Page 9 of How We Began

“Uh, yeah. I guess.”

My brain would not comply with my mouth. I still blame the wine.

Meredith came back with a pint for Ben and three whisky chasers. She gave me a blatant conspiratorial wink as she handed out the drinks. Nothing subtle about it.

We knocked them back, and the whisky burned my throat on the way down, and not at all in a good way.

The moment I put my glass down, the room spun, the carpet whizzing oranges and browns of a bygone decade.

“You don’t mind if I crash your girls’ night, do you?” Ben asked with a distracting blue eye twinkle and freckle crinkle. “We’ve lived together for a week, maybe we should get to know each other.”

“Yes I mind,” I replied just as Meredith piped in with,

“No.”

“Good, that’s sorted then.” He smirked as he shrugged out of his jacket, and I tried very hard not to focus on the flash of skin above his jeans exposing a strip of firm abs. He caught me looking and gave me a wink.

Damn it.

I needed a cigarette, or Valium, or something. “I’m going for air.”

“You okay, Lilah? You look a bit hot,” Meredith asked, an evil grin on her face.

“Mmm, great,” I muttered back before turning and attempting to make it to the door without face-planting the floor.

So not cool. A heat-seeking missile could have picked me out in a crowd I was that far from cool.

Benjamin Chambers, who I’ve spoken the total of ten words to, makes me turn into a crazy loon. How did I go from sounding like a crazy stalker to agreeing to a date all in one conversation?

It makes no sense.

Why did he even bother to ask me out, when it is apparent, I’m completely and utterly bloody deranged?

He asked me out, right? Or did I just imagine it?

I could’ve done. I’m heading into Crazyville on the fast train. Plus I’ve had a lllooottt of wine tonight…

Ben joined me down the dingy alleyway I’d found, lighting a cigarette of his own. He took a deep drag and blew the smoke away into the air above him.

“What’s up?” he asked once he finished artfully blowing smoke.

“Nothing,” I said, looking anywhere but at him.

“Really? Nothing?”

“That’s what I said.”

“You are doing a marvellous job at ignoring me considering we live in the same dorm, and attend all the same lectures.”

“Well, you’re hardly talking to me, it takes two you know.”

He snorted a laugh, coughing a little on his cigarette. “Okay, so maybe we’re actively ignoring each other.”

Could it get anymore awkward?

“Why do you think that is?” he asked, taking another drag on his cigarette.

I looked up to meet his gaze. “No idea,” I lied. But mainly because the moment I saw you I considered what it would be like to have your babies… is what I’m so glad my wine-induced mouth didn’t say!