Page 22 of Haunted Hearts
“Did you also bang her because you felt bad for her?” Benji asks.
“No. We got into an argument and?—”
“Yeeessssss,” Zeke cuts in with a slow clap. “I’m on board with a good hate fuck!”
I just shake my head at him and grunt. I didn’t actuallyfuckLydia, at least not in the way he’s thinking. The way every single fiber of my body was begging me to. And I’m still not exactly sure why I didn’t. All I know is, in that moment, with her back against the wall and my hand up her skirt, I didn’t want to take more from her than I already am. It’d be a dick move.
“It was a one-time thing. And anyway, we didn’t fuck.”
“Okay, he likes her,” Benji announces, his voice tinny as it erupts from the phone speaker.
Zeke raises his eyebrows. He looks pointedly at me from his perch on the counter even as he speaks to Benji. “Well, he’s fucking up that library she’s weirdly attached to, so I’d say he’ll have plenty of opportunities for hate fucking.”
I don’t answer, just start cracking eggs into a pan. God knows Zeke’s not going to do it.
“Yeah, what are you going to do about that?” Benji asks me.
“Do about what?”
“The fact that you clearly like this chick, but you’re still in charge of the project that’s, by the sounds of it, going to sever aconnection she has with her mother. Which, by the way—what’s the storythere?”
This is way more than I bargained for when I walked in the door. And, truth be told, it’s way more than came to my mind as I let myself give into my primal side this afternoon. Because there’s no getting around it. I was thinking with my dick. But leave it to Benji to cut right through the noise.
“Fuck, man,” I say. I slide a spatula under one of the eggs to check the bottoms. “I don’t know. I don’t know about any of it, okay? I wasn’t thinking. It was a stupid thing to do.”
“No offense, Will, but it sounds kind of irresponsible,” Benji says. I can hear the skepticism in his voice, despite the fuzziness of the speaker.
Zeke slaps the counter. “Benjamin! Shots fired.”
I’m already tensing at that word.Irresponsible. As if being irresponsible is a luxury I’ve ever had. I’m half tempted to tell him that if it’s irresponsibility he wants to talk about, he’s got the wrong brother. He knows very well I’ve had to be the backbone of this family.
“Well, I’m just saying…” Benji continues. “That’s your career you’re fucking with. Didn’t you say Ethan Wilde’s on that board? If you’re still trying to win him over for that housing project, banging the librarian doesn’t exactly scream professionalism. And don’t even get me started on how you’re fucking with this woman’sfeelings…”
I close my eyes. This is not what I need. My body hasn’t forgotten that I didn’t get a release this afternoon, and I’m this close to lashing out at my brothers, no matter how well intentioned they—well, at least Benji—might be.
“I don’t need a lecture, Benj.”
“Alright. You do you. But hey. Maybe there’s something you can do to soften the blow of the library renovation? You’re good at restoring shit. You wouldn’t have got this gig if you weren’t.”
I slide a plate of eggs toward Zeke and toss him a fork, which lands on the counter with a clatter. I cut into my eggs, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“You know,” Benji says. “Like, compromise a little. Pick a piece of the library to preserve—a sort of homage to the building’s history—and add it to the plans. She’d probably like it, and it’d be cool regardless.”
I pull myself up onto the counter next to Zeke. The wheels in my mind are already turning. I’m thinking back to the stakeholder meeting, where Lydia all but begged me to change the project plans. She’d talked about her childhood then, hadn’t she? Something about sliding down the banister in the foyer, pretending she was a princess on a quest?
That’s it. The banister. She pointed it out to me on our walkthrough as well.
Right now, the plans we drew up have the banister replaced with something sleek and modern. But it’s the floor plan and the structure, the shelving and lighting—the computer lab—that the board really wants to modernize. As long as I can make sure the main floor is wheelchair accessible, I might be able to keep the banister there…
Benji’s got a point. Preserving a historic piece of the library, especially one that plays such a fond part in Lydia’s childhood memories, is something I can do for her. It might even earn me a little artistic credit with the board. Showing off my range to Ethan Wilde can’t hurt.
“Interesting,” I say, scratching the scruff on my chin. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Zeke shoots me a malicious grin. “She might even let you fuck her for real.”
“Thatis not the problem,” I huff. “Some of us have self restraint.”
But even after Zeke ends the call with Benji and heads out the door to god knows where, his words still echo through my head. I keep thinking back to that mask Lydia so expertly slid over her face once the rapture was over and she realized what the fuck we were doing. How she all but pushed me out the door.
