The Winter Sister(77)
Ben sighed, as if talking about his family history were the most tedious thing he could imagine. “It turned out okay, though, because my dad did what he always does. He manipulated the right people, pulled the right strings, made some significant changes to the town. Profits soared at Emory Builders, too. It was brilliant, actually. As mayor, he could bully his way into getting whatever the business needed—permits, land, et cetera. So, in the end, he accomplished what my grandfather wanted the most—his name being stamped into the Spring Hill history books just like all the other Emorys before him. But still, like I said, there was always this tension between them.”
He traced his scar with his finger again—only, this time, it seemed more like a force of habit. “Runs in the family, I guess. I’m an extension of my father, see, and he’s not a successful Emory male if he doesn’t have an heir to mold into someone just like him—a political figure, or the next great leader of Emory Builders, or both. And right now, he’s playing the long game. He knows I have no interest in any of that, but this way, he’s letting me indulge in my ‘childish whim,’ as he says, while still keeping me under his thumb. I’m sure he thinks that, living in the guesthouse, getting all the perks of our family lifestyle day after day, eventually I’ll come around and decide to do something more honorable.”
I cocked my head to the side. “More honorable than working with cancer patients?”
“Something more public,” Ben clarified. “Something with a better salary. Something at the family company. It’s my destiny, don’t you know?”
Despite the space between us—me on the bed, him on the floor, separated by at least a few feet—I saw his eyelids twitch, the skin there, thin as a moth’s wing, kicking with spasms. As his words lingered in the air, his gaze drilled deeper and deeper into the carpet.
“But, actually,” he said, “it hasn’t been all that bad living here. I thought I’d hate it. My father was manipulating me, and I knew it. But school was expensive, and I didn’t really have another option. I still plan to pay him back—I don’t want to owe my father a thing—but it’s been okay. Plus, I don’t see him too much. Every now and then, we pass each other in the driveway, and we wave, and we roll our windows down, and he guilts me into having dinner with him, where he’ll talk about how I’m not living up to my potential—but mostly, I just work a lot.”
I nodded in acknowledgment and took a sip of my drink. I felt its warmth course through me, lighting me up from inside.
“So anyway,” Ben said, letting out a long, abundant breath, “that’s my life story.”
He laughed then, briefly but heartily, the sound welling from somewhere deep in his body. I looked at him, surprised—the bellow of his laughter seemed disproportionate to the comment he’d made—but then I heard myself laugh a little, too, cracking a tension I hadn’t realized was still hovering over the room.
When our laughter subsided, there were a few beats of silence, during which I wondered where to look, what to say. Then my stomach let out a low, rumbling grunt that swiftly crescendoed into a growl. The flush in my face was immediate, and I raised my glass to my lips again, trying to cover the pink I felt burning in my cheeks.
“Oh thank God,” Ben said. “I’m so hungry, too.” He put a hand against the dresser to steady himself as he stood. “I think I have a frozen pizza in the kitchen. You interested?”
I looked back at the clock on Ben’s nightstand. It had been hours since I’d wolfed down half a sandwich before heading off to Tommy’s. And it might have been the alcohol radiating through my veins, or even just the hunger I was suddenly aware of like a gaping hole in my gut, but as I stood up from the bed, I didn’t think of Persephone or bruises. I thought only of dough and sauce and cheese—how that seemed like all I needed in that moment—and I found myself nodding, my mouth actually watering in response.
“Sure,” I said. “Pizza sounds good.”
24
We didn’t speak much as we ate. Sitting at the white marble counter of Ben’s breakfast bar, we inhaled slice after slice of mediocre—yet wholly delicious—pizza, taking breaks only to drink long, thirsty gulps of the beers we’d opened while waiting for the oven to preheat.
“Okay,” Ben said after a while, a single slice remaining on the pan between us. “I think I’m ready to come up for air.”
He wiped his hands on a napkin and tossed it onto the counter. Shifting his weight on the tall, low-backed chair, he looked at me and crossed his arms. “So,” he said, “your turn. I want to know about you.”
I swallowed the bite I’d been chewing and set my crust on my plate. “What about me?” I asked, reaching for my beer.
“Well,” he said, “I feel like I told you everything there is to know about me, but I don’t know much about you. I don’t even know what you do for a living.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m sort of between jobs right now—that’s the fancy way of saying ‘unemployed,’ right? I was a tattoo artist until I got laid off.”
“Oh, that’s awesome!” Ben said. Then he shook his head. “Not the getting laid off part. I mean being a tattoo artist. That must be so cool. Do you like it?”