Between Friends (13 page)

“
I guess I’m thinking
about how much you mean to me.” Ben sighs, looks down at his
fingers and draws random objects in the sand. He turns his head to
the side and gazes into my blue eyes “I’m also thinking how stupid
I am for falling for my best friend.”

I blink, thankful I am
lying down. If I were standing right now, I would probably give way
at the knees. Did he really just say that? Ben clears his throat,
and lets out a nervous laugh. I wish I could say something, but I
am stunned silent.

“
Lie with me?” Ben
says and waves me over to curl against his bicep. I roll into his
bare chest and gaze up into the stars before we drift off to
sleep.

****

I wake up to a thin line of the golden
sun hindering on the horizon. I shake Ben from his slumber and
straighten out my dress before we trudge our way back on the resort
grounds.

“
Do you think they were
looking for us?” Ben asks running his fingers through his
hair.

“
Probably” I say, feeling
my stomach churn.

Ben yanks his phone out of his pocket,
glances at it and exasperates a few swear words. He flashes me
fifty missed calls from both Eric and Matthew, “Should I call them
back?”

“
They’re probably sleeping.
It’s quarter to six in the morning.” I say and let out a
yawn.

“
Maybe I should text them,”
he says biting his lower lip.

“
Maybe,” I shrug, and watch
him send them a text.

“
What are we going to tell
them when they ask what happened?” I say as he shoves his phone
back in his pocket.

“
Don’t worry, I’ll think of
something.”

It only takes a few more minutes of
strolling down the cobblestone road for Ben to make up another
fabricated story that goes something like this:

When we went back to the
restaurant to get the purse, the servers were still cleaning up.
But as we were thanking them for keeping the purse safe, they
offered us another drink. We couldn’t say no, because they had been
kind enough to offer us one. So we sat with them and
chatted for the next hour or so. We even helped
them tidy up (which was my input to the story). Then once we said
our goodbyes and started heading back, we thought we’d go and sit
by the pool for a bit (which we did) and picked one of those huts
with a bed to lounge on. Then, without even knowing it, we fell
asleep.

“
Will I see you later?” Ben
says before we separate to our respective villas. I nod and start
to walk away, but he grabs onto my arm, “Hold on a
minute.”

“
What?” I say frozen in
place.

He pulls me into his chest and kisses
the top of my head, “That’s no way to say good-bye.” He looks down
at me through his long brown lashes, plants a soft kiss on my lips
and cups my butt, “There. That’s better.” He releases me from his
grasp and a tiny smirk forms on his lips, “Bye Megan.”

****

I wake up a few hours later to a light
rapping on the door and Jessica’s voice, “Open up. It’s
me.”

I slowly climb out of bed, and scoot
past Stephanie and Michelle snoring under the covers. I nervously
chew at my lip, petrified of facing my friends over my mysterious
disappearance with Ben. I try to remember every detail of the
little white lie we created, but I am terrified of putting it to
use. How am I ever going to face them? I let out a sigh and
yank-open the door to see Jessica. She has on a floppy white sunhat
letting her blonde curls flow beautifully past her shoulders. She
is wearing a hot pink tunic cover up with a beautiful ornate cherry
blossom print and a white string bikini that peeps through the
sheer fabric. She looks sun kissed and well rested. Both things I
wish I was right now.

“
Good morning” Jessica’s
chipper voice says as she pushes past me into our villa. She makes
a face of disgust when she sees empty beer cans scattered all over
the floor. Clothes are tossed in heaps on the furniture, open boxes
of left over room service with half-eaten food are sprawled over
the table, and make-up cases are open and out in a blatant
disarray. A bunch of shoes trip her as she makes it past the
desk.

“
Megan, this room is
disgusting.” she gasps and looks at me in disbelief, “You are such
a neat freak. How did this happen?”

I tilt my head over to the Sweet
Valley High Twins passed out beside each other on the bed. Jessica
nods and whispers, “It must feel like college all over
again.”

I laugh, remembering how many times I
snapped on both Stephanie and Michelle for their constant mess all
over our apartment. Once I even tossed a bunch of their hair
product into the hallway of our building. I had finally lost it
when I couldn’t wash my hands because our sink was full of their
mounds of bottles, sprays, and hair dyes. When they came home that
night and saw it outside our doorway they went ballistic. But right
now, when Jessica kicks a pair of white wedged heels out of her
way, it’s quite tempting to pull a little stunt like that
again.

Jessica walks over to the sofa, and
plops herself down. She looks expectantly at me and gives me an
innocent grin. I push my hands to my hips and ask, “Alright, what
do you want?”

“
It’s nine in the morning.
I want you to get dressed and come with me to the pool. Michael and
the guys are hanging out today and I need my girls.” Jessica
whines, smacking around a big wad of gum in her mouth.

For some reason I agree to join her,
dig through my luggage and pull out the first bikini I can find. It
is a royal blue halter style top, with push-up padding for my small
breasts and matching low-rise bottoms to enhance my less than
curvaceous hips. I bought it from Victoria’s Secret, especially for
this trip and have yet to wear it, so it seems fitting to show it
off today by the pool. I quickly get changed, and grab my
sunglasses from my purse and slide on my flip-flops. Jessica claps
and rushes to the door when she sees I’m ready. But somehow,
despite all the noise, Stephanie and Michelle remain completely
dead to the world.

We make a stop at the breakfast buffet
and each scarf down a bagel with cream cheese and a plate of fruit.
We chug a coffee, chat about a lot of nothing, and make our way to
the pool. We find a quiet spot with four chairs already huddled
together to save for Michelle and Stephanie.

“
Where do you think Michael
and I should take our honeymoon?” Jessica asks as she places her
towel over her lounger.

“
What about Thailand? It
would be really adventurous and different from the usual European
experience.” I say feeling like the world’s best travel
advisor.

Jessica cringes and says, “I don’t
know, that’s more of a five-year anniversary
destination.”

I roll my eyes, “How was I supposed to
know that?”

“
These are just things
people know Megan.” She says and dismissively waves her hand in the
air.

“
Okay, how about somewhere
more mainstream, like Paris?”

Jessica laughs,
“Predictable.”

Maybe it is, but who would ever turn
down Paris? Even I would love to go there. I imagine myself eating
little croissants and cute pastries strolling past the Eiffel
Tower. But Jessica’s high-pitched voice snaps me out of my
daydream, “Not good enough, think of something else.”

“
I know! How about
Disneyland?” I joke.

She pulls her glasses down to her nose
and glares at me, “Ha. Ha. Very funny. Next.”

“
You could always go to
Canada.”

Jessica contemplates my suggestion by
ticking her finger on her nose, “Megan, why would I want to be cold
on my honeymoon. Those people live in igloos.”

I roll my eyes at her. She is so
oblivious. My mother’s brother lives in Canada, and growing up we
visited him a few times. Contrary to what some Americans believe,
Canadians do not live in igloos.

“
Well I haven’t heard you
come up with a better suggestion.” I say and rub more tanning oil
on my skin.

Jessica grunts, “How about Switzerland
Megan? Why couldn’t you suggest that?”

“
Well then how about
Switzerland?” I throw back at her, and Jessica says no, it reminds
her of tacky Ikea.

“
You’re impossible, you
know that?” I shout. I am no longer offering her any more
suggestions. Jessica grunts and we leave it at that.

She pouts and slouches down in her
lounger to bask in the sun. A few moments pass before she blurts
out, “I need to get something off my chest. I had a sex dream last
night about Graham.”

I roll my eyes and remember she told
me all about this Graham character before. He used to work with her
when she was actually a gainfully employed member of society.
According to Jessica he was the office stud.

“
Well what happened?” I ask
curious about what my little tart of a friend has milling around in
her brain at night. Jessica lets out a sigh and begins to tell me
all the nitty-gritty and quite graphic details. I am both surprised
and shocked at how fluid she is in remembering every single dirty
little thing.

“
Should I tell Michael?
Ohmigod, Megan, I feel so guilty. I liked it. Like
really
liked it.” Jessica
says.

“
Are you kidding?” I laugh,
“Why would you say anything? Nothing good would come of it.
Besides, it was just a dream.” Although I do not condone lying to
your partner, I do believe there are just some things better left
unsaid.

“
Good point.” Jessica sighs
with a bit of nervous laughter. She thanks me and stretches back to
relax. The tension drains from her face, and it looks like she has
lifted the weight of the world off her shoulders. I suddenly envy
the release of her big burdening secret. I wish I could blurt out
my secret about Ben and get it off my chest. But of course I
withhold under better judgment.

“
Where the hell were you
last night?” Stephanie points at me with her hot pink press on
nails as her and Michelle trot over to us.

Oh great.

Jessica shoots me a cold hard stare
and shouts, “Excuse me? What aren’t you telling me?”

“
Nothing” I shout and watch
them all wait for me to elaborate.

I start to fumble a bit, but pull
myself together then gain composure. I tell them about how Ben and
I drank with the staff and helped them tidy up, then how we went to
the pool and fell asleep in a hut. All three of them look at me
with a hint of uncertainty in their eyes, but Jessica breaks the
awkward tension and says, “You and Ben are so weird
together.”

“
What’s that supposed to
mean?” I ask.

“
You know exactly what I
mean.” Jessica says tossing her long blonde curls behind her
shoulder.

Michelle and Stephanie both nod in
agreement, and I feel my blood begin to boil. Not one of them has
ever said anything to me before about how they think my friendship
with Ben is weird.

“
No I don’t.” I say with
purpose.

I find myself getting a tad bit worked
up. Maybe it’s because of the rising guilt, or maybe it’s the
simple desperation of wanting to push further on this issue when I
say, “There is nothing weird going on between us.”

“
Nobody said there was.”
Stephanie says with shock.

“
Yeah right.” Michelle
drawls.

“
Well there better not be.”
Jessica shouts with disgust, “Not after I already introduced you to
Steven.”

And there it is, Jessica’s disproval.
Jessica studies her perfectly manicured nails and peers up at me
from her sun hat, “I can’t imagine you two together anyway. He’s
such a man-whore and you’re such a goody two shoes. It would be
like comparing apples to oranges”

“
In more ways than one.”
Stephanie grumbles under her breath.

“
What’s that supposed to
mean?” I snap, daggering my eyes at her.

“
Come on Megan, its not
that hard to see that you’re not his type. That’s why you two can
be such
weirdly
good friends.” Stephanie laughs.

When my stone-cold silence fills the
air, no one says another word. Angry tears sting my eyes and I pull
down my sunglasses. I lay back and take in the radiating heat from
the early afternoon sun, wanting to block everything and everyone
out.

While I lie there, my mind races. I
think about Stephanie’s hurtful words and it reminds me how out of
Ben’s league I actually am. It pains me to no end, because she is
right. Ben’s last fling was with a Brazilian model. She had the
most perfect ass to tit ratio I had ever seen. Then the arm candy
he had before her - was a gorgeous strawberry blonde with the
cutest nose and most perfectly plump lips. Not to mention the girl
before her was a dimpled starlet with a body you could bounce a
quarter off of. I start to feel nauseated just thinking about all
the beautiful women Ben has slept with. A wave of
self-consciousness washes over me as I glance down at my flat chest
and less than curvaceous body.