“That must suck.”
“It can, but this year I finagled it so I have Christmas off.” Jace paused and looked wistfully out of the window. “It’ll be nice to be home again.”
“So you live in Houston?”
“Yeah. You?”
Ben shook his head. “Chicago.”
“Too bad.” Jace said this casually enough, but the words hit Ben like a lightning bolt.
“I’ll probably be in town a few weeks,” Ben amended hurriedly.
Jace raised an eyebrow and smiled. He didn’t reply. Instead he looked expectant. “You know,” he said eventually, “there is a strict company policy against asking passengers out on dates.”
“Oh.”
“That’s not to say that you can’t ask me.”
Jace’s grin matched Ben’s own.
* * * * *
Christmas came and went, but Ben barely noticed. The entire day was spent trying to console Allison, who was now alone in the world except for an aunt and a few cousins who had decided not to leave Colorado for the funeral.
Details of what had happened unfolded during the lulls of Allison’s crying spells. A neighbor had seen Mr. Cross collapse in the driveway and had called the police instead of an ambulance. Allison’s father had been found passed out in the street a month before, so the neighbor thought he was simply drunk again. By the time the police arrived, Mr. Cross was in critical condition from a heart attack. He died on the way to the hospital.
“He never really got better,” Allison confided as they sat together in the living room of her childhood home. “He always drank too much, and it only got worse once I went to college.”
“At least his temper mellowed with you,” Ben said.
Allison shook her head once.
Ben sat up on the couch. “You mean it didn’t?”
“No,” Allison confirmed. “Well, it did, obviously, in that I was able to date and hang out with you again, but he still went into his rages and acted really paranoid, especially when drunk. He even claimed once that you were blackmailing him.”
“I kind of was,” Ben admitted. “I threatened to tell people that he was molesting me if he ever hit you again. He didn’t, did he?”
Allison shook her head, but looked away as she did so. Ben wondered if she was being honest, but knew that he would probably never know, not now. People had a funny way of forgiving the dead.
The following day Ben tackled the long list of affairs to be set in order, starting with the funeral home. Allison decided to have the body cremated and not hold a memorial service. Allison and Ben were the only ones likely to attend anyway, since they had so few relatives and Mr. Cross never socialized.
Next they dug through piles of paperwork in Mr. Cross’s office, searching for a will. They found a house mortgage that was almost paid off, and a life insurance policy that would cover the rest while leaving Allison with money to spare. They still weren’t sure how much money was in the bank or if he left any credit card debt, but Ben planned on searching the computer for this information the next day. What little they had accomplished had already taken them well into the evening. The process was especially tiring for Allison.
Ben waited until she was asleep before pulling Jace’s number from his wallet. He felt slightly guilty about dating in the midst of Allison’s loss, but those feelings were soon replaced by nervousness as he punched in the number. A woman answered the phone.
“Hello?”
“Uh, hi. Is Jace there?”
The woman paused before sternly asking, “Who’s this?”
Not another married guy! Ben came close to hanging up when a rustling sound preceded the woman’s laughter.
“Idiot!” Jace’s voice said through a hand on the receiver. “Sorry, this is Jace,” he said in a much clearer tone.
“Hey, it’s Ben. Look, did I call at a bad time?”
“Ben! Hey! No, not a bad time at all. That was just my sister. She enjoys destroying my social life.”
“I know what you mean,” Ben said sympathetically. “I have one of those, too.”
“Yeah, they’re a pain. She was just leaving anyway,” he added pointedly. “Hold on.”
Ben listened to a hurried goodbye between the siblings, wondering what in the world he was going to say when Jace was free again. How about that flight? Did everything go okay with handing out the peanuts? Any trouble with the overhead bins? Usually he met guys at a bar where he was able to converse in person. Over the phone it felt much more awkward.
“So, what did Santa bring you for Christmas?” Jace asked suddenly.
“What?” Ben laughed.
“For Christmas. What did you get?”
“Uh, actually I haven’t even opened my presents yet. I’ve been with my friend almost the whole time since landing. My parents are probably dying to see me, actually.”
“They’ll have to wait,” Jace said. “Do you want to meet tonight?”
“It’s almost midnight!”
“Is it already?” He sounded genuinely puzzled. “You see what flying so much does to you? I have no concept of time anymore.”
“Tomorrow would be good,” Ben suggested.
“Can you ice skate?” Jace asked.
“No.”
“Excellent! Why don’t we meet at the Galleria Ice Rink? Do you know where that is?”
“Of course,” Ben answered, his head spinning. This was all going too fast!
“Next to the skate rental booth. Around dinner time?”
Ben didn’t answer right away.
“I’m not a serial killer or anything,” Jace said, noticing Ben’s hesitance. “It’s just that I would prefer to stare into those lovely brown eyes of yours when we talk.”
“My eyes are green,” Ben lied, trying to throw him for a loop.
“No, they aren’t. I’ll prove it to you tomorrow. Seven o’clock?”
“Yeah, all right,” Ben said, smiling into the receiver. “Central time zone. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t, promise. Go see your parents tomorrow!”
“All right, all right!” Ben mocked irritation. “Geez. You’d think we were married already.”
“Now who’s rushing things? Goodnight, Ben.”
“Goodnight.”
__________
Chapter 17
Houston’s Galleria might be one of the largest malls in America, but the three million square feet could have easily fit inside the pit in Ben’s stomach. The amount of butterflies there contended with those of his first day in kindergarten. Dates never made him nervous, but usually Ben would meet a guy at a bar or on campus, where conversation would flow naturally until they reached some level of comfort. Instead there had been a brief and groggy flight, from which remained only a fuzzy impression of a handsome flight attendant. Hopefully his memory didn’t cheat, because his evening was now committed to this mystery date.
The mall’s layout was fairly typical— rows of stores on each floor separated by an empty gap that allowed a shopper to see the floors above or below. Ben peered over one of the railings to the lowest floor, which was an ice rink. People of all ages glided by below, as comfortable in their ice skates as in shoes. This wasn’t going to work.
There was no sign of Jace, but then they were supposed to meet by the skate rentals. Gathering his courage, Ben pushed his way through the swarms of people. Two days after Christmas meant the mall was a nightmare of after-holiday sales and gift returns. Once the elevator that Ben squeezed into dinged open, he spotted Jace immediately.
Ben’s date was handsome, which did little to dispel his anxiety. Jace was dressed sharply in a black, knee-length, winter jacket, the sort a classy New Yorker might wear. This was tempered with a casual pair of jeans and a well-worn pair of tennis shoes. His hair was styled to perfection, which made Ben wish for a mirror to check his own, but Jace had already seen him.