15. Spin Cycle (1/2)

15 – spin cycle

for the entire day, neither of them could look at each other without smiling. everything they did was funny. everything they saw was amazing. the world had a whole new perspective.

it scared the hell out of ben. he had no idea what to do with what he was feeling, which, in a bizarre way, made some kind of sense because he'd never felt like this before. whenever he stole a look at her, smiling, with her hair

eezing back in the wind and wearing that mind-blowing, stringy red top, his blood ran hot and cold all at once.

hotter, when he thought about how those two guys had been glued to her the entire time they were at the restaurant that morning. when ben first caught them looking, he'd been kind of glad in a smug sort of way, since he was the one sitting with her. after the second and third time, he started to get pissed off. then it occurred to him to look at her, really look at her, and see her how they were seeing her. and she wasn't just a girl he knew from high school anymore, who happened to follow him to college. he remembered thinking how good she looked today, and how her hair had gotten lighter in the sun this past week. she's prettier than she thinks she is, he'd thought, and to avoid saying it out loud he'd jammed another forkful of eggs in his mouth. he stewed on that for a minute, then thought, she's funny, too. i like her laugh. i like how she makes me laugh. he stewed on that, too.

she's mine. i want her.

if he hadn't fallen out of his chair after that thought, it was only because he froze into an ice block where he sat. under the table, he'd wrapped his sneakers around the legs of the chair to keep his feet from tapping. lucky she was looking at her plate instead of him, because he swore that every drop of blood had drained out of his face and into the pit of his stomach.

attraction, he could deal with. he'd been looking at pretty girls for most of his young adult life, and dating his fair share of them. there were tons of them at uny, and he had no reservations about checking them out.

it was whatever she did to him that he was having a hard time getting around. she looked at him and just…lit up. she smiled at him, and just for that second, he felt like there was nothing on this earth he couldn't handle. he didn't have the faintest idea what she was so happy about. he was just a screwup with an alcoholic dad and a flatline gpa. in spite of all that, in spite of himself, he wanted to be whatever it was she saw when she smiled at him that way. she almost had him convinced he could do it.

he'd thought about what she said last night, how they hadn't really put a name to whatever they were. ben would have said, sure, call us whatever you want and i'll go with it, if he could have figured out what the hell she was to him in the first place. she scrambled him up so much he couldn't think straight. the minute he had it figured out, it changed. she made him happy. she pissed him off. she freaked him out. she made him think. she pulled him in a million different directions, so fast that he didn't know which way was up anymore. she wasn't any one thing to him.

she was everything.

and that, simply put, was what had ben covington running scared. all these things he thought about her, he'd never felt for one person before. in four years of high school, he'd never passed her in the hall without glancing up when he knew she wasn't looking. in a year of college, he'd seen the crazy, frizzy-haired girl from his hometown turn into one of the best friends he ever had. in one week, she'd gotten under his skin and buried herself there with no hope of removal.

eakfast today had hammered it home. he didn't know what this was, screaming down every nerve in his body, but he was damn sure he didn't want to lose the way she looked at him. he really didn't want her to look at anybody else like that. and he didn't just want to pound those jerks for staring at her the way they had. he wanted the right to pound them.

felicity, will you go out with me?

he knew she liked him. he knew that. but saying those seven words, in that order, felt a whole lot like the time he took a header down a flight of stairs when he was a kid. he felt that same sudden lurch of his stomach as if he'd put his foot down, only to find out that the top step wasn't there underneath him, and then went hurtling off into space with his head spinning. really, what did he have that she'd want?

he never expected her to say yes, anyway.

dating was easy. this? this was…something different.

- - - - -

"hey! there's a laundromat," she announced, pointing frantically toward a building on their left as they passed through a dusty little one-street town in wyoming. "we might as well stop and do our laundry and get some dinner."

she hadn't said anything particularly funny, but he found himself grinning again. how did she do that? take a stupid thing like laundry and make it look like fun? ben turned the car into the parking lot. they parked and got out.

ben

ought their stuff into the laundromat while she went to the deli next door to get their dinner. when she got back, he had just put his clothes in to wash. felicity came in and hopped up onto one of the washing machines beside him with the takeout bag. "we got lucky. they were just about to close for the night. i got us oatmeal cookies. they didn't have any chocolate chips left." she handed him his drink and opened the bag to get her sandwich, then handed the bag off to him.

ben sat on the next washing machine in the row. "thanks." he pulled out his sandwich and took a bite, sweeping the laundromat with a look. "so…welcome to wyoming."

"yeah, it's a real party spot," she laughed, sweeping a pointed look around the deserted interior. "maybe we should book a trip in advance next year. get in here early, beat the laundry crowd."

he grinned. "hey, watch it, you're dripping mayonnaise."

felicity looked just in time for a splat of mayonnaise to fall on the leg of her pants. she grimaced and wiped at it with a napkin. "so much for my last clean pair. good thing we're here!"