Seventeen

Anna sat next to Ben at the Lakers game, her hand in his. She continued to be impressed with how well he was managing all of this—they’d been holding hands or whispering to each other, or chatting with the other celebrities sitting around them throughout the game, but even though half the things he whispered in her ear during the game were wildly filthy, he was totally PG in all of his outward behavior. He didn’t even put his hand on her knee, just on her shoulder as they sat there, or the small of her back on the way into the arena. And he’d once or twice brushed her hair away from her face when they’d been facing each other, in a way she knew the cameras would love.

“You’re very good at this, you know,” she said the next time he did that.

He gave her a sweet smile.

“Next time you say that to me, I want you to be naked,” he said. She choked back her laughter as his eyes twinkled at her.

“I’m going to kill you for that one when we get home, you know,” she said. “Well. First I’ll suck your cock in the limo on the way home. And then I’ll kill you.”

He took her hand again.

“I know you’re going to want some reciprocity first, sweetheart,” he said. Suddenly she had a vision of him the night before, sliding his fingers under her skirt as soon as he leaned over to kiss her in the limo when she’d picked him up from the airport. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs. The asshole was right—he was good at so many things.

But it wasn’t just the performance of their relationship that he was doing well with tonight. They were sitting next to a notoriously aloof actress, someone Anna had met a number of times and had thought disliked her because of how unfriendly she’d always been. But because of the cameras, Anna had been forced to introduce her and her preteen son to Ben at the beginning of the game. Ben had managed to draw her out so well that by the second quarter, she was chatting away to Anna about what she was wearing to her next premiere and how nervous she always was at awards shows.

She even hugged Anna when the game was over and her kid high-fived Ben, who had clearly been a big hit with him.

Ben pulled out his phone when they got into the limo to go home and chuckled.

“I texted my brother some of the pictures I took courtside and he’s dying. He might actually kill me the next time I see him. He’s going to get me back for this so bad.”

The warm, excited smile on Ben’s face made Anna smile, too. She was glad the game had made him happy. She’d been on edge all week, jumping every time her phone buzzed, for no real reason she could identify. Probably just everything—the upcoming premiere, the endless waiting for news about the film role, the frequent stories about her and Ben, her dad’s routine doctor’s appointment this week. Tonight had relaxed her, though. A little.

She leaned over to glance at Ben’s pictures. He’d taken a ton from the halftime event with the little kids trying to land free throws—none of them had made it, but former players had come out and helped them dunk in the end, and then announced big charity donations to wild applause.

“That was pretty cute,” she said.

He relaxed against her.

“It really was.” He looked over at her. “Do you do stuff like that? Not on the court, I mean, but the charity stuff? I’ve always thought that must be a fun part of being someone like you.”

She shrugged.

“Sort of. I mean, not like that, but I give money, whenever someone asks me to. My brother has lots of pet charities up in the Bay Area, so that makes it easy.”

She could feel his eyes on her, even though she wasn’t looking at him.

“But you don’t? I thought you’d want to be more involved personally. Maybe with a mental health charity, something in the Black community; the way you talked about it, it seemed like—”

“I get enough harassment from my dad about this, I don’t need it from you, too,” she said.

He held up his hands.

“Sorry for asking. I didn’t realize this was a sensitive subject.”

She shook her head.

“It’s not sensitive. I’m just not in the mood to talk about that, that’s all.” She changed the subject. “Did you watch a lot of basketball with your dad and brother growing up?” she asked.

His face closed up and he looked away from her.

“Theo and I did.”

“Not with your dad?” she asked. Ben never talked about his dad. There was clearly some mystery there. She suddenly wanted to know.

“No. Just me and Theo.” He dropped his phone into his pocket. “I thought what’s her name was nice. That woman sitting next to you. And you said when we sat down that she didn’t like you.”

Anna opened a bottle of water.

“I thought she didn’t. Guess I was wrong about that. Do you not get along with your dad?” She knew she was pushing on this. She could tell Ben was trying to change the subject, but somehow, she really wanted to know.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.” Ben turned away to look out the window at the freeway traffic.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I didn’t . . .”

He turned back to her and shook his head.

“It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.” He slid an arm around her. “Why are we wasting all of this time in this limo? Aren’t there other things we should be doing?”

He pulled her to him and kissed her. She kissed him back, and it was as good as it always was, but something kept nagging at her. When he slid his hand up underneath her shirt, she suddenly realized what it was. She pulled away.

“Have you ever noticed that when you get upset about something or there’s something you don’t want to talk about, you try to distract me with sex? It works, don’t get me wrong. But you could just tell me you’re upset, or that I shouldn’t have pushed at you, or whatever. You don’t have to pretend everything is fine and just fuck me.”

Well, that had come out harsher than she’d meant it to. Ben pulled away from her.

“I apologize if you didn’t want me to kiss you,” he said. “Just FYI, when I kiss you, when I touch you, when I fuck you, it’s because I want to, and for no other reason. I was under the impression you wanted it, too.”

She dropped her hands from his chest. Why did men always do this shit?

“That’s not what I meant and you know it. You can just tell me to stop asking you about your dad, or tell me that you’re annoyed I kept pressing you on that when it was clear you didn’t want to talk about it—I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have done it. It’s just that I feel like you know a lot about me by this point—I’ve told you a lot of personal stuff and you’ve been great about all of it, don’t get me wrong. But I feel like I don’t know you all that well except that you’re funny and kind and go out of your way for people and you’re great in bed, and those are all good things. But—I don’t know, maybe I wanted to know more. You’ve told me you’re in therapy, great, why do you go? You don’t have to tell me that, I guess, that’s probably too personal to ask, but it feels ridiculous that there’s a ‘too personal’ between us with all of this. I guess one thing I know about you is that you avoid conflict and pretend it away or fill it with sex, which . . .”