“You can fight back,” Benjamin’s brother had yelled over “Stay Fly” by Three 6 Mafia blaring in the background. “Come visit me at college for your spring break. I’ll teach you how.”
A delicious satisfaction had surged inside of Benjamin at the thought of hitting his father back, of finally teaching that drunk asshole a lesson. And that was when he knew he couldn’t spend any more breaks in South Boston.
It would be too dangerous, he suspected.
If he let himself hit his father, he’d keep going. One punch wouldn’t be enough. He had years of pent-up rage inside of him. Just begging to be unleashed on that drunk, self-pitying bastard.
No, Benjamin couldn’t return home.
He’d taken his brother up on his offer to spend spring break with him, but he’d have to figure out something else for June, July, and August.
His older brother had gone straight from college to training for his dream job, and he’d already said Benjamin could stay with him on all future school breaks. But that summer, he was on his own.
So when he saw a flyer on his boarding school’s VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES! bulletin board for a mission trip to the Ohio Valley to help cleanup and rebuild houses in the aftermath of the Hurricane Ivan flooding, he’d signed up. Not just for altruistic reasons, but to keep from killing his father.
But this trip had started out bad from the start. Cramped middle seat that didn’t recline.
Also, no friends.
Most of his hockey teammates had either gone home or taken vacations. A few of his boarding school buddies had also signed up for mission trips, but unlike him, they had passports. So they’d opted for summers in Africa and South America—places that would look way better on their college applications.
Worst of all, Benjamin had packed his bug spray deep in his luggage, figuring he’d be able to access it when they got to their destination.
Big mistake. They’d lost his suitcase at the airport, and none of the good Christian boys in his cabin were of much help. His hockey teammates would do anything for him. But these were the kind of Boston guys who razzed you about any flaw they could find. And just like Benjamin’s teammates, they assumed he was rich because of the designer hand-me-downs he’d carefully picked out of the “Lost N’ Found” boxes at his brother’s college. And pride kept Benjamin from pointing out he was probably poorer than most of them.
They also found his good looks offensive. In their opinion, Benjamin was way too pretty to be getting his hands dirty on a mission trip to the Midwest.
So, after pinning him with the particularly uninspired label of “Pretty Rich Boy,” they teased him about needing bug spray in what turned out to be a mosquito-infested temporary camp set up just outside their work zone. Perhaps unsurprisingly, not one of the boys in the Boston cabin had been willing to lend him a change of clothes either, so he was forced to make a trip to the mission director’s office trailer to ask if they had a bottle he could borrow.
A trip that was just long enough to get him covered with bites.
But the uncomfortable plane ride, asshole cabinmates, and mosquito bites faded into the distance when he saw the dark brown girl with long braids tied up in a ponytail.
She was sitting on top of a step ladder inside the office, hunched over a book. From the looks of it, she was almost to the last page. And there was another book propped underneath the one she was reading, as if she planned to tackle that one as soon as she was done with the first. He squinted to read the title on the second book’s spine: A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking.
So, she was smart. And kind of pretty if you looked past the clunky glasses and spots of acne dotting her forehead. She had a cute round face and a big soft body that filled him with a strange urge to touch.
He’d only dated the opposite of her before. Thin girls with thin noses and perfect skin who were only a few shades darker than his pale Irish white. Those were the girls who stood on the sidelines at his games, who strolled confidently into hockey parties and offered themselves up to him with a smile. Every straight guy on his team had some version of this girlfriend. He’d assumed that was what he wanted too, the only kind of girl he could ever want.
But he’d been wrong. Electricity thrummed through him. He couldn’t speak. Couldn’t step forward. Couldn’t do anything but stare at the smart girl reading her smart girl books.
She suddenly stilled. Like a squirrel who somehow knew it had been sighted by an unleashed dog.
Her gaze shifted from the page she was reading to him, and when their eyes met…boom, boom, boom.
Fireworks exploded everywhere. In his head, in his stomach, in the part of his chest where his heart was supposed to be beating.
“Hi, are you looking for my mom?”
She was talking…talking to him he realized somewhat dimly past all the explosions in his head. He should say something. Come up with some words.
“Yes. I’m looking for…What’s your name?” he answered.
He couldn’t exactly hear himself talking. But the expression on her face told him he had to sound crazy.
She looked him up and down, obviously confused. But then her whole face collapsed with concern. “Oh no! You’re all bit up!”
She hopped down from the step ladder and dropped the books on its foot platform before rushing over to a wall of white plastic shelves.
