“Yeah?” He twists to look at me, hesitation and need on his face.
I let my hands drift down between his legs and clasp both palms around him. “You owe me a hell of story. But nothing’s changed.”
I don’t wait for his response. I bring six bottles and an opener and set it all on the side table, pop two bottles open, and then settle myself on the bed.
Ben takes his beer and leans back against the wall beside me. “So…the heartbreak I told you about? It all goes back to that. Her name is Kylie. My parents and hers are best friends, and Kylie and I grew up across the street from each other. I was there when her parents brought her home from the hospital. We grew up together. We spent literally every single day together from the time she was born. We were inseparable. And even when we got to the age where we were noticing the opposite sex, neither of us were ever interested in anyone else, even though nothing happened between us.”
He swallows a huge gulp of beer and then stares down into the suds in the bottle. “The problem was…I was in love with her. I remember the day I first realized she wasn’t just my best friend, but that she was a girl, you know? I was fourteen, she was…not quite twelve? Around there. And she developed early, you know what I mean? By twelve she looked fourteen easily. And were at the beach together, at my parents’ lake house. We were swimming, playing some game. I don’t remember what. Chasing each other, splashing, whatever. And suddenly I couldn’t stop staring at her. Like, all of a sudden I realized she had these parts that I really liked looking at, right? And she was my best friend, but all the hormonal puberty stuff? It was all focused on her. And it wasn’t just hormones, though, you know? I knew her better than anyone. I knew how talented she was and how cool and just awesome she was. I just…fell head over heels for her.”
“Sounds like that was inevitable, though,” I remark.
He shrugs and nods. “Yeah, maybe. But I realized that she was only eleven or twelve, and I couldn’t…say or do anything. Obviously.”
I grin at him. “But you jerked off thinking about her, didn’t you?”
He blushes furiously and starts peeling the label off his beer. “Yeah, I did.”
I can’t help laughing. “I’m just teasing you, Ben. You’re fucking adorable when you blush.”
He pins me with a glower. “Yeah, well, I can’t help it. So, yeah, I jerked off thinking about her. I was a fourteen-year-old kid, so pretty much anything got me going. But Kylie was it, man. She was all I thought about. All my buddies started trying to get girls to go out with them and tried to cop a feel and whatever, and they bragged about getting to second base or whatever, but I didn’t get into anything like that. I was waiting for Kylie.”
I start to sense the shape of the story. “Oh. Shit.”
He nods. “Yeah. I waited, and I waited. She turned fourteen, and then fifteen, and I’d never even had a girlfriend, and she’d never shown any interest in other guys, thank god, but I just couldn’t figure out how to…how to broach the issue. How to tell her, out of the blue, that I’d been in love with her since she was fucking eleven.
“I mean, how do you start that conversation? I tried so many times. We’d be sitting on her porch talking and doing homework, or watching TV, or driving around in my car, and I’d be thinking about what I’d say, and I’d even open my mouth, but I couldn’t get the words out.”
He sighs and drains his beer, takes another. “I never could. I turned eighteen, nineteen, went to college near home and lived with my parents, and she was always right there. Never dated anyone, just never seemed interested. I thought that was a sign that we were meant to be together. So I made a plan. She’d graduate and we’d go on a road trip together. Just the two of us, the whole summer. Just go somewhere. Anywhere. And we’d…I wouldn’t have to tell her. She’d just realize. And we’d get together, and I’d eventually tell her how long I’d loved her. I never said a thing. I never let on how I felt. I didn’t know how, you know? We’d go to the lake and I’d have to hide how the sight of her in a bikini turned me on—especially as she got older and really filled out. I’d hide in the water and keep my distance. I kept assholes away from her. I protected her. I took care of her. Drove her to school, dropped her off, and we were always just…best friends. That was always the same.”
I finish my beer and start another. “And then…”
He nods. “And then she met Oz.” He says the name with venom, spits it. “Shit, it’s hard to talk about this. I’ve never said any of this to anyone. Not ever, not to anyone.”
I reach out and tangle our fingers together, rest our hands on my thigh. “So what happened with Oz? And why does it sound like you hate him?”
He sighs, closes his eyes and visibly summons the words. “I don’t hate him. I just…well, part of me does, I guess. He was a new guy, showed up her senior year. He was older than her. About my age, I think. Obviously older. And he was…from the other side of the tracks, you know? Tattoos and piercings and metal shirts, big attitude, badass motorcycle. A real bad boy. I didn’t like him from the first time I saw him, and…and she did. She got on his motorcycle the first time she met him, and rode off with him. And that was it. I knew it then, I knew…that was it. She had her arms around his waist and she was holding on to him like…like she wouldn’t ever let go. And she had this look on her face…like…like she was happy. But in a way I’d never made her. Excited. Exhilarated.” He sounds so bitter, so angry. “I got pissed. I was stupid. But I didn’t trust him. He just reeked of bad boy, you know? Like I knew he did drugs, and drank and all that. Kylie was too good, too innocent and pure for a fucking hardass like him. I tried to protect her from him.”
“Uh-oh,” I say. “I bet that didn’t go over well.”
He laughs mirthlessly. “Yeah, no. It drove her to him all the more. It was jealousy, like mad jealousy. She was supposed to be mine. Half a year more and she would have been. But he came along, and…fucked it all up. So I was pissed off and jealous and then kind of turned into a huge dick. But it was also honest worry. He had these scars on his forearms that made me just sick with worry, like what darkness is he pulling her into? And there wasn’t a goddamn thing I could do. I tried. I warned her. I tried to tell her how I felt about him, but she just…shut me down cold. Pinned me on it, you know? Pegged me as jealous. Just…she didn’t realize how deep the jealousy went.”