Page 55 of Storm in a Teacup
He takes my quaking hand in his and continues to spread the butter around it. As I watch, tears leak from my eyes. I need to get this ring off. Itneedsto be off of me.
Ben notices my tears and uses a buttery hand to wipe them from my face, effectively spreading the butter on my cheeks. “Sorry,” he mutters.
He refocuses on the ring, twisting and turning. He pulls at the ring, and right as I think all hope is lost, it slips from my finger just as easily as it slipped on in the first place. My finger pulses and attempts to bring blood back to the correct places as I finally let myself breathe, relief rushing through me.
“Your cousin’s fingers are freakishly small,” Ben comments before he sets the ring up on the counter next to the tub of butter.
He wipes his hand on the apron he wears, then, using that apron, tries to clean my hand as best he can. We’re both still slick and greasy. Tears gently escape my eyes, left over from the panic.
“We’re good, Lin,” he reassures me, wiping at the butter on my cheeks, clearing my tears as well. “I got it off.”
“Thank you,” I say, my voice small.
“Of course. Thank you for coming to me for help.”
He doesn’t make any attempt to move, so neither do I. We stay where we are, folded over one another and so close we can share breath.
Eventually, I admit, “I don’t know why I put it on.”
He nudges me with the leg behind my back. “Everyone doesthings like that. No judgment from me.”
“I guess I was wondering what it would feel like. I never…I never got to the wedding band part. Just the engagement ring part.”
He regards me curiously. “How did it feel?”
“Well, I felt nothing. It’s not my ring. The love of my life didn’t put it on my finger. But that nothing was very quickly taken over by panic.”
His leg bumps my back again. “Well, hard times are over now. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I finally go to stand up, using his shoulder as leverage, then I help him up. I grab the buttery ring from where he set it. “I should get this back to a safe place.”
“Maybe give it a little clean as well? Can you imagine if Julien tried to put it on Mel’s finger and it slipped out of his hands because of the grease? That would be hilarious.” He coughs as a smile perks my mouth. The image of Julien scrambling after a ring that won’t stay in his hands flashes through my mind. “I mean, bad,” Ben corrects. “That would be bad.”
“Really bad,” I agree. I squeeze him on the arm. “I’ll see you later?”
“Of course. I’ll see you at mine for supper with Isla and Rachel tomorrow?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Bye, ring thief.”
…
The next day, Ben makes me leave the shop early to go grocery shopping with him for dinner, but I honestly think he just wants someone to trail after him with the cart. He grabs things off the shelves seemingly at random and throws them in the basket as I push.
I follow him through an aisle as he mutters, “Couscous,” to himself over and over until he spots it on the shelf. He nudges his eyeglasses up his nose with a knuckle as he stares down at the grocery list typed on his phone. To me, he spouts off everything he’s grabbed, then asks, “Anything else?”
“You haven’t told me what you’re making, so I don’t know.”
He wags a finger at me. “I told you, it’s a surprise.”
“Then garlic. We need garlic.”
He throws his head back gleefully. “Wedoneed garlic! Come on.” He runs us back to the produce section, picking through cloves of garlic that all appear the same to me before he settles on one.
After we check out, Ben drives us back to his place, where I help him bring in all the groceries. His glasses get discarded on the kitchen table as soon as possible as he claims they’re annoying. He only wore them because he was driving.
His flat is on the ground floor—small, but nice. Ben says it’s about a twenty-minute walk from Somewhere Special, so unless it’s pouring or bitterly cold, he likes to walk. It’s clean and has private access to a back garden.
