Chapter 15
The Ben Rules
After two weeks at Vero Roseto, details of my life in Chicago begin to fade, like another life I’m struggling to remember. Did I have a relationship blow up in my face? Was any of that even real? For all I know, I was thirteen, spending my summer at Vero Roseto with my best friend, Ben, until one morning I woke up and we had suddenly aged five years. Everything in between those eras—including our ugly falling-out—is a snippet of my life’s video I simply edited out.
All thanks to the Ben Rules.
No fighting. No Hutch.
I kneel at the lip of Grandpa Angelo’s vegetable garden and watch Ben slowly rebuild what was once a glorious grocery store’s worth of crops and herbs. He works fluidly, like a conductor, moving seeds and fresh pots into deep divots in the earth—with one hand, he plants, with the other he covers with fresh soil. Swish, swish. His hands are freckled and veiny, with dirt-stained nails and bandages covering his many gardening scrapes.
How would they feel? His roughness has already touched my hands, but what would they feel like on the small of my back? Or on the back of my neck as he guides my lips closer to his?
These are the horrible, unacceptable thoughts barging into my brain while I wait with bags of the seeds he’s planting next.
However, I’m still obeying the Secret Ben Rule: this isn’t me falling in love, this is me gripped with brainless lust.
“Need a break?” I ask, clearing a highly embarrassing crack from my voice.
Snorting, Ben doesn’t look up from his work. “Going through puberty again? Nah, I’m gonna keep working.”
I unclasp a water bottle from my belt loop and tap his shoulder. “Let me rephrase that: Take a break. You’re sweating all over the garden.”
His back heaving with a sigh, Ben rolls onto his ass and snatches the water bottle away. “Plants need water.”
“Not salt water.”
“You been staring at me sweating, eh?” After a long guzzle, he wipes his lips with a damp forearm. He never once blinks—he’s like a forest predator. I’m too scared to respond, and he knows it. It only makes him smile. “Sinner.”
I scoff, but awkwardly. “You need a doctor. No, like, a team of doctors.”
Ben just keeps chugging and grinning. “You can lock me up and throw away the key, doesn’t change the fact that you’re gonna get nervous when I do this…”
Sitting, he drifts his bare knee slowly, confidently, toward mine.
Ben’s approaching appendage sends red alert shock waves through my system so strong, I’m forced to stand to get away from him. He roars with laughter. “I knew it!” he says, tossing me his empty bottle, which I fumble catching. While I chase after the stray bottle, Ben picks up a handful of rosemary seeds and resumes planting. “You were always a thirsty little cannoli. Do you have any idea how many times I used to catch you staring, tongue wagging like a dog?”
“Okay, okay!” It’s all I can say as I huffily snatch the bottle and return to his side.
Dripping with smugness, Ben covers the rosemary bed and starts work on the sage. “You were never subtle, always so easy to read, that’s why I love y—”
He stops himself cold, but it’s too late.
The word is out.
I gasp with joy, not at being loved by Ben, but by the smug opening I now possess. Hurling myself bodily, I slide between Ben and his herbs like a baseball player stealing home base. My smile is enormous, and Ben—correctly sensing what’s coming—looks away in disgust.
“You what me?” I ask.
Fuming, he turns back. “Love-d. Past tense. Get the dick out of your ear and MOVE—”
He tries to push me out of his gardening way, but I won’t budge. It’s my turn for smugness. “What else do you love about me?”
Ben shoves his trowel into the soil and taps his chin mockingly. “Let’s see, I love what a ride-or-die friend you are. Love how you show up for me. I really love how much you were there for me when my dad fought like hell to keep me in the divorce until he found out I was gay, then was like, ‘Enjoy Scotland!’ I love, love, love that you’re such a hothead, I had to follow you secretly on Instagram because I knew if you spotted me, you’d block me.” As my joy sinks, he picks up his trowel again. “Don’t know if love is the right word, but…”
I clutch his hand, rough and damp, before he can plow on with work. We look at each other seriously. “Do you wanna talk about this?”
He shakes his head, as if he’s mad at himself instead of me. “No, it would break a rule.”
As badly as I want to return to our cease-fire, Ben has suddenly let loose such a torrent of emotions he’s been holding back, it would feel criminal to ignore them. But I’m also scared…and angry myself. Yeah, I wasn’t there in his life, but he wasn’t there in mine.
But who’s fault is that? I ask myself.
“Are you okay?” I ask Ben.
“Totally.” He nods, but won’t look at me. “You know what the worst part about looking you up last year was?” I don’t respond. He seems to be vomiting information just fine. Wiping another bead of sweat from his forehead, he says, “I moved back, went into caretaker mode—which makes you feel amazing and sexy, by the way—and every week, I’d drive by Vero Roseto, and want to come find you and tell you how hard everything was.” He laughs at himself. “Like, as if you were there. My brain knew you were gone, but my body refused to get it. So, I looked you up and…BAM. Hot. You were supposed to get ugly. That was really rude. But there you were, standing on the edge of a fountain looking like a Disney prince.”
Ben chuckles bitterly and scooches away from me toward the next area to be repotted. With a sting in my chest, I know the picture he’s talking about. I looked great, but I’d never felt more miserable and lonely. As Ben jabs strongly at the earth, he says, “It made it so much harder to keep hating you.”
Strangely enough, this sinister comment fills me with warmth. Laughing, I scoot closer to Ben again. “That’s…exactly what I thought when I saw you here.”
He turns and studies me with narrowed, untrusting eyes that used to trust me. After a long thought, he sighs. “Can I smell your hair?”
My eyebrows shoot up. “Hmm?”
“Your hair. You’ve always been touchy about it, and it’s always so bouncy and pretty, and it’s pissing me off. I want to smell it. Let me smell it.”
Well, okay. Ben has embarrassed himself enough this afternoon that I’m in an obliging mood. As soon as I shrug, Ben leans in quickly and plants his nose in my curls. He sniffs rapidly, like an animal. His stubbly, muscular throat is bared to me, and it takes inhuman strength not to lunge for him. Once he’s satisfied, Ben returns to his pot work as if he had simply asked to see my Pokémon cards.
“Gay ass shampoo,” he says, folding soil over the pot. “We’re supposed to be working the land, and you trot out here smelling like milk and honey. Dumbass.”
Sighing, I roll away and pick up my spare seed bags. “Don’t hate me ’cause I’m beautiful.”
“That’s exactly what I plan to do.”
And that is why we have the Ben Rules.
As the week continues, our momentary dip back into animosity doesn’t return, but it still shows up in little ways. After we finish replanting Grandpa Angelo’s garden, my next duty was scrubbing and refilling the pool. As I power wash off years’ worth of chlorine scum, which is oddly therapeutic, two B&B guests (two middle-aged women) stroll past carrying hearty glasses of Invidioso.
“Ooh, is the pool opening soon?” one asks, mid-slurp.
“Sorry,” I say, shouting over the clattering washer. “Not until Fourth of July weekend.”
Frowning, they drift back across the still-unfinished lawn toward the winery. It’s for their own good. We can’t reopen the pool until the deck is completely rebuilt, or we’ll have people walking their wet feet over the dirty plot, making a mess.
The patio door behind me slides open, and Ben traipses out munching a crustless sandwich.
I roll my eyes. “Did you grab that from the lunch spread? That’s for guests.”
“Is that any way to talk to a guy who brought you…this?”
He pulls a second sandwich from behind his back. I shut the power washer and drop the brush like it’s on fire. “Gimme that,” I moan, pulling the sandwich with both hands. It all goes in at once. Chomp. Too fast to even tell what kind it was, but hopefully Ben doesn’t hate me enough to trick me into eating cold cuts.
“Oh, by the way,” Ben says, hopping off the pool’s patio to the ground where our future deck will stand. “Your aunt says the West Wing’s almost ready for guests, but would you be open to spending another week or whatever on your cot? Rose Festival tickets are still booming from that video of yours, and she thinks she can give you more of a design budget if she can, y’know, rent more rooms and keep you on the floor.”
“How many tickets have we sold for the festival?” I ask, picking up the pool scrubber.
Ben shrugs. “Dunno. But it sounds like you’ve got a big show coming. Hope you’ve been designing.” Chuckling, and knowing goddamn well I’ve been too busy scrubbing pools to design anything, Ben skips off toward the sculpture garden.
Since the rose garden and sculpture garden are still under repair, Ben and I start resodding around the vineyard and winery first. Just beyond them lies the pie stand, which in our heyday was a canteen where tipsy guests could snack their hearts out on a variety of slices. Now it’s an abandoned home for hornets. Sadly, it was deemed low priority for renovation, so we’ll have to get to it last. Once we finish this lawn, the deck will be next—a repair even more imperative now that the pool is clean. After this weekend, we’ll get the lumber and begin to rebuild.
I have been promised that I will only be used as a pair of hands, not a professional carpenter.
Aunt Ro has been protective of me, since every night after we finish working, I return to my Studio Surface tablet to brainstorm designs for the Rose Festival, which is now six weeks away.
Inspiration has been slow. But I’m not telling Ro (or Ben).
Honestly, I haven’t been moved to design anything or search for schools because life has just been…nice. Treating my relationship with Ben as a do-over was a genius move. There’s no use going over all that old crap, and I’ve been kind of liking hanging out with this hot guy who teases me gently and sort of looks like this boy I used to know. I’m different, too. I’m not that little drama queen with braces anymore.
I’m a big drama queen who has nice teeth, a skincare regimen, and enough sense to keep my thornier feelings to myself for the good of the production.
As Ben grabs another roll of sod from our cart, our conversation starts to become dangerous again: “How many exes have there been, exactly?” Smirking, Ben recognizes my discomfort as I help him roll the sod out like a blanket across the lawn. “Or is that breaking a rule?”
“Not breaking a rule exactly,” I say, cracking my neck, “but we’ve talked a lot about my exes and haven’t talked about any of yours.”
“Ah, so our trauma dumping has to be even steven? Is that a new rule?”
“No.” I reach for another roll of sod. “And is it trauma for you? The way you tell it, you’ve been the dumper every time.”
“Hmm, well, you’d know a lot about dumpers.” He passes behind me, smacking my ass and making a sproing sound effect, before grabbing the sod himself.
“Y’know, this is sort of sexual harassment.”
“You’re my boss, though.”
“Oh, that makes it okay?”
“Yeah, if you like it.”
“Said every sexual harasser ever.”
“All right, get me in trouble then.” Ben drops the sod and approaches, grinning. “What’s my punishment?”
I smile, warm blood rushing to my cheeks. “Before you leave, you have to follow through on your flirting.”
Ben doesn’t blink. I watch a bead of sweat snake a trail down his cheek. “Well, now,” he whispers, “that sounds like my boss giving me a sexy ultimatum. And that is sexual harassment.”
“Not if you never leave.” My smile falters. “Are you…leaving after the festival?”
For weeks, it’s the question that’s been knocking at the back window in my mind. The first day I came back, Ben told me nothing else was keeping him here. But maybe that’s changed…
Laughing, Ben pins the fresh sod in place and begins to roll it out beside our last roll. “Yes, I’m always the one to do the dumping.”
Dodging my question, true to form. I should’ve known he wouldn’t make it easy on me. So, with nothing left to do but continue the conversation Ben does want to continue, I help him unfurl the sod and say, “Tell me about the one that sucked the most.”
“Fabian, no question.”
“And who was Fabian?” I silently seethe, picturing a supermodel with flowing blond hair and nipple rings.
“German boy. Exchange student.” Ben walks backward, unspooling the bright green sod, keeping it carefully aligned with the rest of the lawn. “Tall. Beautiful black hair. Hands like frying pans.” He sighs comically. “I woulda married him.”
A dart sails through my heart, but I just keep smiling and guiding the sod as it unspools. “What was wrong with him? Too perfect?”
“Eh, he reminded me of you.”
“So, yes, too perfect?”
Ben smiles without looking up. “When I told him it was over, he really reminded me of you. Those big, pretty brown eyes all heartbroken.” He drops the end of the sod in place, but I’m biting my lip to stop the memories from flooding back. When he looks up again, he’s smiling sheepishly. “Started panicking and telling myself, ‘Ben McKittrick, what’s your problem? Getting a fetish for watching brown eyes cry, are you? You’re disgusting.’ ”
Only with his Scottish accent, it sounds like “diss-goose-tang.”
“Hey,” I say, reaching across the sod for Ben, but he backs away tensely.
“I broke a Ben Rule, I know, but…I really don’t know why I did that to him, poor guy.” He slurps back water. “You think I’m cursed, too?”
“No,” I say without hesitating. I try not to remember Evil Dream Ben telling me the rose isn’t the curse, he is—well, we are.
“Liar.” Ben laughs nervously.
Laughing, I take a water break so Ben doesn’t see me blush. Whenever I feel this warmth behind my cheeks, I know they’re turning as rosy as St. Nick, and I don’t need him needling me about it. When I finish chugging, a stream dribbles down my lip like it’s my first day drinking liquids. Ben grazes a finger under my chin to catch the runoff.
“Sloppy Sally,” he says.
Despite our so-far platonic friendship, Ben still surprises me with tiny touches like this. Sniffing my hair. Poking my cheek. A hand on my back when he’s squeezing past me.
When Ben’s fingers come near me, my skin fizzes like I’m holding an ice cube too long.
Always shocking, never relaxing.
Yet every time his touch leaves, I count the minutes wondering when it’ll happen again.
This isn’t good for me. Being anything more than friends with Ben isn’t good.
While it’s been nice getting to know Grown-Up Ben, my affection levels are getting dangerously high, in violation of Secret Ben Rule number four: no falling in love again. And it sounds like Ben has as much to work through on that front as I do on mine. Light and sweet is what will work for us.
The following evening marks the end of an era.
At dusk, Uncle Paul and his small team of guys dig up the six crumbling topiary sculptures from the sculpture garden. The swan, the wolf, the rabbit…they may be dying and so overgrown they’d long since lost their familiar shapes, but they’ve been on the grounds since Mama Bianchi laid the first bricks of Vero Roseto.
Ben, Aunt Ro, and I build a bonfire on the garden grounds where my parents took their engagement pictures (speaking of bonfires). The flames reach as high as the walls surrounding the Wishing Rose, kicking and dancing at the sky in a beautiful funeral pyre. One by one, we watch Uncle Paul hurl the dying sculptures into the fire, and each time he does, the flames dance higher and Aunt Ro whimpers a little softer.
She quietly cries into a ball of tissues, and I fight my own tears as we watch our family’s history literally go up in flames.
I know what she’s feeling. Did she fail her family?
She didn’t. She kept it going as long as possible.
The enormous fear feeding the flames of my tears, however, is the uncertainty that maybe the rest of Vero Roseto will join the sculptures on the pyre soon enough. And if that happens, I will be the one to blame. The festival has already sold hundreds of tickets, but is that enough to keep us going? I’m afraid to ask Ro the number she needs. And if they do come, what kind of show will they be seeing? I haven’t done something on this scale since my ex…
The second my last scrap of confidence is about to leave me, my gaze follows the wolf sculpture in the flames. The biggest of all the topiary creatures, the wolf stands massively in the fire, its outstretched claws whipping around as it burns. It almost looks as if it’s dancing, the bonfire around its base as wide and dangerously elegant as a dramatic ball gown.
“No way…” I whisper, reaching for my phone. Ben is the only one to notice as I open the Notes app and begin feverishly typing my revelation.
“What is it?” he asks, sliding so close to my shoulder, I can smell his divine body spray.
“The sculpture garden.” I turn to him, my eyes wide. “I know what to do. They’ll be alive. Living sculptures wearing gowns made out of roses. We’ll get models. Maybe they can even dance.”
The smoldering remains of the wolf reflect off Ben’s face in the dark, but he’s definitely smiling. “Sounds complicated.”
“Have we met?”
Laughing, Ben clutches me happily by my neck and pulls me close, affectionately but platonically, like my straight brother loves to do. Still, it’s nice to have Ben’s affections again. And it’s even nicer to feel hope that maybe all of this isn’t headed for the bonfire just yet.