On Sale for Christmas

"Becca, my mom likes you. And our moms have both been trying to get this to happen for so long they'll probably cheer."

"Oh, great. So even if they don't go postal, they're going to tease us mercilessly."

Ben was utterly calm. "Well, I'd rather they didn't, but I tend not to make decisions based around preventing my mom from saying: I told you so. Seriously, Becca. We might get stares and uncomfortable silence before I start making pancakes, but after how brave you were last night, you're afraid of this?"

Okay, so he had a point. He did. So we'd have to do the walk of shame in front of our moms. It could be worse, right? Probably not. But I didn't see a lot of alternatives, and now wasn't the time to be chickenshit. "Fine."

Ben found a pair of flannel pajama pants from the bottom of his drawer and offered them to me. "Wanna wear these?"

"That's just like rubbing their noses in it!"

"Suit yourself," Ben said, pulling them on himself, then helping me to zip up the green chiffon dress which I was ever-so-thankful looked relatively sweet and innocent.

"Wait, c'mere," he said, using his fingers to smooth out my hair and put me in some kind of presentable order. But then he used his thumb to wipe beneath my eyes.

"What are you doing?"

Ben kept wiping. "You've got some—uh—I dunno. Some black smudges."

"My make-up. From last night. I must look hideous."

"You look movie-star gorgeous," Ben said. "As always."

Not believing him, I spun to the mirror to fix myself, then stopped dead at what I saw. Not in the mirror. But next to it. A picture on the wall. A portrait of Ben and his unit…

…and the blood drained from my face. "What the actual fuck?"

Ben glanced up, noticing the guy from last night, and then the blood drained from his face too.

"You know this guy?" I asked, a shrill note piercing my voice as I grabbed the photo and yanked it right off the wall. And when Ben said nothing, I thrust it toward him to force him to answer.

Ben gulped in a bit of air, holding up one hand as if to defend himself. "Listen, I can explain—"

"Oh, I'm fucking listening," I said, hand shaking. "Who is he?"

"He's a friend. A really good friend, actually."

"Goddamn it!" I shouted, wanting to smash something. Wanting to smash him. Feeling betrayed—violated somehow. "I told you it had to be anonymous. It had to be a stranger."

"And he is," Ben said. "To you. He's my buddy, but he's a stranger to you and that's what you asked for."

"No, idiot. I needed it to be a stranger so that this could never come back at me," I said, feeling so fearful that tears pricked at my eyes. "So that nobody but the two of us would ever know. I trusted you, Ben. I trusted you!"

"And I trust Lance," Ben argued. "He's the only person I could trust to do this with you. To be clean, safe, and discrete. What did you think I was going to do? Put out an advertisement and risk you getting arrested or hurt by some crazy asshole? It was tense enough thinking something could go wrong. That I could have put you at some kind of risk—"

"It was about risk, Ben! That was the fantasy." My nostrils flared, seeing the se

nse of what he was saying, but blinded by fear and upset anyway. "But you put me at risk in a way that I didn't consent to. We said that this is a thing between us, right? Well how can we have any kind of relationship going forward if one of your friends has—"

"He lives two states away, and even if we cross paths, he'll never bring it up, Becca. Not to you, not to me, not to anyone. Not unless we say so. Lance swore it on the name of a friend we lost in battle. I told him it was that serious."

Tears squeezed out of the corners of my eyes and Ben reached to wipe them away but I shoved him back. "Did you tell him who I was?"

"Of course not!"

"Did you tell him what to say to me when we were—"

"Yeah, kinda," Ben said, lowering his voice so that we couldn't be overheard. "It's not like either of us had ever done anything like that before. He owed me a favor and I knew he'd be game, and I'm hugely grateful he didn't fuck it up!"