Ben woke the next morning with what felt like a hangover. He wished it was a long night of drinking that made him feel the way he did instead of a restless night of seeing the woman he loved dead at his feet. He glanced at the clock on the night stand and waited for Anna to stir.
“It’s already nine, sweetie,” he mumbled in her ear.
She groaned. “Already? Make time stop so we can stay here all day.”
He chuckled. “Believe me when I say that I wish I could.”
She gave him a sleepy smile and rolled away from him to stretch.
“Shower?” he asked mischievously.
Anna returned the same look, crawled out of bed and hurried to the bathroom. The next thing he heard was the shower turning on, and then she opened and closed the door. It would be a sweet surprise if she’d allow him the pleasure of ravaging her this early in the morning, and just the thought had him hard as he walked to the bathroom. He found her just as eager as he was, and they spent the next twenty minutes exploring one another’s bodies under the warm water.
Ben still couldn’t believe that it was possible to have so much fun with a woman when sex wasn’t involved, even though that was what they did last night and this morning. She had completely thrown a curveball in his life of bachelorhood and instead of feeling disappointed by it, he felt invigorated. There had been an emptiness in his life for the last year and he couldn’t figure out what it was until now. It was a void that needed to be filled by companionship and Anna was the only one he wanted. The thought of it had his stomach doing cartwheels.
How is it possible to feel so strongly about a woman in less than a month? he questioned himself. Anna had become the light to his dark and the happy to his sad. He mulled the thought over in his head as he bounded down the stairs to make coffee. He brewed two cups and poured them into to-go coffee mugs and waited patiently for Anna to finish getting ready for the day.
There were many things he loved about her, but the fact that she could put on makeup in less than ten minutes was one of the highest on the list. He knew he’d never have to wait long for her to get ready, and that was every man’s dream. Anna happily walked into the kitchen and he handed her a cup.
“Wow. Some first class service you’ve got going on here.” She took her first sip and closed her eyes. “Mmmm. I love coffee.”
“Ready to go?”
She nodded and they proceeded to his car. Ben helped her in and they made their way towards the dealership. On the way there, he noticed his car was running a little odd, and the brakes had become harder to press. He couldn’t recall if it felt that way yesterday when he drove to the field. He made a mental note to call the dealership and have them pick it up while he was at the field for the day.
Ben kissed Anna goodbye and left her in the hands of the overly friendly service rep. He glared at the man before pulling away, hoping he knew to keep his oil-covered fingers to himself.
Ten minutes down the road, the brakes had become almost nonexistent. He pressed the pedal so hard he thought his foot would break through the floor. Ben contemplated pulling over, but he was less than two miles from the field and he was already running late. He thought that if he drove slow enough, he wouldn’t have to press the brake as often.
Unfortunately, the people driving behind him weren’t so happy with his leisurely pace and blasted their horns at him. He gave the car a little gas and regretted it immediately. Before Ben had time to react, the traffic came to a complete stop. He stomped on the brake but the car didn’t slow. He pulled the emergency brake and still nothing happened.
The stopped car in front of him was just a few feet away, and the yellow “baby on board” sign caught his attention. The last thing he wanted to do was slam into a car carrying any children. Instinct took over and he swerved the car to the right where he flew over the curb and slammed into a low brick wall at forty miles per hour.
Metal crunched and glass broke as he hit the wall straight on. His head slammed into the steering wheel, blurring his vision instantly. The last thing Ben saw was the outline of figures racing towards him before his head pounded uncontrollably and he blacked out.
* * *
Anna glanced at the clock on the wall and saw it was four forty-five. She was elated to find that Beth took a sick day, claiming to have caught whatever it was Anna had. She laughed at the thought.
Ben had a two o’clock game today and assumed he would be home around seven. She wasn’t ready to surprise him with dinner again, so she opted to stop and grab something on her way home from work. Anna knew he was a fan of Chinese, so she looked up the number to a restaurant in the Fountain Hills area and called to place an order.
I hope you’re hungry because I just ordered a ton of rice and noodles.
She sent the text and waited for a witty remark from the comical man. He always had a comeback to the things she said and loved that he always made her laugh. Thirty minutes later, she was still waiting for a response from him. It was now fifteen after five and Anna decided to close down for the day. The only reason he wouldn’t have responded was because his game was still going on.
Anna made a call to the Chinese place to let them know that she was still coming to grab the food she ordered and headed out for the day. She arrived at the restaurant and still hadn’t heard from Ben. The game had to be over by now, she thought.
Cat got your tongue?
She sent the message hoping it would get his attention and assumed he would reply right away apologizing profusely for the delay. Anna shook her head at the idea that she was his whole world. Men like him didn’t bend over backwards for a mediocre woman like her.
After picking up the already cold food, Anna drove straight to Ben’s house. It was almost six thirty, and by now he should have been showered and on his way to her. It really wasn’t like him not to respond to her.
At seven, Anna was too hungry to wait for Ben to get home. She slurped her noodles in silence, staring at the screen of her phone. Extra innings was a real possibility for his lack of response, but a four-hour game seemed excessive. She was naïve when it came to the sport and hoped she was wrong.
Visions of him spending time with another woman danced in her head and she suddenly felt sick. Anna dropped her chopsticks to the counter and sighed heavily. She continued to sit at on the barstool and played on her phone. Anna caught up on the day’s social media and liked about one hundred status updates, something she rarely ever did.
It was now eight o’clock and she still hadn’t heard from Ben. Regardless of whether the man was screwing around with another woman or not, it wasn’t in his nature to not respond to a text, she knew that. Worry started to set in and her legs suddenly felt like Jell-O when she slid off the stool. Anna held onto the bar for support and images of Ben’s lifeless body popped into her head. She slapped a hand to her forehead.
“Stop it, Anna. You are being ridiculous,” she said aloud. Anna glanced at her phone one more time and made her way upstairs to take a shower. When she came back down, she found Ben sitting at the bar eating from one of the Chinese food cartons.
He looked up at her. Anna saw he had a goose egg on his forehead with what seemed to have five stitches on it, and his right eye was slightly swollen with a bluish purple bruise coming to the surface.
It didn’t take her long to realize that something had happened to him. Her previous image of his lifeless body appeared again and she wasn’t able to stop the tears before they began to fall.
“Aww, babe.” Ben set the carton down. “Why the tears?”
Anna ran to his side and threw her arms around his neck. She sobbed into his shoulder for a good five minutes before she was able to compose herself. Ben was patient. He patted her back and whispered soothing words into her ear.
“I’m okay, baby. Shhhhh. Everything’s okay.”
She was finally able to take a deep breath and released it slowly. “What happened to you today? I was so worried when you didn’t respond to my texts.”
“I know and I can’t apologize enough for it.” Ben pulled her head from his chest and placed a gentle kiss to her lips. “Shortly after I dropped you off this morning, my brakes went out and I crashed into a brick wall. My airbag didn’t deploy and I hit my head on the steering wheel.”
Anna gasped.
“Luckily I wasn’t going too fast or it could have been worse.”
“What happened after the accident?”
“I blacked out when I hit my head and was transported to the hospital without any of my belongings. I still don’t have my phone and have no idea what condition my car is in.”
“Shit, Ben. How did this happen?”
Ben shrugged. “No idea. The car is being investigated to see why the brakes went out. It’s odd that both the front and the back ones failed. What’s even odder is my airbag didn’t deploy when I hit that wall. I bought it brand new last year.”
Anna wiped the fallen tears from her cheeks and pressed her forehead to his. “I was sick to my stomach with worry.”
“I can only imagine how you were feeling. I woke up to find our team trainer standing above me, confused as to why I was there.”
“Why was your trainer there? Did the hospital not think to call anyone else?”
He shook his head. “None of my family lives in the state anymore. Since I play professional baseball, I have my trainer listed as my ‘in case of emergency’.”
Anna’s heart sank. She wanted to be the person he leaned on when he needed someone the most.
“The doctor kept me at the hospital all day for observation. At about seven-thirty I was given a clean bill of health and they finally sent me on my way. Luckily, I won’t have to be placed on the DL. I’d be pretty pissed about that.”
Anna rolled her eyes. “You almost died today and your worried most about whether you can play or not?”
He shook his head. “You don’t get it. Baseball is my life. Every single day that I get to play is an opportunity I don’t want to miss.”
He was definitely right about that. She didn’t get why his need to play was greater than his need to heal, and she realized it was something she would never be able to understand. Instead of fighting it, Anna nodded.
“Every time I step onto that field, it’s like walking into a job interview. I have to prove myself worthy every single time.”
It was that moment she finally understood. It was the same for her when designing a job. Every plan she drew up was exactly like a job interview. If a client didn’t like her work, she risked losing them to another designer. Something like that wouldn’t do.
But the difference between her job and his was she could still continue hers if she was slightly injured. Ben was going to go back into the game with stitches on his forehead, and that was something she could never comprehend. Men were a fickle breed.
“So you think it was your brakes that caused the accident?”
“I know it was the brakes,” he replied quickly. “I could have pressed my foot through the floor and the car still wouldn’t have stopped.”
“When was the last time you had it serviced?” she asked.
“A month ago. My car was in perfect condition.”
Anna was afraid to ask her next question, but she had to know. “Do you think someone tampered with it?” She eyed him closely, afraid of his response. His expression remained passive.
“Anna, I have no idea what happened. All I know is that you were the last one to drive the car…” He trailed off.
“No, I wasn’t. You drove it yesterday.”
He shook his head. “No, I drove my other car again in case you needed a car while you were off for the day. You were the last person driving the car.”
She got another sinking feeling, only this time her stomach hit the floor. If the brakes on the car had been tampered with, was it meant for her or was it meant for him?
* * *
Simon took a long drag from his cigarette before flicking it to the ground. He watched the golden ember bounce into the darkness and waited until it faded out before looking away. The clock on his wrist read that it was ten o’clock, and he realized that he had been watching the mansion for well over four hours.
It was just three short hours ago he witnessed Ben Whitley exit a black town car and enter the home.
“Damn it all to hell,” Simon muttered. His employer wasn’t going to be happy when they discovered the man was still part of the living.
The brake fluid was supposed to leak out slowly, unnoticed, and when Ben was driving at a top sixty-five down the freeway, he was supposed to crash and die from the impact of his head hitting the steering wheel when the airbag failed to deploy.
He had done everything he was supposed to do. Simon managed to hack into the monitoring system and disable the cameras that surveyed every inch of the property while he performed the lovely task of cutting the brake lines. He even managed to disable the motion lights so that he was able to go about his business undetected.
Even though he had done everything right, it was still wrong because Ben lived. And he was in the arms of the little slut that had started it all. Simon watched the couple converse in the kitchen for another ten minutes before he climbed out of his hiding spot and slithered off the property unnoticed. He thought of how he would explain why Ben was still alive, but nothing he came up with made sense. He just hoped he was catching his employer on a good day.