Page 9 of Planning on Happily Ever After

CHAPTER FIVE

Ben

Loud clanging rangout around the fitness center of his apartment complex as Ben and a few other gym rats re-racked weights, ran on treadmills, and generally ignored one another as they worked out. Despite it being a Saturday, he’d gotten up early this morning after having spent another night tossing and turning, thoughts of two different women plaguing him. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that he had missed out on something special when he had run into that beautiful woman for the second time.

Unsurprisingly, his words had failed him when he needed them most, but the conversation he’d shared with Holly last night took a bit of the sting out of his earlier shortcoming. Granted, their chat wasn’t long, but it provided a sliver of hope that maybe he wasn’t so hopeless after all. Grasping onto that silver lining like a lifeline, Ben grabbed a set of free weights and started working some of the lingering tension out. Going to the gym had always been a way to help relax his mind as he let his body take over for an hour or so, but even exercising this morning or the coding he’d tried before that wasn’t keeping his thoughts from darting back to the same place.

Ben breathed harshly, pushing his body to the limit as he reexamined his love life, or lack thereof. He hadn’t ever really tried beyond the two weeks in college when he had gone out with the same woman twice.Does that even count as a relationship?Ben hadn’t cared when nothing had progressed with his classmate, knowing it would have ended eventually regardless. Believing that people always left had always been a core part of his personality, but recent events had him questioning that position. He blamed his mom’s recent engagement and the inexplicable pull toward two different women for the shakiness in that particular foundation. To stabilize it, he would double down on his efforts to remain closed off and put the whole idea of an actual relationship out of his mind.

Do I really want that?Ben dropped the weights and rubbed at his chest, wondering how much longer he could keep his heart locked away, but unsure whether he was strong enough to be vulnerable either. He never really considered himself to be lonely before, but over the last couple of weeks, his apartment was too quiet, his bed too large, and his days too long.

Raging internally at the ridiculous thoughts that continued to plague him, Ben hopped onto the one free treadmill and started running, praying endorphins would flood his system and erase them all. It wasn’t like him to be questioning everything like this, but how easily he had been affected by a random stranger and some woman he had never laid eyes on was disconcerting. Perhaps there was a way to fix it. Ben briefly considered visiting Henry’s apartment. He probably wouldn’t even be attracted to Holly, she and Henry were twins after all, and odds were she would remind him too much of his best friend and could be entirely out of his mind after one night. He was starting to really see the merits of that plan and went to text Henry when his phone buzzed with a message from his mother.

Mom: Remember we are meeting at the wedding venue at 10am. Do you need me to send the address again?

Ben groaned at the reminder. He had no desire to spend his Saturday walking around a building and listening to talk of wedding décor.Oh, god. He would probably be stuck talking to Marvin and he wasn’t sure which was worse, discussing seating arrangements or making small talk with his mom’s fiancé. Ben had met him briefly last week and while the man seemed nice enough, he couldn’t picture his mom ending up with him in the long run. He snorted as he slowed his running and typed out his response. If history repeated itself, she would still be single in a year’s time, a thought he should feel bad about but was so common he felt little guilt.

Ben: No, I have the address. See you at 10.

Slamming his hand down, he ended his run, his mood souring past the point of benefitting from any more time in the gym. Ben dried his face off with a towel as he walked over to his two bedroom home, admiring his surroundings in hopes of improving his state-of-mind. The complex boasted a lush landscape and trees that looked beautiful in the spring and summer. It was more like a large grouping of small cottages than apartments, and Ben had lucked out and gotten the one that was located farthest away from most of the others, so he had a good deal of privacy and didn’t have a lot of noisy neighbors to complain about.

Opening the door, he toed off his sneakers as soon as he stepped inside, immediately heading over to the kitchen to grab a glass of water. As he drank it, he looked around his place and smiled, the comfort of the familiar space relaxing his tense shoulders. The large windows lit up the main room and kitchen, reflecting a lot of light off of the light tan walls. Ben may walk around with a gray cloud perpetually above him, but he loved the sun. As his eyes wandered, he noticed that his two bookshelves were getting a bit crowded, both with his programming manuals and the video game cases that were lined there. Before he never imagined anything else there, but now he could picture a few romance novels or a flower vase there as well.

Shaking himself free of the intrusive thought, Ben placed his glass in the sink and walked over to his bedroom to pick out his suit of armor for the day. If he was going to be spending more time with Marvin as well as some random wedding planner, he needed to have on some layers of protection. He didn’t want to be totally uncomfortable, but anything less than business casual just wasn’t going to happen. Once a nice pair of dark wash jeans paired with a white button down and navy sweater were laid out, he wandered into the bathroom, wondering if maybe he could get away with wearing sneakers. As he turned on the water and stepped into the warm stream, he thought better of it and decided to go with the brown loafers that would be way less comfortable but also less true to his personality.

Ben let the warm water run down his shoulders and back to soothe away the anxiety that started to sprout up when he thought about the rest of his day that would include a lot of chit-chat with people he didn’t really know. He grumbled as he lathered shampoo in his hair and washed his body, turning over different ideas for how to get out of speaking altogether. Laryngitis?No, too obviously a lie. Resigned to facing reality, Ben rinsed off and ten minutes later, he was putting the finishing touches on his hair, making sure to leave not a single one out of place. If he looked put together on the outside, no one would know just how much he was losing it on the inside.

After shoveling down a breakfast of bacon, eggs, and toast, Ben hopped in his car and made his way to Plumberry Farms, a working Plum farm and wedding venue. According to his mother, the wedding planner had said it had the most romantic barn in the area. How a barn could be considered romantic, Ben had no idea, but he wasn’t trying all that hard to picture it, either. He steered his SUV through the wooden gates, and after another five minutes of driving, he spotted a few buildings and pulled into what looked like a makeshift parking lot, happy to see his mom’s car already there.

Spying his mom standing at the entrance of the largest building, he strolled over to her and settled into the hug she greeted him with. “Thanks so much for coming, Benny. You know how much I value your opinion on things.” She did trust his opinion on certain matters, but usually it was related to her dental practice or repairs around her house, not anything to do with romance.

“Sure thing, mom.” Ben returned her smile He glanced around for the other members of their party. “Where’s Marvin?” The fiancé not showing up to the first of what would probably be many different appointments for their wedding was not a good sign.

His mom waved her hand around in a dismissive gesture, her expression suddenly far more playful than it had been seconds ago. “Oh, you know how he is. Marvin doesn’t really care about the details.” She might be okay with Marvin missing out on the planning, but he absolutely wasn’t.

“I really thinkheshould be here, not me.” Ben scowled at the audacity of the man, asking to spend the rest of his life with Ben’s mom only to leave the details of it up to her alone.

His mom’s smile fell as she winced at Bens’ obvious displeasure. “Please, Benny,” she pleaded in a low voice. “You know you’re the only person I can count on, and I really want to make sure things go right this time.”

Ben gazed down into his mother’s brown eyes and he suddenly saw just how vulnerable she looked, how unlike thealways optimistic when it came to lovewoman he’d come to know. Seeing her having some reservations was both sad and slightly alarming. “Alright, mom.” He rubbed his hand up and down her back in the same soothing motion she would do to him as a child whenever he was sad about not having many friends. He gave her his most reassuring smile. “I’ll be here whenever you need me, okay?”

“Thanks, Benny.” She sighed in relief. Her smile returned as she straightened her jacket, smoothed her hands down her graying hair as she cleared her throat of any residual sadness, and threaded her arm through his, steering him toward the entrance to the main building.

The restored farmhouse was white with a wide wraparound porch. A large yellow wooden door with a stained glass window designed with plum trees welcomed them and Ben opened the door for his mother, glad to see that any discomfort she’d felt earlier seemed to have disappeared.

As she released his arm and stepped inside, she shot him a sly look over her shoulder. “It should be fairly painless for you anyway. Holly has been such a joy so far, and I have loved each and every one of her ideas.”

“Holly?” Ben followed his mother through the doorway, his steps a little more hesitant. There was little chance it was the same Holly he had been thinking about all night long. After all, she worked in the bakery.Didn’t she?

The smile on his mother’s face morphed into a full-out grin. “Yes. Holly Baker, my wedding planner. She has been such a treat.” His mom’s expression turned wistful, the hearts in her eyes that were missing when she spoke about her fiancé plain as day. “She’s also very attractive and just a few years younger than you. Maybe something could happen there.”

Ben’s heartbeat sped up to a worrying pace and his palms grew damp at the new bits of information his mom had thrown at him. Holly Baker, his mom’s wedding planner, was the same Holly he had spoken to and dreamed about. He was definitely not prepared to meet her like this, not when he’d been expecting someone else, anyone else and not one of the women his mind had fixated on for some unknown reason. Ben tried to inhale and choked as the panic closed off his throat.

It wasn’t until his mom looked at him with both concern and amusement that Ben felt calmer, mostly due to embarrassment at spiraling so quickly at what would likely be a run-of-the-mill introduction. “You’ll be okay, Benny.” She chuckled and patted his chest. “I’m sure this isn’t the first time you’ve had to interact with a pretty girl.”

No, it wouldn’t be the first time, but if the last two instances of him interacting with a pretty girl were any indication, this probably wouldn’t go well either. Ben had literally collided with a bright, beautiful woman and he had screwed it up,twice,by being his anxious, grouchy self. It had been slightly different with Holly over the game chat as she had done most of the talking, but that hadn’t seemed to bother her. Henry had mentioned before what a happy-go-lucky person she was, so maybe he could just stand there, be himself and she wouldn’t notice or care. Ben took one last deep breath and tugged on the bottom of his sweater, feeling marginally more relaxed and slightly more capable of interacting with another person like a normal human being.I can do this.

---