Totally and Completely Fine(68)

I shook my head. “You know how he is with communication.”

“The worst?” Ollie asked.

“I don’t expect to hear much while they’re gone.”

“Allyson mentioned that they’re in New York?” Peter asked.

“Have you ever been?” Ollie asked.

Peter had been wearing a permanent blush, one that only seemed to deepen anytime Ollie talked to him or looked at him. It was cute.

“I’ve always wanted to go,” Peter said.

“Next to London, it’s the most magical city in the world,” Ollie said.

“Excuse me,” I said. “Is Cooper not magical enough for you?”

Ollie leaned back. “I must admit,” he said. “The place is growing on me.”

He gave Peter a wink.

I knew Ollie was married, but I also knew that their relationship was an open one. If Peter played his cards right, he might be going home with Mr. Darcy at the end of the evening.

“What about you?” Ollie asked, his question now directed at Ben. “What do you think of Cooper?”

I wanted to scoff at Ollie’s ridiculous attempt at subtlety, but with Ben’s eyes on me, I forgot basically everything except what it had felt like to have his mouth on my calf. His breath on my inner thigh. His tongue…

“I think very highly of it,” Ben said. “I’ve been having a great time exploring all it has to offer.”

This time, when he put his hand on my knee, I didn’t jump up from the table and run to the bathroom. I parted my legs instead, allowing his fingers to curl in and downward.

I’d lost my mind.

“That exploration won’t take long,” Allyson said. “I remember for the first week I was here, I was convinced there was another part of town that they were just hiding from me. That it couldn’t possibly be this small.”

“Reminds me of boarding school,” Ben said. “Everyone doesn’t exactly know each other, but we all know of each other.”

“Exactly,” Allyson said.

“You went to boarding school?” Peter asked.

“In Ireland,” Ben said. “Started at fourteen.”

“Did you like it?” Allyson asked.

“Not at first,” Ben said. “It was a…complicated time in my life. But my father insisted. He’d wanted me to go from the get-go, but my mom pushed for me to stay home.”

I’d never heard him mention his father before.

“I hated being away from the island,” Ben said, before clarifying to Peter, “another island—I was born in Maui. But I found the theatre program at school and some friends, and after that, I never wanted to leave.”

He took a drink of water.

“Ironically my father didn’t like that,” he said, with a shrug. “Then again, I could never do anything right according to him.”

“My father was like that too,” Peter said.

“What? Uncle Charlie?” Allyson asked. “I thought you guys got along great.”

“We did,” Peter said. “Until we didn’t.”

An awkward silence fell over the table.

“Was it an all-boys school?” Allyson asked, the question directed toward Ben.

“It was indeed,” he said.

“Did anything naughty happen?” she asked.

“Allyson,” I scolded.

“What?” She looked affronted. “My ex went to an all-boys school. He always denied that there was any fooling around, but I didn’t believe him. Because we all know stuff happens at all-girls schools.”

“I think that’s just in the movies,” I said.

“Nope,” Ben said. “She’s right. At least about my school. Lots of naughtiness.”

“Go on,” Allyson said, leaning forward, her chin on her palm.

Ben grinned at her. “What would you like to hear about first? The skinny-dipping or the pillow fights?”

* * *

—

The night grew long, and the restaurant began emptying out.

Ben had told us about meeting Danny （“We both auditioned for the role of Peter in Peter Pan. I got the lead—he got to be Wendy”）， about his first Christmas in Ireland （“I was the first one to jump off the Forty Foot, and it was before they could warn me how fucking cold it was”）， and about the time he’d gotten caught making out with the captain of the soccer team （“Straight guys never know how to kiss, but it sure is fun to teach them”）。

He was a good storyteller—gesticulating and pulling faces—and he made everyone laugh. And I wasn’t sure the rest of the group noticed, but every time a question went back to his family—the father who had sent him to boarding school, and the mother who had fought it—Ben neatly deflected. It seemed practiced.

It made me insanely curious.

“You’d never drank before?” Allyson asked.

Ben had just confessed he’d had his first pint at the age of eighteen.

“What did you think?” Ollie asked.

“That Guinness tastes like chocolate,” he said. “And I could understand why the Irish are known for their drinking.”

The table laughed. I realized he’d only had water all night. Was he sober, like Gabe?