Fade In (26 page)

When his thumb moves to my bottom lip, his fingers curl under my chin. His eyes are still locked on mine. “Tell me,” he pleads. “Tell me what you're thinking. No. Tell me what you're feeling. No jokes. Just the truth.”

I inhale his simple request and exhale the truth. “I'm so sad and I'm really, really scared, Ben. I hate this. I'm angry. I feel stupid and foolish and I'm afraid I'm going to be so lonely in the dark.” I break. There isn't a second to think of how I sound or what he thinks of me. I'm too overwhelmed by just saying it out loud.

With the softest voice I have ever heard from his lips, he says, “I won't tell you to stop being sad. That's useless. You are sad. And you actually should to be scared, too. You can own those feelings. They are yours alone. But, Tatum, don't think for a second you are foolish or stupid. You're as sharp as a tack. Your mind won't ever be questioned by anyone whose opinion matters.” He sighs heavily. “As for lonely, I can't really say. I know this though. If you let your sadness and your fear bleach the color from your life, you'll end up that way. On your own account. No one you love will leave you because of this. I promise. They'll all be right here. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere.”

“You're getting paid to be here.”

“Fine. I quit.” His voice is sure and without doubt.

“No, you can't quit. I need you too much.” I worry my lip, afraid that I'll successful run him off.

“You need me?” That's when I see his weakness. Hidden underneath his confident exoskeleton lies a hairline fault. His vulnerability. His burden.

“Of course I need you. I'd be lost if you weren't here. Look at me. I'm half drunk and crying in my closet. I couldn't need you more if you were a psychiatrist.”

Ben's face appears almost haunted. “Don't say that. They don't know everything.”

I'm just buzzed enough that I feel like telling him more. I feel like getting that smile to shine on me.

“Remember that first night on the phone?” It feels peculiar to talk about that after all this time, but here we are in my closet and suddenly I'm weighing the pros and cons of just putting it out there. “You called me pretty?”

For a long minute, we just stare. His eyes are fixed on mine, and it's like were having a conversation but we don't utter a word. I'm only too sure that my face looks like a punching bag and that I can't be all that attractive. Regardless, he seems to be looking around that and straight into me.

I want to kiss him. No. I want him to kiss me. I want to know what it feels like to be his. I crave the comfort that his affection provides.

I just nod my head yes. There wasn't a question, but yes is my answer with tears veining my cheeks. I will his lips to find mine.

He hears it somehow, because the emotion grows in his features. His tolerance for my resistance is as low as mine.

Ben inches closer and closer, saying, “Baby, just be honest. Please, just say you feel this. Tell me you feel it for real, not just for some fling. Not just to scratch an itch. I want you so badly that I'm losing my mind, baby. But I will not stop when you say go. Tatum, give us this.”

My eyelids flutter to the precious sounds of a man who wants me. “Kiss me. Please. Just kiss me already.”

I watch thick sheets of relief wash his face. Like he'd been wearing a steel mask and I just lifted it. His hand goes around my neck and into my hair. His other strong arm rounds my waist and pulls me near. My head naturally tilting and I continue to wait. If he wanted my full attention, then he has it.

“Please really want this, baby,” he breathes into my open mouth. “Don't give me this—you—and then take it away. I won't take just a piece, Tatum. I want it all.”

My heartbeat is trying to reach out to him through my chest, but I cannot speak. I don't know if I can make that promise. But, oh, how I want to. “I want this mouth.” He preys on me, licks a kiss over my bottom lip, and then he moans. His mouth skims across my jaw to my ear. “I want to say all the things I've been thinking into these ears.” The sound of his amorous breath that close makes my back arch into him.

He's not flirting. This is pure intention.

Moving down over my neck, he whispers, “I want to feel your pulse race against me.” And he kisses my neck. His mouth is hungry and passionate. Pulling back just as I'm about to beg him for more, he promises, “But I won’t take all of this until you're willing to give me more. You can be as afraid of it as you like, baby, but you have to let me in—everywhere. Otherwise this means nothing. And dammit, this means a lot more than that to me, because it's you.” There was no joke in his tone. Not a laugh in his eyes. He means business.

I find my shaky voice. “I want you. I want you so badly. Don't you think I want that? Don't you think I want a fairytale? I do! I just don't want to be someone's burden. Someone's job! I'm afraid that you'll lose sight of me. Make me believe this. I want to believe this.”

“I'll make you believe it. You don't ever have to doubt me, Tatum.” Shifting his attention to the box of wine next to us on the floor, he asks, “How much have you had to drink?”

Am I drunk? Of course I am.

“I don't know. I've been drunker. Why?” Drunk Tatum has never had a problem getting laid before, but she rarely thinks in third person either. So, okay. I may or may not be very drunk.

Moving his mouth back to my desperate skin, he pulls in long breath. My arms wrap around his waist to get closer.

Between kisses, he admits, “I told you I want all of you, Tatum. That means your mind, too, baby. I don't want us like this.” But his kisses say that he does.

“What? You've never fucked a drunk girl?” I tease.

“Fucking is child's play compared to what I'm going to do to your body with mine. You deserve better than that.” Then something that looks like a light bulb goes off over his head. “I'm not going to have our first time be on the floor of a closet, after you've been drinking and upset either, but...”

Yes! A but! But what? But what?! The heavens part. Angels sing. My body is tuned and ready to be played. I'm worked up and signing up for whatever he offers me.

“I'm listening,” I say.

“I'm enjoying how honest you’re being and how you're telling me what you’re feeling. So how about we play a little game?” If his smile wasn't so damning, I wouldn't agree, but I will do anything to make it permanent.

“What's in it for me?” Our faces are inches apart now, our eyes locked. I squint in hesitation. “I agree to nothing.”

“Oh you'll not only agree—loudly—but it'll be your new favorite game. We're playing Show and Tell.”

I adore playful Ben. He could probably talk me into dancing naked on public-access television if he would promise to keep looking at me like this.

“I have lots of show things all right here. What do you want to know about first?” I barter.

“That's not how we're playing it this time,” he says with a wicked smile. He fingers the bottom of a black chemise hanging on the lower rack next to us. “That said, I would like to know more about this sometime, please.”

“I'll see what I can do. How do we play this game of yours, and what am I going to win?” My foul mood is abandoned.

“It isn't a complex game. We will sort of wager or bet on things. One of us gets to ask a question and the other person will tell what it's worth for them to tell.”

Ben stands and lifts me up with him. Grabbing both my hands in his and walking backwards, he pulls me into my bedroom. He looks like the devil himself.

“How do we figure out who's going first? And what are we wagering? Maybe you should go first,” I advise, not knowing what I'm getting myself into.

Ben leads us through my room but doesn't stop where I guessed he would. Instead of leading me to the bed, which I was secretly praying for, he steers us to the raised sitting area off to the side. Stopping me in front of one chair and walking himself to the one across from me, he says, “Stay there.”

I think he did it so we can't touch. Only just getting the skin-on-skin from this gorgeous specimen after all this time, I'm that impressed. After finally letting him touch me, all I want is more.

Ben stands board-straight, wearing jeans and a gray v-neck. I'm less sure of what's going on here, so I slouch with unsure posture in my long nightgown, the granny sweater I added earlier in the evening, and the scarf. I sway as I wait for him to instruct, still feeling the effects of my cheap drunk.

“Okay. I'll ask you a question. You can either answer it and choose what I show, or you can pick a mulligan of sorts and I get to tell you what I want to see. You only get one mulligan for every three questions answered. Does that make sense, Betty Ford?” he explains, eyebrows raised in challenge.

I laughed wholeheartedly through my embarrassment. “Yes, Ben. I get it. Be gentle,” I say, hoping that I don't have to use my mulligoonie or whatever right out of the gate.

“Why are you a writer?” he asks, and the easiness of the question relaxes me instantly. I release a long chestful of air in relief and think about the question. Then my wandering mind gets caught up in what I'm going to choose for him show me.

I consider telling him I want to see his whole naked body, but where is the fun in that?

“Yoohoo, over here.” He waves his hand in the air. “Time is up. Answer the question.”

“I was always a goof-off in school. I didn't really like science and I was terrible at math. I liked reading and thought it would be fun. I loved drama class and writing skits for talent shows. So it just always came naturally to me. Easy. There. Now what?” I'm smiling and pretending to be innocent.

“Okay, now you get to tell me what to show.”

He's so confident, as if whatever I say won't affect him. Perhaps he only gave me the easy question so that I would go easy on him when it came to my reward. He even kicks his shoes off and does this shoulder shimmy like he's telling me to bring it.

Just as I start to open my mouth, I see a hand go up in a ‘just a second’ gesture. “Mulligans count for either thing. You can mulligan out of a show, too. Just saying. Now proceed.” He smiles brightly. I know he just thought of that rule, but I let it slide.

“Take your shirt off,” I tell him, throwing my chin with my words like a dominatrix.

He doesn't lift from the bottom like a normal man would. He doesn't even do the arms-cross-in-front grab. Ben lifts his right arm, shakes it out like he's about to pitch the last out in the World Series, and the fucker blows on his fingers. Cocky is Ben in this moment. He takes just one arm and reaches it behind his head, all the while every muscle in his biceps damn near bust the stitching on his short sleeve. I don't get the chance to watch that for long, because my old friend makes an appearance. And, oh, how I've missed that spot.

The same blond dusting of hair that I remember from our lunch at the cave is here and visible in my bedroom. I give him a good work-up with my eyes, not allowing myself to overlook a single centimeter. He has a scar on his collarbone and a thin spread of hair just across his chest. His muscles are well defined in his upper body, but his waist is lean. He's just the right mix of muscle and man, and I hate that there is a table between us.

Smart is Ben.

“See? This is easy. Now you ask me a question.”

I'm still in a trance, trying to soak up all of the new physical information coming my way, downloading and backing up every frame into my memory. I know that my sight failing has something to do with how I’ve look at things lately, with more attention on the details, but I can't help but wonder if I'm about to see a naked man for the last time in my life. I feel both excited and incredibly robbed.

Hell, today was probably the last time I’ll see that hot rainy, wet kiss in The Notebook. My life sucks.

“Just give me a second. I'm memorizing you,” I say before I can stop myself.

Thanks, box o’ wine.
When my eyes finally climb to his, I see a look that I've not seen there before.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing. Just what you said. Are you trying to memorize everything you see, Tatum?”

“Hey,” I bark like a fool, attempting to keep the mood playful. “This isn't your turn, or did I get skipped?” I get the look I'm more familiar with and know I don’t need to work further into that argument. “Where did you get the scar?”

Ben looks down to find the scar I'm talking about, and he runs a finger along the four or five inches that parallel the length of his clavicle.

“Remember how I don't like storms? Well, when I was a kid, I was at my parents’ house and the power went out. It was storming. I knew my parents would be fine, so I ran to my grandparents’ house.

“When I was running, I slipped in the wet grass and cut it on one of those wire things they use in a garden for tomatoes. I didn't really know it was that bad until the power came on a few hours later and my grandma almost had a heart attack when she saw my shirt covered in blood.

“I knew I had scraped it really bad and it hurt, but the blood mixed with it being wet made it look so much worse.” His eyes glaze over a bit in as he walks himself through the memory.

“It was funny. My grandma was freaking out and my grandpa thought it was cool. I was, oh, maybe ten or eleven. He went with me into the bathroom and helped me clean it up. Joking that Grandma was probably calling an ambulance. They were complete opposites.” He smiles and I see the memory leave his focus. “And I think it makes me look tough. Don't you?” Grinning, he does a muscle-man pose and retakes his back-to-the-game stance in one fluid motion.