Page 60 of One on One
“I don’t think so. He said he was going home.”
Home? Since when does he go home at five? I resist the urge to laugh. He must be doing this to mess with me.
Okay, change of plans. I go to the bathroom, dab my shiny forehead with a tissue, and apply a coat of mascara and a swipe of tinted lip balm. I don’t have his exact address, but I can figure it out. He’s mentioned the street, and I know what his car looks like. It only takes a few minutes of driving up and down the block in a slightly sketchy fashion before I find it parked in the driveway of a duplex.
I park on the street. The lights are off in the downstairs apartment, so I take a gamble on the upstairs. It’s quiet, so every step on the sidewalk is as loud as a car engine backfiring. He probably already hears me coming. I step onto the small porch, comb my fingers through my hair, and ring the bell.
There’s a brief silence, and then somebody comes hurtling down the stairs, hollering, “I got it!” The voice sounds female. Shit, this must not be Ben’s apartment after all. The girl flings the door open. “Hi.”
She’s a teenager, with long dark curly hair poking out of the hood of an oversized sweatshirt. “Sorry,” I say, making a guilty face. “I think I have the wrong place.”
“Is it the food?” A fiftyish woman with a short version of the same dark hair appears at the top of the stairs, peering down at us. A crooked tiara sits on her head.
“No, she’s lost,” the girl says.
“Who are you looking for?” the woman asks. “Maybe Ben knows them.” She pokes her head around the corner, out of sight. “Ben!” she yells.
Oh, no.
A dog barks. “Sasha, calm down,” the woman says.
“I’ll just go,” I mumble, trying to slink away into the darkness.
“Radford?” Too late.
I close my eyes, freezing with my back to Ben and his entire fucking family.
“Heeey.” I turn around, offering one sheepish wave with my palm open, like I’m wiping a window.
“You know her?” his mom asks. I don’t hear his response. “Well, come in, hon, it’s cold out there!”
I trudge up the steps behind his sister, staring at my feet. When I reach the top, I look everywhere else to avoid meeting his eye. His apartment is clean and comfortable-looking. Extremely coordinated, like he bought everything from the same page of the furniture catalog. Matchy-matchy is not my taste, but it makes perfect sense for him. A blown-sugar balloon inflates in my chest, pink and fragile and unfamiliar, and I fight the strange urge to bundle him in bubble wrap so no one can ever hurt him. He’s got a few throw pillows and a basket full of blankets, all in the prescribed blue and taupe color palette. On the small round dining table are two wrapped gifts and a cake with candles in it.
Oh, no.
“So, Annie, to what do we owe the pleasure?” his mom, Lisa, asks after we get through introductions.
Ben feigns confusion. “Yeah, Radford, to what do we owe the pleasure?”
I finally meet his eyes. He’s failing to repress a smile, reveling in my discomfort. I attempt to glare at him in a way that his mom won’t notice.
“Just came by for that work thing,” I say. Sasha bumps her nose against my hand, demanding to be petted.
“What work thing?”
“You know,” I say casually, scratching Sasha behind her ears. “That one we were working on?”
“Can you be more specific?”
His sister snickers, one of those cutting teenage laughs that makes you realize you’re acutely transparent.
“You have to stay for dinner,” Lisa urges. “We ordered plenty of food and we’d love to have you join us.”
“Thank you so much, but I don’t want to intrude,” I say. “Ben and I can talk about work tomorrow. I’ll leave you to your family dinner.”
“Nonsense! It’s my birthday, and I want you to stay.”
“I really—”
