He still had feelings for her. There was no doubt in my mind about that. For all I knew, this whole thing was just a ploy to get her jealous. Maybe there was no settlement.
Well, if that turned out to be the case, I didn't have to hold up my end of the bargain either. I'd have no qualms against publicly humiliating him, and walking away. Sure, he was a friend of Daniel's, but I was sure any reasonable person would understand.
Looking at Ben, there was one thing I just couldn't deny.
It felt good to be needed.
I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt that. My parents were the only people I'd been close to recently, and even that wasn't like it used to be. The first time I came back from college, I felt it. They still loved me, and they were happy to have me home, but for the first time I felt like a stranger in my own house. My room was too quiet, too clean, like a museum. I didn't belong there anymore. When I was growing up, all of our lives were intertwined, but I'd pruned myself away to grow up and strike out on my own. In my absence, they grew back together like ornamental trees, but without me.
They kept on loving and supporting me, but there was just no room for me anymore. Not the way there used to be.
Something about Ben was magnetic. He needed me, and that simple fact reached out and plucked at something in me. Something unidentifiable, but important.
"Wait a minute," I said. "But Daniel and Maddy already know we didn't meet online, they're the ones who introduced us."
He frowned a little. "So - we'll ask them to keep it a secret. Because otherwise, your parents wouldn't understand. I mean, unless you want to tell them you got engaged to a guy after knowing him for about a month, that's another option."
"Ugh. No." My head was swimming. "They'll probably hold an intervention. Daniel at least knows you, so he'll hopefully tell Maddy there's nothing to worry about, and they won't question it too much. This is getting way too complicated."
"Not at all," Ben said. "So, Daniel and Maddy know the truth. Right? Everything except the fact that it's a fake marriage. But they know how we met, and they know why you really came here." He picked up a pen-holder and a solid brass paperweight. At least, I thought that was brass. "This is them." He placed the two objects close together, touching slightly. "This," he said, gesturing to the rest of the clutter on his desk, "is everybody else. They're in Group 2. Total lie group. We met online, we got to know each other for a while, you came here to get to know me. So all we have to do is tell them," he gestured to the pen-holder and paperweight, "to keep the lie straight. That's manageable. The four of us can get the story straight, and then everyone else will just fall in line."
I slumped forward in my seat. "My head hurts. Can we go back to the drawing board on this one? Maybe it is better if we just tell everyone the truth. I mean, the Maddy and Daniel version of the truth. That we, like, fell in love in a couple weeks and are just horribly irresponsible people. I'll just have to...I don't know, sound convincing to my parents. And not insane. I don't want them to think you're like, David Koresh or something."
He sighed. "I wish we weren't on such a tight timeline. If only I'd met you sooner..."
I let that statement hang, on its own, for quite a while. I didn't know what to say.
If only I'd met you sooner.
Why me?
I wasn't special. If this was a scheme to get into my pants, it was hilariously elaborate. All he would have needed to do was...well, roll up his sleeves, apparently. No, he really needed me, and me specifically, and I didn't know quite what to do with that.
***
I was standing in a shower that sprayed from five different directions.
Ben's bathroom was exactly as posh as I would've imagined, and then some. It felt like I'd stepped into the pages of a magazine, and the thought of getting even one tiny drip of water on the beautiful stone floor was almost too much to bear. This was like some kind of luxury resort that I only could've visited if I won Wheel of Fortune or something, but it was just Ben's everyday life.
Well, I could get used to this. Particularly the heated towel rack, and the huge fluffy bathrobe I could practically lose myself in.
After I was finished, I stared at the pile of clothes he'd given me. No underwear, of course. My cheeks went slightly pinker at the thought of him knowing that I was walking through his house without panties. It seemed...excessively kinky, for a man I barely knew, and didn't actually plan to sleep with. No matter how good he looked with his sleeves rolled up.
I pulled on the workout sweats, which were too long for me, but definitely too tight in the hips and thighs. Serviceable, though, in a pinch. The tee shirt was fairly crisp, from some Chase Pharma corporate fun run five years ago. I guessed he'd thrown it in the back of his closet and never worn it. It smelled vaguely of cedar. Irrationally, I wished he'd given me something that smelled like him.
As if it wasn't intimate enough to have my bare ass pressed against the inside of his old workout pants.
I surveyed myself in the now-defogged mirror. It wasn't exactly runway material, but I didn't look terrible. My makeup was all washed away, and I didn't have anything to touch up with. But I was surprised to see that my face didn't look as pale and plain as I feared. There was a certain brightness in my eyes, my cheeks, and even with my hair hanging heavy, lanky and damp, I looked kind of...pretty.
Not that it mattered. I mean, he was marrying me for the way I looked in public. It didn't matter if I was a complete troll around the house.
Laughing to myself, I hung up my towel and robe and padded out into the hallway. Ben turned around almost immediately, as if he'd been examining one of the paintings across the hallway.
Was he just standing there...waiting for me to get out of the shower?
Weird.
"What's so funny?" he asked, ambling towards me with his hands deep in his pockets.
Red alert, red alert, tattoos on display.
"Nothing," I said. An image of putting one of those shower heads to a very different use suddenly flashed into my head, and I was blushing. Again.
He had the good grace not to mention it, but I could tell he noticed. There was always a little smile that accompanied it, his answer to my embarrassment. He liked it. Of course he did.
"Like the shower?" His smile widened a little. I wasn't sure if he was implying what I thought he was, or not - my grip on reality seemed to be coming looser by the second.
"It's incredible," I said, letting the curve of my lips betray a hint of innuendo. Hell, I might as well have a little fun with this. "I wish I could use it every day."