by Hazel Kelly
“Easier said than done.”
“What if you never saw him again?”
“My business would be fucked.”
“Pretend you don’t have to see him for work for a second,” she said. “Let’s say you already did the work at the club, you’ve been paid, and there’s literally no reason for you to see him again.”
“Okay.”
“How would you feel?”
“Sad.”
“Go on.”
I sighed. “I would feel like I lost something.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Cause we have chemistry.”
“Yeah.”
I looked down at my knees and tried to remember what my life was like before I met this man who wanted to kiss me on purpose and make fake wedding plans with me, this man who knew how to make me laugh, make me come, make me crave.
I looked back up at Brook. “To be honest, I think I would feel as depressed at the thought of never sleeping with him again as I would at having lost a friend.”
“Mmm.”
“But that only makes this situation harder, not easier.”
“Maybe,” she said. “But at least it clarifies something.”
I furrowed my brow. “What?”
“That it doesn’t have to be over,” she said. “Unless you want it to be.”
Chapter 8: Ben
I threw the hotel door open expecting to see my mom again.
“Ella.”
“Hi. Everything alright?”
“Yeah, sorry. I thought you were going to be my mom.”
She raised her eyebrows. “I came to see if Carrie was okay.”
I swallowed. “I wish I knew.”
“Isn’t she here? I thought-”
“She left.”
“Oh.” She ran a hand through her brown hair. “I thought she fainted-”
“She did.”
She squinted at me.
“Sorry, do you want to come in?”
“Sure.” She put a hand on the door and followed me in the room. “Where did she go?”
“Home, probably. I don’t know.” I leaned against the desk, feeling a pain in my gut at the sweet memory of undressing her there last night.
“I’m confused,” Ella said, sitting on the edge of the untouched bed near the door. “I thought she would be up here-”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
She craned her neck forward. “You want to tell me what happened?”
I dropped my head and looked down at my shoes.
“Maybe I can help?”
I took a deep breath. “No offense, but I don’t think you can.”
She made a face that said she wasn’t going anywhere.
“I don’t know how much you already know-”
“About what?” she asked.
“About Carrie’s last relationship?”
Her eyes grew wide. “She’s not getting back with that guy, is she?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good,” she said, crossing her legs. “He sounded like a real piece of work.”
“Perhaps I underestimated him.”
“Why? What happened?”
“He’s here- was here.”
“At the hotel?”
I crossed my arms. “At the wedding.”
“What?”
“As my mom’s date.”
“Oh god.”
I nodded.
“I’m so sorry, Ben. I had no idea. I gave your mom a plus one cause it only seemed right and-”
“This isn’t your fault.”
“Is that why Carrie fainted?”
“I wish.”
She furrowed her thin brows. “I don’t understand.”
“I can’t be sure why she fainted. She didn’t say. She couldn’t even look at me when she came up to get her stuff.”
She swallowed.
“But I think she fainted cause she recognized my mom.”
She turned an ear towards me.
I waited to see if she’d figure it out on her own.
“Where did she recognize her from?”
I sighed. “She’s the other woman.”
Ella started shaking her head. “That can’t be right.”
“It is.”
“You’re saying your mom is the woman she caught him with?”
“Yeah.”
Ella covered her face with her hands.
“And the best part of all is that my mom claims they’re in love-”
She dropped her hands. “How is that the best part?”
“I’m joking.”
“I don’t know what to say, Ben. That’s beyond messed up.”
I ran a hand over my head. “Especially considering the fact that I haven’t even forgiven her yet for what happened in Dubai.”
She pursed her lips.
“And now this?” I shook my head. “I feel like one of those bratty Hollywood child stars that wants to divorce their parents.”
She nodded.
“Sorry. I really shouldn’t be venting to you about this when you’re supposed to be-”
“It’s fine. I’m not supposed to be anything. Plus, we’re family now.”
I smiled. “I guess we are.”
“What can I do?”
I shrugged. “Tell me how to fix this. Tell me how to convince Carrie that this isn’t a deal breaker, that she shouldn’t cut me out just cause the last person on Earth she ever wants to see again is my own mother.”
She scrunched her face. “You really like her, uh?”
“Of course I do. What’s not to like? She’s beautiful, charming, smart, kind-”
“I like her, too.”
“So tell me what to do,” I said. “Honestly, I’m always the one that knows what to do, but this just blindsided me.”
“You might have to give her some space.”
“That’s the last thing I want to do.”
“I know, but you can’t convince someone to stop hurting,” she said. “Your best bet might be to give her time to come up for air and realize how much she misses you.”
“And what if she doesn’t?”
She shrugged. “Then you’ll have saved your breath trying to convince her to forgive and forget.”
I furrowed my brow. “Is that your only idea?”
She cocked her head. “I guess you could do the opposite?”
I raised my eyebrows.
“Go after her right now and tell her how you feel. See what she has to say before she’s had time to process everything.”
I shook my head. “No. That’s definitely not the winning suggestion. I can barely make sense of this myself.”
“Mmm.”
“And I don’t want to see her again until I can be sure I’m going to make some sense. She’s probably confused enough right now without me showing up and confusing things even further.”
“Your mom loves this guy, huh?”
I fixed my eyes on Ella. “My mom doesn’t love anyone but herself.”
“Maybe they’re a perfect match.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I said. “Not that the situation would be any less fucked if they weren’t together.”
“Cause it wouldn’t change the fact that Laura’s the other woman.”
“Right, though it’s hard not to consider this guy enemy number one.”
“I can’t believe he was at my wedding. No offense, but I’m so glad I didn’t know yesterday.”
“Me too.”
“What are you going to do? Cut your mom out of your life?”
“Sounds like a perfect example of something that’s easy but not necessarily right.”
“True,” she said. “But that means you’ll have to find a way to forgive her.”
I scrunched my face.
“Of course, there’s no time constraint on that.”
“Frankly, I’m way more worried about Carrie right now.”
“Does she know how you feel about her?�
��
I shook my head. “I don’t think she knows the half of it.”
“Well, maybe you need to make that priority number one.”
I pursed my lips.
“Cause it’s only fair to make sure she has all the information, ya know? If she’s going to have to make a decision about whether or not you’re worth the trouble.”
“Fuck.”
“You are, though,” Ella said. “For what it’s worth.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
She raised a finger at me. “Don’t call me that.”
“I’m only messing. But before you leave on your honeymoon, I should tell you that I’ve always wanted a little brother-”
“Stop it, Ben.”
“A sister would be okay, too-”
“That’s enough.” She put her hands on the edge of the bed like she was about to get up and leave.
“Alright, I’m done.”
“Good.”
I smiled.
“What do you want me to tell your dad?”
I raised my eyebrows. “About what?”
“About this shit you’re in.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. The truth? What does he care?”
“Are you kidding?” she asked. “He’s going to be so angry that your mom hasn’t changed her ways. One of his only sources of comfort about that whole thing is his belief that she would never hurt someone else this way after what they went through.”
“Sounds like he’s giving her more credit than she deserves.”
She nodded. “Perhaps.”
“You could always not tell him yet.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Just go downstairs. Say Carrie’s up here with a washcloth on her head and that she’s fine. And I’ll tell him when you guys get back from your honeymoon.”
She bit the inside of her cheek. “I don’t know if lying to him on the first day of our marriage is a good idea.”
“It’s only a white lie,” I said. “Plus, he’s just like me. He’ll get all worked up, the mist will descend, and it won’t clear for days.”
She rolled her eyes up and considered what I’d said.
“Besides, there’s nothing either of you can do to fix this now, anyway, and I’d hate for my personal crisis to interfere with him making a massive fuss over you during your trip.”
She smiled. “Me too.”
“Good. Then it’s settled. We won’t mention it yet.”
She nodded. “You’ll call if you need to talk, though?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “But who knows? Maybe I’ll have everything sorted by the time you get back.”
Chapter 9: Carrie
Choosing light fixtures was difficult enough when I wasn’t completely distracted.
I mean, it was probably the most important decision I had to make about the club. After all, when it was filled with people, it was the only design element anyone would really be able to see… not to mention see by.
I had it narrowed down to about five different main chandeliers, two of which were the front runners if I’d had to pick in that moment. However, I didn’t want to commit and discover later that I couldn’t get something complimentary. So I decided to take a break and check out some potential sconces.
I was going for modern, but expensive looking. I didn’t want Club Abbott- or whatever the hell he was going to end up calling it- to be anything less than the most aesthetically pleasing club in the city, and I knew that was a tall order.
I took a few pictures of the best fixtures on my phone and headed down the hallway to see what else was on offer.
When I reached the room full of sconces, I couldn’t believe how much fuller it was since my last visit. There was hardly any space between them and they were so numerous they looked like cockroaches on the wall. How the heck I was supposed to compare them when they were all bunched so close together was beyond me.
I sighed.
A second later, my phone rang. I assumed it was Nora because I’d texted her a few minutes ago asking whether she wanted to meet for lunch.
I was wrong.
“Carrie, hi.”
“Ben.”
“How are you?”
“Fine.”
“I miss your face.”
“It’s been two days.”
“What’s that got to do with anything?”
I looked down at the laminate floor.
“Can we meet up?”
“Unless you’re calling about the club, I don’t really have time to talk right now.”
“Have I done something wrong?”
“No. I’m just busy,” I said. “I’m choosing light fixtures today, remember?”
“Oh right. Have you narrowed it down?”
“A bit,” I said. “But I don’t need your opinion yet.”
“You know I can give you a lot more than my opinion.”
I pursed my lips.
“If you’ll let me.”
“I can’t talk now.” More like I couldn’t talk period. Not to him. Not when I knew he would try and make it all better, and I wasn’t sure if he should waste his breath.
“When can you talk?”
“I don’t know. Later in the week maybe. I have a lot of work to do if we’re going to make your New Year’s deadline.”
“What if I said I didn’t give a fuck about the deadline and that all I really cared about was seeing you-”
“I’d call your bluff. Cause I know how important the deadline is to you.”
“I do want to see you again.”
“That’s really nice-”
“To be perfectly frank, I want to do a lot more than see you.”
“I’m hanging up now, Ben.”
“My feelings for you haven’t changed.”
“Our little game is over,” I said. “I’ll call you when it’s time to talk lighting.”
“Carrie-”
I hung up. I couldn’t believe it. I never hung up on people. It made me feel as nauseous as it did empowered.
But I couldn’t listen to his voice anymore. It was like a life preserver, beckoning me towards him and lulling me into a false sense of security. And that would be fine except for the fact that if I allowed him to pull me in, I’d get closer to those people again, those people who didn’t care about me, those people that made me feel lower than I’d ever felt.
And until I could figure out how to disassociate him from his own mother, I didn’t see how I could go on seeing him. Not like that, anyway.
Besides, was that really what he wanted?
When he said his feelings hadn’t changed, what exactly did he mean?
Supposedly his feelings had been fake the whole time. Except that kiss. He said it was real. And surely what happened at the club was real. No one has that much “fun” with someone they aren’t genuinely attracted to.
Of course, I doubted there was a woman in New York who wouldn’t be attracted to Ben. So there was no need for him to get hung up on me, not when I was the only one of those women who couldn’t be in a room with his family.
Yet no matter how much I tried to stop thinking about it, I couldn’t push the wedding out of my mind.
I remembered how it felt to stand there across from him in the church. I must’ve been so distracted by him to not even notice Simon lurking at the fringes all afternoon.
And when he put his hand on my lower back and held me to him, I swear it was like I’d never danced with anyone before. It felt different with him. Right.
Like he was the dance partner I’d been waiting for my whole life and now that I’d found him, music meant more, sounded better.
This was a fucking disaster.
Seriously, the best thing I could do would be to write him off as the best rebound a girl could ask for and try to move on with whatever dignity I had left.
But it wasn’t that simple.
I cared about him. I wanted him to be happy. And not just with the club, but with me, too. Unf
ortunately, protecting myself had to be priority number one.
Sure, I understood that if I didn’t put myself out there, no one was going to come knocking on my door saying they’d love me forever, but maybe that wasn’t the worst fate.
I mean, being alone wasn’t all that bad. It beat being with a douchebag… or being in a relationship where I was constantly reminded of having been with a douchebag.
I did feel bad for Ben, though. None of this was his fault. He shouldn’t have had to deal with any of this shit.
But I could separate him from it. If I distanced myself, he would be free from this drama.
Wasn’t that what was best for both of us?
When my phone rang again, I closed my eyes and hoped it would be Ben calling back so I could apologize for hanging up on him.
But it wasn’t.
“Hello?” Simon’s voice sounded softer than I remembered it. “Carrie? Are you there?”
I swallowed. “Hello.”
“I’m so glad I caught you.”
I took a deep breath. “You caught me alright.”
“I wanted to talk to you about what happened the other day.”
“Well, it’s going to be a one sided conversation because I don’t have anything to say.”
“It’s not serious,” he said. “With Laura.”
I opened my mouth and stuck out my tongue. Why did I have to know her name?! “I think you’re confusing me with someone who cares.”
“What I mean is, if I thought you would take me back-”
“I wouldn’t.”
“But if you would, I would be by your side in a second.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“I fucked up, Carrie.”
I felt my chest tighten.
“I never meant to hurt you. You deserve so much better-”
“I do.”
“But do you really want to throw away what we have?”
“You threw it away, not me.”
“I admit I made a mistake.”
I rolled my eyes.
“A huge mistake. The biggest mistake of my life.”
It felt good to hear him say that.
“But I still love you, Carrie.”
I stopped breathing.
“I still love you as much as I did the first day I met you,” he said. “When your hair was in that loose braid and you were in that horrible sweatshirt you used to wear with the cut off collar.”
