BEN
Hollister looked me up and down. “I’m disappointed you came over here in khakis and not scrubs. So unprofessional. You never know when you might have to do emergency surgery on someone.”
I rolled my eyes. “Pretty sure I’m not going to be operating on your ankle today. Besides, are you one to talk?”
She had on pink Snoopy pajama pants and a sleeveless white silk tank top. Her hair was secured in a bun with what looked like red chopsticks.
“I wanted to be comfortable, but I had a Zoom call with a client today, so it’s business on the top and party on the bottom.”
“You have meetings on Sundays?”
“Only with Aaron. He and I are kind of obsessed with our jobs and have poor life/work boundaries. We figured out a long time ago that we were both fine with meeting on weekends and at odd times of day. I charge an hourly rate for my services, so it works out well for me.”
Unreasonable flames of jealousy flickered inside me. How close was she to this Aaron guy anyway?
“You brought me…” She peered inside the plastic bag I was holding in my right hand. She was sitting upright in an armchair, her coloring much better than when I left her yesterday. “My shoe and…” She looked inside the bag in my other hand. “Vegetables? What am I supposed to do with those?”
“Traditionally, people eat them. I figured you could use something fresh and healthy while you’re healing up that ankle.”
Her expression was skeptical. “I hate to tell you this, but those veggies are going to die a long, painful death in my crisper. It’s a produce graveyard in there.”
“You don’t like salad?”
“I love eating salad, I just don’t like making salad. All that washing and peeling and chopping.” She shuddered as if the thought of salad prep were her worst nightmare. “I’m more of a ‘tear off the lid and microwave it’ kind of cook.”
I sighed and set her shoe down on the floor before taking my bag of groceries to the kitchen. Secretly, I was pleased to be able to do something that she normally wouldn’t do for herself. “I’ll make you a salad and leave it in the fridge for you.”
“Do you have any ranch dressing?” she called out after me. “Honestly, I could go for a salad right now. It’s lunchtime, right?”
“If you normally eat lunch at three in the afternoon, then yes, it’s lunch time.”
Before I could tell her that she was getting a healthy oil and vinegar blend on her greens, I spotted a giant bouquet of flowers in a glass vase on her kitchen breakfast bar. They were pink carnations, which everyone knows is a cheap, inferior variety of flower. Courtney would have divorced me even sooner if I’d presented her with carnations on Valentine’s Day. Surely these couldn’t have been sent to Hollister by a potential suitor?
Then again, I was the guy who walked in with a heart full of feelings and a bag of carrots, so clearly that guy was a step ahead of me.
I set my bags of groceries on the kitchen counter and tried to keep my voice casual.
“Who sent you flowers?”
I had my back to her so I couldn’t see her expression when she said, “Steve Lansky, the owner of Airborne Academy.”
First Aaron, who was clearly her favorite client, and now Steve Lansky. It was getting crowded with potential rivals around here. I should have looked at her face when she said Lansky’s name so I could tell how she felt about the flowers. I thought back to the people I’d met at the jump school, trying to remember if I met the owner.
“Was he there the other day?” I asked.
She gave a huff of exasperation. “Yes, he helped you carry me to your car.”
I thought she was taking liberties with the word “carry,” since all that guy did was offer a shoulder to help her hobble to her vehicle. I was the one who picked her up and carried her into her apartment, but I wasn’t going to haggle over details. She’d think I was bragging, which I wasn’t. I merely thought credit should be given where it was due.
“Oh, the guy who looked like he should be in a tooth whitening commercial.”
“Yeah. He does have nice teeth, now that you mention it…”
She thought I’d been complimenting him. I wasn’t. That guy looked like he should be hosting a game show with his glow-in-the-dark grin and perfectly trimmed five o’clock shadow. Total cheeseball.
“Why did he send you flowers?” I asked.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “You’re seriously questioning why someone would send me flowers?”
I took the liberty of opening her cabinets to find a cutting board. After a few seconds of searching, I found a heavy wooden one that looked handmade and was inscribed with the saying, “Who cut the cheese?” My younger daughter would have loved it.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to infer that men wouldn’t send you flowers simply for being you, but in this case I think there might be ulterior motives.”
“What are you trying to say?” There was a bite in her voice that sounded painfully familiar. I recognized it as the tone she took right before we ended up in a huge argument. It was amazing how all of this flooded back to me after twenty-five years, but this wasn’t the time to get nostalgic. I needed to head off this fight at the pass.
I set the board on the counter and turned to look over at her. The set to her jaw definitely suggested I needed to take more care with my words.
“I only meant that you got hurt at his business, so he’s probably afraid you’re going to sue him. We live in a litigious society, and you might have a case, considering you were jumping with one of his instructors.”
I could hear her growl all the way from the living room. “I was starting to like you before you showed up with health food and started badmouthing my future boyfriend. He sent the flowers because he likes me, not to avoid being sued.”
Did she say future boyfriend? I turned to the sink, pumped soap on my hands, then rubbed them together more vigorously than was necessary. “Sorry, I didn’t realize you two had a thing going on.”
“We don’t. Yet. But he did call this morning and ask me out to dinner.”
Had she forgotten that I’d asked her out to dinner too? She’d completely put me off and accepted a date with 1-800-cheapflowers? She could do better than that guy. In fact, I wasn’t sure if anyone was good enough for Hollister Moran, even me, although I was willing to give it a shot. I had the perseverance and work ethic to try to be the man worthy of her.
“I need to log into this Facebook Live event for a few minutes,” she said. “Aaron is taking questions from gamers right now, and I really need to keep an eye on him. He’s brilliant, but sometimes he needs coaching on the social skills. I may need to run interference.”
“Of course, no problem.”
If there was one thing I understood, it was the need to work. I’d been a striver my whole life, from my first job at a car wash when I was thirteen. It made me smile when Hollister offered me that gift card for a free car wash. I’d come a long way since my days of vacuuming out interiors at Mickey’s Spotless.
I washed the vegetables and found a knife to chop them, making sure I was located in a position where I could see into the living room. I liked watching Hollister hunched over her computer, occasionally making notes with a pen that had a fuzzy troll head on the top of it. It was like in high school when she furtively took down everything the teacher said, always with some oddly decorated pen or pencil. In fact that troll looked strangely familiar and well used…
“Is that an eighties relic?” I asked. She squinted in confusion. “The troll pen.”
“Yes! Remember how popular these were?” She stroked the troll’s hair upward then spun the pen so it flared out again. “This is one I had years ago. It ran out of ink several times, and I had to move the troll to new pens.”
She thought I was making a general statement about pop culture and didn’t remember that actual pen from high school. Clearly, she had no idea how much I watched her back then. It was probably much better that way. Didn’t want to seem like a stalker.
I turned my attention to making the salad. After combining the spinach, carrots, red pepper, and cucumber in bowls, I added walnuts and feta cheese because protein is a very important part of any meal. Did Hollister really eat frozen dinners every night? Of course, she probably went out on dates often. I didn’t want to picture her eating at a romantic restaurant with that Lansky guy, but I couldn’t help myself.
“All done!” she said, hopping on one foot over to the breakfast bar and hoisting herself onto a stool with a grimace. “Aaron is a genius, but he’s so awkward on camera. Luckily the people watching his presentation probably didn’t care that he had on a stained T-shirt from a robotics tournament circa 2006. I really need to help him class up his look.”
“Who are most of your clients?”
“There’s a variety. A startup swimwear company owned by two women, a guy who’s marketing this software he created for legal practices, and a vineyard out in Jamesport. Mostly small potatoes, except for Aaron.”
“Yeah, I read the article about him, the one you mentioned was in the Times. He sounds impressive.”
“You did?” She looked pleased that I’d followed up on our conversation. Score one for Ben Rose. “He definitely is impressive for a guy his age. He invented one of the most popular video games in the last decade, and his company is expanding like wild. They have two new games coming out this year, both of them getting huge buzz.”
“Thanks to you,” I said with a smile.
“In part,” she said, trying to look modest but failing. “I do love working with him. Unlike a lot of clients, he actually takes my advice. Except about his fashion choices…”
I tamped down the jealousy that threatened to flare up again. Was I going to worry about every guy she mentioned? That was absurd, and I was a logical person who knew better. Still, it would be nice to hear that Aaron was only a client and nothing more.
“He’s a nice guy?” I asked.
“Definitely. He’s Jenna’s little brother Sal’s best friend since, like, kindergarten. An honorary member of the Rossolino family. I’ve known him for a really long time, but he and Sal were these geeky little kids in the background playing video games and telling fart jokes so we didn’t pay them much attention. Jenna reconnected us a few years ago when he needed someone to do his PR and I was setting up my freelance business. We’ve been working together ever since. He’s good people.”
I nodded and set her salad on the counter. “Sounds like you enjoy your work.”
“I do. I love running my own business, not being beholden to the whims of a corporation. There’s less security in it, obviously, but there’s also more freedom, you know what I mean?”
“That sounds perfect for you,” I said.
Her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Why do you say that?”
It wasn’t the first time she seemed to think I was making a snide remark at her expense. It insulted me the first time it happened because I didn’t consider myself a cruel person. But then I remembered I was an arrogant ass in high school, and it made more sense.
“You never struck me as someone who could tolerate bureaucracy and playing it safe, and I feel like those must be prevalent aspects of corporate life.”
She watched me carefully. “Accurate.”
I took out the balsamic dressing I’d purchased and set it on the counter alongside her salad. “That seat probably isn’t great for your ankle. You need to keep it elevated.”
She waved away my concern. “I’ve had it up all morning. It’s really doing a lot better today.” She gazed down at her salad in amazement, as if she’d just noticed it was there. “Wow, I’m impressed. Fancy schmancy.”
I peered into her bowl. “It’s vegetables, nuts, and cheese.”
“I know. That’s fancy to me. I usually just go for the hunk of cheese and a handful of nuts for lunch, shoving it all into my mouth like a squirrel. There’s so much color in here, and it’s so nicely prepared.” She looked up at me with those big brown eyes, and I felt a stirring inside of me that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I’m ashamed to say that the stirring was in my pants. “Thank you for this salad. Come on and join me.”
I set my salad on the countertop and walked around to take the seat next to her. I couldn’t believe how nervous I was, having a meal with someone I’d known for decades. It was ridiculous. I’d done surgery on a local hockey star, given the keynote address at a medical conference, and been seated next to Christie Brinkley at a charity dinner. None of those things made me as nervous as having salad with Hollister.
She sat with her fork poised over her salad. “You have to promise me one thing. If I get spinach stuck in my teeth, tell me. I’m going to be seriously pissed off if I look in the mirror later and there’s a huge leaf staring back at me.”
“I promise, but you have to do the same for me.”
“It’s a deal.” She drowned her salad in dressing. “This is big for us. Enemies breaking bread. Kind of epic.”
I finished crunching my carrots before I said, “I never thought of you as an enemy, Holly.”
Her smile quickly changed to a glare. “I can’t believe you just called me that. Again. I hate that name.”
“Sorry,” I said quickly. “I forgot you hated that.”
“Hollister or Hols.” Just as quickly as her temper flared, it cooled again. “You’ve reached Hols status with this salad.”
“Fine, can you stop calling me Ben Rose then? I don’t know why you and your friends use my full name. You always did.”
Her expression softened. “Yeah, I don’t know why we did that either. I’m sorry if it bothered you.”
“It’s okay.” I pushed around some spinach with my fork. “If it bothered me that much, I would have said something before now. I’m sure you called me much worse things.” She rolled her lips in and bit down on them. “You did, didn’t you?”
“I mean, occasionally? Come on, we weren’t friends back then. Sometimes we brought out the worst in each other.” I was taken aback by her words, and my face must have shown it. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I guess I always thought we brought out the best in each other. I worked extra hard so I could debate with you in class. I pushed myself to study harder for tests because I had you as competition.”
She nodded thoughtfully, and I appreciated that she took time to consider my perspective on our relationship. “I guess that’s true. I never thought about it that way.”
I carefully looked around the room, as if searching for a hidden camera. “Did Hollister Moran just tell me I made a good point? I need someone to write down this date and record it for posterity.”
She laughed and playfully slapped my arm, and it was the best damn feeling in the world. Most people wouldn’t say I was a funny guy, but Hollister brought it out in me. In the past we used our humor to cut each other down, but now we joked in a way that felt like flirting. At least it did to me. I had no idea what was going on in her head, but I hoped she’d let me stick around long enough to find out.