Messy Ending

James, confused by what he’d just seen, furrowed his eyebrows over his lightly colored eyes with a small tilt of his head toward us.

Danny scanned us with peaked interest. “What’s, uh, what’s going on with you two?” he inquired; his hand rested on Sammi’s thigh, moving it gently along the denim of her skin tight skinny jeans.

Ben’s eyes shifted to Danny in a hesitating manner. Clearly he was uncertain of the answer to the question, just as uncertain as I was. “We became close?” The statement had been delivered in a question form with a brief glance in my direction.

I traced my fingers along the bare skin of his neck away from the sight and speculation of the group of friends that surrounded us on the couch. A reverberated shiver he emitted ran against the tips of my fingertips, unnoticed by the aforementioned group.

Danny and James exchanged simultaneous glances of a knowing nature and a shake of their heads. It felt as if they knew something I didn’t. The feeling wouldn’t shake itself from my mind.

“Would you like to accompany me to my room?” Ben questioned in a soft voice, positioning his mouth directly over my ear. His hot breath hit against my flesh with the smell of cigarettes and spearmint gum which wafted up through my senses.

I glimpsed up at his beautiful features and nodded my head, letting him take my hand to lift me from my spot atop his lap.

“Where you guys headed to?” Sammi’s eyebrow arched up in a highly suggestive manner that I’d become used to from her.

“Ben’s room,” I answered, my face collapsing into a small, easy smile. I took the man’s hand in mine. It felt easy to be this close with him, like we’d done it so many times before when in reality it had been only in the span of a few days.

“Don’t be silly wrap your willy!” Sammi called in a humorous way that made the room’s occupants burst into laughter.

I smothered a small laugh. “We’re not going to do anything!” We had reached the hallway to the far left of the room we’d been in.

Ben tugged me down the narrow hallway, hung pictures of the band and Ben’s family staring me in the face. He stopped himself in front of the last door to the left.

I stepped further into the room and onto a light colored wooden floor. A rug had been placed in the middle of the floor under a black framed bed, clothed in a black, white, and blue bedspread that had been overfilled with pillows of the same colors. The bedspread matched the pale blue paint of the walls and the bed frame itself accented the black, wooden dressers well. More framed pictures hung between two windows on either side of the bed. The windows allowed for a fair amount of light to brighten the otherwise dull room. The light shined off the small decorative silver trinkets and mirror he had atop and over his dressers.

“It’s a bit feminine,” he chuckled, his accented voice thick as he slid the jacket I’d been wearing, the one that had originally been his, off my petite frame and tossed it over the footboard of the bed.

“No. It’s,” I paused, groping for the correct word to use. “It’s comforting.” I grinned up at the twenty-three year old. “It reminds me of December… my birth month.” I lifted my shoulders in a shrug.

He took a seat on his bed, motioning for me to do the same. “You were born in December?”

I nodded. “The 6th.” I sat myself at the edge of the bed, awkwardly, only for Ben to pull me against him, snuggly.

“Mmm… that’s soon. Mine’s October 31st.” He brushed the skin of his nose across the sensitive flesh of my neck.

“Halloween Baby!” I giggled in a sort of false excited murmur.

Ben chortled a laugh and nodded into my dark hair. It felt nice; his warm flesh hid against my neck, moving into the thick strands of hair that floated down my back. “Why were you so distant in the elevator? You seemed… almost… sad.” His chin came down onto my shoulder on the groove of where collar bone protruded.

“I…” I sighed, fiddling with Ben’s fingers and an absentminded fashion. “I miss my family, Ben.”

Half of Ben’s mouth twisted upward into a sad, crooked smile. “I know the feeling, Dai.” I hadn’t even considered how he might feel with his parents a fourteen hour plane flight away in London.

“Ben…” I breathed in a hushed tone. “I’m sorry. I forgot your parents lived so far. Mine live just four hours in Kingsburg,” I told him in a quietly guilty tone of voice.

“Dai, you’re fine. It’s normal to miss your family. Four hours is still too far to drive to visit them often.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I’ve got to go to the bathroom really quickly. Be back in a minute, love.” He pressed a soft kiss against my forehead and left me alone in his room to my thoughts.

~~~

Ben

I left Dai to herself in my room with false intentions of actually stopping by the bathroom. I, instead, continued straight on the path and called to Sammi once I became close enough, “Hey, Sammi, can I talk to you for a second?”

She lifted her head from staring up at Danny’s face, her body sprawled across his lap. “Sure, Ben…”She had obviously been confused by the request, but lifted herself from Danny’s lap to follow after me, nonetheless.

~~~

Sammi and I seated ourselves around the long mahogany table sat straight in the center in a diner room through a door off the side of the kitchen.

“So, what’s up, Ben? Why’d you want to speak to me?” Sammi drummed her hands on across the table, creating a rhythm of sorts.

I bit my lip, picking over which words I should choose to carry the request across to her. “Dai, told me her birthday is in a couple weeks and I need your help with what I want to do for her.” I examined her facial expression.

“Go on…” she ordered with a trailing, drawn out voice.

“She’s told me she misses her family and I want, for her birthday, to take her up to Kingsburg to visit them.” I paused. “Would you be willing to help me?”

Sammi grinned broadly at me. “Of course, Ben! You are so perfect for Dai…” The last sentence she murmured. “She deserves someone to treat her good.” She met my eyes in a locked gaze. “You wouldn’t hurt her would you?”

“No,” I found myself answering, my mind flickering to Ali for just a split second. “She’s… special.” A smile graced my pierced lips.

“Dai is quite possibly the sweetest human being I’ve encountered,” she murmured to me.

I nodded. “I know, Sam. Look, I promised Dai that I’d be back in a second so I had better get back to my room…”

Sammi smiled and said, “Ben, give me your number so we can figure out how to get Dai what you want for her.”

I obliged, scribbling the seven digit number that Danny had left sat astray on the wooden, dining room table. “Text me once you’ve put my number in your phone so that I’ll have yours as well,” I told her.

“Sure, sure, Ben. Oh and one more thing…” she called as I had lifted from my chair and turned for the entryway.

I faced her fully now. “”What’s that?”

“Break her heart and I’ll break your pretty face,” she smiled in a sickeningly sweet manner.

I chuckled managing the words, “I won’t, but thanks for calling me pretty.” I knew at some point that Dai would end up hurt, but I do anything within my power to keep that from happening.