Page 105 of How We Began

Ben let out a long exhale and blinked the blues down at me. “Fancy getting something to eat?”

“Me?”

He shook his head. “Us, Lilah. Do you fancy dinner?”

“Sure. I mean, I don’t want to put you out cooking again. I promise I am trying to learn, it’s just it looks so easy, but then I start and…”

“Lilah, stop.” He laughed and the angels above sang. “I meant, shall we go out to eat, together?”

“Uh…” Unexpected.

I wanted to say yes, the word almost blurted straight from my mouth, but at the same time, though, it seemed like I had my foot raised from the ground and I was about to step back on the Ferris Wheel of torment.

“Ben…”

“Just dinner.”

I stared into his gaze. Call me a sucker for punishment. “Sure, why not.”

He packed up his stuff, giving me that knowing smirk when he saw me pull out my diary as he was leaving, and I knew full well why not. It always hurt, one way or the other.

We’re meeting in five minutes, and I’ve just got to find a way to keep this new found friendship of ours, strictly that.

Just friends.

6th March

I’m hireable! It’s official. I can get a job without my dad’s help. Phew, I’m actually relieved, I was starting to worry about that.

Ben’s idea was to go for a curry. There was a minor moment of embarrassment when the staff at my friendly Indian welcomed me by my first name.

“Leelah!” they called with open arms. “It’s been too long, where have you been?”

Ben just threw his head back and laughed, giving my hand a tug as my ‘friends’ navigated us to a table in the middle of the restaurant, where they could watch me all evening.

It wasn’t a date. But it was more than friends.

“I only ever took you on two real dates,” Ben said scooping some more lime pickle onto a triangle of poppadum.

“Yeah, I know. The rest of the time you were either snogging me or shagging me.” I snorted a laugh into my pint of Cobra just to hide my flaming cheeks. Words just fall out of my mouth, I’m pretty sure of that.

“A definite lack of real dates. I sucked, I don’t know why you hung around so long.”

“Well, the two dates we did have were pretty amazing, which more than makes up for any shortfalls in quantity.”

I said this, but remembered the fact that I completely ruined the second date by allowing the whole ‘best friend’ thing to escape my mouth.

“Mum was asking after you the other day.” He snapped a poppadum in two, passing half to me as we jousted over the mango chutney.

“Really?”

“Yep, I think you made a substantial impact.”

“It was the jeans, wasn’t it? She just loved my dress-down grunge vibe.”

Ben laughed again, the shadows in his gaze indecipherable.

“Well, I’m surprised she didn’t blab, considering she managed to tell you everything else about me in an hour and a half, but you’re the only girl I’ve ever taken home.”