“Hells yes,” Ben said.
“Will you two idiots please shut up?” Ro folded her arms across her chest. “You can both take me to the prom. Queen Elizabeth I had her retinue.” She pointed to JD. “You can be Leicester.” Then to Ben: “And you can be Essex.”
“I’ll be Leicester,” Ben said.
“Why?” JD asked. “What’s so good about Leicester?”
“He lives out his natural life. Essex gets his head chopped off, but he is young, good-looking, and the queen’s favorite. It’s kind of a trade-off.”
“I’ll be Essex.” JD stood and stretched. “So . . . we’re all okay on this?”
“No, we’re not okay on this! But this is what I’ll agree to,” Ro said. “You can take me to the winter dance. But not to the after party.”
“Agreed.”
“And that’s as far as I’ll go right now,” Ro told him. “You’d better start eating shit on Monday, JD. And you’d better be really good at it or else all bets are off. I don’t want people snickering behind my back. Now go away. I want to talk to Vicks in private. That is why I came over. Not to deal with you!”
JD was trying to hide a smirk, but it wasn’t quite working. Ro said, “Get out of here!”
“I need my jacket.”
“I’ll get it.” When Ben came back, he said, “You take care of her, JD. If you don’t, I’ll kill you. I’ve studied enough murders that I truly believe I could do it and get away with it.”
“You are so weird.” JD put on his jacket. “A little menacing, dude. I’ll admit that, but you’re still very bizarre.”
As soon as the front door closed, the two girls came out from hiding. Ro said, “Did you hear anything?”
“Everything,” Haley said. “I agree with you, Ro. They both are real idiots.”
Lilly said, “On the other hand, it’s so romantic to have two guys fighting over you.”
“I don’t have two guys,” Ro said. “I have two cretins.” She spoke to Ben. “You two are enough to make me turn gay.”
“Lucky girls,” Ben told her.
Despite herself, Ro smiled. “I need to talk to Ben in private.”
Lilly pulled Haley’s arm. “C’mon, best friend, we’re back in quarantine.”
“You can stay here,” Ro said. “We’ll go to his room. Don’t you dare listen in. I mean that, Haley.”
“You were yelling,” Haley said.
“Not really,” Lilly said. “We were just eavesdropping.”
Ro took Ben’s hand. “I’ve got plenty to say to you.”
“Any of it good?”
“Dream on.”
Chapter 28
After Ro closed and locked the door to the bedroom, she leaned against the wall with her arms crossed over her chest. Her voice was low and filled with anger. “This was going to be the ‘let’s get together’ talk. After what happened, the most you can hope for is rapprochement.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know why I’m talking to you at all. Do I mean that little to you that you’re willing to blow me off?”
“Just the opposite.” Ben exhaled. “Your happiness is paramount. Even if it makes me miserable.”
“Didn’t sound like it out there. Sounded like you and JD were having a great time. If you love someone, you don’t share the person with someone else.”
“Of course I don’t want to share you.” Ben looked out the window of the bedroom. The lightning and thunder had abated, but it was still gray, wet, and dreary. The wind was raging. “Okay, Dorothy, you win. I’ll drop my plans and stay here until we graduate.”
Ro stared at him. “You’d do that for me?”
“I’d do anything for you.” He softened his voice. “Anything.”
She was silent for a moment. “No, don’t do that. Even I’m not that self-centered.”
Ben said, “Ro, you’re stuck here. You can either spend the time you have left as the queen bee or you can be a drone. I vote queen bee—not for me but for you. What does it matter anyway? In six months you’ll fly away and won’t look back.”
“Sadly, I suppose there’s some truth in that.” She cleared her throat. “Did you know he was doing Shannon too?”
“No. He just told me.”
“I don’t know how he managed juggling me and them. I know he’s eighteen, but still that takes a lot of stamina . . . not that I did all that much with him.”
“I don’t need to hear this.”
She said, “He’s right, you know. I really did start off liking him . . . a lot. It just died.”
“What happened?”
“I guess I just started thinking about serious things: my sister, your sister, Katie Doogan, Julia Rehnquist, death and murder. JD suddenly seemed so . . . frivolous.”
“Sorry for dragging you into my neurosis.”
“No, Vicks, you can’t repress forever.” Another shrug. “At least I get to go to the winter dance in my supercool dress.” She sat down on his bed and patted the mattress. “Sit down next to me.”
“Gladly.” She put her head on his shoulder and he kissed her cheek. “I really do love you.”
She lay down on the bed and drew him on top of her. Reaching up, she tucked an errant piece of hair behind his ear. “I love you too.”
“You don’t have to say it if you don’t mean it.”
“I do mean it, and that’s the problem.” She blinked back tears. “I love you and I don’t want to love you.” She wrapped a lock of his hair around a finger then pulled the finger out. Did it again until it was a ringlet. “Because if you love someone and you have to leave that someone, it’s very painful.”
“I know. Ellen’s death was a total game changer. I live in the present. And the present is I’m madly in love with you.”
Ro stroked his cheek. “Tell me something, Ben. If you had a choice between being with me forever just like we are at this moment . . . or finding your sister’s killer, what would you do?”
Ben knew what she wanted. But he couldn’t give it to her and he hated himself for it. “That’s not a fair question. Why can’t I love you and find my sister’s killer?”
“I asked you to make a choice and you made it.” Ro pushed him away and sat up. “Now I want to know why.”
He stood up and paced. “Why do you think?”
“Because you’re obsessed, single-minded, and mulish . . . not to mention depressed and anhedonic?”
“Because he could murder again, Ro. He will murder again and again and again. And I’d rather lose my one chance at happiness than make some other family so profoundly unhappy.”
She wouldn’t look at him. “Give me your flight and hotel information for Berkeley or Mount Diablo or whatever.”
“You hate me.”
“I admire you. I don’t know if I like you right now. Doesn’t matter. Give me your information.”
“Why?”
“You’re not telling your parents, and if you crash, at least someone should know where you are.”
He didn’t trust her one whit. Still, he went to his computer to retrieve the data. “It’s going to take a minute. I’d encoded everything so my mother can’t access my information.”
“She snooped on your computer?”
“Yes, she did. I’m still mad at her for that.”