Marx Girl

“Ben,” I sigh.

“I won’t leave again. I promise.”

The tears break the dam and roll down my face, because I want to believe him. I so desperately want to believe him.

“Ben.” I close my eyes. “We can only be friends.”

“Don’t. Don’t ask that of me.”

“But—”

He cuts me off. “I can’t watch you with someone else, Didge.”

I scrunch up my face. “Wouldn’t you rather be friends than be nothing at all?” I whisper.

He stays silent.

“You can’t keep acting the way you are, Ben.” I look around the darkened room as I try to articulate what I want to say. “If you keep acting like this, we’re going to end up hating each other.”

“I could never hate you,” he whispers.

Tears slowly roll down my face. He sounds so sad, and I know I should go, but I want to stay on the phone. This is the closest I’ve been to him for such a long time, and I just want to stay here.

Stop it.

Hang up.

“Are you at home?” he asks.

I glance around at my surroundings. I’m in Eric’s bed in Eric’s room, and I’m secretly talking to another man—a man I don’t want to get off the phone from. What kind of person am I? “I’ve got to go, Ben.”

He stays silent and I stay on the line.

Oh, God, hang up. Please… hang up. As if neither of us wants to end the call, we both wait.

“Goodnight, Didge,” he eventually whispers.

I close my eyes, and the lump in my throat is so big I can hardly speak. “Goodnight, Ben,” I whisper.

More silence.

This is ridiculous. Just do it.

I hang up, turn onto my back, and stare at the ceiling. Confusion and regret swirl around all me, and my tears run down into my ears.

What a mess.

I wake as the front door bangs open, and I roll over to pull the covers up. It’s nice and warm in here and, after not sleeping all night, I am finally comfortable. Eric marches into the room, having finished his shift. He opens the blinds forcefully and I frown.

“Good morning, Bridget.” He smiles as he puts his hands on his hips.

“Hmm.” I scowl with my eyes closed.

“Tell me… who is this Ben?” he asks, trying his best to act casual.

Huh? My eyes open. “What?”

“I did a little investigating last night at work. Ben used to be Joshua Stanton’s bodyguard.”

I frown harder. Damn it, I knew he wouldn’t let this go. “And?” I sigh.

“How well do you know him?”

“What?” I sit up and walk past him into the bathroom. I don’t need this crap. “Like you said, he was Joshua’s bodyguard, so I know him from that,” I call from the bathroom.

“And you went out with him?”

Fuck’s sake. I wash my hands and walk back into the bedroom.

“Bridget?”

“Kind of, yeah,” I sigh.

“How long were you with him?”

“Eric. Just drop it.”

“No, I won’t drop it. How long were you with him?”

“A couple of months. It was years ago, it doesn’t matter.” I lie back down in bed and pull the covers over myself to get away from his questioning.

He drags the blankets back off me, and his eyes hold mine. “Who ended it?”

I scratch my head in frustration. “Can we just leave the past in the past, please? I just woke up.”

“I opened up his cold case.”

“What?”

“He was suspected of murder. I opened his case back up for reinvestigation.”

“You did what?” I snap as I sit up in a rush. “What the fuck, Eric?”

His eyes hold mine. Is he baiting me right now?

“Are you that hard up for a case that you had to reopen a stupid investigation from six years ago?” I snap as I get out of bed. I don’t believe this shit.

“Tell me about this prostitute that was murdered.”

Shit, he really did look in to it. I begin to pull my clothes on, because it’s bloody cold.

“Before Joshua met Natasha, he spent a few nights with a high-class prostitute. Six months later, when he was with Natasha, she started threatening to go to public with footage she had of the two of them together if he didn’t pay her millions of dollars in bribery money.”

“Did he pay her?”

I screw up my face. “No, but he was going to. The stupid woman was bribing all these businessmen, and she obviously pissed off the wrong one somewhere along the line. She was found dead on the docklands.”

“What did they tell you at the time?”

“Who?”

“Your brother-in-law and his fucking bodyguard.”

The hairs on the back of my neck stand to attention, and I point at him. “Eric…” I say calmly. “Say all you want about Ben, but do not dare speak a bad word about Joshua. He’s my family.”

“I don’t trust him,” he snaps.

“Who?”

“Joshua fucking Stanton.”

“What?” I begin to look for my clothes in a hurry. I’m getting out of here. He is seriously pissing me off.