On an Edge of Glass (7 page)

I do the eye roll thing
but I’m smiling indulgently.  “She is a force to be reckoned with.”

“You all are,”
he says, slipping the quarter into his back pocket and taking a small sip of his beer. 

We
sit there, side by side for three obnoxious songs.  This place is all club music and greased back hair and hot, sweaty dancing.  It’s not really my scene and I’m getting the sense that Ben feels as out of place as I do. 

To fill in the lack of conversation
, I drink faster than normal.  When the beat of the music hits a higher notch, I signal to the bartender for another drink.  He obliges, bringing over a fresh vodka and cranberry garnished with a slice of lime.  Ben slides over money before I can even reach into my purse. 

I should say thank you or something like that
, but it surprises me so much that I do nothing but blink and nod my head like a moron. 

After another minute
, Ben stands.  He seems like a fake person then—leaning toward me, his hands folded into his pockets.  He’s got this quasi-apprehensive look on his face that I don’t understand.  Like me, he’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved blue shirt.  He even has his brown hair secured in a ponytail at the nape of his neck just like mine. 

I laugh
. 

“What?”  He
asks loudly so that I can hear him over the music.  His forehead rumples.  I think that he’s uncertain and maybe a little embarrassed.

“
Nothing.  It’s just that we match.”  I point and smile harder.  God.  I’m smiling so hard, the muscles in my cheeks start to hurt. 

Ben
looks at me, and then down at himself.  His parted mouth transforms into a grin.  That one ridiculous dimple appears out of nowhere. 

“T
o twins,” he chants, and he lifts his glass up off the bar and holds it in the air expectantly.  I raise my glass and we clink. 

“Twins,” I echo
.

Ben
sets down his drink and tucks the brown hair that has come loose from his ponytail behind his ears.  He clears his throat once, then twice, before bringing the flat of his hand to my back. 

He lowers
his face so that it’s almost level with mine.  The feel of his shallow breath against my neck and collarbone sends a delicious shiver through my body. 

“Dance with me?”
He asks in a deep and husky voice.

My heart dips
and sputters like an engine that’s catching.  I nod slowly and take two long sips from my drink for courage before abandoning it on the bar top.

B
ehind his back, Ben’s dangling an open hand, but I don’t take it.  I trail one step away and fill in the spaces he creates as people part and come back together to let us in.  I have this crazy thought that it’s like being swallowed up by human bodies and that I’m being digested by the loud and hectic music.  I feel it move through me, pulling me—sucking me from the outside in. 

The
house lights dim further.  Now we’re swimming in a new kind of darkness.  One that’s a surreal dreamlike canvas, dotted with soft greens and blues.  Ben’s hand snakes out for me.  He finds purchase at my waist.  With fingers inching toward my spine, he draws me to him until our bodies are aligned and I can feel the hard edges of his torso through the thin fabric of our blue shirts. 

My heart hammers against my breastbone
and stirs up a torrent of sensations inside of me.  I wonder if he senses it—if he feels even half of what I’m feeling right now.   

Ben lifts his hands and
gently touches my cheek.  Giving in to the turbulent vibrations rattling and heating the air between us, I close my eyes.  He trails his fingers along my back, pausing to trace the outline of my shoulder blades.  His hands continue downward until they’re cupping my hips.  Hesitantly, hoping that I don’t explode, I slip my arms over his neck and leave them there.

And then we’re dancing
.  My head barely reaches Ben’s shoulders, but he inclines his chin, fitting himself to the shape of me.  I find that I’m completely aware of him—of the way his thumbs are sliding closer to my navel, and the smell of his skin, and his mouth, which hovers mere inches above my neck.

We dance
like that until our hearts are shuddering and I’m dizzy with the music, and the crowd, and the low, changing lights, and the sensation of
wanting
.  Wanting so badly that I forget to breathe right.  I realize that I’ve never felt this pull before—this intense response to a person’s every movement.  It’s born from deep down in the recess of my belly and it’s like a raging fire and a hurricane and a delicate flower bud all at once.  It’s unnerving. 

Ben presses closer.  His hands pull
me tighter.  His fingers claw into the skin just above the waist of my jeans and my blood sways.  

I
don’t look up into his eyes.  I can’t. 

Instead, I focus on
the worn blue fabric of the shirt that he’s wearing, and the wonderful arc of his neck.  I stare at that place where the pulse beats just under his hot skin and I memorize the soft pink corners of his mouth.  I think about all of the spots that we touch, and I breathe them in. 

Our hips brush and Ben gasps.  He
brings his lips to my ear.

“W
ant to get out of here?”  He asks, tangling his fingers in my bound hair and holding my head steady.

And just like that, the world crashes
back into focus.  The thumping of the music accelerates to a wild knocking that matches my heart as I pull away and look up at him.  I think that my eyes will be able to sift out answers from his expression, but I can’t read Ben that way.  I don’t know what those two little lines on his forehead mean, or what thoughts swirl in the depths of those gold-flecked irises.

Under my scrutiny
, Ben seems to shrink—all six foot something of him.  He sucks in his bottom lip and turns his head away from me. His throat moves like he’s getting words together and it ignites a flare of panic in my chest.  All of a sudden I realize that I don’t want him to take back his invitation, even if it scares me.

I
move without thinking.  I stand up on my tiptoes and I lean into him so that I my breasts are pressed against his chest.  I say only one word. “Sure.”

And
I want to slap myself.  I really do.  I half-wish that Mark had come out with us tonight so that he could pull me away by my ponytail and tell me that I’m behaving like a sex-crazed moron.

W
here do I see this thing going?  Ben has to be in rebound-mode, right?  Aside from that, he’s not my usual type at all.  My last date was with a pre-med student named Keith who took me to watch a Polo match at his parent’s country club.  Keith wore a sweater vest and ordered foie gras off the menu non-ironically.

Ben
is different.   

He
plays guitar in a
band. 
There’s his long hair and grungy shirts and the fact that he wears jewelry on occasion.  From what I’ve observed so far, he probably only shaves about once a week.  If he didn’t play in the University Symphony, I doubt that he would even own a suit and tie.  I can’t even imagine what my parents would think if I ever brought him home with me. 

Th
ere’s also the niggling problem that he is my roommate.  I have to live with this guy for the rest of the year no matter what happens between us tonight. 

And
, I have Payton and Ainsley to consider.  We made a deal.  A pact.  It was a sacred vow of female solidarity.  That’s got to mean something.   I imagine that they’ll strangle me if they find out that I’ve broken it.   Hell, I’ll probably strangle myself.

But, when
Ben’s smoldering eyes come back to me and his mouth twitches into a half-smile, my heart flips over and it’s like none of that stuff matters.  The world could detonate all around us and I don’t think that I would care one way or the other. 

“Good,” he says and reaches out
his hand for me. 

I don’t hesitate
this time.  I take it.

I’m
grateful for a lot of things.  Things like: opportunity, a car with a sunroof and power locks, friends that make me laugh, and those tiny little white marshmallows that you get with hot chocolate mix. 

             
Tonight I’m grateful for obnoxious kids at coffee shops, blue shirts, and that Ben Hamilton insisted on driving his car separately when we left the house earlier tonight.

             
I send Payton and Ainsley both quick texts as we leave the club so that they won’t worry about me.  But, judging from their outfits and the way they acted when I saw them last, I doubt that they’ll be too concerned about my whereabouts.

             
Ben and I don’t talk much during the car ride home.  I lean my head against the cool glass of the passenger window and listen to the music that begins playing when he turns on his car.  It’s classical.  It’s sad and beautiful all at once—deep tones that sigh through the speakers and resonate deep in my belly.

             
“This is really nice,” I say appreciatively.  Then I wonder if he understands that I mean the music. 

             
Ben ducks his head sheepishly.  “This is me.”

             
“Really?”  My eyes widen a fraction and my mouth goes slack.  I think there might be awe written on my face. 

Ben
nods but seems even more embarrassed. 

             
“Yeah… I know that it seems strange to listen to myself play but I have a big solo coming up.  A friend of mine offered to record me so that I could listen for errors and places where I need to speed it up or slow it down,” he explains quickly, looking at me sideways like he wants to be sure that I’m following what he’s saying.  “I swear that I’m not the kind of guy that stares at myself in the mirror for hours at a time flexing my muscles.”

             
I shake my head and laugh. 

I
don’t say what I’m thinking: that
I
could probably stare at him for hours at a time.  For a few moments, I just listen to Ben’s music—to the sigh of the instrument that sounds like a revolution. 

I’m breathing funny and I’m thinking that this music is something that
Ben
made
.  He created it from nothing. And I haven’t created anything lasting in my whole life.  Unless you count some mediocre photos and the glitter collage I brought home in second grade that my mother’s best friend had framed. 

“
No.  No, it’s not strange at all.  I just wasn’t expecting it.”  A small smile turns my lips.  Words aren’t adequate but they’re all I have.  “You’re really good. 
This
is good.”

             
Ben turns on a mega grin and pops one of his eyebrows.  This is when I notice that he’s driving just under the speed limit and that he holds the steering wheel with both hands the way that my dad taught me to.  For some reason I almost laugh.

“
Ellie, did you think that I’d waste my college education and my time so that I could play like crap?”  He asks teasingly. 

             
I like that he’s a careful driver.  I like the way that my name sounds coming out of his mouth.  I like that his words mean one thing but the tone of his voice means another.  Ben is flirting with me.

             
“Ahhhh… I get it.  You’re a musical genius.  You are…” I look up at the roof of the car searching for the right words—for a compliment that is cute but doesn’t expose my raw beating heart.

“Full of surprises?
  Incredibly handsome?” Ben offers up as he pulls into the driveway and parks behind my car.  The music stops abruptly when he kills the ignition. 

M
y laughter propels itself around the sudden quiet of the car.  I cock my head to one side and narrow my eyes at him in mock seriousness.  “At least one of those things is true.”

             
Drooping yellow light from the streetlamp filters in through the windows.  It frames Ben’s face.  With his hair back in a ponytail, I can see his features in a new way and my heart jolts unexpectedly.

             
He’s sitting there watching me.  His brown eyes move over my body unchecked.  I feel like maybe something really is happening here.  And it’s something other than dancing, and casual post-vodka kissing. 

It’s the feeling that I had during our first encounter
in the coffee shop.  It’s brightness.  It’s like
nothing
is actually
something
, and maybe—just maybe—it’s a beginning. 

             
The way that he’s looking at me is so open and naked that I chicken out and drop my eyes.  I stare at my hands crossed over my jeans—thumbs hooked over wrists.  My mind starts to careen out of control. 
Maybe he’s going to kiss me.
 
Maybe this is a bad idea.  Maybe I’m getting in over my head.  Maybe—