Page 66 of Candy Hearts
And Benji. Beautiful Benji. Amazing Benji.
Benji with a secret folder of photos on his phone. Benji who smelled like watermelon because of body washandkitchen disasters.
Benji with messy hair and an ornery smile and freckles on his nose and big, bottomless blue eyes that were lit up with laughter.
Benji who didn’t think they fit together. Benji who would be proven wrong.
Benji. Just fuck. Benji.
Chapter Nineteen
It had been three days since Benji had said goodbye to William at the lake house. Three days of worry and second-guessing. Three days of picturing William’s stupid list of criteria when he closed his eyes, and three days of missing William with his whole heart.
And it had only been two hours since William had picked Benji up for their date. Two hours of hell.
Maybe mercury was in retrograde. Benji had seen a drag queen tweeting about that today. There had to be some explanation for how horribly this date was going.
They’d started with drinks at a place called Sky Bar at the Plaza. It was on the fortieth floor of a building downtown. Benji had ordered the cheapest glass of wine on the menu (at a whopping and ridiculous twelve dollars). He hadn’t been dressed nice enough because he’d not been expecting to go somewhere so fancy.
A bar on the top of a skyscraper with stupidly pricey wine and business-professional clientele was not Benji’s world. He had never before felt so out of his element.
Then at dinner, at a restaurant tagged as very expensive on Yelp (Benji had checked), the server had dropped William’s spaghetti in his lap.
While leaving the parking lot, William’s car got a flat tire.
The real world did not seem to be on their side, and Benji’s fears about the shine wearing off once they left the lake house threatened to choke him. William was still wonderful and hot as sin, but there was no denying this disaster.
Benji tried not to scream over the sidewall gash in the rear wheel tire of William’s stupid Alfa as they examined the damage.
Mercury in retrograde. It had to be a thing.
Now William was glaring down at the tire as if his stare could magic it better.
“It’s a run-flat,” Benji said. “You can drive on the tire for a few miles.” Benji hated run-flats. He’d rather just fix a flat and get on with it.
William nodded and took a deep breath. It was cold and drizzly outside. Sprinkles beaded on William’s glasses. In the mid-February chill, he looked like a Rolex model standing next to his dumb fancy car wearing a dumb fancy suit and shiny shoes. There was an air of untouchableness to him—even with a plate of pasta staining his slacks—and Benji didn’t know how to make that distance disappear or if he should try.
“I was going to take you to a queer burlesque show uptown,” William said. He pulled Benji in front of him and smiled, his hands like anchors on Benji’s hips.
And damn, but a burlesque show actually sounded fun. It wasactuallyin Benji’s wheelhouse, as opposed to everything else they’d done thus far. “That’s not going to happen.”
William sighed. “Guess not.”
“This tire is gonna suck to replace.”
“Why?”
“They’re expensive as fuck.”
“Oh.” William frowned and waved his hand. “It’s nothing.”
A slick prickle of disquiet swept down Benji’s spine. They were so different. Those awful bullet points flitted through his brain again.
Bad brain. Evil brain, but Benji couldn’t ignore the impulse of self-preservation, hot and metallic on his tongue.
“You shouldn’t drive on a damaged tire like this for longer than necessary. Is my apartment between here and your place? I wouldn’t want you to have to go out of your way to take me home.”
Something flashed in William’s eyes—surprise, maybe. Or hurt at the slam of the door on their night.
