Page 98 of Unless It's You
“Lunch date, hey? That’s not exactly your style?”
“And then we’re going to the British Museum.”
“Have you ever even been to a museum?”
“Shut up, mate, of course I have. I just want to start things right with her this time.”
Starting things right. Yeah, I can relate to that. I gather up all the nerve I can.
“Ben, I wanted to talk to you about Stella.”
He freezes for a beat with his pint mid-sip, eyes trained on me, then downs half the glass. I guess we’ll need refills soon.
“Go ahead.” He nods.
“I’ve . . . I’ve fallen for her.”
Ben’s eyes widen and he lets out a shocked guffaw.
“What?” He blinks and then his eyes narrow. After a long pause, he speaks. “Oh. That’s why you were here last Saturday night. At my disastrous meetup with her.”
I nod.
“And you never responded to my texts after that, when I sawyou run out of the pub.” Ben’s face is a blank slate. For once, I can’t read him.
“Yes. I’m sorry I didn’t respond.” I didn’t, because I couldn’t. I’d screwed everything up. Handled it wrong with Stella, risked my lifelong friendship with Ben. I avoided the whole situation.
“I thought you couldn’t stand her?”
“Turns out, I can.”
There’s a silence between us. Our eyes remain locked, and it looks like he’s pondering the situation. Going over his possible responses. It’s a lot more processing than he normally does, my easygoing, no-stress best friend.
My gut twists at the idea he could hate me for this. Push me out of his life.
“I’m sorry if you think it’s inappropriate. We started working together and got close.”
A slide show of our moments flips in my brain. That first meeting, the time I caught her as she fell in the office kitchen, when I offered to be her advisor, when I told her about my mum at the zoo, that first kiss...
“I want to be with her. I... I’m in love with her, mate.”
Ben blinks and continues his quiet, disconcerting assessment of me. I wait for his response, like a prisoner awaiting sentencing.
“How could you?”
Oh, fuck.
I swallow hard. What the hell am I going to do if Ben doesn’t support this? I can’t not be with Stella. That’s off the table. But I can’t lose my best friend.
“Mate . . .”
“You didn’t trust to tell me earlier, so you lied about it? Because you don’t just fall in love after one meeting.” Ben clenches his jaw, and color rises to his cheeks.
I hesitate. “I’ve had feelings for her for a long time.”
“When I was dating her?”
I nod once. I don’t need to tell him I think I’ve been in love with her all along.
