Life Plus One

by Rachel Robinson

  He clears his throat and nods. “Marcus makes you happy,” Ben says.

  If he’d asked me this question ten minutes ago, I’d have a different answer, but I have to tell him the truth. Ben is a hero. He lives and breathes in a world that’s equal parts destroyed and perfect. I live in the perfect version, and he’s not my superhero. Ben can’t be. “I’m happy, Ben. I need to be a good girlfriend for him. Give him a chance, yeah?” I nudge him with my shoulder.

  He shoulders me back, his bare arm sliding against mine. “You leave me no option. Now cook, Suzy homemaker. Man is hungry.”

  “Oh, piss off, Benny,” I squawk, laughing at his stupid joke he knows will offend me. “I’ll poison your food.”

  “Tahoe is on his way over to pick up my bag.”

  I crack a couple eggs on the side of the pan and listen to the fizzle and pops. “He reminds me of Arnold Schwarzenegger in that movie where half of his face is a robot. He’s scary.”

  Ben laughs, tells me to flip the eggs because he’s micromanaging, and says, “Tahoe is solid. A lot of these guys have been doing this job for such a long time. They teach me a lot. They were SEALs before the attack. Can you imagine? Just normal SEALs.”

  I laugh. “As opposed to what? Hybrid SEALs?”

  He sighs. “Nah. Just less…risk.” At the tenor of his voice, I turn to face him.

  I raise one brow. “How much risk are you in on a normal work day, exactly?”

  He cranes his neck to look at the eggs in the pan. “Less risk than those poor eggs are currently enduring.”

  Rolling my eyes, I scoop the eggs out and onto a waiting plate, but I can’t shake the uneasy feeling. “Seriously. Be honest with me.”

  “Ah. Ah. Ah. We’re not completely honest with each other anymore. Remember?”

  “Touché. Fair point, but I need to know how much danger you’re in. For my own sanity.”

  The doorbell rings and Ben escapes my glare. Tahoe ambles in, his large frame hiding the sunlight. “What’s for breakfast?” he quips, flicking his gaze my way.

  “Eggs?” I ask, holding up Ben’s plate.

  “No, that’s mine!” Ben says, reaching over the counter to take the plate from my hands. “I’ll cook you something if you want, man,” Ben says, nodding at Tahoe.

  “Nah. I’m going to meet a girl at Hash House,” he replies, a predatory smile stretching across his face. “What are you two kids getting up to today?”

  I drink a sip of Ben’s orange juice and skirt around the corner, self-conscious about my shorts. It was fine to sleep in my underwear with Ben, but a strange man can’t see me in my pajamas. I realize the twisted hypocrisy. “He won’t tell me. Evidently they’re pretty terrific, though.” I laugh a little. “You don’t strike me as a man who brunches,” I add on.

  “I’m getting my greens in. Their Bloody Mary counts as vegetables, and they serve beer in brown bags. So, yes, I do brunch.”

  “And I’m sure her tits are dessert,” Ben adds, butting in.

  Cringing, I shoot him a dirty look. “Don’t be crass, Ben. It doesn’t suit you. It reeks of desperation.”

  Tahoe laughs as he looks between us. “Ben didn’t lie then,” Tahoe remarks. Then to Ben he says, “Where’s your bag, dude? I’ll get it packed up when I drop my stuff off later. You got that new Kevlar in there? Don’t want you getting any holes in your pretty, perfect body.”

  Ben looks at me, eyes wide. “He’s joking. Of course he’s joking,” he says, glaring at Tahoe for a second before turning his gaze back to me and my gaping mouth. “I’ll throw it in your truck, dude.” Tahoe looks taken aback and he realizes what he’s said.

  “Sorry. I’m not used to filtering. You understand?” he says, eyes softening. “Ben’s body repels bullets. He can’t get shot even when he tries.”

  “Oh my God, Tahoe. Shut the fuck up, dude!”

  “Did you almost get shot?” I nearly yell. It’s one thing to suspect things given his job description, but it’s quite another to hear them spoken about as truth. My heart hammers.

  “Which time?” Tahoe laughs.

  Ben punches Tahoe’s arm. It’s lighthearted because they’re laughing, but I feel like someone signed my death sentence. Ben’s death sentence. I’m still breathing heavy when Ben returns from bringing his huge bag outside. Tahoe’s loud truck pulls away.

  I’m standing in the same spot. Tahoe said his goodbyes and I must have mumbled through them, but I don’t recall just what I said. Visions of Ben bleeding out, bullet holes peppered throughout his body, overtake all sane, rational thoughts. My perfect life has never been more glaring than right now, when I realize that while I’m worrying about exams and jealous boyfriends, Ben is dodging bullets and praying he escapes with his life. The attacks changed everything in our world, but in my universe, they damaged the one thing I hold dearest.

  Ben and I aren’t the same anymore.

  The door slams behind him, pulling me from my nightmare. He’s breathing heavy from toting his huge bag and his abs flex and cave as he breathes. “Get dressed. First up is the comic book store. Then the beach and ice cream,” he says, waggling his brows.

  Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I throw myself into his arms. “Maybe we can do some Jazzercise first?” I whisper through ragged breaths.

  He chuckles under his breath. “Sure thing, geek. I’ll dig out my sweat band.”

  Chapter Six

  Harper

  “That one is definitely Jim Carrey from Dumb & Dumber,” I say, pointing at a cloud. We’ve played this game since we were small. Animals are too easy, so the clouds have to resemble characters from movies or shows. “Ten points for me.”

  “Yeah, I see that. Ten points awarded,” he mumbles, irritated I’m ahead. “The clouds are always best at the beach.” He has a huge blanket spread on the soft sand. It’s a beach on his base, so it’s empty but for us. It’s strange, to be honest. I grew up here and we never had military access, so we were always packed into the popular beaches like animals.

  I think how fluffy and beautiful the clouds are on the East Coast, but I don’t say it. It would make this moment less somehow. “Yes. Especially when we don’t have to worry about people stepping on us.”

  “It’s nice, huh?” he asks. He’s actually curious. I haven’t been exposed to his military world and I can tell he’s doing it incrementally.

  Rolling toward him, I prop one arm up on my head so I can look down at him. “When I can’t hear gunfire, sure, it’s nice. Are you happy? Does this kind of life make you happy? Happier than you’d be with…” I say, almost saying me. “Than college and studying stuff that interests you? Don’t get me wrong, Ben. I’m proud of you. So proud. But as your best friend I need to hear you tell me you’re happy with this life.” My gaze skirts to the dark buildings on the horizon—the place the bullets are firing.

  He turns to look at me, squinting in the sun. He refuses to wear sunglasses. He says after years and years of wearing corrective lenses he’ll never wear glasses of any sort again. While it’s idiotic, it also makes sense. I shade his eyes with my palm so the sun is deflected. He smiles. “They’re practicing right now. I’d be at the range if I wasn’t here with you. I’m not sure how to answer, Harper. I’m happy knowing I’m making a difference. Before you ask, yes, I am making a difference. Will I go down in history books? Who knows?”

  He licks his lips and I keep my hand in place. “You know I had a hard time understanding your reasoning, but I give you credit. You’ve been steadfast with your decision for a few years now. Will you stay in the Navy forever, then? Is this it for you?”

  “Deep questions when I have a belly full of salted caramel, Harpee,” Ben replies, sitting up. Now he’s looking down at me, so I sit up as well. “I’m happy.” I want more. He knows it. Biting the corner of his lip, he adds, “I don’t think school would make me happy knowing how messed up the rest of the world is. I’m not faulting you for your choice, but knowing what I know now…changes ever
ything. There’s so much bad in the world. Stuff civilians have no clue about. Stuff that would change everything.”

  I pick up the Spider Man comic book sitting on the blanket between us and page through. “Yeah, that’s true,” I whisper the words. “I want the best for you.” For so long I thought I knew what that was. Seeing him here in this element proves me wrong, tells me he’s where he needs to be regardless of how I feel. “Are you safe?” My thumb lands on the page where Spider Man defeats a bad guy and I sigh. I meet his gaze. I’ve ignored Tahoe’s comments from earlier all day. Right now seems the best time to bring them up. While I’m listening to guns firing.

  He grabs my face with his thumb and forefinger. “Don’t worry about me.”

  I’m indignant. “Someone has to! Telling me not to worry has never worked,” I sling, chewing on my thumbnail.

  Ben gives me a crooked grin and grabs my wrist to halt my bad habit. I remember when that same grin went from a geeky smirk to a panty scorching smile and I blink away the memory from long ago. “I have, ah, girlfriends. I’m not lonely. Is that what you’re asking? If people worry about me?”

  “Ugh. No. I don’t want to know about your girlfriends. More than one?” I ask. “Wait, I don’t think I want to know the answer. I’d hate you for it.”

  “Oh, come on!” he pleads.

  I hold up a palm in his face and close the comic with my free hand. “Don’t.” I laugh. “Not only do you look like one, you act like one, too,” I remark, smiling.

  “Act like what? A badass with an awesome personality that the ladies love?” Ben kisses his bicep awkwardly, then waggles one brow at me. “Give me some credit.”

  Sighing, I lean back on the blanket, but startle when a cacophony of gun fire ricochets in the air. Ben puts his hand on my stomach. It’s flat and warm. He’s calming me, not doing anything untoward, but I can’t help but realize what this would look like to any outsider. Now that I’m not sloppy drunk. “Act like a womanizing perv,” I say, tossing his hand away.

  “Harper, Harper. Are you jealous?”

  I shrug. “You’ve never had luck with girls. It makes sense you’d sow your wild oats now that you’ve”—I pause, unsure how to phrase it—“grown up.”

  He coughs. “It was weird,” he says, lying down again next to me. “Women wanting me for what I look like and what I do. I thought it was a joke, you know? They told me about these Frog Hogs, these women who want to date and have sex with SEALs. Totally real, Harps. I was so stymied when I met my first one I probably stared at her for an entire minute before I responded to her question.”

  “Which was?” I ask.

  “Oh, her question?” he asks, obviously lost in thought. “She asked if I was going to buy her a drink.”

  My eyes are closed so he can’t see me roll them. “Classy,” I remark. “Then what? You took her home and had dirty, wild, frog sex?”

  “Pass me the comic,” he says.

  I reach next to me and hand it to him. He opens it in front of him. It blocks the sunlight beaming into his face.

  “Are you really going with no comment on this one?”

  He laughs. “Yeah, I took her home.” Ben pages through to a random page and I wonder which one it is.

  Gross. His answer shocks me a little and it picks at a thread of our unraveling friendship. Old Ben would have never had a one-night stand. I’m not brave enough to ask if it’s a regular occurrence. “There’s so much wrong with that, but we don’t have time to dissect it right now,” I remark, sighing. Since Ben, I’ve only been with Marcus.

  “I’d prefer we never dissect it,” Ben replies.

  So would I, come to think of it.

  We talk a little bit about his father’s promotion and my parents’ new deck that wraps almost all the way around the house. Something my mother has asked for since we moved into that house. We’re supposed to make it there for dinner shortly, but I’m so comfortable here I know for a fact we’ll be late. I don’t get this sense of self and freedom frequently, so I have to drink it up while I can—while being late doesn’t matter.

  Ben pretends to read the comic bubbles through squinted eyes.

  “My graduation is rapidly approaching. You’re going, right? Maybe if you start planning for it now it will work out.”

  He’s a slave to the Teams and their schedules. I’m never one hundred percent sure where Ben is at on most days. He travels around the U.S. tracking down people and then…exterminating them. Shivering, I lean down to see which part he’s at. I point at a joke and laugh. He grins, but it falls quickly.

  Ben shakes his head. “You know it doesn’t work like that. I’ve put in a request to be on the East Coast for the week before the graduation and the week after. That means I could be anywhere from Maine to Florida. Atlanta has been a fucking hot spot lately. I’ll give it a good college try,” Ben quips, turning to look at me. “I wouldn’t want to miss it for the world. You know that, right?”

  I think it’s a double entendre. How he wishes he wouldn’t have missed his own, not even happening, college graduation, but he’s going to settle for mine.

  I nod. “I know. It happened fast. I’ve been so busy with classes and meetings and everything else, being finished with this degree, snuck up.” Enter, real world. A place I don’t function very well. Inside Harvard walls I am Harper, a student. Outside, I have no idea who I am. I’ll be a linguistics graduate with a ton more schooling to finish before I arrive at my ultimate goal. “I got into the program at USD. Not sure if I mentioned that yet.” It’s a fib. I was planning on broaching the moving subject during this visit.

  He turns his head. “You’re coming back to the West Coast?” Ben’s eyes light up. “For your masters?”

  I nod and try not to show him how pleased I am with his response. “Yeah. They have a linguistics assistant professor job available. I can do that while I take classes and finish school. I need that PhD after my name.” I grin. He knows I’m not being a snot. He felt the same way in the past. “Marcus got in, too.”

  “Oh. Gotcha. It’s a lovers’ move. Not a move for you to come back home.” What he failed to say and I know was there, is that I failed to come back home to him.

  I push his shoulder and I’m again reminded about his muscle. “You’re constantly away anyway. I figured it was time to be closer to my parents and I’ve been away for a while already, you know? Nothing is holding me anywhere. It was a good opportunity one of my professors set me up with and that’s it.”

  “Nothing to do with me then, huh?” Of course.

  “No, Ben. The world doesn’t revolve around you. Didn’t you learn that lesson when you were three? I’m allowed to make decisions that benefit me, just like you make decisions that benefit you.”

  “My decisions benefit the rest of the free world, but who’s counting?” he jabs.

  “I do miss you and one of the first things I thought of when the opportunity was presented was you,” I hiss. “But if you’re going to be such a jerk about it, I’ll cancel the thought and replace it with disdain.”

  “With your boyfriend, though. Not sure how I like that.”

  “You don’t have to like it, Ben. You have to live with it,” I explain.

  He shakes his head. “No more boyfriend talk. I’m sorry. Rewind. Congrats on your new endeavor. The best coast is happy to have you back. So am I.”

  Smiling, I lie back down next to him. Our hands touch in a lazy, comfortable way. With one finger stretched out, I point at the passing cloud cluster. “Who do you see?” I readjust my thick black sunglasses.

  “Buttercup,” he says matter-of-factly.

  The Princess Bride. I was obsessed with that movie and the unconventional way Westley expressed his love. Ben watched it with me more times that I’m comfortable admitting. My heart hammers out the familiar rhythm called my repressed feelings for Ben. “It’s not her. No points,” I whisper.

  “You’re awful sure it’s not her.”

  Clearing my throat,
I say, “It can’t be her. It looks like the Tazmanian Devil.” He tilts his head to look at the cloud from a different angle.

  “As you wish,” he says.

  Narrowing my eyes, I glare at him. He smiles, acknowledging his heinous crime.

  “If that’s what you want it to be, but no one is getting points for it,” Ben replies. His cell phone is pumping music out from the bottom of the blanket and the song changes to one of my favorites. I sing along in a low tone while I contemplate a million different things.

  “One last cloud and then we need to get on the road. Hell hath no fury than your mom when she’s made her famous consommé and we’re late to the party,” Ben says, bouncing his foot up and down to the beat.

  “Oh, God. She made consommé? How did I not know that?” I roll up to a sitting position and start gathering our stuff. The gunshots have receded from a rapid fire to a few piercing shots every few seconds. “They must have killed whatever they were killing.”

  Ben laughs. “If they’re killing anything over there we’re in trouble, Harps,” he says, handing me the comic book to put into the big tote bag. We came here after a Jazzercise class. Just as he promised, he participated and didn’t laugh once. I think Ben likes Jazzercise as much as being a SEAL. I’ll never call him out on it, though.

  “Do you wish you were with them?” I ask, standing to brush off sand. Taking a deep breath, I inhale the fresh, salt water air. It’s one of the purest scents on Earth. To me, it smells safe and constant. Who the hell knows what the world will look like next week or year. The ocean will smell the same, though. “Don’t you like to practice killing things?”

  “I took some time off while you’re here. I never take time off.” He raises his brows and blows out a breath. “I needed this.” Looking up at me, I see the cost of his breakneck paced lifestyle. “It’s constant, you know? The second we rat out one guy, we’re focusing on the next.”

  I nod, lean over to grab the corner of the blanket, and pull as hard as I can. He rolls off into the sand. “Don’t feel sorry for yourself. Consommé, remember?”