Let Me Be the One: Chapter 5

Ben

Ben

Discussing Amber and Lucas was not what I had in mind when I came out with the guys tonight, yet I’d rejected a potentially excellent lay an hour ago so I could talk to Lainey. I couldn’t turn her away. Not when she said she’s depressed and that her life is falling apart. And not when I caught a glimpse of hurt in her eyes when she thought I’d deliberately ignored her text.

“Does it work?” she asks after a brief pause in our conversation.

“Does what work?”

“Does hooking up with a random stranger erase the pain of loving someone you can’t be with?”

I shrug. “Sometimes.”

Lainey appears to ponder this. “I couldn’t do that. Have meaningless sex, I mean.”

“Men and women are wired differently.”

“But that woman you were with tonight, she didn’t want something meaningful, did she?”

“She was definitely on board for some no strings attached sex.”

“So then it’s not a gender thing.”

“Okay, it’s not a gender thing. Everyone is different. Some people find it easier to stay detached during sex than others.”

“People like you?”

Lainey props her hand underneath her chin and studies me. Her dark green eyes seem impossibly large behind her glasses as she does so, and the alcohol has warmed her, giving her cheeks a pink tinge.

I can’t remember ever having such a frank discussion about sex with a woman—well, a woman I wasn’t planning to go home with, anyway. I should probably feel more uncomfortable than I do, but it’s always been this way with Lainey. There’s just something about her that makes her easy to talk to. Maybe it’s the fact we’ve spent the past year and a bit making each other more comfortable on our double dates with Lucas and Amber.

“When you’re having sex with someone, you’re in the moment,” I say. “I’m not thinking about Amber, or how hard it’s going to be to see her again, or how happy she might be with Lucas. I’m just thinking about… release.”

“Wow, that’s so incredibly romantic,” Lainey says dryly. “I can totally see why the women want to go home with you.”

I chuckle. “Hey, you asked.”

She can’t quite cover her smile. “I did, didn’t I?”

We both stop talking to take a swig of beer. Lainey’s had wine, then shots, and now beer. I’ve never seen her drink this much. She’s going to be sick as a dog tomorrow.

Lainey puts her beer down and looks at me. “Do you think they’re happy together?”

“Like pigs in mud. They have years and years of denial to work out of their systems. They probably haven’t left the bedroom in the past three months.”

The stricken look on Lainey’s face almost makes me feel bad for saying it. Almost. It’s the truth, and if hearing it helps her move on and get past this, I’ll repeat it a hundred times for her.

Lainey sighs heavily. “You know, the first time Lucas told me he had a girl for a best friend, I knew things probably wouldn’t end well for me and him.”

“Why’s that?”

“It’s one of the most popular clichés in romance novels. Best friends always wind up together.”

“Books aren’t reality, Lainey.”

We had this conversation the night she told me she’s a romance writer. While it’s nice she confided in me—not everybody knows her secret—I don’t like what she writes. I mean, romance novels are bullshit. They’re designed to give women stupid expectations that men can’t possibly live up to.

“I know books aren’t reality, Ben, but there’s a reason it’s a cliché. Best friends do always wind up together.”

“So you’re telling me you knew things would end up this way for you and Lucas? I wish you’d told me that when Amber and I first got together,” I grumble.

“Like you would have listened to me. Besides, you and Amber were a cliché in your own right. I was hoping that would work in our favour.”

“What do you mean we were a cliché in our own right?”

Lainey gestures to me, indicating I should look at myself. “You have the whole bad boy thing going on. Plus, you’re Duncan’s best friend.”

“You’ve lost me. What has me being Duncan’s best friend got to do with anything?”

“Well, that’s just another cliché found in romance novels. Girls are always falling in love with their brother’s best friend.”

“Unless she’s already in love with her best friend?”

“Exactly.”

I sit back, rubbing my chin. “You know, the first time I met Lucas, he was sitting with Amber on the couch in the Johnsons’ lounge room. I took one look at his rich boy clothes, saw the way Amber looked at him, and knew I could never compete with that.”

“But you still pursued her?”

It’s both a question and a statement, I assume, since Lainey already knows I did.

“Because she never started dating Lucas. Instead, she had a long run of losers. And I mean real losers. Dropkicks. The dregs of society. I didn’t understand why someone so beautiful and smart and perfect would date such douchebags, and neither did Duncan. He made some comment about his friends being better than the dickheads she brought home.”

“And you took it as encouragement?”

“Well, yeah. Not that Duncan saw it that way. He wasn’t thrilled when I told him I was going to ask Amber out.”

Lainey looks over at Duncan standing with Seb in front of the Green’s Law cast. “But he got over it.”

“We fought about it a lot at first. I had to show him I could clean up my act and quit sleeping around.”

“Which you did.”

Knowing I didn’t stand a chance with Amber any other way, I changed for her. I quit smoking. I gave up my dangerous job as a bodyguard to be with her because I knew she didn’t want to date someone who worked nights. I risked my friendship with my best mate. But all the changes I made weren’t enough because when it came down to a choice between Lucas and me, she chose him. Guys like me don’t get the girls of our dreams. If I’d realised this sooner and stayed away from Amber, I would have saved Duncan and me a lot of conflict, and I would have saved myself a lot of unnecessary pain.

“I did, yeah. And I also told Duncan I’d been in love with his sister since I was sixteen.”

“You have not seriously been in love with her since you were sixteen!” Lainey declares. “That’s eleven years.”

“Nearly twelve, and I’m sure I’ve told you that before.”

“If you have, I probably dismissed it. It’s a little hard to imagine a sixteen-year-old version of you in love.”

I smirk. “Well, maybe I was in lust with her back then. But it didn’t take long for me to see that she was smart, beautiful, kind, and adventurous. The best girl I’d ever met. She’s perfect.”

“Yes, she is,” Lainey says with a touch of bitterness.

“She was out of my league. Too good for me. Of course she was going to choose Lucas over me. I’m amazed we lasted a year.”

Lainey shakes her head. “You can’t take it personally or believe you’re lacking in some way because she’s with Lucas now. They have the best friend thing going on. No one can compete with that. It’s shared secrets, shared history, friendship, and compatibility. A potent and irresistible combination.”

I wish I could agree with her, but I can’t. If I wasn’t the no-hoper I always have been, Amber would have picked me. My dad always told me I was a useless piece of shit that no one could love. Turns out he was right.

“So, what are you going to do about your book?” I ask her.

“Is this your way of changing the subject?”

“I think I’ve done enough soul baring tonight, Lainey.”

Her gaze is warm as she rests her hand on my arm. “Thank you, Ben, for tonight. I needed this. I’m really glad you were here and that we could talk.”

“Anytime.”

“Do you really mean that?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“Well, I wouldn’t exactly call us friends.”

I point in the direction of Duncan and Seb. “They’re my friends, Lainey, and I haven’t told them half the shit I’ve told you tonight.”

She gives me a small smile, and I wonder if she’s disappointed I didn’t correct her and tell her we are friends, or that we can be friends. But I don’t have friends outside of Duncan and Seb—my guys—the people that get me. I sure as shit don’t have friends who are girls. Lainey is a cool chick and all, and I enjoy talking to her, but we only hung out like we did because of Amber and Lucas. Now that they’re out of the picture, I really can’t imagine us spending time together.

I mean, what would we do if we did hang out? I can’t see her drinking with me and the guys while I’m trying to hook up with someone. She’s not into things that bring an adrenaline rush like I am, either. Just the thought of getting on my bike had her knees shaking. And I can’t see myself hanging at Lainey’s for a tea party, or a powwow over the latest book she’s read. We have nothing in common except for our exes. Lainey will realise that if she stops to think about it for a minute.

“We don’t have to be friends to have a drink and vent,” I tell her. “Just call me if you need to.”

“I don’t have your new number.”

“Give me your phone and I’ll put it in.”

At least now I understand why she reacted the way she did when she first saw me. She thought I ignored her messages, but I would never do that to her. We might not have much in common, but I like Lainey. I’d even go so far as to say I have a real soft spot for her. When the break-up happened, I let her go, along with Amber and Lucas. I figured that, like me, she’d want a clean break. But she didn’t write me off the same way I wrote her off. She reached out to me, desperate to grab on to something to stop her from going under. She hasn’t moved on. She doesn’t know how to.

And neither do I.

When I hand Lainey’s phone back to her, she smiles politely. “Thanks.”

I can’t help but feel she’s still disappointed I haven’t said we’re friends as she puts her phone away in her bag.

“Well, I should go.” She glances back at her friends and her eyebrows lift. “Whoa.”

I follow the direction of her gaze and immediately spot what she’s reacting to. Our friends are practically in each other’s laps—Duncan is whispering something to Cass and making her laugh.

“Those two look pretty cosy,” I remark.

Lainey frowns. “Yeah.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No. It’s just a little surprising. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cass like that with a stranger before.”

I rack my brain to see if I can remember a time when Cass and Duncan have met, but I come up empty.

“My boy has some pretty good moves,” I offer up lamely.

“He must have,” Lainey replies, hopping down from her stool. “So, I guess I’ll catch you around sometime, then?”

Her words are friendly, but her smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

I hate feeling like I’m disappointing her—like she needs something from me that I’m refusing to give her. She might not see it now, but I’m hopeless. I have nothing to offer a girl I’m not going to screw. Lainey is better off without me.

And yet as she turns her back on me, I find myself reaching out and taking her arm, twirling her around so she’s facing me.

“Listen, Lainey. The only people who want me as a friend are those guys.” I point at Duncan and Seb with my beer bottle. “I don’t have friends who are female. It’s been cool talking to you tonight, but generally I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with a girl I wasn’t trying to…”

“Find a release with?” she teases, a smile tugging at her lips.

I smile back at her. “Yeah.”

“Then you weren’t really serious when you told me I could call and vent to you anytime?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I wasn’t serious. Anytime you want to talk, call me.”

“About the break-up?”

“About anything,” I say.

Her eyes crinkle at the corners as she smiles a genuine Lainey smile. “That’s the sort of thing a friend would say, you know?”

“It is?”

She’s laughing now, probably at the shocked expression on my face. “Yeah.”

“It’s a first for me. Actually encouraging a woman to talk to me, I mean.”

“Then maybe I’m your first. Your first female friend.”

I wouldn’t have called her that, but maybe she is. Or she could be. She’s a girl I don’t mind talking to. A girl I talk to instead of having sex with. And she’s the only girl who has ever fit that bill.

Who knows, maybe she’s one of the few people in this world who isn’t better off without me. She sought me out tonight because she wanted something from me that no one else could give her. That means something.

“Maybe you’re right,” I say.

“So… we’re friends, then?”

It’s not going to kill me to have one female friend.

“Sure. Why not?”

Her only response is to squeal and wrap her arms around me, hugging me.

Jesus. What have I gotten myself into?