Chapter 13
Annalise
“This is so good.”
I’d been prepared for the worst when we walked in. The place looked like a dive from the outside. Inside décor wasn’t much better—bad lighting, dated furniture, and the faint smell of stale beer wafted through the place, compliments of a fan kept behind the bar—although every bistro table and stool at the bar seemed to be filled with couples. And the people were all so happy and friendly. I looked around, and a woman sitting with a man smiled and winked at me. It was the second time that had happened in the half hour we’d been here.
“How’d you find this place? It’s off the beaten path and looks terrible from the outside.”
“Ah.” He brought his beer to his mouth. “I’m glad you asked. I found this place by accident once. I dated a girl who lived a few blocks away and stopped in for a much-needed drink after I broke it off with her. She didn’t take it too well. It’s a special place.”
I looked around again, and a few more people smiled at me. “The food is so good, and everyone is really friendly.”
Bennett’s smile widened. “That’s because it’s a swingers’ place.”
I coughed mid-swallow, nearly choking on my food. “What did you say?”
“A swinger’s place.” He shrugged. “I didn’t know it the first time I came here either. Thought everyone was just glad to see me. Don’t worry, they won’t approach you. If a couple is interested, they wink. If you wink back, they’ll come over and chat.”
My eyes bulged. I’d been winked at twice already and could’ve winked back.
“Why would you bring me here?” I chanced another peek at the people eating. More smiled, and this time, a guy winked at me. I turned my head quickly. “These people think we’re a couple and out cruising to swing.”
He chuckled. “I know. Thought you’d find it funny, seeing how you told me you got dumped in college because your boyfriend wanted to swing.”
“There’s something wrong with you.” After I said it, I looked around again. It suddenly felt like we were sitting center stage. And apparently we were popular, because I got two more winks.
“The food’s awesome, and no one hits on you unless you wink back. It’s the perfect place to come when you want to be left the hell alone and grab a bite to eat.”
He had a point…I guess. Although he’d thought of bringing me here to poke fun at the story I’d told him.
“So tell me why you don’t drive with people in the car,” Bennett said. “Are you a nervous driver or something?”
I’d had a drink before dinner, so my guard was down a little. “I do something most people might think is strange when I drive, so I try to avoid passengers.”
Bennett dropped the french fry he’d just picked up back down onto his plate and leaned back into his chair. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
“I shouldn’t even tell you. I told you about the swinger’s thing, and you brought me to this place. Your sense of humor is a little deranged. God knows what you’ll use this one against me for.”
He raised his arms up to rest on the top of the booth and spread them out wide. “If you don’t tell me, I’m going to start winking at people so they come over here.” He looked to the right and wielded a megawatt smile. I followed his line of sight and found a couple who looked anxious for his wink.
“Oh my God. Don’t do that.”
He lifted his beer to his lips. “Start talking.”
I sighed. “Fine. I narrate while I drive. Are you happy now?”
He wrinkled his nose. “Narrate. What does that mean?”
“Just what I said. I narrate. If I’m about to pull up to a stop sign, I say out loud, Pulling up to a stop sign. When I see a light turn yellow, I might say, Slowing down. Light turned yellow.”
He looked at me like I was nuts. “What the hell do you do that for?”
“I had a car accident when I first started to drive, and I was nervous about getting back behind the wheel. I found narrating my moves helped calm me while I drove. It sort of just stuck. So I don’t let anyone ride with me, except for my mom and best friend, Madison. They’re so used to it, they don’t even notice I’m doing it and just keep talking.”
“You are definitely driving me home. I’ll Uber back to get my car tomorrow morning before work.”
“What? No!”
He turned his head to the right, but kept his eyes glued to me. “I’m gonna wink.”
“Stop it. Don’t.” I couldn’t even pretend to be seriously mad, because the whole situation was absurd.
Bennett set his beer down and lifted up a fry. “Picking up a french fry.”
He raised it to his mouth. “Raising it to my lips.”
I chuckled. “God, you’re a jerk.”
He wiggled the fry at me. “You’re smiling, aren’t you?”
I sighed. “Yeah. I guess I am. Thank you.”
“Anytime, Texas. I’m here for your amusement for the next few months.” He winked. “Before they ship your ass off to Dallas.”
A minute later, a couple appeared at our table. It took us both a minute to realize what had happened. Bennett had winked at me, and some couple took that as their invitation.
***
“Have you ever stolen anything?”
Bennett asked me the question just as the waitress came over to check on us. He ordered another beer, and I asked for an ice water. It was his fourth or fifth—I’d lost count. Since he’d decided his car was staying parked outside overnight, and I was driving him home, he’d made good use of being free to indulge a bit.
The waitress stood next to our table, looking at me rather than going to grab our order. I thought perhaps she had been waiting for the rest of my order, so I smiled politely. “I’m good. Just the water for me.”
She smiled back. “Oh, I’ll grab that beer and water in a jiffy. I’m just waiting to hear your answer to his question.”
Bennett laughed. “She looks like she could’ve been a thief, right? Innocent enough face, but there’s a little spark in her eye. Not to mention the wild hair.”
“I stole a box of condoms once,” the waitress offered. “It wasn’t too long ago, either. I was in the drug store, and my mom walked up in line behind me. I had shampoo and Trojans. I slipped the condoms into my pocket to hide them and let her go first, hoping I could take them out after she was gone. But she waited for me. I’m twenty-two years old, but we’re Catholic, and she’s very religious. The choice was to either break her heart or go to jail for petty theft. I risked it.”
Bennett grinned. God, he had a damn sexy smile. “I stole a box of condoms once, too. I was fourteen and broke, and a hot seventeen-year-old girl invited me over. Didn’t get caught, but did lose my virginity. Totally worth the risk.” He raised his chin to me and wiggled his eyebrows. “Did you steal condoms, or just lube?”
“I never stole anything.” I felt my face heat, and Bennett pointed at me. “Holy shit. You’re turning red—you’re lying. You’re a klepto, aren’t you?”
Unfortunately for me, over the course of the evening, Bennett had discovered my weakness. I suck at lying. Every time I told a lie, my face would flush, or I’d divert my eyes and fidget. As the number of beers he drank increased, he’d created a little game—The Texas Truth. He’d ask me a question, and I’d try to lie about some answers—hence his question about stealing. So far, he’d nailed me on every lie.
I looked at the amused waitress. “I was nine, and I really, really wanted the new ‘N Sync CD. So I sort of put it down my pants when my mom wasn’t looking.”
“Niiiice,” Bennett said.
The waitress laughed. “I’ll be right back with your beer.”
When she was gone, he, of course, wanted more details. “Did you get caught?”
“No. But by the time I got to the car, I’d started crying because I felt guilty. I admitted what I’d done to my mom, and she made me go back into the store and give the CD to the manager. He called the cops, who gave me an hour-long lecture, just to scare me some more.”
“You know I have a strong urge to change your nickname from Texas after hearing that story, right?”
“To what?”
“Snatch. But I already have problems with HR, so I don’t think me yelling Hey, Snatch down the hall would go over too well.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You’re a pig.”
The waitress brought our drinks, and he took a long swig from his beer. “When was the last time you actually told a lie?”
I knew the answer to that question without having to think about it. But there was no way I was sharing that story with Bennett. “It’s been a long time.”
I felt my face heat.
Damn it.
He saw it and chuckled. “Spill your guts, Texas.”
“If I tell you, you have to promise you’ll never make fun of me for it, or even bring it up again.”
“Who me? Never.”
“Give me your word.”
He held up three fingers like a boy scout. “You have my word.”
I knew before I started talking that it was a bad idea to share my story with him, yet I was having fun and wasn’t ready to call it a night.
“Fine. But when I’m done, I want a story I can torture you about. Something embarrassing.”
“Deal. Go ahead, liar.”
I smiled and shook my head. “Okay. Well, I live in a co-op. My building has twenty-four apartments. An older gentleman, Mr. Thorpe, lives across the hall from me, and he has two female cats. He shows them in competitions.”
Bennett’s eyes had dipped to my mouth and now jumped to meet mine. He cleared his throat. “Show cats? I didn’t even know that was a thing. But it’s fucking weird, if it is.”
I sort of agreed. Although that wasn’t the point of my story. “Anyway. I have a male cat. He’s not a purebred or a show cat, just a regular tabby that I got suckered into adopting. That’s a story for another day. Sometimes Mr. Thorpe goes up to Seattle to visit his brother for a day or two, and he asks me to take care of Frick and Frack. If he goes for longer, he boards them at this woman’s house who lets all the cats have free roam of her apartment. I’ve used her, too. Sometimes she has, like, thirty cats, yet it doesn’t smell. I have no idea how.”
“Okay. Are we getting to the lie soon? I’m not a cat person, and this story’s turning boring. Just get to your big, fat lie.”
“Stop being so impatient. Anyway…Mr. Thorpe’s cats are of course indoor cats, so I pretty much just need to run over and feed them twice a day. Six months ago, I was watching his cats and accidentally left my apartment door open when I went across the hall to feed them. By the time I realized it, my cat had run over, and I found Tom humping one of Mr. Thorpe’s prized Persians in his bathroom.”
“Who’s Tom?”
“My cat.”
“Named for Tom and Jerry?”
“No. Hardy. I love him. Anyway, I didn’t mention what had happened to Mr. Thorpe, assuming his cats were fixed, even though mine was not. A few months later, one of his cats gave birth to eight kittens.”
Bennett raised his brows. “And you lied about it?”
“I found out during the quarterly co-op meeting. All the neighbors were there, and Mr. Thorpe had them riled up over how irresponsible some pet owners are. He assumed the cat got pregnant when he boarded her or at the pet park he takes them to for socialization.”
I saw Bennett was about to open his mouth to poke fun, so I stopped him. “Yes, he walks his prized cats to a park so they can socialize. On a leash. But I’m the horrible person in this story, and I still feel guilty, so no making jokes about Mr. Thorpe or his stupid cats.”
“Got it. No making fun of Thorpe. Just your whorey cat and his lying mother.”
Bennett bared that boyish smile again, and my belly did an unexpected little flip. I attempted to ignore it.
“Anyway, so I didn’t own up to my cat’s crime, but I am paying child support. I don’t want you to think I’m a total deadbeat.”
He perked a brow. “Child support?”
“Once a week, I sneak over to his apartment and leave a case of the expensive food he feeds them at his front door.”
Bennett burst into laughter. “And you say I’m nuts?”
“What? I’m just ashamed. I can’t shrug the financial responsibility.”
“Who does he think is leaving the food?”
“I don’t know. I avoid him because if he asks me point blank, my face is going to flush when I lie.”
“That sucks. I’d be screwed if I didn’t have a poker face.”
I drank some of my ice water. “Your turn. Give me an embarrassing story.”
He scratched at the five o’clock shadow on his chin, which I decided he wore really well. “Let me think. I don’t get embarrassed too easily.” A minute later, his face lit up, and he snapped his fingers. “Got one. My parents thought I was gay.”
I chuckled. “Good start. Go on…”
“I was probably ten or eleven when I discovered masturbation. The Internet wasn’t big yet, and materials were scarce. So I used to swipe my mom’s magazines. Cosmo was my favorite, but she didn’t pick that one up too often, so most of my collection was pretty desperate—Good Housekeeping, Woman’s Day, Better Homes & Gardens. On a good week, one of them would have a bikini shot in it for an article on avoiding swimmer’s ear or some shit. But sometimes all I got was a shot of a comfortable bra for an article about avoiding breast-related back pain. Anyway, I stashed them under my mattress when they weren’t in use. One day my mom found them when she was changing my sheets and asked me why I had them. I said I liked to read the articles. She seemed suspicious of that answer and asked what the last article I’d read was. The only thing I could think of fast was the one next to the pictures I’d jacked off to—’How to Make Men Notice You’.”
I covered my mouth as I cracked up. “Oh my God.”
“Yeah. My dad was sent in that night to give me a birds-and-bees talk. At the end, he told me he’d love me no matter who I was.”
“Aww…that’s so sweet.”
“Yeah. But for the next few years, my mom followed me and my buddies around the house whenever I had friends over. I had to keep the bedroom door open when boys came to hang out, and sleepovers were pretty much forbidden. It sucked. But around thirteen I realized it also had an upside.”
“What’s that?”
“When I brought Kendall Meyer home, I could feel her up in private without worrying about anyone barging in. My mom treated the girls I brought home like a straight kid’s male friends. I could close the door and lock it, and she didn’t think anything of it.”
The two of us spent hours sharing more embarrassing stories. We wound up staying at the swingers’ bar until after midnight. On the drive home, as I’d suspected he would, Bennett poked fun at my narration. I was surprised to find we lived less than a mile apart.
“Checking rearview mirror. Pulling to the curb,” I whispered as I arrived in front of his building. A few seconds later. “Putting car into park.”
When I looked over at Bennett, I saw he had a funny grin. “What?”
“Just wondering if there’s anything else you narrate?”
“No. Just driving.”
He flaunted a mischievous half grin. “I was imagining you narrating sex for the entire drive home. Taking off panties. Opening legs wide. Pulling down boxers. Attempting to wrap my fingers around—”
I interrupted. “I get the idea. I think you’re going to be splurging on some fresh copies of Better Homes & Gardens with that imagination.”
Bennett grabbed the door handle. “You have no idea, Texas.”
I was glad it was dark, because this time my face flushed for a different reason than lying.
He opened the door. “Goodnight. Thanks for the amusing ride home.”
I’d started the evening so miserable and was ending it with a smile. I realized Bennett had given that to me, and I hadn’t thanked him. Rolling down my window, I called after him as he rounded the car and hit the sidewalk. “Bennett?”
He turned back. “Texas?”
“Thanks for tonight. Maybe you’re not such a jerk after all.”
The streetlight illuminated his face enough so I caught his wink. “Don’t be too sure of that.”
He turned to walk toward his door, but continued to speak loud enough so I could hear. “Bending her over the bed. Wrapping crazy blonde hair around my fist. Tugging hard while spreading legs wide.” He opened the front door and stopped for a brief second before going in. “Much better than Woman’s Day tonight.”