Hot Mess. Emily Belden

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СКАЧАТЬ ever done. I LOVE YOU. -B

      My favorite three words from this man (other than dinner is ready). The first time he said it was when I was sitting there on the floor with puffy, red eyes in an oversize college hoodie, stuffing my face with thousands of calories of pizza and wondering how the hell this thing was going to work, but not really worrying about it either. Because next to me, tucked away in our own little enclave in the city, was somebody I was never supposed to meet but was always meant to have.

      A few things have changed since then; some for the good, while others...well, like I said, the momentum is rolling and it’s hard to know whether I’m keeping up or falling behind. But a surprise note like this tells me that, for the most part, he’s keeping his promises. He makes my lunch most days of the week, keeps the place (somewhat) tidy and has (sort of) figured out what he wants to do. Or at least, he had that last part figured out, until Miss Angela Blackstone decided to come out of nowhere and dangle a restaurant in front of his face.

      I finish my lunch and I still haven’t heard from Benji. Under ordinary circumstances, I would take the silence to mean the worst: an overdose or an arrest during a drug deal gone bad. I know I saw him just hours ago and he was totally fine, but I usually hear from Benji at least five times by lunch; his addict’s personality makes him incessant. Everything he likes, he loves. Everything he hates, he abandons. Everything he wants, he needs now or better, yesterday. And most days, what he wants is to talk to me. All the time.

      But today is different. Today he has his meeting with Angela, and I’m sure she’s still blowing smoke up his ass or I’d have heard from him by now.

      I look her up on LinkedIn to verify she is, in fact, the chick who scolded me for leaving the money unattended. I’m in the social media business, after all, and frankly curiosity got the best of me.

      From what I can tell from her profile, Angela checks out—which is both a good and a bad thing in this case. I mean, according to her résumé she worked where she said she worked during the times she said she was there. And she was definitely a manager, too. Not just some entitled server who appointed herself with a new title after claiming to “practically run the place.” No, she’s a bona fide back-and front-of-house professional with ten people who have written recommendations for her. Glowing ones, too.

      In the time it takes me to rinse out my Tupperware and return to my cubicle, I somehow miss six calls, four texts and an email from Benji. Apparently, Benji’s meeting is finished.

      Of all the communication, the email is the most frantic. It says: Why the hell aren’t you answering? Bout to call your desk phone.

      I’ve made it very clear that Benji is never to call my desk line. For one thing, I don’t have a direct number, which means to reach me, you have to call our receptionist, Linda, and ask specifically for me. Then she forwards the call to my landline. He did this once a while back that day he wanted permission to splurge on cable. I was busy in a meeting, away from my desk, email and cell—but that didn’t stop him from asking Linda to personally go find me for a wellness check. I’ll never forget Linda’s face as she stood outside the all-glass conference room and tried her best to nonchalantly get my attention. I thought there was an emergency. I thought my dad’s blood pressure problems had finally gotten the best of him.

      Benji seemed baffled that in the corporate world, you can actually be fired for having your boyfriend pull you out of a meeting to find out what channel Shahs of Sunset is on. But once I explained that no job would mean no way to make rent for our cute little Lincoln Park abode, he cut the shit. Since then, he’s been pretty good at steering clear of Linda and my landline, but that doesn’t stop him from blowing up all other mediums of communication.

      His texts grew more frantic by the second—literally:

      Yo. U around?

      Hello??????

      ALLIE. WHERE THE HELL R U

      Ugh, just checked Locator. I know UR @ work. CALL ME.

      I know it sounds insanely controlling for him to track my locale with an app. But adding Locator to our phones was an even trade; I’d put it on mine if Benji put it on his. I rarely check his anymore, but I used to, just to confirm he was always near Lakeview and Diversey, the intersection of my apartment. And before you tell me the plan is flawed because an addict could just leave his phone there while out hunting for drugs, let me remind you that Benji wouldn’t part with the device that links him to his social media feeds. Plus, how do you complete a drug deal without unlimited texting?

      Relax, was eating, I write. Call u in a min.

      K. Love u.

      Like most things concerning Benji, communicating with him while at work takes a bit of science. I used to chat with him on Google Hangouts. I thought that was safe because I could just minimize it when someone walked by, but one day I saw IT run a company-wide troubleshoot, which proved they have the ability to see what’s on our monitors at any given moment. Since then, I blocked Benji from contacting me that way during work hours. He was pissed at first, but the last thing I need is for someone to let HR know that at 10:13 a.m., Benji Zane wrote Allie Simon, My dick still smells like your pussy and I kind of love it.

      Most people would keep a thought like that to themselves, but not Benji. Benji will talk about life’s more personal details the way other people talk about the weather. I have to give him points; a good lover is a good communicator, and Benji never hesitates to tell me what he wants, when he wants it. But highly graphic instant messages about my lady parts while I’m at work? I have to draw the line somewhere.

      I grab my phone and make my way to the server room. There are about 150 people who work on computers on our floor, so essentially this room has rows and rows of hard drives stacked about five feet high that hum, flicker and vent a slight amount of heat. Buried in there, four rows down and one row in, is the perfect place to take five and call Benji back. In this nook, no one can hear us argue about money. No one can hear us discuss what days I need to take off for his pop-ups. No one can hear us chat about the amazing sex we had that morning.

      Not surprisingly, he picks up on the first ring. “Hey.” Real casual, like he hasn’t been in a complete frenzy for the past fifteen minutes.

      “Hey. What’s going on?” I ask.

      The good thing about chatting with Benji is that he’s direct. Whatever he wants, whether it’s sex with me, twenty dollars from the ATM or for me to put his cell phone bill on my credit card so it doesn’t get shut off (he always gives me cash from a pop-up after), he doesn’t beat around the bush.

      “It’s happening,” he says. “I’m getting a restaurant.”

      I was afraid he was going to say that.

      “Really?”

      My stomach fills with anxiety. I should probably see my doctor, get something prescribed for these moments when his antics send my nerves into overdrive. But a bottle of mood levelers would be too big a trigger for Benji. Even if I hid them somewhere, he’s like a bloodhound with narcotics. It’s a risk I’m not willing to take.

      “I met with Angela. She’s a cool chick. Knows her shit. Totally legit.”

      “Yeah, I looked her up online earlier.”

      “She has this investor guy,” he goes on, as if I hadn’t spoken. “The one from the ’burbs. He’s ready to make his city debut and they want me to design the culinary concept. Get this: they have a space СКАЧАТЬ