied, his voice soft and gravelly, and I realized how badly I was burning up on the inside. I wanted him to touch me, to run his fingers across my skin. I wanted his face in the crook of my neck, his lips pressed against the freckled skin there. I wanted to fold myself into his sharp angles and stay there. Exist there. Because there—
there
I was sure I wouldn’t fall apart, I wouldn’t disassemble, I wouldn’t feel broken.
Not because I couldn’t exist on my own, but sometimes I just didn’t want to.
Sometimes I just wanted to let my guard down, let the pieces of me fall to the ground, and know that I had someone there who could put me back together without minding the sharp bits.
“Though dead is what you make of it,” he mumbled, his dark gaze almost feverish, if he weren’t so polite. “There are so many
things we can do. We can talk books, we can wax about the romantics—Lord Byron and Keats and Shelley—”
“Mary or Percy?”
“Mary, obviously.”
“The only choice,” I agreed.
He laughed. “And I want to complain about all the youths and their TikToks and sit on park benches together making up stories and go for walks in graveyards at midnight.”
“I feel like we’ve done a few of these . . .”
“But I could never touch you.”
“I’d be okay with that.”
“No one else will ever see me.”
“That means you’d be all mine.”
He sighed and sat back on the edge of the bed. Morning sunlight slanted in such a way, it carved a stark golden shine across him. “That sounds awfully similar to the plot of
The Forever House.
”
“One of Ann’s best.”
“And it’s the only one without a happily ever after.”
I gave him a strange look. “What do you mean?” I asked as I gathered up my clothes and went into the bathroom to change. I left the door cracked. “They got together in the end!”
“You think so?”
“Of course. She moves into the house and then the doorbell rings. Of course it’s
him
.”
“Come back from the dead?”
“Stranger things happened in that novel,” I pointed out, and through the crack in the door I watched him think back on the time travel and the maybe–maybe
not
werewolf neighbor.
Finally, he said, “Fair. How’d you come to start ghostwriting for Annie?”
“Why do you keep calling her Annie?” I shimmied into my
hose—the knee-highs weren’t going to cut it—and tucked my white blouse into the skirt.
“A habit, I guess,” he replied in that aloof way that very much sounded like bullshit, but I didn’t press it. Maybe it was a weird editor thing. “Did she contact you?”
“No, actually. Well, sort of. I met her in a coffee shop about five years ago. You know, the one on Eighty-Fifth and Park?”
“Oh, they’ve got great scones.”
“Right? Totally the best. Anyway, it was empty, and I’d just broken up with my agent after my publisher dumped me, so I was writing some saucy smut—”
“Noted, you write sex scenes when you’re depressed.”
“Just some good foreplay. Very titillating stuff.
Anyway
, she sat down at my table and critiqued what I was writing. She’d been reading over my shoulder, apparently, and I asked her what the hell and that was that. She critiqued my work and then asked if I wanted a job.”
“Five years ago?” he asked, perplexed.
“Yeah.” I tugged on my skirt, and zipped it up in the back. “Why?”
“Because I was—what the hell could you have been writing to attract her?” he asked, though I got the feeling that he wanted to ask something else.
I poked my head out of the bathroom. “Guess.”
“Had to be something off the cuff. Alien barbarian erotica?”
“No, but I’d read that.”
“Omegaverse?”
“
Anyway
,” I said loudly, pulling my hair back into a bun, and left the bathroom. “She gave me pointers on a confession scene. She said that people usually weren’t overly eloquent, and grand romantic gestures are obtuse and obsolete because they’re too
corny. I argued the opposite—that people like grand romantic gestures because they
are
corny. Because people need more corny in their lives. Like this”—I outstretched my arms to encompass the room, this moment—“is corny. All of it. Right down to how much I want to touch you, and how I can’t.”
“And do tell, how much do you want to touch me?”
“You’re terrible.”
“You brought it up! And I would point out that this scene is not so much corny as rife with romantic tension. If it’s corny, then perhaps you’re writing it wrong.”
“Oh, then tell me, how would you write this scene, maestro?”
“Well, first off,” he began, and turned his dark eyes to me, “I would ask you what you wanted.”
“Ooh, consent. That’s sexy.”
“Very,” he murmured in agreement, his voice low and gravelly. He stood and stepped close to me. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. “Skip the banter, shelve the soul-searching. It’s morning, and the sunlight is glorious on your hair, and you are exquisitely stubborn. You’d never tell me what you’d want.”
“Ha! Go on.” I tried to keep my voice level. “Then what do I want?”
He came up behind me, outstretching his arms, hovering over my skin as he traced the contour of my hips to my middle. “I have an inkling that you would like me to reach my hand beneath your pretty lace underwear,” he whispered, his lips pressed close to my ear, “and stroke you slow. And while I did, I would kiss your neck and nibble at your ear.”
I felt myself flush, my heart beating in my throat as quick as a rabbit. I held my breath as he bent closer still, closer than he’d ever been, never touching, his fingers painting over me like a sculptor’s, relishing in my design.
“And then?” My voice was tight. Controlled.
I’d written more intense scenes than this. This was nothing.
Then why was
this
getting me all hot and bothered?
It was the look in his eyes, that dark glimmer. The promise that he would do exactly what he was telling me. For a man who liked his lists, and liked his order—that was powerful.
His mouth hovered beside my ear. “Romance isn’t a sprint, Florence. It’s a marathon. You start slow. With your blouse, one button at a time. You said I was meticulous, but I would show you just how meticulous I could be.” His fingers mimed undoing the buttons of my blouse. “For each button, I’d plant another kiss on your neck, your collarbone, and finally your perfect breasts . . .”
“You really are a boob guy, aren’t you?”
“They’re nice,” was his response.
“Yes, but I see one problem here,” I said, perhaps a little too loudly because this was getting—I was getting—right, yep, a problem. “There is very little pleasing
you
in this scenario.”
The edge of his lips twitched. “Oh, who’s to say it isn’t for me, too? I am quite the selfish man when it comes down to it—”
“So, getting me off gets
you
off?”
“Why’s it about me at all? Why not just you? You are worthy of that.”
I swallowed the rock lodged in my throat. I was? Worthy of that kind of undivided attention? Because I never felt that way with Lee, not even as he kissed me and told me what to do, where to plant my lips.
“God,” I half laughed, “you really do read too many romance novels.”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t call that a fault. Would you?”
“Depends. Where would this scene go?”
“I would ask you—”
I took a deep breath. “Then ask me.”
In the mirror, his eyes found mine. They were sharp, considering, thinking. He said this was for my pleasure, but I was terrible at being selfish. I could see it in the glint of his eyes, the swallow of his throat. He wanted nothing more—for how long? Since he first saw me? Before I ever knew his name?
I heard him take in a shaky breath. Then, “Unbutton your shirt. Slowly.”
My fingers slid down my wrinkled business shirt, undoing the buttons one by one, until they were all undone and the shirt hung loose over my bra. I relaxed my shoulders, and the shirt dropped down, puddling around my elbows, exposing what he very much considered to be very good breasts in my very best lace bra. “Like this?”
He made an agreeable noise. “You are perfect.”
“Am I?”
“Do I need to repeat myself?”
“As often as I deem necessary.”
His fingers twitched, and he curled them tightly into fists. “You are perfect,” he said again. “I like admiring the view.” Then, “Close your eyes.”
I did.
“Imagine the scene. I would pull my fingers through your hair; I would rake my teeth across your skin—I would undo that pretty lace bra of yours and caress your nipples with my tongue. I would slip a finger inside of you—two, and you would be so wet and I would pleasure you so slowly, as slow as you wanted—”
“I would drive you crazy,” I commented.
“
Florence
, you already do.”
I laughed, and opened my eyes, only to find his hands over mine. I turned around, and finally looked at him—truly—for the
first time, and pulled my shirt back up onto my shoulders. “It’d be a good scene,” I said, and my voice broke a little, my fingers buttoning my shirt back up. “Corny, but in a good way.”
“I like corny,” he agreed, his gaze lingering on my lips.
My alarm went off, making both of us jump. I quickly stepped away from him and hurried across the room to turn off my phone. And reality crashed back in, because today was my father’s funeral, and I still had two things to check off his will. “I—I’m sorry. I have to finish getting dressed. So much to do. So little time.”
“Can I help?”
I tilted my head, and smiled. “No, you just being here is enough.”
“Can I, then?” he asked, sitting up a little straighter, his hands curling into nervous fists. “Can I stay? Like this—with you?”
My heart leapt into my throat.
But what about Ann’s last book?
I thought, but I didn’t want to voice it. I didn’t want him to change his mind because—“I’d like that.”
Because people always left. If they had a choice—they left.
And Ben wanted to stay.
I cleared my throat, tucking my shirt back into my skirt. “I better hurry up. Dad won’t bury himself,” I added, and went back into the bathroom to brush my teeth, but my blood rushed with the thought of all the corny moments I could have with Benji Andor. Even though he was dead.
It didn’t mean he was gone.