Page 46 of What it Takes
“I can wait until Tuesday and then look out the window.”
“Okay. Fun talk.”
Sam laughed. “Have fun shopping. Maybe buy your girl a nice can of peas or something.”
Ben flipped him off before walking back outside. Laney was watching the cars go by, and she smiled when he touched her arm. “You ready?”
She nodded and they started walking toward the market. He wanted to hold her hand in the worst way, but he’d promised nothing was going to happen between them that she didn’t initiate. Maybe hand holding wasn’t the most outrageous thing, but it was intimate. It implied there was hope for a kiss. Maybe even more.
So Ben shoved his hands in his pockets and was content to listen to her talk about the shopping list of doom, which sounded ominous. He didn’t care. The longer the list, the more time he got to spend with Laney.
* * *
“You didn’t say anything about carrying groceries up a flight of stairs.” When Ben turned back to scowl at her, Laney laughed. “When I asked if you wanted a hand bringing the bags in, you didn’t mention that part.”
“I told you I live in an apartment over my parents’ garage. There aren’t too many underground garages in this part of Maine, so the stairs were implied. But I can grab them if you’d rather wait in the truck.”
She was teasing him and he knew it, so she started up the stairs after him. Now that she was here, she wasn’t leaving without seeing where he lived. And Andy had tossed a couple of big coolers in the back of the truck for her, so the few cold items Rosie had asked for were on ice. She had a little bit of time.
When he opened the door at the top of the stairs, he paused and then looked down at her. “I think it’s reasonably clean, but it’s kind of small, so it probably looks more cluttered than you’re used to.”
“You’re kidding, right? I live in a camper. A camper with no bump-outs, even.”
The apartment was cleaner than she’d expected, actually. Maybe she’d seen too many sitcoms with single men being total slobs without women to pick up after them. But Ben seemed like he kept things neat. There was the requisite couch and what looked to her like a giant television. It was probably normal, of course, but she watched everything on a tablet, so it looked huge.
There was also a coffee table to hold the remote control for the big TV and a few books. She tilted her head to read the spines. Horror. She was surprised at first, because he’d mentioned in passing during one of their conversations that he liked reading military thrillers, but then she realized they were all by the same author. Joseph Kowalski.
And because it was a studio apartment, she also got to see his bed. It was big—probably a king—and it had blue sheets and a taupe comforter, all of which were bunched up because Ben hadn’t made his bed.
She wondered what he would do if she crawled between the messy sheets and asked him to join her.
Ben closed the refrigerator door after putting his groceries away and turned, but she was having a hard time looking away from the bed. The sheets looked soft, and a ceiling fan over the bed made slow circles.
“Yeah, I don’t make my bed,” he said, sounding embarrassed. “Sometimes I do, but most mornings I don’t. It seems like the ultimate waste of time to me. Plus I don’t like them being tucked in, so if I make the bed properly, I have to toss and turn until the sheets are just the way I like them again.”
It was surreal, she thought. Standing in Ben’s apartment, listening to him talk about how he liked his bedsheets while actually staring at his bed. And words came out of her mouth before she could stop them. “I was really worried about you last night.”
“I’m sorry.” He moved closer to her. “I wanted to tell you I was leaving, but that would have seemed really conspicuous and... I didn’t want to subject you to teasing and speculation, if you know what I mean. They’re good people, but they do love trying to hook people up.”
“I probably took care of the speculation when I jumped up out of my chair and told you to be careful even though you couldn’t hear me.” He nodded, but she noticed he shoved his hands in his pockets. And he wasn’t smiling. “So, I’m sorry if you get any teasing or anything.”
“Don’t be. It’s nice to have somebody worry about me, even if I feel bad that youwereworried.”
“You don’t look like you’re very happy right now.”
“I am. I just...” He sighed and took his hands out of his pockets. “After I kissed you, we decided it wasn’t a good idea. I know you don’t want to date anybody and I know why. So I told myself I couldn’t touch you or kiss you again unless you made the first move.”
“But you do want to.”
“Yeah, I do. I wanted to hold your hand walking to the market, too.”
She’d wanted that, too. She’d imagined their hands brushing and then his fingers lacing through hers. But then he’d put his hands in his pockets and left them there until he held the door open for her at the market. They’d laughed the entire time they shopped, especially when he cracked a joke while she was trying to pick a ripe cucumber and Fran cleared her throat in averyobvious way. In the truck, though, he hadn’t even put his arm on the center console. He’d made sure he stayed in his own space.
Because he was a nice guy who didn’t want to make her feel pressured.
Without giving herself time to overthink and talk herself out of it, Laney wrapped her fingers in the front of his T-shirt and pulled him close. She had to stand on her tiptoes to kiss him, but cupping her other hand behind his neck helped.
When Ben groaned against her lips, her fingers tightened in his shirt. His mouth devoured hers and she surrendered to him, letting him take control as his hand clenched her hair and his tongue moved over hers. Her knees felt weak and she was breathless by the time he broke off the kiss.
