I miss his bullshit. I told myself he annoyed me, but I’m now wondering if what annoyed me was the way it made me want to respond, to laugh, to keep the ball in play.
I fake a work call to get out of the afternoon “fun” and avoid everyone until the last possible minute. When I venture downstairs for the evening—my dress slinky and low-cut, more Keeley’s style than mine—I look better than I ever have, and it feels entirely meaningless. I’m not five minutes in and I’m already wondering if I can feign illness to get out of it.
I make polite conversation during the seated dinner, but otherwise say very little. I’ve tried the routine where you become best friends with your colleagues and know how meaningless those friendships are in the end. If I make a single mistake at FMG, my supposed friends will shun me the same way my friends at Stadler did, so why would I bother?
Afterward, I get some face time with each of the partners, just enough that no one can doubt I showed up, but by ten I am entirely over this whole experience. I’m about to leave when Nicole corners me.
“Do you know what Ben’s deal is?” she asks.
“Ben?” I ask, brow furrowed. “Ben Tate?”
I’m trying a little too hard. There’s only one Ben at our firm.
“Yeah,” she says. “Like…is he seeing anyone? I haven’t heard any gossip about him in a while.”
The idea of Ben seeing someone makes me freeze inside. “Why would I know anything about Ben?” I ask.
“Well, I mean…you’re always together,” she says. “And you’re the only person he talks to.”
I stare at her. “That’s not true. Ben talks to everyone.”
“About work, sure,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You’re the only one he…you know, seems to chat with.”
I hardly think Ben implying my vagina has teeth is the same thing as chatting, but what a strange way for her to perceive us.
“Oh,” she says. “Speak of the devil.”
I follow her gaze to the door, and my whole body goes loose and tight in the same moment.
Ben is here, tugging on his black tie as he scans the room. It’s only when he sees me that he stops looking. And for a single moment, locked in his gaze, I feel absolutely complete.
People approach, slap him on the back, shake his hand, and he’s still keeping me in his line of sight.
“I can’t believe he flew all the way back for this,” says Nicole.
I can’t either. It’s at least a five-hour flight, and a ninety-minute drive, and then he’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow when he returns.
“It’s a waste of resources,” I reply. And yet…and yet…I have the stupidest, most pathetic desire to smile.
He’s already surrounded, of course. Ben is, for better or worse, the star of our firm. The partners all think he will put us in the headlines. The associates think he’s their ticket to bigger and better cases. And I know I should stop watching him but I can’t seem to make myself do it.
“He keeps looking over here,” Nicole says. “Is my lipstick okay? I’m going to say hi.”
Her lips are chapped and her lipstick is mostly smudged off aside from the bright red ring of her lipliner. It looks terrible. “Yes,” I reply, “it’s great.” Not exactly my finest moment of supporting a fellow sister, but no one’s a champion 24/7.
She saunters toward him, hips swaying, and a small fire starts in my chest. I consider following her except…what happens now, if I’m one of the pathetic associates who sidles up beside him? He might reference our kiss or—worse—not acknowledge it at all. Maybe he’ll forget about it, in the mad rush of adulation from our colleagues. Maybe he’d have forgotten either way.
And I just…can’t. I can’t live through that right now.
I cut through the crowd toward the exit, escaping into the empty hallway. Pinterest Gemma, the girl who wanted to see the world and decorate a home one day, would not approve, but Pinterest Gemma is someone who made tons of bad decisions and wound up with a broken heart.
When I reach my room, I strip off my dress and get in the shower, scrubbing the makeup from my face and telling myself I’ve done the right thing. The responsible thing.
I put on sleep shorts and a tank then grab my phone to plug it in…which is when I see the text, sent by Ben minutes ago, just as I was getting into the shower.
Ben: I flew across the country and drove over an hour, only to see you. I’m heading to my room. #312. The door is unlocked.
I sink onto the bed. Is it true? Did he really come all the way here for me? And am I actually considering this? I picture him somewhere down the hall, stretched out, a tangle of sheets and bare skin, waiting for me. I picture what might happen if I did go—his weight above me, the sounds he might make.
No.
The absolute last thing I’m doing at this retreat is sleeping with a partner. Maybe he’ll be disappointed, but it’s for the best because he’s not what I want, and I’m not what he wants, and this could never, ever end up being something I was glad I did.
I reach to turn off the light, and then it hits me: this chance might not come again. How many times, exactly, will he put himself out there before he just stops trying? And that thought is all it takes: I’m out of bed again, grabbing a robe before I slip into the hallway. I hesitate outside his door for only a moment before I turn the handle and walk inside, padding toward him in bare feet. Moonlight filters through the curtains, provides just enough light to see him there in bed, shirtless. I stop in my tracks.
This is a terrible idea.
“Gemma,” he growls. “Come here.”
It’s a demand, not a request. It should hasten my exit from his room, but instead my feet are moving toward him. When I reach his side, he pulls me down to the bed, on top of him, as if he can’t wait the extra few seconds it would have taken me to get there on my own.
I stare at him in shock, and his gaze locks with mine as he winds his fingers through my hair. I expect him to smirk, to look irritatingly victorious, but instead…he’s relieved.
As ridiculously overconfident as he appears, he flew across the country and drove to Ojai for this, for me, with no idea at all if it would work. And he wanted it to work—from the feel of him, hard as steel beneath me—he really wanted it to work.
I lean down and press my lips to his—the lightest brush. He groans, as if he’s been waiting a very long time for me to do it, and his hands press to my scalp, bringing my mouth back to his before I can pull away.
He’s still kissing me as he rolls me to my back, as his hands graze my rib cage, my breasts, before gripping the hem of my tank. “Take this off,” he demands, pulling it overhead. We are both naked from the waist up now. It’s decadent, how good it feels to be like this with him, skin to skin. I think of that night on his desk, and the memory has me clenching, as if he’s already inside me.
His hand slides up to cup my breast, to run the pad of his thumb over my nipple, making it ache before he takes it between his teeth. He pulls at it hard, suddenly, with a force that is pleasure and pain at once. I want more, but his lips press softly to the underside of my breast instead. My hips buck, impatient, and he laughs. “You liked that before, didn’t you?”