Page 36 of Because of You
Later that night after dinner and dessert and time spent talking and hanging out around the pool together, the parents go inside. The rest of us strip down to our bathing suits and go to the lake for night swimming. The lake is dark, the water and small beach illuminated only by the moonlight and the landscape lighting along the footpath from the back yard to the beach. Per usual, Hannah and Jo race down the footpath and jump straight in, with Molly and Julie hot on their heels. All four of them swim right out to the floating swim raft we have out towards the middle of the lake. Emma walks in at a regular person pace with Jeremy next to her, and Allie jumps on Jordan’s back. I catch up with Hallie on the path and grab her around the waist, taking off at a run.
“Ben, what the fuck?” she screeches. Whatever else she was going to say is cut off as I run straight into the water and submerge us both. We surface, my arms still around her waist, and she turns to face me, a disgruntled look on her face.
“Give a girl some warning next time.”
I grin at her. “What would be the fun in that?”
Some of her hair is hanging in her eyes and I bring one of my hands up to push it behind her ear, trailing my finger along her jaw. I hold her chin in place with my thumb and pointer finger so her eyes stay locked on mine. Our faces are inches apart and she sucks in a breath as I lean closer to her. I see her pupils dilate, her eyes darken, and then at the last second, just before our lips meet, I turn my head, kiss her cheek, and pull back.
“Race you out to the swim raft,” I say before diving under. When I surface, I turn back and Hallie is still standing where I left her, a stunned look on her face.
A second later, she seems to shake herself out of it, yelling, “Don’t think your head start counts, Benji,” before diving under and following me out to the raft.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Hallie
Ben was just about to kiss me, right? My brain runs it over and over again as we all hang by the floating swim dock. My sisters, Allie, Jordan, and Molly are hanging on to the side while Emma, Jeremy, Julie, Ben and I sit up on top of it. Everyone else is chattering around me, but I hear almost none of it while my brain tries to make sense of what just happened.
My entire body erupts in goosebumps when Ben whispers in my ear. When did he get here? He was just on the other side of the raft.
“You okay, Hal?”
“Totally fine!” I say just a touch too loudly, before standing up and practically throwing myself into the lake. So completely cool, Hal. Super graceful. I groan inwardly. I glance back at the dock and see Ben looking straight at me with a playful grin on his face.
“Jerkface,” I mutter under my breath, before swimming over to Molly and my sisters to join whatever conversation they’re having. But their argument about which is number one in the definitive ranking of Taylor Swift albums fails to hold my attention—it’s1989, duh. There is no other answer—when Ben is sotherewith his stupid blond hair and his stupid sky-blue eyesand his low-slung board shorts showing off his perfect fucking six pack and the smirks he keeps tossing at me and I hate him for whatever is it he thinks he’s doing right now.
Except I don’t hate him at all because what I am is turned all the way on by him and all his perfection, and I hate that I am because I don’t know what it all means, and I am absolutely the person who needs to know what it all means.
By the time everyone is ready to swim back to shore, I am fed the fuck up. I want to disappear into my room and curl up in bed with a romance novel where the girl may be harboring weird and confusing feelings for her best friend who is suddenly acting all swoony and strange, but all the confusion is worked out by the end, and everyone lives happily ever after. That’s the world I would like to live in tonight, please and thank you.
We all wrap ourselves in towels, grab our clothes, and go inside for the night. Emma, Molly, Julie, and I all have rooms upstairs while Ben and his friends are in one of the wings off the great room. The girls go straight up while I detour into the kitchen to grab my e-reader and my water.
“Looking for this?” Ben is standing in the kitchen leaning up against the big granite island, my e-reader in one hand and my water tumbler in the other.
“I am, actually. I just need to fill up my water and then I’m going to bed. I’m exhausted.”
He pushes himself off the island and walks towards where I stand in the kitchen doorway. “I already filled it up for you.”
“But I need…”
“Extra ice, I know. I filled the ice all the way to the top, just the way you like it.”
How does he know that?
“Okay, well, thanks for doing that for me.”
“I like doing things for you.” He hands me the cup and my e-reader. “By the way, I checked to see what you’re reading,and good choice. Chapter twenty-seven is my favorite.” Then he kisses my cheek and saunters away into his wing, calling, “Goodnight, Hal,” over his shoulder.
I race up the stairs and drop my towel and water before flipping open my e-reader and navigating to chapter twenty-seven and Fuck. Me. Chapter twenty-seven, it turns out, is a very hot shower sex scene…and how the hell did he know that? And now I’m picturing Ben reading this scene and picturing his face and did he get all hot and bothered over it just like I did and…Nope. No. No way.
I snap my e-reader shut and toss it onto the bed. I take myself to the bathroom to drown myself in my shower which will be, sadly, sexless, and pray that my dreams tonight won’t be haunted by my friend Ben and his blue eyes on mine and his hands on my waist and whether he actually did almost kiss me tonight in the lake and how a tiny, traitorous part of me wishes that he had.
I stumble downstairs at eight thirty the next morning towards the smell of coffee and cinnamon. As expected, Rachel is already up and icing the cinnamon buns she must have just taken out of the oven. She has made cinnamon buns at the lake for as long as I can remember, the smell of them our alarm clock, pulling us all out of bed and into the kitchen. I never eat cinnamon buns anywhere except for here. But the smell of them anytime during the year instantly conjures up summer mornings in this house when Rachel and I are the first ones awake, taking a few minutes together in the cozy warmth of the kitchen before everyone else wakes up and chaos descends.
I must make a sound because she turns towards the kitchen doorway and grins at me.
“Morning, honey. I’ve been waiting for you. Sleep okay?”
