Page 171 of Between the Blue
“I mean it, Ben. No need for us to get on her bad side–”
“Julia.”
She tilts her head sideways, but keeps walking. “Ben James.”
“Come with me.”
She stops dead in her tracks. Then she slowly turns back to look at me.
“What?” Jules asks.
She has a smile on her face. But it’s not like a normal smile. More like one you put on when you’re buying time. Protecting yourself. When you think someone is teasing you.
“To Texas,” I say.
I step forward. Grab her hand. She looks down at it when I do. Scrunches her brows up.
“Come with me,” I repeat.
The smile falls from her face. And the look that replaces it is totally different. Like one of surprise. Like the kind you have when something you never thought would happen to you happens. But in a good way.
Like a dream come true.
“I… I don’t even know what to say,” she stutters.
I step closer. Place my other hand on top of hers. “Then say yes.”
Her mouth parts, her lips pulling up at the corners. And it’s like I can hear the words. Like I can see it all clicking into place.
“Bennett!”
Both of our heads turn. My mother’s standing in the doorway.
“Come inside, won’t you?”
forty-six
HER
“When are you coming back?”
“Miss me already?” I ask, balancing my cell phone between my shoulder and my ear and struggling to hear over the sound of the New York City traffic as I pay the cashier.
“Answer my question, Cherry.”
“Someone’s impatient today,” I say, mouthing a thank you to the cashier as I take the little brown bag from her.
“It’s been too long,” Ben grumbles.
I let out a chuckle, weaving my way out of the stalls lining the flea market. “Since this morning you mean?”
“Yes.”
I reach the main road and turn left. “Maybe we shouldn’t have taken separate cars to the airport after all,” I say.
“That was your call.”
I let out a sigh. “I know.”
