Totally and Completely Fine(46)

Read the last text.

Fuck.

I groaned and put my head down on the counter.

“I’m a bad person,” I said.

Because I was.

Allyson patted me on the shoulder. “No, you’re not,” she said.

“No,” I said. “I am.”

Ben had been right. I’d been the one to stop texting.

Our last exchange had been about the Testy Fest. I could have sworn I’d responded, but I hadn’t. Things had just been so chaotic, and I’d been trying not to think about him, and in the process…

I’d left him hanging. After he’d texted me about testicles. Then reamed him out for his lack of communication.

Oh god.

“You have to tell me what happened in that alley,” Allyson said.

“We kissed,” I said.

Maybe this was for the best.

“Obviously,” she said. “Who kissed who?”

“I kissed him,” I admitted, forehead still on the wood counter, phone in my hand.

It would have ended eventually—our conversations—I was just the one to stop them. Accidentally.

Subconsciously?

I felt dizzy.

“Good for you,” Allyson said. She sounded surprised and proud at the same time.

“No.” I lifted my head. “Not good. Crazy. Bad. Insane.”

Confusion skated over her face.

“How is kissing a gorgeous man in an alley a bad thing? Especially since you already know he wants you and he’s good in bed.” She paused. “He was good in bed, right? You weren’t lying about that?”

“I might have underplayed his strengths there,” I said.

Allyson’s mouth dropped open. “You said you had two orgasms with him.”

“It was three,” I said.

What was I doing? Shut up, I told myself.

She hit me in the arm. “I hate you,” she said.

“I know.”

We stood there, my hands braced on the counter, hers on her hips.

Ben thought I’d given him the brush-off.

“Let me get this straight,” Allyson said. “Ben has the hots for you. He’s fantastic in bed. He’s here. What exactly is the problem?”

“It’s not reasonable,” I said.

“Reasonable?” Allyson’s voice went up with each syllable. “Who the fuck cares about reasonable?”

“Shhh,” I told her.

The store was empty.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Explain it to me like I’m a child.”

“He’s the child,” I said. “He’s thirty years old.”

“So?”

“None of this is real.”

“I think the alley at Susannah’s Steak House would disagree,” she said. “Besides, you didn’t have a problem with his age in Philadelphia.”

“Philadelphia is not Cooper,” I said.

“No shit.”

I rolled my eyes. “You said it yourself last night. Everyone here knows me. There are no secrets in a town like this.”

“And Ben needs to be a secret?”

“You don’t get it,” I said. “You don’t know what it’s like to have people watching you constantly and judging you.”

“I didn’t think you cared,” she said.

“It’s not about me,” I said. “It’s about Lena—whatever I do affects her and this thing with Ben would not be a good idea.”

I thought about all the ways people had talked about me. How small it had made me feel.

“People would have thoughts. And they wouldn’t be subtle about them.” I closed my eyes. “Jesus. If my mother-in-law found out…”

“I’d imagine she’d be happy you found someone.”

I laughed without any humor. “You don’t know Diana,” I said. “And Ben is not someone. He was a good time, nothing else.”

A throat cleared behind me, and I didn’t have to turn to know that it was Ben. Of course it was. Because my life was a never-ending trainwreck, currently of my own making.

Well. If there had been any chance of salvaging this—of apologizing for unintentionally ghosting him and shoving him aside last night—I’d killed it right there.

I turned toward him, telling myself it was for the best.

It was something I had to repeat when I was facing him.

Because he was so damn kissable.

He was a complication that I didn’t have time for.

But god, was he one gorgeous complication.

I wondered if he had any clothes that weren’t black. Or another pair of shoes. He was wearing the same boots he’d worn that first night in Philadelphia, as well as last night in the restaurant. He had a leather jacket and bike helmet under one arm, and his hair looked stupidly good for someone who should have had helmet hair.

“I’m gonna go,” Allyson said.

“She seems to do that a lot,” Ben said once she was gone.

“I didn’t mean for you to hear that,” I said.

“Guess that answers that question,” he said.

“I—”

He held up a hand. “I was hoping to talk to you, but I do actually need some books.”