Meet You in the Middle

by Devon Daniels

  “Ben.”

  No response.

  “Benjamin. Benjy,” I poke, but not even his nickname can break him.

  “Kate, you came to my office. What is it you need to say?” He is not going to make this easy.

  “I came to apologize.”

  He finally looks at me, reclining slightly in his chair and folding his arms. It is all power pose.

  “I’m sorry about the things I said to you. I shouldn’t have lashed out like that, especially after you helped me. It was clearly a result of my own embarrassment about my behavior. I wish I’d handled it differently.”

  I wait for him to say something, but he just sits there, stoic. His face betrays nothing.

  I’m so uncomfortable, I’m practically twisting out of my skin. Nevertheless, I persist. “While I’m at it, I’ll add an apology that you had to take care of a belligerent, ungrateful drunk. You didn’t have to do that, and I really appreciate it.”

  I should probably apologize for making unwanted advances toward him, but since that went over so well the last time, I figure I’ll just leave it unspoken. Besides: I’m not really sure I’m sorry. It’s the most action I’ve seen all year.

  I wait a beat for him to respond, but he stays stone-faced, still leaned back in his chair. I’m starting to feel pathetic at his lack of reaction and my continuous word vomit. I’m struck by an idea, but if this doesn’t work, I’m bailing out faster than you can say Goldman Sachs.

  “I was wrong, you were right. You’re the best, I’m the worst.” There! I spot it—a lip twitch. “You are good-looking, I am not attractive.”

  His mouth curves up in a reluctant smirk. He smothers it in a hurry, but the damage is done. I had him there.

  He rubs his jaw as if to wipe away the evidence of his smile. “So, you think coming in here and quoting Happy Gilmore is going to fix this?”

  “I don’t know. Will it?”

  His eyes narrow. “You forgot ‘I’m stupid, you’re smart.’”

  “Let’s not get carried away.”

  He squints further, considering me. With no warning, he straightens and his chair snaps upright, startling me.

  “You called me a caveman. After I spent the night taking care of you.” His eyes glitter in anger, all signs of joking gone.

  I bite back my first instinct, a fiery retort. Instead, I take a deep breath and wait for my heart rate to slow. “You’re not a caveman. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “You’re damn right you shouldn’t have.”

  “And you didn’t need to make me feel worse,” I snap. Welp, so much for restraint. “Look, I’ve spent the last year of my life working on this bill, and right now it all feels like a colossal waste of time. I’m embarrassed that it failed, I feel guilty that I made my boss look bad, and I’m angry at myself for getting my hopes up about one stupid thing in this town. And now I get to add to it that I humiliated myself in front of you.”

  His face softens a fraction. “You don’t need to feel embarrassed in front of me.”

  “Sure I do.”

  There’s a loaded pause. “Well, I’m sorry I made you feel worse.”

  It’s a stiff apology, and I know why: it’s because he meant every word he said during that argument. And if I’m being honest with myself, I’m more embarrassed by the truth of his words than angry at him for saying them.

  I decide I’ll take what I can get. “Shall we call a truce, then? Put this behind us?”

  He blinks at me a couple of times, then nods slowly.

  Mission accomplished. Quit while you’re ahead.

  “It’s late, I’m gonna head out.” I move to stand, then decide to extend an olive branch. “I’m grabbing some dinner on my way home. You’re welcome to join me.”

  When he makes no move to follow me, I feel every ounce of the crushing weight of his rejection.

  “What, not enough groveling for you?” I force a laugh, trying to disguise how deeply pathetic I feel.

  His expression is unreadable. “Nah, I’m just not quite done here. How are you getting home?” Of course.

  “Walking, as usual. And yes, I have my scary rape whistle and Mace,” I say, jingling my keys at him. “Though perhaps I could ask George to escort me? Since he’s been tasked with keeping an eye on me and all.”

  Ben’s eyebrows jump. Caught.

  “Yeah, I know what you’ve been up to. I’m surprised you haven’t implanted a tracking chip behind my ear. Or maybe you did in the middle of the night and I slept through it.”

  “I probably could have, you were snoring so loud.”

  “I do not snore.”

  “You sure about that?” He smirks.

  It’s the first sign of the old Ben, the Ben I know. Bantering Ben. Relief washes over me like a waterfall.

  “Okay, well . . . have a good weekend,” I say, giving him an awkward little wave. I’m halfway out the door when I hear his voice.

  “Kate. Wait.”

  I poke my head back in. “Yeah?”

  “Run with me tomorrow.”

  Something in his voice makes my stomach constrict.

  “Okay.”

  He smiles, a real one this time, nodding his approval.

  I turn and flee.

  Chapter 16

  I tap my foot impatiently, checking my phone again.

  Mom: I’m in the building . . .

  Mom: I’m on the elevator . . .

  The elevator doors open.

  “I’m here!”

  “Mom!”

  I practically dive into the elevator for a hug, and we only separate when the doors start to shut on us. We’re laughing and talking a mile a minute as I take her suitcase and wheel it down the hall.

  My mom is visiting for the weekend, something we trade off doing every couple of months. Per our usual routine, she takes the train to Union Station, conveniently located across the street from the Hart Senate Building. She loves seeing where I work and gets a kick out of spotting the “celebrity senators” she sees on the news.

  “I’m ready to go, but Stephen wants to say hi and I need to pack up my stuff,” I explain as I lead her through the maze of cubicles, introducing her to some coworkers along the way. It isn’t long before my small office is crowded with people, drawn by my mom’s irrepressible laugh and any excuse to kick off the weekend early. I’ve just started shooing people out when Ben appears in the doorway.

  “You know your blinds are open, right? Guess my invitation to this party got lost in the mail,” he says, strolling in like he owns the place.

  “Honest mistake,” I say disingenuously.

  Since my apology and our cautious truce, things have mostly returned to normal between Ben and me. We even ran together last weekend without resorting to blows or bloodshed. Stephen told me he’s just thrilled I stopped moping.

  Ben waltzes right past me, heading straight for my mother. “You must be Beverly. It’s so nice to meet you in person.”

  My mom goggles at him. “Oh! You’re Katie’s running friend?”

  “Something like that,” he says with a wink, extending a hand to shake. She bypasses his hand and pulls him in for a hug, shooting me a wide-eyed look over his shoulder and mouthing, Oh my God.

  Here we go.

  “You’re bigger than you look on the phone.” She’s already hero-worshiping him, gazing up at him with admiring eyes.

  He laughs. “And you look even younger than you do on the phone.”

  I jump in before she can say anything incriminating. “Please don’t get her going. She loves when people mistake us for sisters and I need therapy for all the creepy ‘Stacy’s Mom’ stuff I have to deal with.”

  He smirks. “So, Beverly, does the feisty attitude run in the family, or just the good looks?”

  My mom whoops.
“He’s got your goose, Katie! Where have you been hiding this tall glass of sweet tea?”

  I loudly snap up the handle on her suitcase, breaking up their little lovefest. “All right, that’s enough of that. Mom, we have reservations.” I shovel her toward the door.

  “So what kind of trouble are you ladies getting into tonight?” Ben asks, walking ahead with my mom as I bring up the rear.

  “Oh, we’re just going out to dinner . . .” she starts, then pauses. When she turns to glance at me there’s a gleam in her eye, and I suddenly know what’s about to happen before the words have even left her mouth. “Ben, do you have plans tonight?”

  And there it is.

  I nearly dislocate my shoulder trying to muscle between them. “Mom, it’s Friday, I’m sure he’s bus—”

  “I’m not busy at all, actually. I’m completely free,” he interjects. “How fortuitous!”

  “Then you must come to dinner with us, I insist. I never get to meet any of Katie’s friends!”

  He flashes me a shit-eating grin and I narrow my eyes, trying to conceal my mounting panic.

  He shifts his gaze back to my mom. “Thanks so much for the invitation, but I couldn’t impose on your mother-daughter time. I’m sure Katie wants you all to herself.”

  At least he gave me an out.

  “You wouldn’t be imposing. We have all weekend! Tell him, Katie.” She looks at me expectantly as Ben presses his lips together, unable to hide his amusement.

  I know my mom—she won’t let this go. “Ben, we’d love for you to join us,” I say as insincerely as possible.

  He grins. “Thank you so much for including me, Katie Cat. Why don’t I just grab my stuff and meet you downstairs?” He winks at me before loping off down the hall.

  As soon as he’s out of earshot, my mom clutches my arm in a death grip. “Katie, he is gorgeous!” Enthusiasm seeps from her every pore.

  I give her some settle down hands. “You can stop right there. We’re just friends. Actually, barely even that. More like frenemies.”

  “Are you crazy? Why?”

  “Well, he’s a Republican, for one.”

  She gasps in mock outrage. “The horror!”

  “It is horrible. We’re constantly butting heads. We don’t agree on anything. He’s for just about everything I’m against.”

  I feel a niggling of self-doubt as soon as the words are out. I don’t really know where Ben stands on most issues; I’ve just assumed he touts the party line. In a position like his, he’d have to beat the drum. Right?

  Whatever. Transitive property.

  “Oh, pfft. Plenty of people have fallen in love across the aisle! Look at Matalin and Carville. Arnold and Maria. Joe and Mika!”

  “If you’re going to make comments like this at dinner, I will disinvite him. I’ll do it right now.” I hold up my phone menacingly.

  “Oh, lighten up. You’re too uptight.”

  “I am not uptight.”

  “You need to live a little.”

  “Are you going to say YOLO next?”

  “We should get YOLO tattoos!” she shouts gleefully.

  Sometimes I can’t tell when my mom is joking.

  * * *

  After a quick stop-off at home to drop my mom’s suitcase and change clothes, Ben meets us in the lobby of my building and the three of us head to the restaurant on foot. The first thing I notice is he’s changed into another green sweater—though this time it’s hunter green, not the same shirt-sweater I absolutely do not think about when I’m lying in bed at night. He keeps pressing a hand to my back as we walk, and maybe it’s because I’m already nervous—or maybe it’s his woodland forest–cinnamon scent that knocks me over the head like a two-by-four—but this tiny, unexpected crumb of affection is throwing me totally off-balance.

  But I quickly realize my anxiety is unfounded: Best Behavior Ben came to dinner. He regales us with tales of working on the tax plan, impersonating some of the high-maintenance personalities on the committee and lampooning their over-the-top demands. My mom hangs on his every word, and honestly, I can’t blame her—on the charming Richter scale, he’s running a magnitude 8.5. He’s laughing at all her jokes, drawing her out with questions about her life in New York and my childhood in Tennessee, praising my job performance and commitment to Senator Warner’s initiatives. He comes across as charismatic, thoughtful, and intelligent. It’s like Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

  If I didn’t know any better, I’d say he’s trying to impress my mom—and giving an Oscar-worthy performance, at that. I catch myself staring at him more than once, trying to make sense of this impostor in Ben’s body. Where are the insults? The barbs? It’s unnerving—because frankly, I’m starting to believe it too.

  When the conversation hits a lull, my mom goes in for the kill. “Ben, tell me about your parents.”

  I nearly groan at her obviousness, but he doesn’t blink. “Mom and Dad, sure. My mom is a high school English teacher, and my dad’s an accountant. They met at the University of Texas and they’ve been married for thirty-some years now.”

  “And you didn’t want to follow in their footsteps and go to UT?”

  He hesitates. “No, I needed a change of scenery. It’s a big state, but Texas started feeling very small after a while.”

  “I don’t know anyone like that,” my mom quips, dry as day-old paint. “So how did you two meet?”

  This should be good. “Yes, Ben, how did we meet?” I echo, tilting my head. Let’s see how Mr. Charming handles this one.

  He shifts in his seat. “Well, uh, Kate and I met during the course of her work on the child care bill.” He glances at me as I make a face, and then his eyes spark, as if struck by inspiration. “We really hit it off. Got along great,” he lies. “And we discovered so many shared interests, didn’t we, Kate? Like running, for example. Although sometimes she gets tired and needs to be carried. Oh, and we both love trying new restaurants. Of course, she likes bars more than I do—”

  “All right, she gets it, we have things in common,” I cut him off, glaring daggers. He grins back as if to say, Checkmate.

  My mom continues her interrogation, oblivious to our power struggle. “And what brought you to Washington?”

  “You don’t have to respond to her third degree,” I break in, frowning at her. “This isn’t an interview.”

  He waves me off. “There were a few different factors. I’ve always been interested in finance—it runs in our family, I guess,” he says sheepishly, “but politics was never really on my radar until I got to college. It was during the recession, and a lot of my classes were analyzing the economy, the factors that led to the housing and banking crisis. I’d seen up close how badly the recession hurt small businesses. My uncle had a construction company that didn’t survive the downturn. My cousins and I all worked for him at certain points, so it made it personal, you know? His business was his life’s work.” He pauses to drain his glass of water. “There were so many different theories about how to fix the economy, or even how the recession could have been avoided in the first place. I guess I just got swept up in the idea that I could be part of the solution, help people like my uncle.”

  My mom and I are both staring at him in rapt attention. He looks from me to her and lets out a self-conscious laugh.

  “Sorry, that was a really long-winded answer to your question. Anyway, that led to my first job on the Ways and Means Committee. And that’s how I got to know some of Hammond’s team, and he was looking for a director . . .” He trails off.

  “And he poached you away,” I supply.

  “Sort of, I guess.” He looks embarrassed.

  “Can’t say I blame him,” my mom pipes up, eyeing me meaningfully. She’s practically drooling.

  I keep my face neutral, but I’m shriveling into myself. In ten minutes, my mom has learned more abo
ut Ben’s passions and motivations than I have since I met him. Am I this self-absorbed? Have I never even asked him why he does this work?

  “Good for you, Ben,” my mom continues. “That’s very noble, especially since I’m sure you could be making a lot more money elsewhere.”

  I look at him like he’s someone new. “You never told me any of this.”

  “You never asked.”

  We stare at each other in a charged silence until my mom breaks in.

  “Well, I, for one, am ready for lower taxes. Ben, how much am I going to get back?” She rubs her hands together like a greedy Scrooge.

  “Mother!”

  “What? I’ve never understood how we became the party of higher taxes. No thanks. Unsubscribe.”

  A laugh bubbles out of me. “Unsubscribe? What are you, sixteen?”

  “No, I just look it,” she says, tossing her hair and preening. “Oh!” She snaps her fingers. “Speaking of being young, how are your sisters? Didn’t Alexis just have a birthday?”

  Ben looks puzzled. “You have sisters? I thought you said you were an only child.”

  Now it’s my turn to squirm. “I was an only child until recently. Besides, what you actually asked was if I had an older brother, and I don’t.” My voice is a little testy.

  My mom’s giving me a look. “You haven’t told Ben about your sisters? Why not?”

  “It hasn’t come up.”

  I keep my voice light, but inside I’m fuming. Why should I have to broadcast my family history to everyone I meet? If I want to keep the details to myself, that’s my prerogative. Britney Spears backs me up.

  My mom frowns in disapproval. I beam back a silent message of my own: Drop it. Ben looks from her to me, caught in the middle and clearly lost.

  Silence descends on the table. I’m suddenly keenly aware of every noise in the restaurant: the clinking of water glasses, the crash of silverware in the kitchen, the buzz of background conversation. I feel a foreign weight on my leg and glance down.

  Ben’s hand is on my knee.

  I look up at him and his eyes silently communicate: Are you okay?