Once in a Lifetime(72)

Chapter 25



A long time later, they collapsed on the bed, gasping, sweaty, breathing like lunatics. Ben threw a hand over his eyes as he tried to catch his breath, because though he could lie smooth as silk when he wanted to, he never lied to himself.

This wasn’t just sex between him and Aubrey. This was love.

“I need to talk to you,” she said.

“Okay.”

She was quiet so long that he dropped his arm from his eyes and turned his head.

She was looking at him, eyes shimmering with a suspicious sheen. “It’s about my list,” she said softly. “You’re on it.”

Ben stared at her. “You said I wasn’t.”

“I…misled you.”

He took this in for a full minute, running through his memories and coming up completely blank. “I don’t understand. What did you ever do to me?”

She sat up and reached for his shirt again, pulling it back over her head and down to mid-thigh.

Covering herself from him.

He wasn’t liking this much. “Aubrey.”

“Don’t you want to put something on?” she asked.

“After you answer me.”

She ran a hand over her eyes, and he realized her fingers were shaking. “I’m trying,” she said. “I’ve been trying for a while.” She shook her head. “No, that’s a lie. I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s been killing me slowly, but I—” She broke off and let out a long breath. “I screwed up.”

He pulled her hand from her face. “Just say it.”

“Okay.” She drew a deep breath. “Do you remember when Hannah broke up with you?”

“Yes.” It had been the summer after he’d graduated high school, and he had been night surfing. Alone. It’d been a dangerous, reckless thing to do, but he’d been stupid back then and had often pulled such stunts. It’d been some sort of teenage testosterone-driven dare, a challenge between him and life, and he hadn’t been too particular about who might win.

When he’d come back to shore, Hannah had been waiting on the beach for him. She’d stared at his feet and told him she was breaking it off because they were going to college in a few months, and they needed to spread their wings.

He remembered feeling blindsided. He’d told her that he didn’t need to spread his f*cking wings, and she’d smiled a little bit sadly and said she was setting him free anyway.

He hadn’t seen her for two years. He’d finally run into her by sheer accident on spring break, and they’d reconnected. And though she’d never asked and he never told, he’d spent the two years away from her having a damn good time spreading his wings.

“What about it?” he asked Aubrey now.

“I told her you slept around with other girls, one of them being me. It was why she broke up with you.”

It took him a moment to find words, and even then he only had one. “What?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, chewing on her lower lip. “I caused her to…break up with you.”

He shook his head. She was making no sense. “You were two years behind us in school. You didn’t even know Hannah.”

“We were in after-school tutoring together. I was there for Spanish Two. She was in danger of failing Spanish Four.”

“You’re lying,” he said flatly. “Hannah was a straight-A student.”

“She’d always been, yes,” she agreed. “But Spanish flattened her. She had to get her grade from an F to a C or lose her upcoming college scholarship. She came to tutoring every day for an hour.”

He stared at her as the first inkling of doubt began to creep in. Hannah had been busy every day after school, but she’d told him she was working at the optometrist’s office where her mom worked. More than that, the college scholarship thing was setting off alarm bells in his head. Hannah had been all set to go to the University of Washington at Seattle—with him. But after she’d dumped him, she’d gone to a community college instead. He’d always assumed it’d been so that they wouldn’t be at the same school. But what if that hadn’t been it at all? What if what Aubrey was saying was true—that Hannah hadn’t brought her grade up enough and she’d lost her scholarship? “I don’t get it,” he said. “Why did you tell her we slept together?”



“I’d like to tell you the whole thing,” she said, “but the short answer is that I was jealous.”

“Jealous.”

“Yes.” She clasped her hands together and kept her eyes on them. “I’m not proud of that. I’m sorry, Ben.”

Was she serious? A “sorry” was supposed to make it all okay? He jerked upright and yanked on his pants.

“Wait,” she said, jumping up, too. “Let me tell you the rest—”

“I don’t give a shit about the rest.” He shoved his feet into his shoes and turned back to her. “Just tell me one thing—why now? Why are you telling me this now?” Then it hit him, and he let out a harsh laugh. “The damn list. You need to clear your conscience. Well, congratulations, Aubrey, you did it. Job well done.” He snatched up his shirt and, without putting it on, stormed to the door. Needing to know one more thing, he whipped back. “Wait. Why did she believe you?”