Page 26 of The Destined SEAL
Marcus knows down to the minute when our anniversary is, so it’s him who answers. I take a sip of my drink and compliment Norah’s nail color instead. It’s a light mauve, a color my grandma loves. On her, it looks chic and in style. She sidesteps the compliment by gushing about the woman who does her nails and tells me we should go together next week and grab lunch at the pho place next door.
I agree to the outing while Ben watches the interaction with curiosity. I’m sure he thought jealous rage would seep out of my pores and turn to acid. Leave it to him to select a woman so polished and polite that I literally have nothing to hate about her except she has more of Ben’s time than I do. We order dinner, and we eat while partaking in overly polite conversation. Marcus kisses my cheek when he excuses himself to the restroom, and Ben seethes at the innocuous touch of his lips.
“Want to help me grab another round at the bar?” I ask, tilting my head toward the crowded corner where people are mingling about, trying to find something they probably won’t locate in the wiry, loose atmosphere.
She smiles wide. “Yes. Of course!” she replies, patting the corner of her mouth with a napkin.
The restaurant turns into a club at nine p.m., and the service starts slowing down to a snail’s pace. If the food wasn’t so good, there’s no way we’d deal with it. Norah stands, a willowy,graceful being, and tucks her soft blond hair behind one ear. After Marcus returns, the men give me their drink orders, and we head to the bar. She stays close to my side as we weave toward our destination. It’s hard not to compare myself to her for the solitary reason that we are polar opposites.
She sways a little when she walks. Not because she’s trying to get attention, but because she has that natural grace some tall women have. She could be a ballerina in another life. The self-conscious part of me recognizes it in her, and I think maybe I finally see what drew Ben in. It’s in the way her eyes dart around the room but never land on any one thing for too long.
“Ben talks about you all the time. I can’t believe I haven’t gotten a chance to meet you yet,” Norah says, leaning down to make sure I can hear her.
“Yeah, we’re both pretty busy.” I’d love to be able to say I know everything about her, but he didn’t share this part of his life. My stomach rolls when I realize it’s the first thing he’s kept from me. “A childhood full of menacing,” I joke, turning to the bar to order our drinks when I catch the bartender’s eye.
After I finish rattling off the order, I sense Norah’s eyes on the side of my face. I turn to her with a smile fixed on my face. “Let’s see if he gets it right,” I exclaim.
“You’re so pretty,” Norah says. “And intelligent, and every other wonderful thing that can be used as a descriptive word. I have to admit I didn’t believe him when he told me his best friend was a girl,” she says, pausing to look over my head. “Or rather, it’s possible, but there’s always something more.” When I don’t answer, she goes on. “It truly is just a friendship, though, isn’t it?” This is the moment to tell her the gritty truth. That love doesn’t exist outside of Ben for me, that the only man who has ever held my heart does so wearing a warm pair of gloves that are fit to size.
The bartender slides two drinks toward me. Swallowing down the fear, I decide on a half-truth. “I love Ben. He’s been in my life for as long as I can remember. He’ll always be in my life if he wants me there. We’re just friends, Norah. I promise.”
She smiles as she reaches out to take one of the drinks. “I feel foolish for asking. He told me the same thing. Women’s intuition, I guess. It’s off!” Norah laughs, and I could shake her. She’s not off. She sees what I’m too scared to admit.
The other drinks arrive. “Don’t feel bad. We get it a lot. It took Marcus a long time to accept the friendship. It is that, though. Just a friendship.” One a lifetime long with more love than most people accumulate in eighty years.
She nods. “Thank you, Harper. I hope you approve of me, because I love that man, and I know he wants your approval. I think it’s why he finally let me meet you.”
All I can do is grin and tell her there’s no way he puts that much weight into my approval. Making our way back to our table takes longer than it should. My feet feel heavy, and I’m not ready for any more of this group date.
Right before we sit down, she whispers something into my ear that makes every hair on my body stand on end. It was supposed to be a sweet sentiment. She laughed when she whispered it—made it seem like a joke. She told me she wanted Ben until death do them part.
CHAPTER TEN
Ben
You can changewhat you want, but you can’t change the way you want things. Fuck knows I’ve tried. Harper calls almost every day now that she knows I’m serious about Norah. While I tell myself I want Norah, I can’t squelch the ever-present desire to have Harper. I’m doubtful anything divine or otherwise will change that fact.
Norah is sitting in front of me, cross-legged, her long blond hair piled high on her head. With a mischievous grin, she lays down three kings. “Wasn’t Rummy your idea because you thought you could finally beat me on game night?” She’s intelligent, beautiful, and has a soft-spoken charm that negates the first two facts. Norah was raised in a middle-class family, the same as my own, and has the same quality that draws me to women. She’s searching for something inside of me that will complete her. It’s self-destructive, but she doesn’t know that. None of them do.
Sighing, I lay down three aces. “It was,” I return, leaning over to peck her mouth. I know she has the fourth ace. She will never discard an ace. Which usually always ends up being a detriment when I go out and she has to deduct the points from her hand. “What were you saying again?” I tease lightly. I look forward tothis day all week when I’m in town. It’s the night where I let myself eat carbs and drink booze and have as much skin-to-skin contact with my girlfriend as I possibly can. I feel human—I’m more than what I do.
Norah’s melodic laugh is cut short by the shrill pierce of my doorbell. “I’ll get it. Go grab the popcorn from the microwave,” she says, laying a soft hand on the side of my face. The doorbell rings again, more frantically—someone slamming it over and over.
Narrowing my eyes, I follow Norah as she rushes to the front door. “Did you order food or something?” I ask, peering out the geometrically printed curtains Norah hung when she deemed my windows too naked last week. I don’t see any cars parked out by the street. Nothing to indicate we have a visitor.
“No,” she replies, shrugging and throwing the door open with all the care of a bulldozer. A wave of unease filters through the air and saturates the deep breath I inhale.
“Is he home? Is Ben home?” I hear her voice and the tenor and know it’s not good. Watching Norah’s profile as she takes in Harper confirms my most dismal suspicions.
“What happened? Oh my god, Harper, what the hell happened?” Norah murmurs, pulling her into her arms. “Where’s your car?” Norah narrows her gaze out the door and looks both left and right while Harper buries her face in the front of her T-shirt.
“Close the door,” Harper whispers. It takes all of these seconds for me to make my brain behave the way it should have—the way it would have if some bad guy with a bomb strapped to his chest came through my front door. Somehow Harper sobbing in my doorway turns my voice box to ice and my feet to lead.
Harper calls my name again, asking for me.
“What happened?” I croak.
She turns out of Norah’s embrace and faces me. Her body relaxes almost completely at the mere sound of my voice. The opposite of relaxation washes over me when I see her face.
