Long Night; Part 10

Good morning! Happy Saturday!

I have to go to professional development today! Something called NEDS. Sounds like a schmuck, doesn't it? I', sure you can't wait to hear all about the riveting world of an after-school care educator!

But i get paid to go, and apparently there will be breakfast pastries, so off i go! The saving grace is that I get to go with Aaron. If this were some theatre teacher conference i could bet on having more fun and caring more about the shit, and maybe seeing some old friends, but at least here i get to be with my bestie (and, incidentally, the man who gave it to me but good last night when Eric & Gina went out for a couple hours to see eric's friends--score for me!!).

So before I depart for fucking WAYLAND MA (where????), let me put up part 10.

This is Ben. Danielle had a question about Mr. Sinclair. Here you find out a smidgen more.

Short but loaded with some ammo.

See you all on the flip side of NEDS!

****************

Ben tried not to know too much about other people’s sex lives.  He wasn’t a prude or anything, he just, that stuff was private.  He especially disliked knowing anything at all about his parent’s sex lives.  He always got red around the collar whenever his mother made ribald jokes—which is something she had the tendency to do around Jonah and Velvet Delaney.

He remembered their family vacations with the Delaneys as distinctly awkward for him because of the easy camaraderie between the three adults.  They teased eachother mercilessly, threaded everything with double entendres, and if they’d had just a little too much to drink they started getting very frank on topics Ben would rather never even imagine his mother discussing, let alone overhear it.

And he’d often had occasion to wonder about just how close the three of them really were.  The summer they’d all gone to the Bennett cabin upstate, the summer he’d turned thirteen, Grey had alluded to the notion that perhaps their parents liked to bunk together when everyone else had gone to sleep.  Ben knew Grey’d said it to get a rise out of him, to needle him, and he’d laughed it off.  Dismissed it.  Pretended it hadn’t bothered him.

But ever since then he’d wondered.  They were, all three of them, best friends.  Could it be out of the realm of possibility?  He really didn’t like thinking about it.  He already knew more than he’d like to about his father’s affairs.  He’d known too much about all that from about the age of five.  And perhaps the most uncomfortable thought of all was the notion that maybe he couldn’t blame his mother for seeking a physical arrangement outside of her marriage.  It baffled him that his parents were still married, actually.

But the idea of her engaging in those activities with Velvet and Jonah made him feel uneasy.  He’d been raised to think of them as his aunt and uncle.  Thinking of his mother with them felt way too close to incest.  It was weird.  They were going to be his parents-in-law for Christ’s sake!

So when he bounded up to the open front door of the Delaney mansion and heard Velvet commenting about his mother’s ass and about spankings in that very suggestive tone of voice, he just wasn’t able to maintain his composure.  He felt like an ass for blushing like a schoolboy, especially when they laughed at his discomfort, but it was quite beyond him to control his gut reaction to their flirting.  He hoped they would refrain from playing that particular pet game this evening.  The evening promised to be long enough without that fun little repartee that made his skin crawl and his ears burn.

He hung the coats in the closet and was grateful his father had taken the hint and opted not to attend.  The tension that sparked between Holden and Jonah in confined spaces was enough to give Ben a sour stomach.  He often wondered how the two of them would conduct themselves at the wedding.  He was comforted by the fact that Jonah Delaney was an upright fellow.  The best man he knew, really, and that he could be counted on to behave like a gentleman.

But there was going to be open bar and Ben’s dad was not a merry drunk.  Holden Sinclair liked to pick fights when he was drunk.  And worse, he liked to brag about his conquests and he liked to hit on young women.  Ben knew Jonah well enough to know that the man would not be able to tolerate Holden disrespecting Grace in his presence.  Ben often wished he and Avalon could elope.

He closed the closet door with a sigh and moved to check his hair in the mirror.  He was displeased to see that his cheeks were still slightly stained with high color.

“You look good enough to eat.”  Avalon’s voice purred from the dining room archway.

He smiled and turned to face her.  His eyes scanned her from her toes to her eyes.  “And you look pretty darn delicious yourself.”  He murmured appreciatively. 

She smiled and moved toward him with a small laugh.  “I could kill you for being so late.”  She cautioned him even as she moved into his waiting arms.  “It’s been a damned nightmare here without you.”

He gave her a sympathetic look and then kissed her deeply.  “That help at all?”  He asked when they drew back to look at one another.

She smiled briefly and then frowned, her eyes doing a quick scan of the foyer before fixing him with an intense purple stare.  “Gideon was cheating on my uncle.”  She told him in a quiet but fierce tone of voice. 

Ben was stunned.  “Oh no.”  He said, a rush of sympathy chasing the shock.

“And my sister’s boyfriend just broke up with her because he’s ‘met someone else’.”  She said.  Ben registered the accusatory edge to her words, but chose not to respond to it.

“That singer?”  He asked.  Ben had figured that guy for a sleaze from the get-go.

“Is there anything you need to tell me?”  She asked, her body going stiff in his arms, her lips getting thin, and one dark eyebrow lifting expectantly.

Jesus.  This was the last thing he wanted to do this evening.

“That I love you, and adore you, and that I can’t wait till you’re my wife?”  He asked with a soft smile.  He did not want to be dragged into one of her flights of unfounded jealousy.

“My grandmother says all men cheat.”  She said without acknowledging his warm sentiment.

Ben’s smile fell and he clenched his jaw.  “Your grandmother is wrong.”  He said firmly.  Many less polite comments leapt to mind, but he held his tongue.

“She’s also been kind enough to remind me about what a brazen philanderer you father is.”  She added, a hint of a challenge in those violet eyes of hers.

Ben kept his features as passive as he was able while roundly cursing that old bitch up and down in his head.  “I am not my father.”  He said after a heavy moment of silence.  He was sensitive about the issue.  He felt as though every girl he’d ever dated had been waiting for the other shoe to drop, waiting for him to look too long at a passing waitress, waiting for suspicious e-mails or texts, waiting for him to follow some genetic path to infidelity.

And if the girls weren’t bad enough, their parents were worse.  Even Jonah had changed toward him when he’s started dating Avalon.  Uncle Jonah, the man he’d looked up to all his life, the man he considered his role model and mentor.  The man he’d wished was his real father on more than one occasion, though he’d never tell that to another living soul as long as he lived.  That Jonah.  Had suddenly become somewhat aloof, distant, and Ben couldn’t deny it, he’d become extremely protective of his daughter.

Ben started calling him Mr. Delaney more often than Jonah or Uncle, and he’d lost a lot of the camaraderie they’d once enjoyed.  Only when Ben had gone to the man to ask for Avalon’s hand in marriage did the relationship begin to revert back to the way it had been.  They’d had a very long, somewhat awkward, but overall cathartic talk, man-to-man, in his study, and since then things had been getting a lot better—slowly but surely.

“If you ever cheat on me—“  She began.

Ben dropped his arms from around her.  “Don’t.”  he told her, his voice a clear warning.

Avalon Delaney did not respond well to warnings, threats, or ultimatums.

“Don’t?!”  She hissed.  “Don’t what, stand up for myself?  Don’t call you out?  Don’t pretend you’re not a man just like every other cheating piece of—“

“Avalon, I’m not the one who’s cheated.”  He said, desperate and yes, angry.  He shouldn’t have said it.  He regretted the words as they left his lips.

She froze.  He already felt awful. 

“You swore you were over that.”  She whispered.

“I am.  I’m sorry—“

“You said you forgave me.  How many times do I have to apologize for it?  What do I have to do to make you forget it?”  Tears were welling up in her beautiful eyes and he wished he could punch himself in the jaw for causing her this pain.

“I’m an ass.”  He said, reaching for her, but she turned away.  “I’m so sorry angel, please, look at me.”

He watched her shake her head and cross her arms.  She was putting on the armor.

“I guess I’ll just never be good enough for you, right?”

“Ava, you are the best thing that’s ever happened to me—please honey, look at me.  I love you.  Please.  I’m so, so, so sorry I brought that up.  I’m an idiot.  It was small and cheap of me.”  He placed a cautious hand on her shoulder.  She shrugged it off and moved a few more steps away from him.

“Whatever.”  She said, her voice rigid and unforgiving.  “Let’s just slap happy smiles on our face and get through tonight.  If you still have doubts about me we’ll call off the wedding, but let’s have the courtesy to wait until after this goddamn dinner.”

Then, without looking back at him, she strode out of the foyer toward the living room.

Ben rand a hand over his face from scalp to neck and stared blankly at the magnificent staircase before him.  What a nightmare.  This was going to be an excruciatingly long night.