Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) (10 page)

Chapter 17

Ben

She called me her Prince Charming. Says it as I hold the door for her to walk inside. What kind of asshole wouldn’t at least hold the door for a lady? California guys officially suck. Immediately my mood perks up, though. And it’s not just the levity a coffee house brings out of us. I thought she was going to shut down, but no. My Brontë laid it all out there for me and thinks I’m her fairy tale prince. Those always have a happily ever after. I’m counting on it going that way for us too. Because with the sewer of crap we just waded through while I got a firsthand account of the seedier side of high school life in the valley, the potential is there for this to turn bad just as easily. I tried not to show my anger, but she saw my fists ball into white knuckles at my sides while she talked. Felt the absence of my hand in hers. Not that I would ever look differently at her. And I worry that’s what she thinks. She’s a survivor. I could never look down on her. She came back from such a violation.

I have to force myself to think of anything else, anything else to take my mind off what she told me, otherwise I’ll be obsessing all night. And there’s no way I want to mess with our first date by obsessing over another person.

My distraction comes with a warmth of yellow light cascading down from the overhead light fixtures. The warmth of this place is one of the reasons we love it here, that and the fantastic coffee. Speaking of coffee, the smells hit with a heady mix of cinnamon, vanilla, and some exotic spice blend. Yet the sounds…it’s the sounds that spark something in me, oddly relaxing and positive. These noises should be grating—spoons tinking against cups, cups clinking against saucers. And the murmurs rise above the tinking. Laughter above the clinking. The room sounds alive, magical, and musical.

She’s good for all of thirty seconds, until we see our people. They’re sitting at our regular booth tucked against the back wall, and her feet freeze to the spot where we’re both standing just inside the door. The thing is, just from the look on her face, I know, absolutely know what’s going through her head. What will they think about our pairing, me and her together? And I know she’s worried about Collin. We’re as close as brothers, we’re roommates, and best friends. He tried to get me to go after her for so long now. But I’ll bet she thinks the opposite. Why? She’s everything I’ve ever dreamt of. But I know how her brain works.

It’s like we timed it. Her response is classic Elle. “How disappointing for him, that your Ms. Right turned out to be a chubby writer with mommy issues and failure for a superpower.”

“First of all,
huh
? Failure for a superpower?”

“Never mind. Listen, you want to go first?” she asks. “I don’t want anyone to get the wrong idea about us.”

“Wrong idea? Like we’re, I don’t know, on a date maybe?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No. I don’t suppose I do. Are you ashamed to be seen with me? Because I sure as hell am proud to be with you,” I say back, running a finger over her cheek. Wow, she melts right there into a puddle of girly-ness. Apparently all it takes is a couple of sweet words and a delicate touch. If she only understood that I’m right there with her melting into a puddle of girly-ness. Which is humiliating and knocks my man points down by ten. She tries to slap my chest, but with fast reflexes, I catch her hand easily, placing a kiss on the knuckle. When she pulls back, my hold tightens, lacing our fingers together. “I understand your nervousness. If what happened to you had happened to me, I’d be skittish too. But these are our
friends
. They want us to be happy.”

“But Collin will freak.”

“He won’t freak.”

“How do you know?”

“Elle, trust me. He won’t freak.” I start toward the back of the room. And that’s how we approach our friends. Hand in hand. Stopping first at the counter to grab our drinks, hers a hot mocha, mine a large black with half. Then she called me a sweet jerk because I wouldn’t take her money. I asked her out. I ask, I pay. Period. Of course with Elle, I’d pay anyway. But no need ruffling those feathers just yet.

Errol is the first to notice us, staring decisively at our linked fingers. She sucks in a breath, blowing out, blowing her bangs to flutter off her forehead. The coffee cup visibly trembling in her hand, streams of hot liquid pool in the grooves running the circumference of the lid and down over the side onto her skin. “
Crap!
” It happened before I could stop it from happening.

When he suddenly stops talking midsentence, the whole table falls silent, turning to stare at us wide-eyed. Collin stands first, looking from Elle to me, then back to Elle again, a big, disarming smile breaking out across his face. “It’s about damn time,” he says, and steps forward, pulling both of us into a giant of a bear hug. “Oh my god.” He lets go and turns to face me. “When you said you were finally making your move, I thought, you are fucked. And I kept trying to come up with ways to win our Elle back. I’m so glad we don’t have to try winning her back.”

“His ideas were pretty bad,” Kip teases.

“Our Benton, officially off the market.” Sabrina raises her cup to us. “And it only took him two years to do it.”

“You guys staying?” Garret asks. “We can make room.”

“No. Elle and I are going back to my place.” I shake our sandwich bag, which also happens to be the same hand holding my cup. “Thought we’d watch a movie.”

“Well then.” Collin snickers. “Maybe I should stay at Kip’s tonight.”

The coffee she’d just sipped on catches in her throat, choking her. And she coughs. I go in for the save. “That won’t be necessary. Stay if you want to, but not on account of us.” Brontë silently thanks me by dropping her head on my shoulder.

Back at the apartment, I unlock the door and lead her inside. Telling me about Logan really lifted some of the ugly weight of a really ugly situation. Couple that with the way our friends accepted us as being together, her appetite actually returns. I know she thought I hadn’t noticed, but she hadn’t eaten anything all day. Nothing gets past me when it comes to Elle.

Having her here, only now as my girlfriend, means everything to me, and I don’t want to screw it up. She’s always loved my apartment, saying how welcoming and accepted she feels here because of the sheer hominess. It’s definitely a guy’s space, all modern, clean lines, and minimalist décor. We have a few black and white photos and framed book covers hanging on the stark white walls. Col and I wanted the space to remain warm and inviting with furniture in hues of cinnamon and dark chocolate, deep wood tones and touches of black accents such as lamps on the end tables and the flat screen television mounted in the corner. We’ve never kept a typical college-guy, frat-type space. I can’t count how many times she’s said she loves that about me and Collin.

I excuse myself out of the room after handing off the sandwiches and my coffee to hang her coat on the coat tree standing next to the front door. Elle sits down on the far end of the elongated suede leather sofa while I rustle through the linen closet, coming back into the living room carrying a handmade patchwork quilt hung over my arm.

Hopefully when she looks back on her life someday, recounting when her life began, it won’t be a birthday. No, it will be here, it will be Chicago. This weekend started her glory days waiting to happen. Her life hasn’t been easy so far. I want today to be the start of easy for her. Dropping down on the cushion next to her, I pull her legs up to rest over my lap and fluff the quilt over the both of us, then open the sandwich bag. My coffee warms my hands nicely but not nearly as nice as when I’d done it for her.

“You’ve given me the best first real date of my life,” she tells me, and lets that delicate hair fall to hide her face so I can’t see her vulnerability.

Reaching over, I brush my hand along her cheek to tuck the hair behind her ear. “It is for me too.”

“But I’m not your first real date.”

“You’re the only one that matters.”

Wind hits the windows, vibrating the glass. We can hear the cold from outside trying to break in as we begin eating. Very little conversation is required. We’re Ben and Elle, after all. We’ve shared these comforting silences before. Just because we kiss now doesn’t mean it has to change. And it won’t change. Friends first.

I turn on the TV and before deciding on what to watch, I get up to turn off all the lights. Creating atmosphere. After returning to sit, her feet in my lap again, I surf through the channels while rubbing soft circles over her legs through the quilt, finally stopping on a Jason Statham movie full of gun fights, car chases, and huge explosions. One glance to ask if my choice is okay. One nod tells me it is. Good.

Once her sandwich has passed into sandwich history, both of us with very full bellies, I feel Elle starting to drift. That’s when I shift, lying down across the sofa with her tucked tightly against my chest, both of us under the quilt.

“Shouldn’t you take me home before we both fall asleep?” she asks, yawning, and stretches to cover her mouth.

“Hadn’t planned on it. Unless, do you want to go home?” I come off sounding worried, which I am, because I don’t want her to say yes.

“Nope,” she answers. The correct answer.

“Good.” With a kiss to her temple, we settle back watching the movie again and sipping on coffee until I fall asleep.

The soft hand shaking her awake comes too damn early. She’s too warm, soft, and comfortable to move, let alone be awake. “Hey, girly,” my best friend says, ignoring my grunts. “You skipping today?”

Her eyes open to the sound of his question. “Collin? What are you…?” Elle sits up quickly, blinking and searching her surroundings, totally disoriented when my hand snakes around her waist, pulling her back down. My hardness presses into her side, making her blush on contact.

“You got to take care of something there?” Collin teases, having seen the same thing she feels.

“Can’t be helped. She wiggles a lot in her sleep.” The ruffled, sleep mussed hair and wrinkled T-shirt do nothing to dissuade her desirability or the buildup of need being so close to her causes me. I can see it in her eyes, her girl parts tingle too. I make her feel like a girl—a real sexual being for once in her life, not just a lonely girl taking attention whichever way she can get it.

“Why didn’t you wake me? I would’ve moved,” she says to me.

“Which is exactly why I didn’t wake you. Your ass would put J Lo’s to shame.”

She laughs. “I highly doubt it.”

“Don’t doubt what you can’t know. Who’s sitting here with a raging hard-on?”

“It’s true, Elle.” Collin leans on the arm of the sofa by my head. “Speaking as a connoisseur of fine asses, I’ve been jealous of yours for years.”
Whatever
. I shove him, causing him to stumble off the arm, laughing too. We all laugh and it feels really good.

“So, play hooky with me? The snow is so deep, we’ll spend hours digging out. And really, I’m so much more comfortable than a desk chair. I’ll even let you stare at my flexing biceps while I cook us all breakfast. I make great waffles. Tell her, Col.”

“He does. His waffles are the best
and
they’re even healthy, coconut and tapioca flour. I don’t ask, I just eat.”

“I do love waffles.”

“Of course you do. No girlfriend of mine wouldn’t like waffles. It’s un-American.”

Collin snickers. “Those words sound so foreign coming from your mouth.”

“Yeah, ha
ha
. Hey kettle, it’s pot. You’re black.”

“I thought we weren’t using labels,” she tells me.

“Changed my mind. You don’t have to, but like it or not, you’re my girlfriend.”

“Um…I think I like it.”

“Good, now that’s all settled, Collin, you might want to go back to bed for a little longer, because the way I plan on kissing this woman is about to get downright uncomfortable for you.”

“What?” She practically screams in my ear. My arm tightens around her at the same time she tries, unsuccessfully, to move away from me.

Chapter 18

Elle

The three of us spend Monday on the couch eating the most delicious, healthy waffles known to mankind and watching a marathon of some ultimate Alaskan eco-challenge. At some point, Kip showed up with coffees from The Brew. We shove over so all four of us can fit under the quilt on the couch. Ben lifts me to sit on his lap while Collin keeps Kip tucked up under his arm, with Kip’s head resting against his collar.

I can’t remember ever being as happy as I am here, right now.

About ten o’clock at night, one of us has to be the responsible one. “Ben, I can’t skip tomorrow. I have a test.”

“How am I supposed to sleep without you next to me? Three nights in a row, I’m hooked like a crack addict. You’re my crack, Brontë.”

“You managed every night before just fine.”

“That’s because I hadn’t yet felt what I was missing. Only in my dreams, which is why I had to sleep.”

“My books, my clothing, my car. Everything is back at my apartment.”

“Beautiful and logical.” Kip, who has apparently been listening to us, squeezes my hand gently.

“All these compliments, you guys are going to give me a big head.”

“Just returning the favor, babe.” Ben eyes me, and it’s chock-full of suggestion. The first time on a new roller coaster, when the car jerks and clicks slowly to the top of the first major drop off, and you dare peek over the side to look at the tiny people below, that heady ball of fear, excitement, and anticipation that forms in the pit of your stomach…yeah, that’s what being on the receiving end of those suggestive eyes does to me.

Walking back into my apartment proves more difficult than I’d expected it to be. Yes, Ben and I spent three nights curled up in each other’s arms, but that isn’t actually what makes it so hard. Life revolves around Kelly. It has since I met her. And maybe I needed that to distract me from the clusterfuck my life had been. But today I didn’t just have Benton Hayes telling me I deserve more, I had Collin and even Kip telling me, sometimes without words, what I’ve never heard from Cricket in my life—that despite my size and superpower, I deserve to be happy.

People want to take care of me for no other reason than they care about me. Cricket took care of me financially—food, heat, and a roof over my head, and clothing which didn’t embarrass her—those were all I was allowed to expect from the woman who had given birth to me. At least she’d done it, though. We don’t always get the luxury of liking the families we are born into. But Kelly, Kelly is supposed to be my friend. We chose to like each other, chose to give our support to one another. Yet the more time I spend with Ben and Collin and Kip, the more I realize that Kelly hasn’t been living up to her end of the friendship. What can I do for her? Always, what can I do for her?

We’ve only been an actual couple for a day and a half, a speck of time, but because of our friendship it feels like so much longer. No way could sleep happen tonight, and homework is so far out of the equation it landed in the realm of the theoretical. Since Kelly is still out for the night, I do what I do best. Sitting in the middle of my bed with the pillows propped up behind me, I open a new word document on my laptop and start typing. The words flow today like they never have before, like I’ve never let them before, always so afraid of a wrong word choice or faulty sentence, something else to piss off Cricket. Something else for Dinah to rub in my face. But right now, I can’t let that affect me. My muse for the evening, Ben and Collin and Kip—but mostly Ben. Probably because I’m falling for him…and I want to touch his pee pee.

Several hours pass and Kelly still hasn’t come home yet, but I notice several missed calls from today, Sabrina saying to call her
anytime
. It is a little after 1:00 a.m., so I send a text in case she happens to be sleeping. My phone lights up right away with her call.

“What up, chica? You’re a hard one to get ahold of.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m as in love with Errol as anyone could be in love, but girl, if I had Benton Hayes making goo-goo eyes at me—”

“He wasn’t making goo-goo eyes.” I cut her off.

“Oh, he so was. But it’s okay. Good, even. You deserve someone making goo-goo eyes at you. Especially knowing they’re coming from him. That man has been head over heels for you forever.”

“
What?
You knew? All the times we’ve spent together. All the times you caught me staring at him like a creeper?”

“Honey, you weren’t ready. What would you have done before?”

“Probably pulled away.”

“No probably about it. And not just from him. None of us were willing to lose you. And you had his head spinning every which way. I felt so sorry for him.”

“How did I do that?”

“He couldn’t be the normal, flirty Benton with you because you two are such good friends.”

“I’m just stupid, Bri.”

“No. You’ve been emotionally stunted by that hosebeast of a mother.” Before I can contain it, the laugh effervesces out loud and bubbly in her ear. As I’m laughing, it hits me that I’ve laughed more in the time I’ve been here than my whole life growing up with Cricket and Dinah. I don’t actually have any memories of laughing with either of them.

She waits, letting me get it out of my system totally before continuing. “You want to meet for dinner tomorrow night? I feel like we have so much to catch up on. Errol’s working a double so he can get Valentine’s Day off.”

“It’s Valentine’s already?”

“Yeah. You got something in mind for Benton?

“Not even. I didn’t have a boyfriend until,” I look at the clock, “two days ago.”

“Well, you have one now.”

“What did you get for Errol?”

“Well, we’re different. It’s the day he finally plucked up the courage to ask me out, remember?”

“How could I forget?” A smile spreads over my face. “After group. He wanted to talk to you alone but you insisted I stay. Poor guy.”

“Poor guy, my ass. It was the luckiest day of his life.”

“Not denying that.”

“Tell you a secret? It was the luckiest day of mine too. I don’t even care if it’s the lamest day on the calendar to have an anniversary.”

“It is pretty lame.”

“Shut up. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Hanging up, I realize how tired I’ve gotten just in that short conversation. I have to think of something great for Ben, something that represents us as a newly acknowledged couple as well as the history of our friendship.