“Oh?” she asked through very limited air in her lungs.
“I’ve seen a few pieces of yours, only what Scarlet was able to send me. I’d love to see your work in person.” He paused for a minute, possibly out of courtesy. Dylan was just about speechless on the other end. He had to have known it. “I was wondering, might I see a small showcase before I make an offer?”
“Really?” Dylan asked, stunned.
“That is if you’re even interested in the position. I probably should have asked if you would even consider moving across the country. Though I assure you, the pay will be exceptionally higher than what you receive now.”
“Yes!” Dylan shouted a bit too enthusiastically. She decided to bring it down a notch or two. “I mean, yes,” she said in a quieter, more reserved voice. She was still sure it was far too late to recover, though.
“Perfect! When can we meet? I’ll come to you.”
“Oh. Well, I have a gallery showing in New York on June twelfth. Would that be too late for you?”
“Not at all. I was hoping you’d say that actually. Scarlet mentioned it, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you.”
“I’m really looking forward to meeting you, Mr. Fuller.”
“Likewise,” he replied. “We’ll be in touch, I’m sure.”
The call ended and Dylan sank back into her chair. She inhaled and sighed deeply when she realized exactly what this decision involved, another move that her mother would never get over and a very short distance between herself and Ben. On the other hand, this was a huge offer that wouldn’t come twice.
Chapter Eighteen
“So what are you going to do with that information, Ben?” Dr. Fields asked in her small, but comforting voice. She sounded like a Kindergarten teacher reading to a group of sleepy children. “Have you given any thought on how you would approach this with your father?”
Ben sighed deeply, still miffed at this talented woman who could pull things out of his tightly locked emotions. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“But it is weighing heavily on you. That’s obvious, or you wouldn’t have brought it up.” She jotted down something on her pad, a famous movement of hers that was always so random and discreet. She looked back up and noticed his tightened jaw. “What is it?”
“I brought it up because you already knew. I know Arthur or Grey told you.” He laughed. “I’m not stupid.”
“Do you feel that people think you’re stupid?” she asked, purposefully avoiding the bit about Ben’s professors sharing information with her.
“Do I strike you as someone who is insecure about my intelligence?” Ben asked through a burst of laughter. “Jesus, I’m afraid of showing my feelings, not about what people think of me. It was an expression, you know?”
“Finally, you admit that you’re frightened when your feelings are revealed.” She didn’t smile on the outside, but something told Ben her insides were full of triumphant gloat. “Let’s touch on that.”
Fuck, Ben thought. This woman was a genius. He couldn’t help but to grin at her. She had won. “Damn. Where do I start?”
“What hurts the most? We’ve been walking around this other family of yours, the mother, Linda, and the best friend, Jonah. Who else is there?” She wasn’t tiptoeing around anything now. She was full-fledged stomping through his brain to get the answers. She no longer resembled that Kindergarten teacher he thought of before. “Come on, Ben. This stays here, you know that. I only report your cooperation and progress.”
Ben groaned and pressed the back of his head against the leather couch. “There’s Linda, Brandon, Charlie, Hugh, Jonah, and,” he prepared himself to even say her name, “Dylan. She’s a girl.”
“And the father?” Dr. Fields asked without noticing his discomfort in Dylan’s name. He was still able to mislead her a little. “What about the father of this family?”
“He died of cancer years ago,” Ben answered. “He—I never talk about him. There isn’t much to say. He was good to me and he died. The end.”
“You found refuge in this family. They were good to you when your real family wasn’t.” She nailed it on the head. “You push them away because they make you feel too loved?”
Ben shook his head. “That’s not why.”
“Then why?” She waited for what seemed like minutes. “Come on, Ben. We’re so close to this one.”
“Because I don’t deserve them,” he blurted without thinking.
“Just like your real parents never deserved you,” she returned simply.
“No they didn’t. My father, the small amount of time he was there, only molded me to be him and that wasn’t his way of bonding. My sick, neglected mother always pushed me to the side and, when I went to the Mathews’ home, I was accepted without question. There was always a plate set for me, always presents under the tree. I was included whether I was there or not.”
“Out of pity perhaps?” she asked as she leaned forward, pushing harder with her continuous questions.
Ben shook his head. “No, no. It was because they wanted me there. They wanted me to be a part of them, this I know for sure. They were always so natural about it.” He sighed shamefully and closed his eyes. “I hurt one of them.”
“The girl?” she asked with a nonchalant expression on her face. She acted as if it were a completely normal thing to be so incredibly accurate. “Dylan?”
“Jesus,” he whispered as he stared at her with a freakishly puzzled expression. “You’re good, you know that?”
Dr. Fields lifted her chin to the wall behind him. It was filled with certificates and awards of every kind Psychology had to offer. “It’s confirmed in frames.”
“And you’re sarcastic,” he added with a pointed finger.
“You respond to sarcasm, I’ve noticed,” she admitted brilliantly.
Ben smiled in disbelief. “Is this what they call a ‘breakthrough’ in your little Psychology Club?”
Dr. Fields smirked for the first time ever. “Yes.”
“Great,” Ben said, leaning his head back against the couch.
“We’re not done, though. We’re going to cover this family and the girl.” Dr. Fields swiveled around in her chair and pushed the stop button on the timer, clearly not wanting any disruptions. “This is why I schedule you last every day. Let’s begin.”
“Dylan?” Jonah stepped into his mother’s house and laughed at all the bags placed on the floor. It was obvious his sister and mother intended for him to do all the heavy lifting when they left for the hotel later that evening. Of course, with the women staying with Meredith at the hotel overnight, that only meant that the men had the Mathews’ home all to themselves, leading to a great night and one seriously hungover groom the following day.
He sniffed into the air and sighed at the dinner aroma that filled the kitchen. “What are you making? It smells good.”
Dylan appeared with an apron wrapped around her waist, a Stepford Wife in the making. “Umm, Thanksgiving dinner, I guess?”
“In May?” Jonah laughed.
She smiled and shrugged her small shoulders. “Everyone is home again so I thought we’d celebrate. Besides, I had a craving.”
“I didn’t know you could cook like this,” Jonah said, looking in each pan and allowing all the mouthwatering steam to escape. “It better be as good as it looks and smells, damn it. Now I’m all excited.”
“That’s the point, dummy. Besides, you’ll lie to me and eat it anyways. I’m your twin, that’s what we do for each other.”
Jonah watched his happy sister. It was the first time in a long time that she looked content. The few random times that he had seen her since the Ben blowup left him worried to the point of sleepless fear. She seemed to have reverted closely to the familiar Dylan he had always known. He didn’t say it out loud, though. She would punch him if he had.
“Knock it off,” Dylan warned as she hunched over the stove and added mini marshmallows to her yams.
Jonah watched the b
ack of her head, wondering how the hell she knew he was staring at her. “Knock what off?” he asked with amusement. “What am I doing?”
Dylan placed a glass lid over her casserole pan and placed the dish into the oven. After she closed the door, she turned to eyeball her twin with her arms folded against her chest. “There’s going to be a few ground rules if you think you’re going to eat any of this food.”
“Okay,” Jonah replied hesitantly and crossed his own arms sternly, attempting to equalize the playing field she had setup so successfully. It didn’t work, though. She still made him feel like a miniature version of himself.
“Rule number one: you are not to stare at me like that. I get enough of those looks from Mom and Charlie and I want to strangle them as it is.” She didn’t even allow a reply, before adding, “Number two: you are not allowed to ask about security systems, extra bolts, mace, or fire alarms for my apartment. I’m not a total moron and I do know how to take care of myself, understand? And, dear Lord, Rule number three: if you even try to call me Weed, I’m going to punch you so hard in the balls, you’ll be my twin sister for the rest of your life, got it? That name is retired.”
Jonah’s mouth opened and closed quickly with no response for the verbal ass kicking he had just received.
Dylan smiled wickedly with a conquering look in her eyes as she wiped her hands over her striped apron. “Please spread the word to your brothers. Thank you.” She turned back around and began to crumble bacon over her green been casserole.
Suddenly, Brandon walked in, followed by Charlie, and lastly, Hugh. Jonah’s wide eyes looked them all over as they stared back at his blank face.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Brandon asked Jonah as he dropped his bags on the floor. “You look like someone just punched you in the balls.”
Jonah laughed, snapping out of his trance with Brandon’s odd, but extremely convenient use of words for that particular moment. “I think someone just did,” he answered with a chuckle.
They were all there again, warming Linda’s heart as she walked into the kitchen to greet them. “My babies are home,” she announced proudly. She hugged each one, stopping to run her fingers over Hugh’s smooth face.
“After we eat I’m taking you ladies to the hotel,” Brandon said charmingly.
“And then we’re going to drown ourselves in the shit load of alcohol I picked up last week,” Hugh said with a grin.
Linda pointed a scolding finger and wagged it around the half-circle her sons stood in. “No, no. Meredith would kill you all if you got him drunk before her wedding day. Don’t do anything stupid.”
Jonah gasped with a grin and placed his hand against his chest. “Mother, I am insulted.”
“Who said anything about Charlie?” Hugh added with an identical smile. “He can go to the hotel with the girls, for all I care!”
Charlie frowned. “Mom, it’s my last night of freedom.”
“What an awful thing to say,” Linda answered. “Your father never said anything like that before our wedding day.”
In unison, the boys all snickered and turned their faces, most likely knowing something their poor mother didn’t. Carl Mathews had a wondrous ability to be two men at once, a kind and doting husband when need be, and a man’s man with great stories no woman should ever hear about the old days of his youth.
“He didn’t!” Linda snapped, possibly hearing a story or two herself.
“I’m sure he didn’t,” Brandon appeased, and slapped his laughing brothers on the arms.
“Let’s eat,” Dylan practically sang with a casserole dish in her oven mitt hands. She stared at them all and felt the need to pat her own back for the impressed expressions on her family’s faces.
The next morning, Meredith stood over her bridesmaids and demanded they all wake up to assist in the impossible task of calming her rampant nerves. She was so anxious, Bridezilla seemed to be gone and replaced with a timid little bride-to-be, wide eyed and bone white in the face.
To no surprise, the song “Chapel of Love” played repeatedly. Dylan was teetering on the edge of losing her mind and seriously thought about throwing Meredith’s sister’s iPod out the damn window. It was beyond tacky, entirely expected but, for only a minute, a nice break from that ridiculous My Best Friend’s Wedding song that they all played over and over again the night before. Dylan drew a giant line and stuck to her guns when someone recommended that they lip-sync into hairbrushes.
Dylan watched as Linda tried not to look on edge, but she was in complete fear for her house and the text message that Jonah had sent her early in the morning, instructing her not to go home until her sons gave her the “okay.”
Clearly they had a good night and woke up too late to clean the place up and hide any evidence. With her brothers, Dylan could only imagine what her poor mother would walk in to; a stripper pole and possibly leftover exotic dancers seemed most plausible. Empty cans and bottles wouldn’t be enough to scare the boys into giving their mother warning.
Through it all, though, Dylan had jitters of her own and they came with a constant question lingering around in her mind. Would Ben surprise them all and grace them with his unreliable presence? Over and over again she practiced what she would say, or not say, if she happened to run into him. Each time left her sick to her stomach, hoping to God he didn’t bring a date to add an extra jab of pain.
Meredith was a frivolous vision while she waited for her wedding party to line up and make their ways down the aisle where Charlie waited at the end. Her smile was enormous with the excitement of the day that she longed for her entire life. She squeezed her pink and white rose bouquet with a death grip that caused her knuckles to lose all coloring around them. No one dared to comment about it, though.
Just before Dylan and Michael made their entrance, Dylan blew Meredith a kiss and smiled an extra wide grin as she waved her pink bouquet. “See you at the end, sister,” she whispered, as the double doors closed behind them. Let’s get this over with, was what she really wanted to say.
Michael locked his arm with hers and smiled tenderly as he looked down at Dylan’s happy face. “You are the most beautiful girl in the room,” he whispered.
“You’re not supposed to say that, Michael,” Dylan scolded with a smirk.
“I’m sure I’m not the only one here who thinks so. I’m just the only one with enough nerve to tell you.”
“There’s a bride here, you know. It’s not my day for compliments.” Dylan elbowed him, forcing a quiet chuckle to emerge from his throat and a snide look from Mary as they passed her along the way, a look Dylan decided to pretend she didn’t see.
The two finished their walk, and Dylan winked at Charlie as she headed to her place in line.
Ben’s nerves were as twisted as they had ever been in his life. He could not remember a time before that anything had ever managed to make him feel so sick. Dr. Fields thought this was a good idea and, despite his own better judgment, he trusted this woman immensely. He could still hear the words she used, family, and something about healing. Whatever. His roundtrip ticket was for one day, just to have an excuse to leave without getting into too much of a dramatic conversation. Jetlag was the least of his worries.
He wasn’t disappointed when he found that he was late and could only stand at the white double doors in the back and watch the ceremony out of sight from them all. If he were to walk in, the entire church would surely turn to stare at him. This was Meredith’s day. Maybe he could just watch, leave a card, and duck out without being noticed at all. He never promised Dr. Fields that he would speak to anyone.
Ben leaned against the door as he peaked around the edge to watch in secrecy. The flowers were overboard, the amount of pink was atrocious, and the over-the-top golden harp was as ridiculous as it could manage to be. It was full of Meredith.
None of that mattered to him enough to even roll an eye, not when he noticed Dylan shining in the room, wearing a light pink, strapless gown that looked perfect
against her skin. She took his breath away.
He watched as the soft burn from an enormous candle behind her sparkled through a wisp of her hair, giving it that famous auburn glow. He sighed as he remembered the golden skin that curved over her perfect shoulders and slender neck. He chuckled as she pressed her finger to her eye, trying to conceal an escaping tear, he was sure.
He pried himself from her and gave a look to Charlie. He is so hungover, Ben thought with amusement. He watched as Charlie looked near strangulation in a tuxedo that he was sure to loathe with ever fiber in him. Charlie gave a small sway and closed his eyes quickly, on the brink of either passing out or throwing up, Ben imagined.
“Hang in their, brother. If you don’t, she’s going to make you pay for the rest of your life,” Ben whispered so low that only he could hear.
Brandon, Hugh, and Jonah were in no better shape. They looked like death as they all fidgeted behind their brother and tried not to vomit. A slight, sweaty gleam on Hugh’s forehead only told Ben that he was the closest to bolting to the bathroom. It occurred to him that he had missed a good night.
The vows, of course, were written by the bride and groom. Ben could hardly hold in his airline breakfast as he listened to Meredith’s whimpering that couldn’t possibly be portraying the Charlie he knew. However, Dylan could describe a person in his own self that no one would believe either, so it wasn’t fair of him to judge.
It had to have been the sobs in between each word that irritated him. Charlie spoke quietly and, if Ben had been a crazy person, he would have believed that a tear really had fallen from Charlie’s eye as well. The giant of all men fallen to his doom.
As the new Mr. and Mrs. Mathews were happily presented, Ben gave another glance at Dylan and found that familiar lump in his throat as she smiled the beaming smile she had once given him…while she locked arms with Oilie Olerson. He was sure he deserved that. All the same, that was his sickening cue.
He made his exit from the church, managing to be unseen by all, and now he only needed to leave the card with the enormous check inside and be on his happy way. Before that, though, he had to sneak onto the golf course, find the reception tent, and move as discreetly as possible.
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