Sin's Haven (8 page)

“Oh shit.”

The confused and
hurting part of Ben couldn’t help but wonder if there was a back entrance for
the club. And somewhere else he could get coffee. He should kick himself for
even having those thoughts. Who had he become overnight? He was a stand-up guy.

Before he could
decide on anything, a hand with chipped black nail polish slinked through the
slit in the curtains and someone he recognized was soon standing in front of
him.

Chapter Six

“You look like
you could use a week’s worth of sleep.”

Even though it
was the truth, one never wanted to open their door to those exact words. But
Julie was only being honest and Hazel appreciated her coming by with Hazel’s
tips she’d forgotten and left at the club last night.

What a crazy
night.
So many darn questions and regrets.
About what
she’d done, about what she hadn’t actually
done.
About him.

“Thanks,” she
said to Julie who plopped down on the couch. Julie was one of the few people
Hazel could let in like this anymore. “Is Mark really okay or is he
shorthanded? I could come in tonight. I know I look like hell but I’m not that
bad off.” She really wanted to ask if they’d found Ben in the office or if he’d
been gone by opening.

Julie smiled.

“I’m to tell you
to stay away today and tomorrow too. But I think he and I both know that is
useless.
What a night, huh?”

They sat
together on Hazel’s couch. Was Julie fishing?

“Yeah,” she said
into a pair of crystal blue zircon eyes framed by shocking silver hair on a
young angel’s face. Mark was a lucky man. He had it all in Julie. Hazel thought
she’d had it all in Jay. She’d probably always be sad at the thought that he’d
been her everything while she’d been not enough to him.

Hazel tried to
bury that insecurity and remember what Mark, Julie and her parents had told her
about mental illness being the cause of Jay’s suicide and not any fault or
inadequacy of her own. That still didn’t sit right with her. Did they have any
idea what a strong person it took to take one’s own life?
Doubtful.

“So,” Julie drew
the word out. “Did everything go okay with Jack?”

“Very
funny,
haha
.
His name is Ben
and it will probably be awhile before he touches that stuff again.” Hazel knew
it would be of no use to leave holes in the answer Julie was looking for. She’d
get it out of her eventually and besides that, Hazel’s ears were heating up to
hear if Julie was the one who had anything to share.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Ben,”
she drew his name out now. “Gosh, I felt so bad for the kid.”

“He’s not a kid.
He’s thirty-one years old.”

“
Oo
, touchy
touchy
.
Let
me rephrase that then. How did it go with the big man last night?”

Hazel snorted at
Julie’s
easy going
teasing. “That wasn’t rephrasing
anything and I guess I can say everything ended up going well because nothing
happened…exactly.”

“Unh
unh
.
You better spill it. Did you two get
cozy in the office?”

Julie was the
one and only person on earth who treated Hazel like a girlfriend and not the
poor little victim whose fiancé had taken his life in the apartment they
shared. The place they had
loved,
played and made
promises together. Mark tried his best not to look at her like he was always
ready to protect her but failed most days. It had been a year. Maybe it was
time to accept new faces, ideas, disasters even.

“I messed up big
time last night, Julie.”

“How
so,
hun
?”

Hazel sniffed
and then confessed what she’d done. “You saw what happened to Ben last night.
Humiliated by
Erby
Wells.
I, I
just felt so awful for him and then the fact that I was even involved in the
whole mess…I couldn’t think of any better way to help pump his ego back up. So
I—”

“You
what?”

“Not that.
Not exactly.”

“Hazel Marie
Temple…”

“I stayed with
him until just before Mark got in to open. Then I left Ben a note implying we’d
been intimate and that he’d rocked my world.”

“Oh
my Good Lord Jesus.
No you didn’t!”

“Yeah, I sort of
did. Well, write the note that is. I thought Methodists didn’t take the lord’s
name in triplicate.”

“Well this sort
of calls for it. Wow. I can’t decide if I’m more shocked or more proud of you.”
Julie rubbed Hazel’s folded hands.

“Well, you
shouldn’t be proud. I’m not. I lied to him and then I snuck out before he woke
up.
Which has been eating at me.
Did you happen to go
in with Mark this morning? Did you see Ben? Was he still there?”

Julie just
smiled then rubbed her lips together, working in a shimmery clear gloss. She
then frowned, which was very uncharacteristic. “Oh, he was there alright. Him,
Jaxon James, Stefan Calderon, Will Cordero, Marion. It was a regular old Sin
Pointe reunion. They didn’t say much. Just wanted to know what our final amount
was on the fundraiser so they could match it. Your friend, Ben, he was pretty
quiet until the guys cleared out. But before he left, he passed Mark a note. I
don’t know what it says, but here you go. It’s why I came over here.”

Hazel could
strangle and hug Julie right now. She took the folded up paper being offered to
her by a feminine, steady hand. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.
So I’m
gonna
go now. Let you read that with some
privacy. If you need anything, you call me. And Hazel, don’t come in until you
feel up to it. Be that tonight or next week. I know tough doesn’t even begin to
describe last night for you,
hun
.”

It was as if
Julie knew the anxiety that both excited and terrified Hazel. That was why she
loved her. “I will, thank you Julie,” she said, holding the anxiety inducing
note in her hand.

Julie nodded,
gave her a hug and then left Hazel’s small apartment, silver earrings dangling
a baby-light jingle on her way out.

“Okay, this is
not a big deal.” She whooshed out an exhale. Convince her hammering heart of
that. Why this had her acting like she’d never had contact with the opposite
sex was silly. Maybe it was just as Julie had
said,
her nerves were still shot from the ordeal of last night. The wonderful parts
of knowing she had done
good
for a misunderstood cause,
but then the emotionally depleting parts that losing someone to suicide coated
a person with.

Meeting Ben,
other than the bad timing, made her feel good. Knowing she’d lied to him, not
so good a feeling. But again, there was that bitter sweetness to it. That note
she’d left him had been twofold. And now it was time to find out what effect it
had had on its recipient.

This could be
good.

Or this could be
very bad.

She unfolded and
recognized the peach-colored paper which was a past act’s flyer that had been
stapled to the bathroom wall.

In one corner
there was enough blank room for a small hand-written note.

It read,

Hi,

Thanks
for your note. I feel horrible about what I did. Like, really
really
bad. Can we meet and talk?
Coffee?
I’ve got work the next few days but I’ll stop by the café as soon as I can. I’m
really sorry.

Ben
949-555-1377

“He feels
horrible? Great, that was not the response I was expecting,” Hazel said to her
empty apartment. Her note had made the situation even worse. She’d just
shoveled more bad on top of the bad he already felt. And it wasn’t even true
what she’d written. “Oh my good God, what in the world have I done to this poor
guy?”

A second later,
a new worry washed over her. Hazel’s face felt like she’d been scalded with a
lightning fast toss of boiling water. “Why didn’t I even consider that
before?"

The sensitivity
he displayed, his unique sense of style, and the complete lack of macho vibe.
She hadn’t wanted to admit it, but that kiss he’d given her had been accidental
contact of his head moving up at the same time her head had been moving down.
And he’d been passed out when she’d kissed him for real. His affection for
Erby
could have been strictly platonic. What if she’d just
convinced a homosexual male that he’d slept with not only a woman but a woman
he didn’t even know? Horrible was probably him putting it lightly. Disgusted
seemed like a better fit.
Guilty.
She rubbed her
temples deeply while considering what guilt did to sensitive people.

One of her last
conversations with Jay had been about them not spending enough time together.

He was gone
forever two weeks later.

Best
to get this over with sooner than later before she made matters any worse.
She’d save Ben the trouble of getting tangled up any deeper with her.

Walking to the
breakfast table with his note in her hand, she found her phone and dialed his
number, afraid she’d wimp out if she didn’t do this right now.

“Hey, this is
me. Leave a message already. Peace Ay-out.”

His adorable
outgoing message snuck a remorseful smile on her face but the time she took to
recover ate up all her message time. Great, she had to call again. Now she was
stalking this poor man. “Just do it, Hazel.” She hit redial. Her heart beat normal
again when he didn’t answer and the beep sounded for her to speak.

“Hi Ben, it’s
me, the girl from the club. Um, listen, leaving you that note was a huge
mistake. I shouldn’t have. Please don’t feel bad. No harm, no foul.” And then
as much as she hated to say it because the idea of seeing him again flooded her
with warmth, she forced herself to cut ties. “And no need for coffee. You don’t
owe me anything. You take care of yourself. Be well.”

Why did she feel
like slumping down onto the cold floor and crying? A person couldn’t lose
something that had never been theirs in the first place. She wiped at her nose,
made her way back out to the couch, and gave the radio a hellacious twist until
it was loud enough.
Grouplove
screamed
Tongue Tied
until all her other thoughts
gave up and took the backseat. She’d get a few hours of sleep and then go to
work. Time off hadn’t done her any good the past year. No reason to think it
would start now.

“
Shh
,
shh
,
shh
,
he’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. He’ll be okay. You’ll be okay.”

Chapter Seven

He didn’t dig the
darkness the way Jaxon and Stefan and the guys did. Even Trista, with all the
happy, light times she was ripping from life right now, he’d still catch her
gardening before the crack of dawn from time to time. Ben was in no way a night
stalker, yet here he was. Parked outside the club, he sat in his Mini Cooper
with the window down, feeling the chill, wishing it hadn’t taken three days to
catch a free moment to get back here. Especially after the message she’d left
him.

He could only
pretend to be waiting on someone for so much longer. It was a miracle
Nashville’s finest hadn’t picked him up for loitering yet. But he’d been
hanging outside the club for a half hour now and not a single squad car had
driven by.
Which made him worry about the late nights Haven
spent here.

A group of
t-shirts and jeans wearing big dudes came out of the alley. When they passed by
him, they stopped and stared daggers through his front windshield. Ben had run
up against these
kind
of “
WTF
”
looks since he’d made the move to the country. Funny enough, they always came
from the city dwellers. Everyone in his adopted hometown of
Bugscuffle
had accepted him and could care less about his striped vests, long hair and
bracelets. Especially since he’d become the go-to guy for local small businesses
looking for inexpensive help with their computers and advertising. He’d set up
a handful of Facebook and Twitter accounts his first month there. These dudes
didn’t look like they’d be interested though, so he tried to ignore them.

One of them did
that unfriendly upward tilt of his chin thing.
Some kind of
testosterone challenge.
Ben had seen Jaxon take a swing at a guy for
less.

Instead of
picking a losing fight, Ben let out a “
Whassup
?” but
apparently they had somewhere better, tougher and louder to be and left, taking
their sneers with them. “
Whatevs
,” Ben muttered when
they ducked inside the rockabilly bar two doors down. Yeah, he’d probably
dodged something painful with that one. He’d never been happier that Haven was
safe inside as he watched her security guy Manny helping with the club’s
closing duties.