I Do With You (Maple Creek)

Chapter 6 BEN

Chapter 6

B EN

Getting out of the trailer and into my rental car is harder than it should be. Hope’s perched by the front window, staring through the blinds like there’s a herd of hungry wolves outside ready to eat her alive. Or like we’re Bonnie and Clyde on the lam from the po-po.

Both scenarios, plus the completely serious way her blue eyes cut left and right every couple of seconds, have me fighting back a grin.

I get that she’s worried she’ll be spotted, but the only people outside are a family unloading their car—a car with out-of-state plates. Well, the mom and dad are unloading bags and coolers. The kids are wrestling in the grass and hollering at each other in a way that says they’ve been cooped up for at least a couple of hours too long.

“You ready to make a run for it?” she asks.

I guess she does have a slight point. She swears it would take only one person to recognize her and she’d be found—at another man’s place, on her supposed-to-be wedding night.

Which, I admit, is drama neither of us wants or needs.

I can imagine the call now ...

“Hey, Sean—”

“Hey, asswipe, unless you’re calling to apologize, you can fuck off.”

“I got arrested. Need bail money.”

“Or I could let you rot in there. What’d you do, anyway?”

“Got caught with a runaway bride whose groom is petty, and when I defended her right to tell him to fuck off, his daddy locked me up.”

Yeah, Sean would laugh his ass off. And likely hang up, his chuckles still echoing in my ear. And then I’d have to call Mom or AMM, neither of which sounds like a good plan.

“Yep. On your order,” I answer, and she glares at me hard, like she thinks I’m fucking with her. I’m not, this is her shit show. I’m just along for the ride ... or the drive, in this situation, given that I’m literally her getaway driver. Go ahead and call me Clyde.

“Wait ... wait ...” She holds up her hand in a fist like she’s some military operator in a movie. “Aaaaand ... go!” she commands, with an authority that makes me want to laugh. But there’s no time for laughter because we’re out the front door of the cottage, down the three steps, and running for the car.

I beep it as she yanks on the handle, and we slide inside.

“Go, go, go!” she shouts. But she’s grinning like a loon, like this is fun for her too. After seeing her question herself last night; the noisy, restless middle-of-the-night “sleep” that had me checking on her; and her nervousness this morning, the brightness in her eyes is a welcome sight. Maybe it’s all from just losing herself in the ridiculous fantasy of acting like we’re in some Reacher -esque spy drama, but it’s good to see on her.

Especially that smile. I would do dangerous things to keep it on her face.

I pull out of the resort parking lot on spinning tires that throw up tiny pebbles behind us. “We clear?” I ask, and she jerks around to look back. You’d think we just robbed a bank or something.

“I think so. Turn right at the stop sign.”

She directs me into town, again telling me places to go, and I follow her every instruction—driving where she tells me to; looking at storefronts; and, once, turning into an alley to avoid a police car she sees ahead.

We pull up to a bland, beige building with reflective windows. “You wanna wait here?” she offers, then bites her lip. She’s nervous about going in, and maybe about seeing her sister too.

“Nah, gotta see this through. Make sure you don’t get forced back to the altar with a shotgun.” I know shotgun weddings aren’t exactly the norm anymore, and certainly not in this situation, but I’m also not leaving her to go inside alone. I’m too curious, too invested.

In the situation. In Hope.

She texts Joy from my phone, and less than a minute later, the door opens and a near-carbon copy of Hope, just one that’s been given a professional-looking makeover, leans out the door and waves us inside. We exit the car and hustle across the lot. Joy scans her sister, looking for obvious signs of damage or harm, but then quickly turns her attention to me. I can feel the threat she’s sending my way with the death-ray laser beams in her eyes. “Who the fuck’re you?”

“Ben. Nice to meet you, Joy.” I’m on alert. Hope might trust her sister enough to come here, but my experience with the press is decidedly different, and I’m treating her like the enemy until proven otherwise.

So far, our onstage disguises have held, and no one’s discovered who me, Sean, or our third bandmate, Trent, are in real life. But we’ve been escorted out the back door of hotels when the paparazzi have gathered at the front, refused interviews because we don’t trust anyone with something to gain by outing us, and had people try to grab our masks, either for a souvenir or to see our faces. Safe to say, me and the press are not friends. Yet here I am, walking into the lion’s den.

“That’s yet to be determined,” she answers, still eyeing me up and down with a curl to her lip. In some ways it’s admirable—she clearly loves and is protective of her sister.

“Joy, be nice,” Hope admonishes her as we walk down a hallway with office doors on either side. It sounds like something she’s said countless times before and she doesn’t expect it to work any better this time than it has all those times in the past. “Ben helped me in a major way yesterday, and I’ve basically commandeered his vacation, so be nice . Please.” She emphasizes the repeated order with a pleading tone, which seems to do the trick, because Joy turns her attention back to her sister.

“Are you wearing his clothes?” Joy’s eyes go wide as she takes her in; Hope is indeed wearing the clothes I gave her, plus her wedding-themed cowgirl boots, in what amounts to a unique look. “Oh my God! Did you fuck him? Holy shit! What’re you doing?”

Hope wraps her arms around her middle, visibly shrinking into herself, as Joy very nearly shouts her business to the world.

Yeah, I hate the press. And my grudging respect for Joy is dropping, too, if she’s not able to see how she’s browbeating and hurting her sister right now.

I step in front of Hope, putting myself in the line of fire and taking the full brunt of Joy’s glare. “Is there someplace private we can go?” Everything is quiet and empty, and I wonder where the workers are, but this is too personal a conversation to have in an office hallway, regardless of who is or isn’t around.

She meets me toe to toe with a narrowed gaze for a long second, her sister all but forgotten, before finally twirling on her heel. “This way.”

It feels like I just faced a firing squad and somehow got away hole-free.

Joy leads us to a small conference room, closing the door behind us. “I think I’m entitled to some answers here. I nearly had to set myself on fire yesterday for some relief from the awkwardness of you sprinting for the woods midceremony. If I’d had a lighter, I’d be a flaming tiki torch right about now. And by the way, sis ... you are not a runner; I don’t care what the Couch to 5K program says. It was like that slo-mo Ace Ventura scene—boots and tutu and all.”

Hope flinches, a frown turning her full lips downward. “I hadn’t really thought about what happened there after I left. I was zoned in, focused on getting away. Sorry.” Her voice goes hard. “And I run; therefore, I am a runner. You don’t have to be good at it for it to count.”

The sisters meet eyes, an entire conversation happening in the silence, and then Joy sighs. “Yesterday was pandemonium, to be honest. Mom and Dad wanted to go after you, but Sheriff Laurier got in Dad’s face. They were this close to throwing hands—which I honestly would have enjoyed watching. People were chattering, coming up with all sorts of theories. Most common one seems to be that you’re pregnant and needed to puke but then got too embarrassed to come back.”

“I’m not pregnant!” Hope’s jaw drops in horror, as if it’s the worst thing in the world that people might think that.

“I know,” Joy answers, rolling her eyes. “But that was better than the folks saying you probably had nervous bubble guts and went to shit in the woods. Besides, I was a little too busy to squash rumors in the moment because Shepherd squared up at Roy, figuring he must’ve done something to scare the snot outta you. And that’s a fight I wouldn’t have stopped.”

There’s a question in the statement—a plea for Hope to share, but mostly a question of if she’s okay.

“He didn’t do anything. He just didn’t ... I wasn’t ...” Hope is shrinking again, fidgeting with her shirt and her eyes downcast as she stumbles to find the words she’s looking for.

Joy rolls her hand expectantly, prompting Hope to spit it out. “He didn’t what? You weren’t what?”

Hope blinks, and tears start to trail down her cheeks. I grab a tissue from a side table and hand it over. She smiles sadly as she dabs at her face, but Joy is looking at me like I’m a new puzzle to solve. I don’t like it, and it takes everything I have not to flinch away from it.

“Sis, you gotta give me something here because we’re thinking the actual, literal worst. Did he lay a hand on you? Did he fuck someone else? Did he—”

I’m not sure where else Joy’s imagination was going to take her, because Hope interrupts her. “I have everything planned. I always have. I’ve known exactly what my life would be like since the day I turned sixteen.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve heard every detail of it, ad nauseum,” Joy agrees, not seeing the issue. She’s not hearing Hope’s voice, which isn’t so much talking to her sister as it is explaining the whole situation to herself. “Roy this, Roy that, we, we, we.”

“Is that it?” Hope whispers. “I mean, can I set an alarm by what my life is going to be like for the next fifty years? No questions, no adventures, no excitement. Just that ? Me and Roy, forever?”

“That’s what you’ve always wanted.” Joy plops down on the table’s edge to peer at Hope in confusion. “Are you having a quarter-life crisis or something? We should’ve done the rager bachelorette party. I knew it!” She throws her head back, looking at the ceiling as if there are answers written there. “Gone to Vegas, or watched a live-action Magic Mike show, or something outrageous. But you said no. Guess you got the wild out of your system in another way.” Her gaze rolls past Hope to me, once again implying that something happened between us.

“We didn’t fuck. We talked, ate, and drank a couple of beers,” I say firmly as I step up to Hope’s side, standing shoulder to shoulder with her against her sister. For myself, I want to hide from Joy’s shrewd gaze, but for Hope? I’m willing to be strong because it feels like she needs Joy to know that nothing happened between us, and when she looks up at me with gratefulness in her eyes, I know I’m right.

“Thanks, Ben.”

“Okay, fine, fine,” Joy says, holding her hands up in surrender, still glancing from Hope to me and back. “But you can understand my thinking here. You ran away from your wedding, spent the night with another guy, and show up wearing what are obviously his clothes since you only had a wedding gown. It’s pretty sketch, sis.” Less than a heartbeat later, she adds, “I wouldn’t blame you. Hot stranger in the woods, dangerous rescue, the two of you alone, with all that adrenaline and nowhere to burn it out? It’s like the plot to a smutty book. But it’s not your style.”

She sounded proud of her sister for a moment as she took some creative liberties in describing what happened, but she ended with what seems to be the biggest problem: everyone, including Hope, thinks they know her. What if they don’t, though?

Learn you from the inside, from your core, from your soul. Brave little one, let me in.

I can hear that one in my mind, with a rough whisper growing into a scream as the drums take over, pounding hard. I wish I could write it down, but now’s not the time or place, given that I’m with the press. I try to keep the thought pinned in my head for later.

“Are you really thinking about leaving Roy? For good?” Joy steps into the deep question carefully, like she knows it’s dangerous quicksand.

Hope lifts one shoulder, looking up through her lashes at her sister. “I don’t know. What do you think?” She wants a trusted opinion, like she doesn’t have faith in what her own gut says.

I get it. I’ve depended on Sean’s advice more often than my own heart many times before. Maybe that’s what started our difficulties—I have an opinion about what’s best for me, and it’s different from what he wants for us . And we’re too stubborn to compromise.

But if Joy can give some advice that keeps Hope at the forefront, it’ll definitely help.

“You deserve better than him. You know that, right?” Joy tells her gently.

It’s the first time I think I’m seeing Joy’s true self, the ride-or-die Hope said she was, and it gets Hope’s attention. Her head jerks up, her eyes wide. “What?”

“Sis, he was a big deal in high school. I get that. But those days are long gone. For most of us, anyway. But he’s still trading on that, and on his daddy’s position of power, and on having you at his side like a prized trophy. He’s not a bad guy, exactly, but you’re Hope Mercy Barlowe, for fuck’s sake. You’re amazing and gorgeous, if I do say so myself. And the only reason you’re with him is because he locked you in before you knew better, and then he kept you from getting a clue.”

Joy holds her breath like she’s waiting for the short-fused bomb she just lit to explode. It feels like she’s wanted to say all that to Hope for a long time but never dared.

“I thought you liked Roy?” Hope questions hollowly, her brows knit together in confusion.

Joy shrugs. “I like you, and you like Roy. I’m not gonna fuck us up over a guy that’ll be gone one day, sooner or later.” Okay, quicksand be damned. She’s cannonballing into the deep end now, harshly saying her piece without filter. My estimation of Joy ticks upward again. “But you can’t honestly tell me that if you met Roy today, you’d be falling over him. Did you hear those weak-ass vows? ‘Obey’? Obey? I nearly smacked him across the face for you. I mean, I don’t even know this guy”—she gestures at me—“but he’s been nicer to you in the last ten minutes than Roy has ever been. Hell, he even defended you against me .”

It feels like a huge badge of approval, and unconsciously, I puff my chest out a little.

“Don’t get all bigheaded. I’m comparing you to a guy whose claim to fame is that his dad’s winning sperm carried the genes for mediocrity in a small town,” she says, crudely popping my bubble.

Ouch.

“Joy!” Hope shouts in shock. But her sister has no shame, blinking innocently like she didn’t just cut Roy—and me—off at the knees with frighteningly few words.

“You deserve more, and the sooner you figure that out, the better. Because half the town’s looking for you.” Joy points a finger toward the window as she gives the warning.

“Half?”

“Well, there’s a betting pool. Couple of them, actually. One for why you ran, one for when you’re coming back. So some folks want you to stay gone—until their day, at least.”

“People are awful,” Hope says. She’s right, as far as I’m concerned.

“People want to know what’s going on because they’re nosy assholes, but they care about you too,” Joy counters. “Roy and his badge-toting dad aren’t everyone’s cup of whiskey. You’ve got some pretty hard-core fans yourself.”

Even though Joy’s talking about Hope’s fans, the mere mention of the word makes sweat bead up on my brow. This is one of my problems—dealing with the public. It’s why I wear a mask onstage in the first place. I couldn’t perform otherwise. I told Hope that my confidence grew when I got older, but that’s only in certain areas of my life. In others, I’m still the shy, nervous kid who sang only in his room, with no one listening, because the one time I tried did not go well. I cracked, and so did my voice.

Hope looks completely lost at the information Joy is throwing at her, like she never imagined Roy wasn’t everyone’s favorite and she was seen as the coattail-riding girlfriend. Which, again, pisses me the fuck off. Who the hell is this guy? Because it sounds like he needs a two-piece wake-up call. One-two, ding-ding, motherfucker.

“What if I could help?” I look around, not sure who said that. When two matching pairs of blue eyes land on me, I realize I’m the one who spoke, and nearly swallow my tongue to eat the words because I’m not sure what I’m talking about. Quickly making it up as I go, I add, “You could hang out with me. Show me around Maple Creek for a few days while you figure your shit out. It’d help me figure out mine too.”

In a perfect world, neither of us would need to escape from our lives, but life isn’t perfect. Nothing is, so we have to work with what we’ve got. And right now, that’s us, this town, and a few days’ time.

Stop the hands on the clock. Capture forever in a moment. Explore the space within you.

“Oh, I couldn’t do that—” Hope says.

At the same time, Joy points at me. “I like it.”

In unison, they look at each other and say, “What?”

They are definitely twins.

Joy takes charge, seeming used to the role. “You can’t leave. You said you needed to get out of Maple Creek, but Dad and Shep would hunt you down, and I don’t think Mom and I could stop them. But if you’re here keeping a low profile, I think they’d go along with it and give you the time you need to figure things out. And like I said, you have friends in low places around here who’ll help you by not telling Roy or Sheriff Laurier a damn thing. But first ...” Joy turns to face me fully, narrowing her eyes as she glares into mine. I’m sure she thinks it’s intimidating. For some, it might be. For me, I’ve dealt with worse.

“What?” I grunt.

“What’s your shit that needs figuring out? Are you getting my sister into something stupid, dangerous, or otherwise ill-advised?” She ticks the options off on manicured nails.

I meet Hope’s eyes instead. She’s the one I’m risking it all for, so she’s the one who deserves to know. But, mindful of Joy’s profession, I’m careful as I say, “Me and my boy Sean work together. Lately, it’s not going well, but we need it to. I need it to.”

That admission sucker punches me in the chest. I don’t know what I’d do without my brother-in-arms, and I sure as fuck don’t want to find out.

Hope presses her lips together in understanding. She nods, but there’s uncertainty in her eyes. About the arrangement, not me. “Are you sure about this? I’m not a tour guide—”

“Coulda fooled me,” I interject, and she smiles a tiny smile, likely remembering all the recommendations she made last night and on the way here.

I can see the war raging in her mind as she decides. But before she has a chance to, Joy is physically shoving us toward the door, apparently reassured that I’m not a serial killer or fugitive on the run. “Sounds like a plan. Here’s your bag. It’s packed for your honeymoon, but I figured that’d work.” She pulls out a duffel from somewhere and throws it my way before she directs us down the hall and toward the front door. To Hope, she says, “Your phone’s in there too. Send me the address of where you’re staying so I can keep tabs on you.”

With that one, Joy shoots me a look of warning. “I’ll give it to Shep and Dad, too, just in case.”

“Joy, I don’t know about this,” Hope tries to tell her.

But Joy’s not hearing it. She puts her hands on Hope’s shoulders, looking deep into her eyes and speaking firmly. “You have a chance to rip every page out of your story and completely rewrite every chapter. Whether it’s with Roy or not, you deserve to choose it with your whole heart and mind, with zero doubts.”

Hope freezes, hearing the truth in her sister’s words. Suddenly, Hope is wrapped around Joy like a jellyfish, arms and legs and hair going everywhere as they hug and sway in the lobby. “Love you, sis.”

“Love you more. Now, get out of here before the early lunch-edition reporting is over and people see you.” Joy looks behind her as she extricates herself from Hope’s hug.

“Oh!” Hope hears what Joy means—that there might be people here on Roy’s side, not ours. Ours? When did it become ours, not hers? “I’ll call you later.”

And then we’re crossing the parking lot and getting in the car. I glance over to find Hope looking shell-shocked, staring vacantly with her jaw dropped open. “You okay?”

A slow smile steals across her lips, and she nods. Ever so softly, she whispers, “Yeah, I think I am.”