Page 57 of Stuck With the Best Man

So, if Ben is an open book, I am a locked door that someone has thrown away the key to. Still, I don’t mind that he knows things about me that I don’t usually tell anyone else. I don’t think I’ve even told Eva about the anxiety stuff before. At least, not in as much detail as I told Ben last night.

Lost in my thoughts, it takes me a moment to realize that Ben is staring at me again. He keeps glancing at me out of the corner of his eye, careful to stay on the road while still very clearly observing me.

“What?” I snap, though it doesn’t come out nearly as harshly as it might have before. “Why do you keep staring at me? Is there something on my face?”

To my surprise, the tips of Ben’s ears turn ever so slightly pink as he whips his head forward, feigning intent focus on the road ahead.

“No,” he murmurs. “I was just trying to figure out how I could have possibly forgotten a face like yours.”

Oh, hell.What am I supposed to say to that?

“Well, isn’t that kind of the point of prosopagnosia?”

Ben blinks as if he didn’t expect me to remember that detail of his backstory, let alone how to pronounce it. I refuse to admit it aloud, but I might have googled it last night while lying in the dark beside him. Not because I didn’t believe him, but because I was curious.

Evidently, I am incurably curious about this man. I’m incapable of minding my business.

“I guess so,” Ben replies with a soft chuckle. “But still.”

“Right. Well… oh, well. It is what it is. What happened, happened. At least we understand each other now.”

“Yeah… at least there’s that.”

We head into Connecticut and find ourselves faced with the first emergency re-route due to flooding. Ben smoothly follows the trickle of traffic along the safe alternative route, paying careful attention to the orange signs and ignoring the protests of the GPS.

In no time at all, we’re back on track.

“We might reach the city by noon,” he says.

“Okay. Cool. Good.”

I look at the clock. It’s nine thirty. Only two and a half more hours left in this car with him. Yesterday’s Ruby would have been thrilled at the news. Today’s Ruby is… confused. Utterly confused.

Ten minutes pass.

“Hey, Ruby?”

“Yeah?”

Ben grips the steering wheel tightly as if in need of physical support for what he’s going to say next. “Do you think you’d maybe want to see me again once we’re back in the city? Maybe we could meet at the Strand? Again?”

“Oh. Like… as friends?” The question comes out a bit breathless.

He pauses. Then, “No. No, not as friends.”

My stomach flips. “You’re asking me out?”

On adate?

Me? On a date? With Ben Hawthorne?On purpose?

Ben smiles sideways at me. “Yeah, I am. I know we’re not in the most romantic setting at the moment, but I knew I needed to ask before we got to Manhattan and you disappeared all over again.”Why do I want to say yes? That’s the foolish part of my brain talking.

“We can’t,” I say before I can think too hard about it. After all, didn’t we already have this conversation? Didn’t I already tell him that the ways things happened eleven months ago was a blessing in disguise, because as soon as we found out who each other actually was, we’d never be able to stay together?

“Can’t?” Ben echoes.

“Ican’t,” I clarify. “I can’t be seen fraternizing with a benefactor. You know that.”

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