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“Um.” He bit his bottom lip. “Do I have to tell you?”
“Why don’t you want to tell me?” I placed the dip on the counter and fished a bowl out of its drawer. “Does it have something to do with Thursday nights?”
The edge of his lips twitched, but he stayed silent.
“What does Millie have to do with Thursday nights, then?” I asked. “Because this is her casserole dish and her weird little casserole clothing.”
Ben averted his eyes as I dug a scoopful of the dip out of the dish and into my bowl. I picked up the bowl, pausing mid-air. “Wait, not Millie. Len. Did Len bring this to your house?”
“Who I have over Thursday nights has nothing to do with you,” Ben answered quickly, cheeks blooming red.
“Holy hell, you hang out with Len, don’t you? Is that what’s happening on Thursdays?”
I’d formed a million theories in my head over the years: playing pool in Pierce, a secret girlfriend, music lessons, choir practice, cooking class. It’d been the only secret between us and while I’d been desperate to solve it, I’d stopped short of barging into Benny’s house on Thursday.
“Len.” I wrinkled my nose. “You hang out with Len on Thursday. What exactly do you do? Other than eat dip?”
Ben’s gaze flitted to the oak buffet on the opposite wall and away again. “Nothing.”
“Nothing, huh?” While the dip warmed up, I walked across the room, watching the panic rise in Ben’s eyes.
I opened the right door and found his grandparent’s china dinnerware inside. I opened the left, which should have had twelve crystal goblets, but instead, I found a giant box.
“Adventure Quest? What the hell is Adventure Quest?”
I pulled the box out, surprised by the weight of it. I set it on the dining room table and pulled off the top, a collection of figurines greeting me. “Oh god, is this some Dungeons and Dragons thing?”
“It’s not Dungeons and Dragons,” Ben corrected me, taking the box top out of my hands. “It’s really hard to get all the pieces back in there. Don’t mess around with it. And, honestly, I’m a little relieved you found out my secret.”
I shook my head. “I wish that had stayed a secret. You’ve been blowing me off for years. Years! And for what? To hang out with Len eating dip and playing dorky games about bones?”
“The Bone Warrior actually controls skeletons so they can fight against—” Ben stopped himself short. “Never mind. You don’t want to know.”
“I don’t,” I laughed. “I wish I didn’t know. This is a very deep, very dark secret, Ben. You should have guarded this with your life. And where are the champagne glasses?”
“I put them in the attic. It’s not like we were using them, anyway.”
I sighed heavily. “I should have dragged them out for the New Year’s party.”
“Next year.”
“Well,” I sighed heavily, feigning exhaustion. “Another mystery solved. How disappointing.
He grinned, leaning into my shoulder. “Well, at least you got some dip out of it.”
CHAPTER20
Thea
Somewhere in theback of my mind I theorized that if I got full enough, sex would be off the table and Ben and I could have a normal, platonic sleepover like every other weekend.
Sadly, there wasn’t enough dip to get full and the fluttering in my stomach killed my appetite.
Instead, we sat in silence finishing the food and then, after a few mumbled words, retreated into our respective bedrooms to get changed.
I opened the closet in the spare room, aware that even if I shouldn’t have sex with Ben, I wanted to. Maybe as much as he wanted to have sex with me. The look in his eyes when he said he only wanted one name on his list, his calloused hands gripping the pen to circle my name, the surge of jealousy as he talked to Dana.
I could at least admit to myself that I wanted Ben, and I didn’t want him with anyone else. A selfish thought, because I couldn’t admit that to Ben.
