______
Emily
I wished for Christmas Eve and Day to pass quickly.
But they had moved extremely slow. I told myself to enjoy it while I went to Roger’s family on Christmas Eve. And I told myself to enjoy it when I went to Mom’s and ate with her and Sarah on Christmas Day. Roger wasn’t with me that day since he had to work at the hospital, but I spent that evening with him where we opened gifts in the apartment.
Only I kept wishing for it to be the day after, so I could spend time with Benjamin before he had to leave. Our days were numbered. It had me cranky and depressed. I hadn’t realized how much I had missed having him around until it was all I could think about while he was here.
I rushed out of the apartment that morning as soon as I woke up. Roger had already gone to work. I made my way to Dad’s where I ate a Christmas dinner for the third day in a row. Thankfully, he understood how tired I would be after going to everyone’s houses, so he waited to celebrate with me today. He also forced me to send a picture of himself standing next to the tree to Mom. It had been funny. I hated to say it, but I had more fun just being here alone with Dad.
If someone would have told me I’d be this close to him when I was younger like I was now, I wouldn’t have believed them.
Even though I didn’t live here anymore, I still bought him a tree and put it up ever since deciding we needed some cheer in our lives on Christmas. Today I was taking it down though. He sat and watched as I fought with the lights.
“The lights are getting tangled,” he stated the obvious.
I turned my neck just enough so that I could glare at him. “Why don’t you help then?” He went quiet. There was a knock on the door. “Can you get it, Dad? It’s Benjamin.”
He disappeared, I heard them talking, and a second later they were both standing in the living room. Benjamin wore casual clothes, but he looked so handsome. He had a box in his hand. “I didn’t get you anything,” I said with a frown.
“Who said I got you anything?” He snorted as he handed off the box to Dad. “Dad thought y’all might want some candy.”
I blushed. “Oh.”
“What are you doing?” He looked on the verge of laughing.
“Becoming the tree herself,” Dad pointed out.
I looked down and saw that I somehow managed to wrap myself in Christmas lights. I dropped my hands in surrender. “Help.”
With a smile, he stepped forward and took the lights from my hands. He was bent over me, so it put him closer to my face. He always smelled good. He had perfect skin too. “Where’s Roger?”
“Hmm?”
He met my eyes and skimmed over my face with a smirk. “Roger?”
“Oh, he’s working.”
He dropped his eyes to my stomach and started working with the lights. “How the hell did you do this?” he muttered as his eyebrows bunched together in concentration. “Did you guys have a good Christmas?”
“Yeah, it was nice.”
He lifted his eyes to my face. “Nice?” I nodded. “That sounds boring.”
“My daughter is boring,” Dad observed us from the couch.
“We sat and opened presents. The same as everyone else on Christmas.” His smirk both irritated and entertained me. “Why? What did you and Tammy used to do on Christmas?”
“The same.”
I didn’t even understand why I was disappointed with his answer. “Then why are you calling me boring?”
There was a flash of something I’d never seen before fall over his features. “Imagine how much better it would have been if we had spent the last couple of Christmas’s together?” I rolled my lips in my mouth and said nothing, but my face was strangely heated in a way it hadn’t been before. “Relationships are overrated.”
His words brought me out of my weird state. I shook my head. “Say that to me when you find yourself a new girlfriend.”
Only I wouldn’t admit that I agreed. He and I would have had a better time if we had been together. He was still my most favorite person after all.
“Here, you sit down and put the stuff away while I take everything off the tree.”
I plopped down on the floor and looked up at him. He simply grinned down at me. I liked when he smiled at me. When Benjamin looked at me, I felt like I was something special. He was overprotective and overbearing with me, I always loved that too.
We spent the next thirty minutes taking down the tree while Dad sat back and criticized everything we did or talked about, making sure he added his two cents. After eating another plate of food with Dad, Benjamin offered to take us out somewhere, and I agreed to get some time alone with him.
We found ourselves skimming through games at Game Stop. It was rather busy the day after Christmas, all these kids wanted to spend the money they received.
“Don’t you start sending out some ARCs to the bloggers soon?” Benjamin murmured, picking up a game and flipping it over to look at the back.
“Please don’t bring that up.” My stomach swam with uneasiness. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
He smirked. “Too late now. Tiffany should be done with the cover in no time. She was very passionate about doing it—the idea of a gorilla man and human girl.” I nodded. “You worry too much about what people think, some are gonna like it, some are gonna hate it, while others might even love it.”
“It’s just…so goofy.”
“That’s what makes it so good. Anyone that one-clicks it with a title and description like that thinking it’s gonna be anything other than outrageous comedy, should have their head checked.” That made me smile. “Are you gonna let me read volume two yet?”
I lifted my brow. “How did you know I was finished with it?”
“I had a feeling you might have started working on the next one as soon as I convinced you to self-publish.”
I grinned. “I’m already finished with the third volume, actually.”
His eyes widened. “What the hell, Emily? You’ve been holding out on me. Send them to me tonight.”
Feeling pleased, I nodded with a smile I planned on keeping for the rest of the day.
_____
It was New Year’s, and I managed to convince Benjamin to come over and spend it with me so that I could spend some more time with him before he left in the morning. I hadn’t spent any more time with him since the day after Christmas. It sucked, but I had to work at Crash’s.
Tiffany had also sent me an email of the cover she designed, and Benjamin was right beside me when I opened the attachment. Needless to say, we gushed about it for an hour. NO, the entire day. It was perfect for my story. She did a cartoon illustration of a purple gorilla that was made slightly to resemble a man and a brunette girl that he had draped over his shoulder. The background was a jungle.
Roger was quiet most of the day. He hadn’t even said much about my cover when I showed him. I had a feeling he was uncomfortable with Benjamin in our apartment. Benjamin, on the other hand, tried being friendly but at the same time, it looked like his Freddy might come out at any time as he hovered. I had to glare at him a few times. Not that it helped.
He finally went home. Roger told me he liked Benjamin after he left. I couldn’t tell if he was being sincere or just saying it so that I wouldn’t get a little offended. Coming from his perspective, I knew it was hard to accept his girlfriend having a guy best friend, so I felt guilty most of the day while Benjamin kept my attention.
I didn’t understand why I felt guilty. I never did in high school when it came to my boyfriends complaining about him. Benjamin and I were always the same. We weren’t shooting romantic hearts at each other; we were just friends.
I’d never felt any sort of high emotions from any guy that warranted me to say I was in love with them both as a person and sexually. Back to my point about romance being just blahhhh. Although… I did know the feeling of loving a guy as a person and that guy was Benjamin. I still couldn’t say I love you to Roger. I couldn’t say something that wasn’t there for me yet. Sexually though, Benjamin and I…there hasn’t ever…maybe there were high emotions between us though. With the way my chest got so incredibly tight and warm when he gave me praise…
I pictured Benjamin’s facial features and thought of him the way another girl might when she saw him.
Dark messy hair. Perfect straight teeth. The deepest dark eyes that slanted so beautifully, and when he didn’t have his contacts in and wore those dark-framed glasses that I swore turned him into sexy professor material. And his chin, ugh, it was rugged and perfected in a way that made him so very male. And when he was worried or pissed—and while I envisioned all this, I thought back to all the times I had seen his Freddy face and how incredibly good-looking he was even when angry—maybe especially when it came to my well-being, and something in my chest felt like it was bursting. I grabbed my chest and took a deep breath. Benjamin was long gone now, but my body was strangely uncomfortable and warm.
“Are you okay?” Roger scooted up on the edge of his cushion and gave me a concerned look.
And then I felt terribly guilty in a very real way that time.
“I’m fine.” I dropped my hand and stood up from the couch.
I just made a mistake. I just did something I’d never done before. Even though it was just a thought, and it was only me that felt it, I feared it. The hair on my arms was standing on end and I ran my hand through my hair.
I was uncomfortable. Uncomfortably flushed.
With something I wouldn’t dare admit.
______
Benjamin came to Crash’s to tell me goodbye as he left town again. I tried not to be sad or disappointed, but I was. I was also ignoring the Pandora’s box I’d opened inside my head with Benjamin as the visual. I still smiled when he came to say goodbye. I was happy he stopped in to let me see him one last time.
“Are you sad?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I answered truthfully. “Who knows when I’ll see you again.”
He tilted his head at me, his eyes searching mine. Something he always did, no longer felt the same. “There’s something I didn’t mention.”
“What?”
“I’m coming back home after this semester.” He grinned. “For good. I’m ready to help Dad with the dealerships now. I got my bachelor’s last semester, now I’m just going to be going.”
I jumped up and down. “Oh, my God! Why didn’t you tell me?” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tight. “This is great news.”
His arms came over my back. I was completely against him. My spot on his chest was right there for my nose… Only I was hesitating.
Everything felt strange.
He gazed down at me with something, something I thought I’d always seen before. “After this break, I know how much I want to be home now.”
I blinked. He stared. And stared. Then his lips connected with my forehead. And I thought he waited for me to kiss his cheek again.
But I didn’t.
I don’t know why I couldn’t.
The spirits that swam all through me kept me from doing so.
I was afraid of what they were, and what they might mean.