by Sarina Bowen
I look around the living room. “Where are you hiding it?”
“Well…” He rubs the back of his neck. “It’s in the bedroom. But since you’re staying over, we’re headed in that direction eventually anyway.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I say quietly. That’s what people do when they visit, right?
“Skye, we used to sleep on a patio chair surrounded by snow. If you’re against sleeping on the other side of my king-sized bed, I’ll take the couch. But I know you’re not afraid of me.”
Of course I’m not. But my Embrace the Memories Tour has its limits. Curling up next to Benito might break me.
No. I catch myself. It won’t break me. Maybe I need to feel this ache one more time before I can let it go for good.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I assure him. “Even if you’re twice as large and an officer of the law, I can still take you.”
He grins at me over the rim of his wine glass. “Come on. Let me show you where the bathroom is. Then we’ll watch a little TV to get your mind off Rayanne until we can learn more.”
Ten
Skylar
We’re sitting on Benito’s bed, which is neatly made. I’m wearing a Natori nightgown that seemed perfectly modest when I thought that only Rayanne would see it. But now I feel naked. And unless I’m crazy, Benito’s eyes keep finding their way over to my side of the bed.
There’s a comedy on TV, but I can barely pay attention. I’m too busy processing everything that’s happened in the last three hours. Rayanne’s disappearance. Benito’s reappearance.
It’s trippy to be so close to Ben. Every time he laughs at the TV, the sound echoes inside my chest. I’d spent so many hours sitting beside him just like this. I know the sound of his laugh as well as I know my own.
On the screen, two characters are exchanging sexually charged banter. The woman is fashioned to be sexy and slick, with shiny lipstick and a low-cut top. Half-hour comedies don’t have time for subtleties. She cocks her hip and makes a comment, and the laugh-track rewards her with laughter.
When I was a teenager, I’d watched women on shows like these and figured I someday might achieve similar confidence. I’d known I was a bit of a late bloomer in the sex department. But I’d thought it was a matter of styling. If I could afford slick clothes and hair products, the confidence would fall into place, too.
Apparently it doesn't work that way.
I'm no longer the frightened child I was at sixteen. But men still baffle me. It's not like I can't appreciate their finer points from a distance. I admire handsome faces and strong bodies as much as the next girl.
Yet I’ve never mastered the art of getting what I want, because I can never figure out exactly what that is.
Case in point—my first boyfriend. He’d been my professor for Investigative Journalism. I’d thought the man was a genius, and maybe he was. He had bylines in every major news publication.
By November of my junior year, I was smitten. I had it bad for his big brain, and also for his wavy hair and intelligent eyes. I spent each lecture entranced, taking him in as he paced the lecture hall. And I was always first in line for office hours.
Then, one cloudy day as I put on my coat to leave after a meeting, he kissed me.
At first I was astonished by the smoothness of it. He just pressed me up against his office door and plundered my mouth. After a moment I got into the swing of things and kissed him back.
“Thought you needed that," he said after the second best kiss of my life. He was super smooth, and I was speechless. Still stunned, I rode the subway home to Aunt Jenny’s apartment just trying to understand it.
So the next week I went back for more. We talked for an hour about the journalistic tradition of unnamed sources. And then he beckoned to me. I walked around the desk. He pulled me into his lap and we went to town.
Then he put his hand up my skirt.
Again I was stunned. It was the first time I'd ever let a man do that. His fingers stroked me between the legs, and I whimpered into his mouth and tried not to panic.
I was ticking off all kinds of first-times with him, but I didn't want him to know it. And I liked his touch. Nobody had ever made me feel so desirable. Even though I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, professor Smooth didn’t seem to mind.
He really didn’t mind. A few minutes later I found myself elbows down on his desk blotter. My panties dropped, and I heard his zipper unzip.
He opened the desk drawer for a condom. Later I would wonder about that placement. But never mind. I was about to join the club. I was going to learn all the secrets that other girls knew.
Trying to keep my breath even, I stared down at that blotter, noting that he had a Friday appointment with his podiatrist. I was nervous, and maybe that’s why it hurt so much when he pushed inside a minute later.
I hated every second. But I’d heard other girls say that first times aren’t really so great. Maybe it would get better.
So of course I went back. He was still a genius and I still loved the way it felt when he locked his office door and kissed me. Like the sun was shining only on me.
Unfortunately, the sex didn’t feel any better on subsequent occasions. Apparently I’m not a very sexual person. I never saw fireworks.
We carried on like that for most of the year. And then one day I was early for office hours. And there were three people leaving his office together, smiling. A woman, a preschooler clutching her hand, and a toddler on her hip.
Professor Smooth had a wife and two boys. They looked just like him.
Instead of walking into his office, I walked past his door, stunned. Later I Googled him. The first ten pages of hits were all bylines. But I found the wedding announcement eventually.
Of course I never went back to him. I deleted all his emails, and ignored his subsequent texts.
Ultimately it was a fine lesson in investigative journalism. Until that rude surprise, I saw only what he wanted me to see, and I did everything he asked.
Since then I’ve dated a couple of other men. But I never again found a man who seemed worth the trouble. Even if they seemed nice, I always wondered what they were hiding. And as for sex, I still don’t know what all the fuss is about.
The only man I’ve ever really loved is sitting beside me on the bed. No wonder Vermont still has such a hold on my soul.
The comedy we’re watching ends right about the same time I finish my second glass of red wine. We drank the whole bottle. I’m a big girl, but two glasses is a lot for me, so I feel pleasantly tipsy around the edges.
“Hey, where’s your ukulele?” I ask suddenly. It’s nowhere in the room.
“Haven’t played in a while.” He takes my empty glass from me and carries it into the kitchen. When he returns, I barely notice the uke in his hands, because the sight of him entering the room floors me all over again. I mean, the man was only gone for thirty seconds. But that face and those broad shoulders and…
I’ve still got it bad for him. Staying here tonight is either a really bad idea or an important moment in the process of getting on with my life.
It could really go either way.
“It’s been a while.” He sits down on the bed again, cradling the instrument. “My fingers are going to feel stupid. That year when I played a lot of ukulele for you, that was pretty much the high point of my musical career.”
For me. I wonder if he meant to say that? He strums slowly, and simple chord progression makes the hair stand up on my arms. “Why did you stop playing?” I whisper.
Benito shrugs. “Joined the army. Got too busy. Honestly I was never much of a player until I spent a lot of time sitting by that fire with you.” His fingers change position on the guitar’s neck, and he strums again. The chord vibrates in my belly. “I liked the way you listened.”
“I loved listening,” I admit. His music was a calm, peaceful thing in my hellish life. Nothing bad ever happened while Benito was playing music.
His h
ands go still on the strings. “Loved playing for you. Also, I needed something to do with my hands.” He strums again.
“Why?”
He laughs, and makes a chord change. “Horny eighteen-year-old boy sitting close to the prettiest girl in Vermont? I spent every night trying not to reach for you. The ukulele gave me something else to focus on. And I needed that. Badly.”
My heart rate doubles. Because Benito never said a single thing like that when we were teens. I’d found him inscrutable, even though my whole psyche orbited around him.
Even now I feel my world tilt subtly in his direction. Twelve years later and he still has his own gravitational pull.
And he’s sitting beside me strumming a Clapton tune, like he didn’t just admit something important.
“Why didn’t we?” I blurt out.
“Hmm?” The chords he’s playing run over me like water. I can feel them everywhere.
“Why didn’t we ever…” It’s not easy for me to say. I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’ve never figured out how to talk about sex, or even how to enjoy it. That’s probably why I rarely have any.
And suddenly I feel really sad about it. Maybe it’s the two glasses of wine talking, or maybe it’s the maelstrom of sentimental feelings hitting me tonight.
Benito has stopped playing the guitar, in favor of watching me. “There are about a hundred reasons why we didn’t have sex,” he says with a sad smile.
“That’s a lot of reasons,” I say, wondering if I should retreat from this topic. The old Skye would have. But the new one shouldn’t. I promised myself I’d look the past square in the eye tonight. “Why don’t you share the top ten?”
His smile widens. “You were sixteen, for starters. I thought maybe you didn’t want your first time to be on a discarded patio chair behind a trailer park.”
“You didn’t ask,” I point out.
“Fair point.” He runs his palm up the strings of his instrument, and I can’t tear my eyes away. I wish that hand was on me. “Also, there was a certain uniformed police officer who wouldn’t like it. And I had to be careful. My whole family was always on the lookout for him.”
“Oh.” Now that makes a whole lot of sense.
Although I’d have never thought Benito was intimidated by Jimmy Gage. He never looked scared. Not once. Benito was my rock.
“You know, he used to accuse me of it,” I say, realizing too late that I really don’t want to talk about Jimmy Gage. “He would ask me which one of the Rossi boys I was…” I clear my throat. “When I didn’t answer him, he said that maybe I let you all take turns.”
Benito flinches. “I knew he said that shit to you. I could hear him talking to you sometimes. I never wanted to make your life harder, Skye. You weren’t ready. I could never touch you, because it was too complicated for both of us. Didn’t mean I didn’t think about you way too much.”
“You did not,” I whisper. “No way.”
“Way,” he says, smiling. “But I should remind you that you never asked. You never said, ‘Hey, Benito, put down that ukulele and do me.’”
I actually snort with laughter. “That doesn’t sound like anything I’d say.”
“No.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t. And I couldn’t afford any misunderstandings. My only goal was to keep you safe. And if I thought for one minute that I might scare you off, then it wasn’t worth it. If you were afraid to be alone with me the way you were afraid to be alone with him, I couldn’t risk that. I was happy to wait. For you.”
“Oh.” That sounds so lovely that I just bask in it for a minute. I don’t even let myself get mad that he didn’t actually wait for me. I push that thought aside.
“So that’s why I played so much ukulele.” He strums again. “To hide my boner. It was a year of untucked shirts and strategically placed objects.”
I laugh, because boner is a funny word. Although my eyes feel a little hot. I never knew I had such an effect on him. And part of me really needed to hear this. It’s healing to know a nice boy wanted me, and then didn’t make a big deal about it.
“And when we slept by the fire on my doublewide chair,” he adds. “I had to keep you away from my lap. I had it so bad. I ached.”
Past tense, my brain points out. But I want him to ache for me right now. “Teenagers,” I say, and then laugh again to cover my yearning.
He reaches over and smooths my hair with his hand. It’s the way he used to touch me—warm, but not sexual. I miss him so much. “We should get some sleep,” he says.
“Okay,” I agree, even though I’m not the least bit drowsy.
“I’ll sleep on the couch if it would make you more comfortable.”
I shake my head before I can even think about it. The truth is that sleeping beside Benito always gave me great comfort. And my heart still wants him beside me.
“Then I’ll be right back,” he says.
A few minutes later he’s shut off the light, and he’s pulling back the covers on his side of the bed. He gets in, and for a moment we lie there in a heavy silence. I feel the weight of all our history pressing down on us. “This is so much more comfortable than the lawn chair,” I whisper.
He laughs, and the tension is broken. “What’s that old saw? Living well is the best revenge.”
“I hope that’s true,” I whisper. “The other kind of revenge sounds fun, too, though.”
“What’s the other kind?” he rolls onto his side to ask.
I roll, too. We’re facing each other in his bed, and I am thrilled by this moment of quiet intimacy. “My foot on Gage’s windpipe,” I say. “Except I don’t want to go to jail. Okay—Gage in an orange jumpsuit. Oh—and the prisoner in the next cell never shuts up. He’s constantly asking Gage which of the guards gets to take turns with him in the showers. Just a drumbeat of humiliation for the rest of his days.”
Benito blinks. “You are not to be messed with.”
“I’m not,” I agree, even if it’s all bluster. My fear of Gage is still bone deep.
“Goodnight, Skyescraper,” he says. Then he gives me a teasing grin.
“Goodnight you jerk.”
His smile comes closer, and I realize that he’s going to kiss me goodnight. And before I can brace myself, warm, firm lips meet mine.
It could have been a chaste kiss. Perhaps Benito meant to give me a peck and pull away. And if my brain were in charge of this situation, maybe it would have been. But no. Twelve years of closeted heartache seize the moment. Something inside me rears up to meet his kiss. I fit my mouth against his, as if to reclaim what I’m owed.
Benito makes a low noise of surprise. He leans in, tilting his head to join us more perfectly. Soft lips caress and then meld to mine.
And suddenly I’m the shameless girl I always wanted to be. I kiss the stuffing out of him. I part my lips and taste him, as if I do this every day. He tastes of toothpaste and Benito. His fingers sift through my hair as his tongue makes a slow slide against mine.
I’m a livewire. I’m a buzzing, crazy mess. I kiss him again and again and then…
His phone rings.
Benito pulls back quickly. “Jesus Christ,” he curses, rolling off the bed. “God, I’m sorry. That was…” He makes a noise of dismay as he lunges for the phone on top of his dresser. “Rossi. Talk to me,” he barks into the phone. There’s only a brief pause before he says, “Where? Okay. I’ll be right there.”
He drops the phone and then yanks down his flannel pants. My eyes practically pop out of my head as his muscular thighs appear and then disappear into a pair of trousers.
“The Orange County sheriff’s office found an abandoned Jeep,” he says as he pulls a sweatshirt over his head. “The car is not in good shape. I’m checking it out.”
Those words finally break through my kissing haze. “What?” I leap out of the bed. “I’m going, too.”
“No,” he says harshly. “No way. I’ll text you if I find out it’s hers. Give me your phone.”
I unloc
k it and hand it over.
“There,” he says as he texts himself from my number. “Now I can’t lose you so easily again.”
Yikes.
“Get some rest,” he says, jogging out the door of the bedroom.
I catch up to him in the kitchen where he’s holstering his gun in the back of his trousers. “Benny! You can’t just leave me here!” I picture my stepsister’s body in the woods and shiver.
“Yeah, I can. Later, Skye.”
He disappears out the door, and it closes with a bang.
Several heartbeats thump through my chest before I can even react. “You…!” That’s as far as I get, because I don’t have a substitute curse word for bossy asshole.
Stomping back into the bedroom, I find my phone. I pull up Uber for the second time tonight and summon a car.
Then I start searching for an internet feed of the county police scanner. Wherever the cops are headed, I’ll follow.
But I am foiled by the police scanner. I can’t find an online broadcast for the Orange County sheriff’s office. And then my phone rings with an 802 number.
“This is Damien Rossi,” a voice says when I answer. “Calling on behalf of Uber.”
“I know who you are, Damien,” I say to Benito’s brother. “Are you downstairs? Do you happen to know where Benito went?”
“All I know is that your ride is canceled,” he says. “Benito said not to pick you up again in Vermont.”
“What?” I shriek. “He doesn’t control Uber. And neither do you.”
“Yeah? Well I’m the only Uber in eastern Vermont,” Damien says. “Sorry I can’t help you.”
Then he hangs up on me.
Outraged, I open the app and peer at the map. And…there aren’t any little cars showing on it. I make the range wider, to show more of Vermont.
Still nothing.
“This is bullshizzle!” I shriek. I’m stuck here. And I’m furious. Also, I’m a little bit drunk on red wine and on kissing Benito for the second time in my life.
I spend the next twenty minutes pacing Benito’s beautiful apartment. I open drawers and closets, hunting for…