Chapter Eighteen

EIGHTEEN

The next morning I get to work early, nerves burning like acid in my gut. I'm not exactly sure how to do this. Last night I thought about texting him to ask for a do-over, but hiding behind my phone seemed like a cop-out.

I sit at my desk and jiggle my leg. Open my email, close it. I realize I didn't actually look at my inbox and open it again. Adrenaline has me jumping out of my seat every time I hear someone walking by or opening a door or talking down the hall. Calm calm calm, I type over and over again in a blank Word document.

Slipping on my headphones, I nestle into the protective shell of my semicircle of computer monitors. This is good. Now I can't possibly hear him arrive, so I'll be less skittish. I pull up a half-complete video I've been working on and, well, to say I "watch it" wouldn't be accurate, but at least I aim my eyes at the screen. Seven excruciating minutes pass.

I barely hear him over the music, or maybe I sense him knocking on the door. Either way, he's standing there in an Ardwyn crewneck sweater over an oxford shirt and fitted gray trousers, his cheeks wind-reddened. My body jerks upright and I slide my chair abruptly to see around the monitors, forgetting my headphones. They tumble from my shoulders down the back of my chair.

"Um. What did you say? Sorry." I comb my fingers through my hair to untangle the wire.

His face is circumspect. "I said good morning."

"Oh! Well, hi." I'm already out of breath.

He opens his mouth like he's going to say something else, then decides against it.

"Can we"—I start, then lower my voice—"can we talk?"

He glances into the hallway. "Now?"

"Yes. Please." Eight thirty in the morning in the office is not the ideal time or setting for this conversation, but I can't bear it hanging over my head any longer.

He nods reluctantly and closes the door. "I want to apologize again—"

"Stop."

His mouth twitches once and he lowers his eyes.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, but I have something I need to say."

He winces. "If you don't want an apology, I'd rather not relive that excruciating moment again, thanks." He shoves his hands into his pockets. "I meant what I said last night. I'm not going to make this awkward. I'm glad we're friends."

" I'm going to make this awkward," I say. "I'm trying to tell you—I didn't stop you because I didn't want it to happen." I bite my lip. "I want it to happen."

Our eyes lock and a thrill charges screaming through my chest as I watch him reach a sonnet-worthy conclusion: It's on. I give him an opening to respond. "Go on," he says slowly.

"I stopped you because—I'm bad at this."

"Kissing?"

I roll my eyes. "Normally I'm an impulsive person. But I overthought it. You caught me off-guard, and I panicked."

"I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted that how I've been feeling wasn't the most obvious thing in the world."

I swivel back and forth in my chair. "I'd be happy to critique your game later. But for now I just want to say that if you want to try again sometime, I promise I won't run the other way."

He laughs. "Oh, no. No. That's not how this is going to work." He puts a hand to his heart. "My pride is wounded. You're going to have to be the one to make a move on me."

"Wow. You're going to milk it, are you?" I fold my arms. "Okay, that seems fair."

"And not now. Not here. Unlike you, I like surprises."

"You want me to surprise you?"

He grabs the door handle, his dark eyes hot and playful. "Sweep me off my feet, Radford. I deserve it."

It's not going to happen this evening because it's the last home game of the season. Senior Night, when JGE and Gallimore and a couple of the student managers are honored during halftime. There are no postseason home games, so it's the last time they'll ever play on this court.

There are flowers and a nice little speech from Coach Thomas. Proud families and friends stand courtside. We win by a large margin, and Thomas pulls both seniors out with five minutes to go so they can receive one last standing ovation from the crowd. I get great footage during the postgame press conference, where both seniors get teary-eyed talking about the end of their college careers. I can't imagine the team without them, but in a few months JGE will start his fellowship and Gallimore will likely be playing in Europe.

It's my lucky night. JJ Jones sidles up to me as everyone trickles out afterward. He's wearing no socks but like, seven shirts, their varying necklines and collars arranged in elaborate layers around his neck like the plumage of a showy bird.

"Champion vibes," he proclaims. "You guys seem unstoppable."

"Still a long way to go." I shrug and busy myself with my camera case. Eric walks toward me from the front of the room, but when he sees JJ he freezes. Rescue me, I plead with my eyes.

"And you. Everyone is talking about you. Even my boss's boss wanted to know who's making Ardwyn's hype videos this season. And he's big-time. He was like, ‘JJ, who's making Ardwyn's hype videos this season?' And I told him, ‘Oh, it's my buddy, this girl Annie Radford.' And he was like, ‘Wow, next level.' And he's right."

"Thanks, JJ." I give him a guilty smile. It is a nice story, if you ignore the delivery and only pay attention to the content.

"Annie, I need to talk to you," Eric finally cuts in. "I heard what he said." He lowers his voice as we walk away. "He may be a doofus, but he knows what he's talking about. You've impressed all of college basketball. I told you that you belong here."

He did, about a million times. On multiple occasions over the years. When he offered me the job. When I took it, when I got here, when I doubted my decision. He's never stopped telling me. And for the first time, I'm starting to think he may be right.

I have the barest sketch of a plan for the next day. After work, I'll invite Ben out to dinner, and I'll jump him on the walk to the employee parking lot. No need to overcomplicate things.

I spend more time trying to choose an outfit than anything. I want to wear something that doesn't scream "I'm here to see a man about a kiss" but does kind of whisper it. It also has to be something that won't draw attention at work. The last thing I need is anyone asking whether I have a date.

I end up in a maroon dress with a bow at the neck, black tights, and loafers, and the only thing Eric says about it is "Is that ribbon holding your head on?" which is the best I could've hoped for.

My mistake is not telling Ben the plan. I'm trying to be cool and mysterious, because he wants to be surprised, after all. But then he screws the whole thing up by leaving work at five o'clock.

"Do you know if he's coming back?" I ask, leaning casually on the reception desk as Donna packs up for the night. "I need his help with something."

Donna shoots my elbows a suspicious look. "Who? I'm not a mind reader."

Smooth. Subtle. "Sorry! I meant Ben."

"I don't think so. He said he was going home."

Home? Since when does he go home at five? I resist the urge to laugh. He must be doing this to mess with me.

Okay, change of plans. I go to the bathroom, dab my shiny forehead with a tissue, and apply a coat of mascara and a swipe of tinted lip balm. I don't have his exact address, but I can figure it out. He's mentioned the street, and I know what his car looks like. It only takes a few minutes of driving up and down the block in a slightly sketchy fashion before I find it parked in the driveway of a duplex.

I park on the street. The lights are off in the downstairs apartment, so I take a gamble on the upstairs. It's quiet, so every step on the sidewalk is as loud as a car engine backfiring. He probably already hears me coming. I step onto the small porch, comb my fingers through my hair, and ring the bell.

There's a brief silence, and then somebody comes hurtling down the stairs, hollering, "I got it!" The voice sounds female. Shit, this must not be Ben's apartment after all. The girl flings the door open. "Hi."

She's a teenager, with long dark curly hair poking out of the hood of an oversized sweatshirt. "Sorry," I say, making a guilty face. "I think I have the wrong place."

"Is it the food?" A fiftyish woman with a short version of the same dark hair appears at the top of the stairs, peering down at us. A crooked tiara sits on her head.

"No, she's lost," the girl says.

"Who are you looking for?" the woman asks. "Maybe Ben knows them." She pokes her head around the corner, out of sight. "Ben!" she yells.

Oh, no.

A dog barks. "Sasha, calm down," the woman says.

"I'll just go," I mumble, trying to slink away into the darkness.

"Radford?" Too late.

I close my eyes, freezing with my back to Ben and his entire fucking family.

"Heeey." I turn around, offering one sheepish wave with my palm open, like I'm wiping a window.

"You know her?" his mom asks. I don't hear his response. "Well, come in, hon, it's cold out there!"

I trudge up the steps behind his sister, staring at my feet. When I reach the top, I look everywhere else to avoid meeting his eye. His apartment is clean and comfortable-looking. Extremely coordinated, like he bought everything from the same page of the furniture catalog. Matchy-matchy is not my taste, but it makes perfect sense for him. A blown-sugar balloon inflates in my chest, pink and fragile and unfamiliar, and I fight the strange urge to bundle him in bubble wrap so no one can ever hurt him. He's got a few throw pillows and a basket full of blankets, all in the prescribed blue and taupe color palette. On the small round dining table are two wrapped gifts and a cake with candles in it.

Oh, no.

"So, Annie, to what do we owe the pleasure?" his mom, Lisa, asks after we get through introductions.

Ben feigns confusion. "Yeah, Radford, to what do we owe the pleasure?"

I finally meet his eyes. He's failing to repress a smile, reveling in my discomfort. I attempt to glare at him in a way that his mom won't notice.

"Just came by for that work thing," I say. Sasha bumps her nose against my hand, demanding to be petted.

"What work thing?"

"You know," I say casually, scratching Sasha behind her ears. "That one we were working on?"

"Can you be more specific?"

His sister snickers, one of those cutting teenage laughs that makes you realize you're acutely transparent.

"You have to stay for dinner," Lisa urges. "We ordered plenty of food and we'd love to have you join us."

"Thank you so much, but I don't want to intrude," I say. "Ben and I can talk about work tomorrow. I'll leave you to your family dinner."

"Nonsense! It's my birthday, and I want you to stay."

"I really—"

"Don't you dare say no to me on my birthday." She motions for me to hand her my coat.

I scan Ben's face, hunting for any sign of dismay, but he looks completely at ease. And annoyingly entertained. He gives me a reassuring nod.

"Okay," I say weakly. "And happy birthday."

Lisa barrels on. "I didn't know you were a girl, and such a pretty one! Radford—Jesus, Ben, why do you call her that? All this time I thought she was a guy."

"Talking to your mom about me a lot?" I whisper, elbowing him gently as we follow Lisa into the living room. He leans into it for a second, the side of his body pressed against the side of mine, his eyes hot and knowing.

More of that, please.

"Had to warn her about the stalker who was planning to crash her family birthday dinner," he says.

When the Vietnamese food arrives, Ben moves the gifts and cake to the kitchen counter so we can sit around the table. Lisa spreads the containers out in the middle and Ben asks Natalie to set the table.

We talk about our favorite places to eat nearby and the town down the shore where Lisa used to take Ben and Natalie when they were young. Ben's mom is a die-hard Bruce Springsteen fan and, well, I'm from New Jersey, so we've both been to multiple concerts.

They ask about my work. Natalie doesn't care about basketball but wants to know the wildest thing I've ever seen doing wedding videography. The answer is a fistfight between the groom and his own father, and Lisa and Natalie want every detail, but they've seen worse on their favorite television shows. "Never been married but haven't met a wedding-themed reality show I didn't like," Lisa declares.

Ben uses the word home in a sentence and the letter o goes in a direction I've never heard coming out of his mouth. Lisa's strong Philly accent clearly rubs off on him when he's around her. Natalie gives Ben the play-by-play of her most recent gymnastics meet, and he asks thoughtful questions about the recent changes to her beam routine.

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, where I retie the loose bow at the neck of my dress and check my teeth for food. Nothing about this night is going how I expected. But it's nice to meet Ben's family, see who he is around them. They're friendly. Laid-back. Despite the circumstances of my arrival, his mom isn't overtly sizing me up as a potential love interest for her son. She doesn't seem like that kind of mom, anyway. Maybe it's her age, since she had Ben so young. She talks to her kids like friends and equals, with no attempt at asserting authority.

When I open the bathroom door I hear Lisa: "When should we do the financial aid paperwork?"

"Another night," he says. "Soon, I promise."

"I don't know how to answer the child support question. And do you have a copy of my tax return? Because I can't find it anywhere."

"I have a copy. I'll look at whatever you need help with before I leave for New York."

I clear my throat before walking back into the room.

"Annie, I didn't know whether to clear your plate. Are you done with your food?" Lisa asks.

"I can get it," I say, and bring it to the kitchen.

"Having a good time?" Ben appears behind me with the last of the dishes as I'm scraping my plate into the trash. He touches my lower back as he passes me on his way to the dishwasher, the lightest brush of his hand, and my entire body lights up like a neon sign.

After Lisa blows out the candles and Ben passes around pieces of the cake Natalie baked, the conversation turns to Natalie's college plans.

"I'm still trying to figure out where to go if the gymnastics program gets cut," she says, picking off a blue sprinkle and frowning at it. "Ardwyn was by far the best school that recruited me. And my favorite. I think I'm just going to hope for the best for now."

"Natalie and Ben are different," Lisa explains. "Ben always knew what he wanted to study, always had a plan. Nat isn't like that."

"I don't even know what I want to major in," Natalie says. "Sometimes I think history and then sometimes I think political science and, I don't know, what about business? It stresses me out because once I pick one, all the other options go away. And what if I pick wrong?"

"You probably will pick wrong at some point," I say. "I've picked wrong a bunch of times. Having a brother like yours might make you think it's not normal, but trust me, it is."

"Yeah?"

"Even after college. In school I had a job working in basketball, which was exactly what I thought I wanted to do." I chance a look at Ben. He's watching me with a circumspect expression. "It didn't work out. So after graduation I got an unpaid internship working for a local news station. But there was no way it was going to turn into something paid. I did another internship in Boston, and then I went back to New Jersey and worked a bunch of different places. A company that made garage storage systems, a credit union, an appliance company. It's normal to bounce around, although I don't recommend doing it as much as I did. And if you don't like the first thing you do, or the second, that's okay."

"You never even tried to get another job in basketball after you left here?" Ben asks, puzzled. "I didn't know that."

"Natalie, don't forget, Ben had Coach Maynard to guide him every step of the way, which was lucky," Lisa says. I push frosting around my plate, piling it all together and then spreading it into a flat layer. "Not everyone has a mentor like that. Such a wonderful man."

"I hope he has a spot for you someday so I can visit you in Arizona," Natalie says. "I've never seen a cactus in real life."

A bitter taste floods my mouth, and I fix my gaze on my plate. Ben pushes his chair back and clears his throat. "Should we do presents?"

"And then we're watching Married at First Sight ," Lisa declares, adjusting her tiara. "Birthday girl's choice, and I don't want any complaints."

That's my cue. Intruding on dinner was bad enough, but squeezing onto the couch for gifts and family TV time surpasses the permissible limits of awkwardness. I'm never going to hear the end of this from Ben as it is, and now I need an entirely new plan for making my move. Ideally one that doesn't involve a cousin's baby's christening or a grandparent's funeral.

After making my excuses, I pet Sasha one last time and cross the room to fetch my coat from the armchair in the corner. I don't notice Ben trailing behind me until he grabs the back of my dress by the waistband and gives it a gentle tug. "I'll walk you to your car," he murmurs into my ear.

My pulse quickens, and anticipation builds low in my abdomen.

I pause by the stairs to say goodbye to Lisa and Natalie, so Ben walks down first. As I follow him, we don't speak. Instead I think about his hand on my hip the night we fought for his phone, and his fingertips on my back tonight in the kitchen. About him handling Natalie's financial aid paperwork. About the way his bedroom smelled when I walked past it on the way to the bathroom: nothing fancy, just clean laundry and his usual soap.

It's my favorite smell these days. It's been my favorite smell for longer than I'd like to admit.

Ben opens the door to the bracing night air. One small light glows on the porch, illuminating his messy hair and catching his face in side profile. His jaw is tense. He can't be mad I came here tonight, can he? My palms are starting to sweat, so I rub them on my coat. "I'm over there," I say, nodding toward my car, parked in front of the house next door.

He doesn't head for the car, though. He turns abruptly and now I can see his whole face, his dark eyes, and oh, he's not mad. The way he's looking at me, an unadulterated I want, the first time he's ever looked at me openly that way—well. It's rare and powerful, that kind of look.

His fingertips catch my waist and he backs me slowly against the door, his mouth grazing my cheekbone. The world tips over and I grab him by the shoulders, dragging him down toward me. The force of my reaction makes him stumble, but then he's holding me steady and our mouths connect.

We spent some time joking about kissing, but holy hell, there is nothing funny about this kiss. It's frantic and intense, all messy lips and swooping tongues and hot, unsteady breaths. He ducks his head to kiss my jaw and pulls aside the fussy bow at the collar of my dress. My head does not fall off, but it feels like it might when his stubble scrapes my neck. "Oh," I gasp, a little surprised at the effect it has on me. I dig my nails into his firm shoulders and our mouths meet again, deeper and more thorough this time. He tastes faintly of Funfetti.

My voice is faint when we break apart again. "I was supposed to sweep you off your feet. Now that's twice you've made a move and none for me."

"Numbers aren't real, Radford," he says, out of breath. He presses his lips to my temple. "Besides, the second we were alone I couldn't think straight."

I feel slightly drunk on the walk to the car even though I haven't had any alcohol. We kiss again on the street, and he makes a rumbling sound into the thin skin of my collarbone as he pulls me close, close enough for me to feel his phone vibrate in his pocket.

It isn't until after I slide into the driver's seat with my head spinning, and get a solid night of sleep, and walk into work the following morning with a sickeningly perky bounce in my step, that he enters my office with a sheepish smile and shows me the message that made his phone buzz.

Natalie: asshat your blinds are open and this is NOT the show mom and I are trying to watch!!!