Page 11 of Because of You
“Whatever, asshole, I just don’t want her to be waiting for me. It’s late, and she’s tired, and I promised her dessert.”
“I’m just messing with you, man.” He gets up from his seat and comes around to the back of the bar and starts rummaging around. “I love Hallie like a sister. Get up there and keep her company.” He shoves a couple of bottles and a jar at me and walks back to his stool.
I look down and see a bottle of ginger ale, a bottle of grenadine, and a small jar of cherries. The ingredients for a Shirley Temple, Hallie’s favorite non-alcoholic drink. Jeremy has a photographic memory for people’s drink orders, so of course he remembered that Hallie loves Shirley Temples. I give him a grateful look. Luck was really on my side the day I met these guys. Jules is my sister and Hallie is, well, Hallie, but Jordan and Jeremy are my brothers.
“Go,” says Jordan. “I have to head out in a few anyway. Allie is off in an hour.”
“And don’t even think of asking me if I’m sure about closing again tonight, like I know you’re about to. It’s my bar too, and you’ve covered for me plenty when I’ve had to do hockey stuff.” Jeremy might be retired, but he still does some charity work that involves the league.
“Wouldn’t even think about it. I’m heading out.” With a last wave at the guys, I walk out the door and upstairs to my girl.
Chapter Nine
Ben
When I open the door to my loft, Hallie is curled up in the corner of my massive sectional—her favorite seat on the couch. She is wearing one of my hoodies and is wrapped tightly in a blanket. Seeing her here, wearing my clothes, the wordmineflashes through my brain, and I lose every other thought in my head. The bar, Stonegate, our Very Big Decision. None of it exists when Hallie is in my space like this.
I decided on the way up the stairs not to mention whatever it is she had been about to tell me earlier. She is clearly going through something, and pushing her isn’t going to get it out of her. Hallie isn’t a sharer. She never has been, even though she comes from a family of girls and a group of friends who probably share more than they should. That isn’t her. She keeps her feelings buried deep. Most people, even Jules and the rest of the girls, think Hallie doesn’t sweat anything. But I know differently. She opens up her deep depths of feeling to almost no one. I am, occasionally, the exception to that rule, but it’s rare. So, the fact that she had been about to tell me something earlier at the bar tells me that whatever it is, is a big deal. I am determined to be her safe space, her soft-landing spot, and I hope she will tell me in her own time.
“Time for dessert, Hal.” I toss my keys on the table by the front door and set the box I’m carrying on the kitchen island. I walk behind it to grab a glass out of the cabinet, fill it with ice, and mix the ingredients that Jeremy sent up for her Shirley Temple.
“Please tell me you brought the pie,” she says, pausing the TV and looking over at me with a smile. She seems a little lighter, more at ease than she has been all day.
“Hal, it’s July. Don’t you think I know better than to bring you anything but the pie?”
She aims her gorgeous grin at me. “You’re my hero.”
The pie is the world’s most amazing key lime pie that we get from a bakery in town for our dessert menu every summer from Memorial Day to Labor Day. In the seven years since the bar opened, it sells out every summer night. Eight of my customers are about to be disappointed, but I don’t care as long as Hallie keeps smiling.
“And Jeremy and his photographic drink memory sent up stuff for a Shirley Temple. Plates, or forks and the box for the pie?”
“It’s almost ten o’clock at night and today was the longest day of my life. Forks and the box.”
I grab a couple forks from the kitchen and sit down, leaning my back against the arm of the couch to face Hallie’s seat in the corner. Setting her glass on the coffee table and the pie box between us, I hand her a fork, and she wastes no time digging in.
“Jesus, this is good,” she mumbles with a full mouth. “What did I do to deserve an entire pie? The public must be rioting downstairs.”
“You moved into your new office today. It’s a big day, Hal.”
When I mention the office, a look flickers across her face. If I wasn’t watching her the way I always do, I would have missed it. I put my fork down and lean back against the arm of the couch,legs stretched out in front of me, almost laying in Hallie’s lap. I promised myself that I wouldn’t push her to tell me what was wrong, but I decide to try some covert digging.
“So, the office looked good. Did you all get everything done you wanted to today?”
“You mean everything that Jules demanded we do?” she says darkly, in a very un-Hallie like tone. Jules may be annoying as shit sometimes with her ordering everyone around and organizing them to within an inch of their lives, but Hallie has never seemed anything but amused by it, even when she’s annoyed. This is new.
“Yeah, she was ramped up to a particular level of Jules-ness today. You have all been working towards this for so long—since law school, practically—and now it’s finally here. It would be weird if she was calm and all, ‘it is what it is’ about it. That’s not the Jules we know and love,” I finish, with a wry smile on my face.
Hallie does not match my energy. “Maybe if she spent a little less time ordering us all around, we would be as excited to do this as she is,” she says sharply. Then, seeming to realize what just came out of her mouth, she sucks in a breath and leans forward, covering her face with her hands. I grab her fork and the pie box and toss them both on the coffee table next to her untouched drink. Then I slide closer and pick her up, setting her next to me so that she is tucked against my side, my arm around her shoulders.
This is about the house or the firm. Possibly some kind of fight with Jules, but I doubt that last one. Hallie and Jules rarely fight. I can’t even remember the last time I saw them get into it. So, it has to be about the firm. I wrap my free hand around hers, which still cover her face, and gently pull them down to rest on her lap. She sighs, and leans her head against my shoulder,twining her fingers through mine. It feels good, having my hand laced through hers.
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me, Benji.” She says it in a way that makes me think she knows exactly what’s wrong with her but doesn’t want to speak the words out loud. My heart squeezes at the despair in her tone. She is too far away even though she’s sitting right next to me. Shifting so I can lean back against the arm of the couch again, I pull her between my legs. She comes willingly. When I wrap both of my arms around her, she lays her head on my chest, her whole body relaxing in my hold. This is far from the first time I have held her like this, but the feeling hits me in the chest all the same.
I brush a kiss on top of her head, and she sighs. “It’s okay to be scared, Hal. Or nervous. Or to feel whatever you need to feel. This is a big thing you’re doing, and change is really fucking hard sometimes.”
She’s silent for a second.
“What if opening this firm is the wrong choice?” Hallie’s voice is so low I can barely make out the words.
