The Pull

Chapter 25

I really wish I could say I was all in during our meeting with the client. But I wasn't. My head kept spinning around Ben, Kun, and the mess I had got myself into. I wanted to get a moment alone with Ben and just explain what had happened, but every time I tried someone was there. Or he averted, I really couldn't tell. It was really getting to me so when it was time to order lunch I had absolutely no appetite and I was exhausted. I decided to skip eating and go get some air instead. Some air, and some advice. I didn't even bother working out the time difference, I just called her. My beacon in this messed up life of mine.

"Wassup buttercup?" Whatever Emma had been doing she was there for me.

"I messed up."

"Ok, but you think accidentally putting on none-matching socks is to mess up, so don't stress yourself. You'll be fine.  Tell me what happened."

"I slept with Ben. Again."

"Yeah, that's not messing up. That's hooking up."

"Emma, I'm serious. I slept with Ben, and I don't think I ever felt this way before. And not only about him, about me. He's doing things to me and I don't want it to stop, but I've already managed to mess it up because apparently I'm going on a date tonight with someone else. What the hell do I do?"

I told her everything. Like I do. She leaned on me when she needed to and I was always there for her, but lately it had been all her carrying the weight. I felt sorry for putting all of this and more on her, and promised myself I'd make it up to her, but right now I desperately needed her to make sense to this. 

"You cannot go on a date with this guy, Pucks. If you feel what you say you feel about Ben – and by the way he keeps slipping into your panties I'm getting the sense he's got at least somewhat similar feelings – you can't do that to yourself. Because you always do, you sabotage yourself before there can be any happiness, heaven forbid. Do. Not. Go on that date."

Obviously, she was right. I had no intention of going on a date with Kun. But it wasn't my style to just not show up either. I could try asking for his room number at the hotel reception, but I didn't even know his full name and highly doubted they would give this information to me. Thus, I would have to be in the lobby by eight o'clock to tell him face to face I wouldn't go with him on this date, or whatever this was. I was not looking forward to that. At all. And I needed to talk to Ben, make him understand what happened. But he was avoiding me like the plague and would be on that fund raising event tonight. I could try texting him. Deciding it was that, or nothing at all, I tried to shake off the feeling of this being an unbelievably high school way of communicating.

"Em, I gotta hang up. I am going to text Ben and explain this."

"Um, aren't you guys like... in the same building right now?"

"Technically, yes. But I might as well be on Mars the way he's acting. I don't even know if he's angry about this or just busy. He's all stone face. Like one of those statues on Easter Island."

"Moai."

"What?"

"They're called moai. The statues."

"Ok, National Geographics. I'm still hanging up now."

I ended up sitting with my phone in my hand for a solid fifteen minutes. I realised I would never find the right words in a text, so I simply wrote 'We need to talk'. Then I waited. It felt like shit. It was like being thrown back a decade and a half. I hated being a teenager and I sure as hell did not like feeling as insecure as one right now. Thirty minutes went by without Ben replying. It was time to reassemble in the conference room and now I really felt like I had made a mistake sending that text. I had been ignored. I could see he'd read it, so I couldn't convince myself of anything else. Or maybe I was just making this into something bigger than it was? I could wait and see, perhaps the opportunity would present itself and we'd get a moment to talk. Surely he must understand I was never going to go for a drink with Kun after having slept with him not even 24 hours earlier? Not after the things we said. Right..? I realised I was working myself up into feeling angry. What the hell. What did it say about his thoughts of me if he considered it plausible that I'd just pick up my panties from his bedroom floor and move on to the next? Did he not hear me in the lift, telling him how I feel? Or did he really think I'm that shallow?