Page 49 of Lovely War
He grabs the hand I’m waving in his face and squeezes once before batting it away. Probably a pity squeeze, but a warm one all the same. A long-dormant, hungry ache rises in my chest, like something buoyant I’ve been holding underwater, fighting to reach the surface.Down, girl,I order.
I turn off the light and give him one extremely nonchalant pat on the chest. “Too late, technical Valentine. Let’s go.”
FOURTEEN
We choose a casual placethat’s not catering to the date-night crowd and sit at the bar, watching the Kansas–West Virginia game. The lively restaurant makes it easy for me to brush off what I felt at the office. It’s not too dim, it smells like burgers, and a rowdy group of senior citizens are throwing back margaritas at the table behind us.
During a time-out, I notice that one of the other televisions is showing a preview of the next episode ofThe Beach House.I tap Ben’s arm. “Look.”
Next week, Brianne wins a sandcastle contest, earning her a visit from her loved ones. Somehow this leads to Logan being grilled by her father while hooked up to a polygraph machine.
“What makes you think you’ll know which of these girls is right for you in the next two weeks?” the father asks Logan, his mouth a stern line beneath his thick mustache.
I throw up my hands. “Finally, a voice of reason.”
Ben’s mouth curves up at the corner indulgently and he shakes his head. “You’re lucky Cassie isn’t here to eviscerate your favorite crappy sports team when you talk like that.”
“I’m a bandwagon fan, remember? I only cheer for winners.” I pop a fry into my mouth and chew, enjoying the look of suffering on his face as he forces himself to absorb the jab. “Seriously, though, do you think any of these people will stay together?”
“Stay together? Who knows. Do I think they can fall in love? Yeah, maybe.”
“Logan’s told four of the women he’s falling in love with them.Four.” I slap the bar with my hand four times. “I don’t even love four pizza places in the entire state of New Jersey, and Ilovepizza. He loves more women than I love pizzas. That’s not love, it’s bullshit.”
“I love more than four pizza places.”
“You’re from Pennsylvania. Stay in your own lane.”
“You’re missing a key nuance here,” Ben says, shaking his head. “I’ll excuse it since this is the first time you’ve watched the show.”
“What’s that?”
“He’s told them all he’sfalling for them.Not that he’s falling in love, or that he loves them. Huge difference on this show.”
He grabs a napkin and a pen from his bag and begins to outline.
“There’s a prescribed path of escalation in feelings that everyone on this show follows. It’s crucial that the contestants confess which step they’re at as we get closer to the end.”
He slides the napkin toward me, and his elbow presses against mine.I could see myself falling for her,I read.
“That’s step one. Followed by ‘I’m starting to fall,’ then ‘I’m falling,’ then ‘I’ve fallen.’ Only after that does the L-word come into play. ‘I’m falling in love,’ ‘I’m in love.’ We usually don’t see a straight-up ‘I love you’ until the finale.”
I must care about this show even less than I thought, because I’m paying more attention to Ben’s elbow than to his explanation. There’s something distracting about the warmth of it, the pressure of it against mine. The slight tickle from the hair on his arm and the firmness of the muscles, the way he doesn’t seem inclined to move away.
I try to sneak a look at him, but he’s looking at me too. His dark eyes glitter intimately, like we’re sharing a secret. Maybe he can tell I’m flustered.
I swallow hard. “This show is bizarre.”
“You don’t believe they can fall in love in eight weeks?”
“I absolutely believe they can fall in some version of love in eight weeks. But it doesn’t matter.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s fantasy-land love. It’s too tied in to the experience they’re having with the island and all the filming and over-the-top romantic dates for anybody to know if it can last. That’s why the proposal is bullshit. They won’t have a clue whether it can really work out until after the show is over.”
“That’s actually less cynical of an argument than I was expecting from you.”
“From me?” I rake my fork through my Caesar salad and cut a piece of chicken into a careful square. The word stings,cynical.It’s rooted in a perception of me that I intentionally perpetuate. It’s the same one that led to Donna’s comment earlier, which didn’t bug me at all, but it bothers me comingfrom Ben. “I consider myself an expert on this topic. Remember senior year?”
