You're the One That I Want (17 page)

‘You should’ve said something.’

‘Well, I’ve always told you I loved you, even if you didn’t realize I was saying it,’ Ben smiled, managing to ignore the fact that Robert had been mentioned.

I looked up at him in confusion. ‘Telepathically?’ I asked sardonically. ‘Because it really didn’t work.’

‘Three squeezes,’ he laughed, taking my hand and squeezing it three times in the way I was so used to him doing.

I shrugged, not understanding the meaning.

‘I,’ he said as he squeezed my hand, ‘love,’ with another squeeze, ‘you,’ he finished with the third squeeze.

I couldn’t help but laugh as I recalled the number of times I’d been aware of him making that gesture, the first one being at the childish wedding in primary school – the last time being when we were sat in the bar, just moments before he said the words out loud for the first time. Ben had told me he loved me so many times, I just wasn’t listening properly.

‘You’ve been telling me you love me all that time?’

He shrugged and bit his lip as his cheeks blushed. With his eyes down he concentrated on my hands, really inspecting them, as his thumb made circular motions on my palm. ‘I know, it’s stupid,’ he muttered.

‘No, it’s sweet … I can’t believe I didn’t twig.’

His eyes flicked up at me before quickly looking back at our fondling hands. His expression changed to one filled with uncertainty.

‘What are we doing?’ he asked abruptly, a pensive look descending on his face as he slowly stepped backwards, away from me. ‘We shouldn’t be doing this.’

‘I know …’

‘It’s wrong. I shouldn’t have said anything.’

I watched as he walked a few feet away and stared out at the river, leaving his back to me.

I should have felt guilty by that point, or been hit by remorse – Ben backing away should have shocked some sense into me and made me question what I was doing. I’d been so angry at Robert for cheating, I’d spent the whole night slamming him for what he’d done, but my actions
had made me just as bad, if not worse. We were his two best friends. Even as I realized that, I knew I wasn’t prepared to let the feelings I’d discovered go. Not yet. I was enjoying it too much – all I felt was the desire to have Ben near.

‘Ben, I know it shouldn’t, but it just feels so right to me …’ I said meekly, walking towards him and placing a hand on his shoulder blade, slowly running it up and down his back, trying to bring him back to me.

‘Same here,’ he whispered.

‘I don’t want to stop.’

‘Neither do I,’ he said, slowly turning round to face me.

‘Then let’s not,’ I implored, pulling his face down to mine, allowing my body to melt into his as we kissed.

‘Maddy …’ he croaked, starting to shake his head.

‘It’s okay. I want this.’

We stayed at his that night, but not before we walked for long enough to hear the birds singing and see the morning sky start to waken with orange light. It must have been about five o’clock by the time we got to his bedroom.

I’d become used to borrowing a t-shirt and sleeping in Ben’s bed after a night out or if I couldn’t be bothered to make the short walk back to mine – but this was different, suddenly everything was so electrified. As soon as the door was closed we just stood there and nervously stared at each other, each knowing what was about to happen, but wanting the other one to make the first move.

I started it.

I cautiously undid the buttons on my shirt-dress, aware that Ben’s face looked full of nerves as I removed it from
my shoulders and let it drop to the floor, leaving me in just my bra and knickers. The movement left me feeling exposed, but ridiculously sexy, something I was aware I hadn’t felt in a long time – the thrill of being with someone new after years of being with the same guy, added to the way Ben hungrily looked at my body, as though he wanted to devour every inch of it.

Stepping towards him, I reached the bottom of his t-shirt and brought it over his head, instantly hugging his body into mine, enjoying its warmth, wanting every part of our naked bodies to connect. Expertly he unhooked my bra and ran his fingers over my breasts as he knelt in front of me, licking my nipples playfully before taking them into his mouth, causing me to let out a gasp of excitement as he nibbled gently.

Still on his knees, Ben inched down my knickers, removing them slowly as his eyes locked onto mine. I could hardly breathe at the suspense. Discarding my underwear, his hands reached behind me, sliding over my bum cheeks as he pulled me forward, his tongue tracing my hip bone, his lips brushing over my stomach, building my desire as his hands continued to feel their way around the contours of my body – everywhere but the place I longed for him the most. Back on his feet, his mouth made its way back up my body, past my breasts, along my neck and sucked on my earlobe, his gentle moaning vibrating through my body, massively turning me on. I nibbled on his lobe with desire as I grabbed at his belt, undoing it with speed, unbuttoned his flies and let his jeans drop to the ground.

To my surprise, Ben was commando.

He grabbed for my hands and held them out to our sides, stopping me from touching further, leaving us with just our mouths to roam and explore each other’s bare skin, the bodies that we’d seen regularly but were only just discovering.

Putting force onto my palms, Ben guided me to shuffle backwards onto his bed, which we clumsily climbed. Ben lay on top of me and slowed the pace as he stroked my hair away from my face.

‘Are you sure?’ he asked, searching my eyes with concern.

‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘You?’

He nodded, as he took a deep breath and looked away from me, brushing my arms with his fingertips, ‘I can’t tell you how much I want this, Maddy …’

I took his head in my hands and pulled us together as I kissed him, excitement rising as I felt more of his body connect with mine.

‘I love you so much,’ he whispered. ‘I completely love you, Maddy Hurst.’

‘And I completely and utterly love you, Ben Gilbert,’ I promised.

At those words he closed his eyes as though he was in physical pain, taking a gulp of air and drawing away so that his body moved away from mine. Draping the bedsheets over himself, he covered his face with his hands.

‘I’m sorry …’ he began.

‘Ben? It’s okay,’ I pleaded, moving towards him.

‘It’s not, Maddy. It’s really not.’

The firmness in his voice stopped me.

‘What do you mean?’

‘We can’t do this!’

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s …’ he started, but couldn’t finish. Instead he shook his head.

‘Because you feel a sense of loyalty to Robert? Because he doesn’t know the meaning of the word? I wouldn’t worry about him.’ I ranted.

‘No, well, partly, yes. He’s like my brother …’ he whimpered.

I stared at him, watching as he battled with his emotions once more.

‘But mostly because I also don’t want us to start out like this,’ he mumbled, unable to look at me. ‘If we’re to be anything – which we don’t know because we’re still drunk and you’re in the midst of heartbreak, but if we were … I don’t know. This moment is something I’ve dreamed about for years. Seriously, it is. I don’t want it to be some quick drunken shag.’

‘It won’t be.’

‘Look at us,’ he said, looking up at my face. ‘That’s exactly what it would be. I don’t want to be the guy you slept with to get over Robert, or worse, something you end up regretting. I want to be something more.’

‘But you said you love me.’

I sounded like a child, but sitting there naked, opposite Ben, I felt stupid and exposed. My best friend told me he loved me, kissed me, got me naked and then rejected me. How pitiful.

‘I don’t just love you, Maddy … I’m in love with you,’ he sighed. ‘There’s a huge difference between those two things.’

‘I know.’

‘Do you?’ he implored. ‘Loving someone is something you can do from afar, admiring someone and appreciating their existence in your life – but being in love’s different. It’s all-consuming to the point where being away from that person seems unbearable. There’s no stopping that feeling … It’s been so long and I’ve tried everything to stop feeling the way I do, but I can’t. Do you see?’

‘I think so.’

In that moment, I knew I was experiencing a dangerous amount of lust, but I was also aware of the way my tummy whirled around chaotically, churning up new feelings of admiration. I reasoned with myself that if Ben had been feeling even a sliver of those emotions for all those years, then I owed it to him to make sure whatever we did, we did it right, on his terms. Feeling the way I did, I had no doubt that what we had together had the potential to grow into something more, that I could love Ben in a way I’d never experienced before – if that was what I wanted.

‘Maddy, I just don’t want to fuck things up. That’s the reason why I’ve never said anything in the past. I’d rather have you in my life and not be with you than you not in my life at all. We have to take things slowly to make sure it’s what you actually want …’

His words lingered between us.

‘Wait until it’s right?’

‘Yes. Until we both know that there’s nothing else clouding our judgement. No rushing in like drunken buffoons.’

Stopping there was a wise move. We weren’t bad people,
we had morals despite our earlier flutter suggesting otherwise. Sleeping with each other in such a careless manner would have been a mistake. If a relationship were to blossom from that night, it would do better not to stem from the darkness.

‘So what do we do now?’

‘I don’t know …’ he said, reaching across for my hand, which he lovingly cradled in his own.

We each stared at our cupped hands in silence, deep in thought.

After a few minutes I watched Ben as he walked to his cupboard and pulled out a t-shirt, before picking up my discarded knickers and his boxers and bringing them back to the bed.

‘Stand up,’ he said quietly.

I did as he said.

Ben bent down in front of me, picking up one leg at a time as he carefully placed my feet through the leg-holes of my knickers, before sliding the black-laced fabric up my legs, back to where they had sat half an hour before. Next he put on his own underwear before picking up the grey t-shirt, pulling it over my head and guiding my arms through the sleeves, slowly pulling it down to cover my boobs and stomach.

With our modesty protected he stopped and looked down at me, pulled me towards him and hugged me close.

‘If we do this, we do it properly,’ he sighed. ‘Believe me, this is taking a huge amount of restraint.’

I couldn’t help but laugh, ‘What a difference a day makes.’

‘Well, I certainly didn’t think I’d have a naked Maddy
Hurst in my room wanting to sleep with me when the day started.’

‘Kiss me …’ I asked quietly, looking up at him, not sure if the request was out of bounds now that we had stopped proceedings.

He tilted his head down towards me.

‘Gladly,’ he whispered, before he gently placed his lips on mine, his fingers running through my hair, down to the base of my neck.

At some point we decided to get back into bed under the covers, although this time the speedy need for sex was replaced by a little bubble of wonder – of nerves and excitement. Snuggling into each other’s warm bodies, our arms and legs entwined, we took pleasure in the new feelings being shared between us – an intimacy that felt alarmingly natural.

‘Tell me how you’re feeling, in one word,’ he whispered, kissing my nose.

‘Just one?’ I smiled.

‘Yes, that’s the rule.’

I said the first thing that came into my head, ‘Happy.’

‘That’s a nice word.’

‘You?’

‘Loved.’

I closed my eyes and enjoyed the word, one I could have easily used too.

For those few hours I had no fear. I wasn’t worried that things would become awkward, or that, at some point, we’d be forced back into reality and made to suffer the consequences of our actions. What we thought would become of us outside our cocoon, I really didn’t know. It
wasn’t something I thought about in that room on that night. We didn’t talk about life outside of that bed, by which I mean Robert wasn’t mentioned again. Somehow I’d managed to cut myself off and detach myself from real life. It was unsettlingly easy to do, but Ben made me feel safe, secure and loved, like I needed nothing else in that particular moment.

We didn’t sleep a wink, preferring to talk about everything and nothing instead, smiling at each other like super-happy-psychotic Cheshire cats. Ben smiled at me in a way he’d never done before – wider, bigger, more doe-eyed and lovelier than I’d ever seen. It was like he’d saved that smile just to give to me on that special night. A secret smile, just for me. It filled my heart with an unbelievable joy to watch it spread so infectiously across his face. It was beautiful. As was he.

It pained me to leave him the following morning, but when I did it literally felt like I was walking on air. I know that’s what people in movies say, ‘walking on air’, and I agree that it’s a saying that would ordinarily make me want to puke my guts up, but there’s no other description for the light and giddy feeling that overtook me as I drifted (there was no way I walked, my feet didn’t touch the ground once) from his to mine, recalling flashes of images from the previous night as I went – some innocent, some not.

Being with Ben was completely different to what I’d experienced before. It was tender and romantic – I felt special, sexy and wonderful. Possibly the biggest surprise was that it was Ben who’d made me feel that way. Ben who I’d spent almost every day with for the previous
twelve years of my life. How he’d managed to keep his feelings hidden I’d never know – they were threatening to spill out of me that morning at every opportunity. I passed strangers on the street and couldn’t help but smile at them, or say good morning, as though I was bursting with kindness and a love for life.

What I wasn’t expecting was to walk into my house and find Robert on my bed, looking like he’d been staring at the door for hours, waiting for me to return; his worried face puffy and wide-eyed from a lack of sleep, his hair manically pointing in all directions. I had visions of him running his fingers through his hair in panic at my absence, an action I knew he did whenever he was anxious.