Totally and Completely Fine(5)

“Ah,” I said.

I looked over at Lena, standing next to Oliver as he showed her something on one of the many screens that surrounded them off to the side of the set. Video village, I think it was called.

Spencer and I had always assumed we’d have another kid, but Lena just kept getting older, and I kept not getting pregnant, and then Spencer died.

“My daughter too,” I said.

Those were the breaks sometimes.

“Is it true?” Ben asked. “That you read cookbooks in bed?”

I was surely imagining the emphasis on bed.

“Sometimes,” I said.

“What do you prefer?” he asked. “Sweet or savory?”

He was a good flirt.

“Savory,” I said. “You?”

“Oh, sweet, absolutely,” Ben said, accent slipping through. “I have a wicked sweet tooth.”

Certainly, Gabe had told him all about me. Who I was. The widow. The tragic widow with her tragic past and her tragic daughter and her tragic life. The widow who needed to be coddled and protected and cared for.

But Ben wasn’t looking at me like that.

There was no pity in his gaze. No “poor thing.” No sympathetic understanding.

Ben looked at me like he wanted to fuck me.

When I was a kid, the fair would come to town once a year. I would beg and beg and beg to spend the day there, where I used up all my tickets on my favorite ride. The one where they strapped you into a chair, shot you up to the top of a tall, tall tower, and dropped you.

I loved the feeling of leaving my entire body behind for about half a second—leaving my breath, my stomach, my heart—everything up in the air while I hurtled downward. I loved screaming until I was hoarse, delighting in the thrill that was half fear, half triumph.

It felt like that now.

Apparently, Ben’s eyes could do more than twinkle. They could undress me. They could seduce me. They could make me feel like I hadn’t felt in a long time.

But this was ridiculous. Just because he was looking at me like that didn’t mean…

“Gabe said you’re here for the week,” Ben said.

“I am.”

“Packed schedule?”

I looked at him. At his mouth, which was curved in a very wonderful, wicked smile.

“I could show you around Philadelphia,” he said.

I felt a little breathless. In the best way.

It wasn’t as if I hadn’t gone on dates since Spencer died. I had. I’d even slept with a few of them. The experience—experiences—had been mostly unremarkable. But I’d expected that because the dates themselves had been wholly unremarkable.

There had been a weird comfort in that—in the reminder of how special things had been between me and Spencer. How irreplaceable he was in every way. I’d assumed that the part of me that hungered had died along with Spencer.

This was the first real proof that it hadn’t.

Of course, there was that voice in the back of my head reminding me that Benjamin Walsh was an actual real-life movie star who could probably have any woman he wanted. That he was significantly younger than me. That I had no business whatsoever entertaining carnal thoughts about him.

But if I’d learned one thing in my life, it was that attraction wasn’t that complicated.

It didn’t matter that I was a single mother in my forties and he was a thirty-year-old proudly bisexual heartthrob. It didn’t matter that my body was softer and rounder and parts of me hung lower than they once had. That I had wrinkles and gray hairs and arthritis.

None of those things had mattered to Spencer. He’d thought me beautiful and sexy and gorgeous and endlessly desirable.

Years of being with him—being loved like that—had taught me that what mattered was how someone made you feel. That stopping to entertain your own insecurities in the face of desire like this was a waste of time.

Life was short. So fucking short.

There was clearly chemistry here.

It could be that simple sometimes.

Then again.

Lena was back in her seat near crafty. And this time she had her phone out, and she was slouched all the way down. She wasn’t looking at me, but somehow, I knew she’d seen what was going on. Her mother behaving in ways unbecoming of a sad, tragic widow.

Reality was a freezing-cold bucket of water over that growling, purring animal in my chest. It hissed and retreated.

What had I been thinking? I wasn’t here to fuck a movie star.

“I’m not sure what Gabe’s plans are,” I said. “But Lena’s been going through a tough time.” Understatement. “I think she’d be upset if I ditched her to spend time with one of her uncle’s co-stars.”

I was almost waiting for him to save face and say something like “Oh, how embarrassing, you thought I wanted to spend time with you? I was just being polite.”

Because I also knew how sensitive men were. Their delicate egos.

“I understand,” Ben said.

“I’m sorry,” I said instinctively.

“Don’t be,” he said. “It would have been lovely to take a tour of Philadelphia with a beautiful, interesting woman while talking about pasta and bread, but I completely understand.”

I was making the right choice.

“If anything changes,” he said, “you have my number.”