I woke with a start. It was unusual for me, because I usually slept sound. But there was an added figure and source of heat next to me. There was a hand that had just landed in the space right between my waist and hips. My eyes were slits when they opened. I didn’t see much. The room was still dark, and I could hear the warm air coming through the ducts, so I knew it was the middle of the night.

“Hey,” came Ben’s familiar voice. “It’s me.”

Well, that did make sense. It was his apartment. I’d been asleep in Ben’s bed with Roscoe snuggled up to me.

I didn’t bother opening my eyes any further or looking at him. I felt dizzy from waking up so suddenly. I croaked, “I thought you were coming home tomorrow.”

Ben and I hadn’t spoken since he left on his team’s road trip. We had no reason to. There was nothing we had to say to each other unless we were both in Edmonton. But he did have the outline of his team’s travel itinerary printed out and posted on his refrigerator. The Oilers had just played a game in Chicago and were supposed to be back the next day.

“Today is tomorrow, babe,” he clarified. “We left right after the game.”

“Oh. What time is it?”

“Just after 4.” Ben explained, “We had a bad game. When that happens, especially at the end of the road trip, everyone just wants to get back to the comfort of home.”

“Sorry,” I told him as I curled my arm around his shoulder. I was careful not to wake Roscoe, who was asleep peacefully against my abdomen.

Ben smelled of the soap he’d used after the game some 5 hours ago back in Chicago. “I wasn’t sure if you’d be here.” He enveloped me into a cuddle as best that he could with Roscoe between us, adjusting his hand on my waist. “It’s nice coming home to a couple of raven-haired cuties in my bed. You’re right where I left you.”

He was right. On the morning that he left, I’d been in bed next to Roscoe, just like I was now. I’d even been in the same state – half-awake and not up to the task of moving from where I lay.

“Oh, we’ve been here the whole time you were gone,” I teased sarcastically, “just waiting for your return.”

Ben chuckled right in my ear, soft and low, sending a chill down my spine. His breath tickled at my eardrum. It prompted me to reach up from his shoulder to touch his face. My fingers slid right over smooth hair. I tilted my head back and finally opened my eyes completely. I didn’t think that I’d overshot and gotten the top of his head.

It was dark in the bedroom to the point that I couldn’t see any colours. But Ben was very close to me, because we were cuddling, and I could see the outline of his face perfectly—his big pointed nose, the blacks of his eyes, and those high-set cheekbones. I didn’t make a mistake. I hadn’t overshot. My fingers had grazed over his jawline. There was just an addition to his face, a beard in progress.

“Woah,” I sounded out. “Can we please talk about what you have on your face?”

“The beard?” Ben sighed. “You hate it, don’t you?”

My eyes widened. “Are you kidding? It’s amazing. I want to stare at you and watch it grow.”

“Seriously?” Ben furrowed his eyebrows, doubting me.

“I can’t believe your beard looks this good right now,” I responded, recalling the scruffy stubble on his face on the last morning that I’d seen him. “You were gone less than two weeks.”

I thought back to the picture of him holding the Stanley Cup over his head. His beard and the hair on his head then were almost of the same thickness. I remembered thinking, when I’d seen that picture, how much I wanted to make out with him looking like that and to run my hands over his jawline. Ben’s current beard wasn’t as full as it had been in the picture, but it looked like it was maybe a third of the way there. It upped his sex appeal for sure.

“I can’t believe you dig it,” Ben shook his head but smiled. “Women usually want it off my face as soon as possible.”

Clean shaven or scruffy were the only ways I’d seen him before. He was always good looking no matter what his facial hair situation was. But with the beard? Forget it. I was keeping it together on the outside but on the inside I was a giggling teenager. Ben looked like the newest man on the mountain and I wanted him to light my fire.

The scene that I’d grown up in, that I was still a part of, had helped shape my opinions on the little things I was into. There was one indie distribution label with a slogan that had it pretty down pat: we liked our coffee black and our vinyl coloured. We didn’t cling on to anything to be “different”—we just liked what we liked without feeling like we needed justification for it. And just like any other community or subculture, we had shared interests. Music with dissonant sound. Tattoos. Vegan red velvet cupcakes. Full beards.

There was something so sexy about a man who could grow a proper beard, like it was a mark of his strength and character.

“Those women are crazy!” I proclaimed and stroked at his beard. “It makes me want to jump your bones even more.”

Ben chuckled again. “If I had known that this whole time...”

Really, then what? How much more time could I spend with Ben? How would his having a beard change anything about our consensual sexual non-relationship that had us sleeping with each other almost every time we were together? How could we be lesser friends so that I wasn’t as comfortable in his presence as I was now?

“Don’t get too attached to the beard,” he advised. “It will be gone before you are.”

“What?” I said, genuinely disappointed. “Why?”

“The team is participating in Movember. There was a draw to figure out exactly who’s growing the mustaches. It’s some of my teammates and some of the organization staff. My name didn’t come out of the hat,” he explained, “but I think it’s pretty shitty if I’m rocking the full beard while they have to maintain the Mos for a good cause. I should be considerate and shave.”

Considerate. That was what I’d always thought Ben was going back to the first night I ever spent with him. He was consistent, too. He was unchanged from who he’d always been. He was still quiet. Still romantic. I’d gotten to know him better but there were no new annoying facets to his personality to reveal. In fact, the longer I knew him, the more I was attracted to him—all of him.

“Too bad,” I replied tiredly to his explanation. I touched his face again, running my fingers along the smoothness that went all the way down his jawline and chin. My hand fell against his collarbone once I was done, my eyes getting droopy.

There was nothing I could do to get him to stay bearded and there shouldn’t be. I knew that Movember was about raising awareness for men’s health and raising money for cancer research. Supporting those in his organization who were supporting a great cause was way more important than impressing the girl he was sleeping with. Like I said, it wouldn’t change anything between us.

“You should go back to sleep,” he whispered with a kiss to my forehead.

---

During my housesitting stint at Ben’s, I’d found out just how convenient it was living downtown. The Sobey’s across the street from his building had a great selection of snacks and fresh fruit. The grocery store was the practical option but the best breakfast option, without a doubt, was the Sunterra Market inside the building known as Commerce Place. Their deli and produce was supplied only by local farmers. There was a drinks bar, a prepped meal counter, a salad bar, and most importantly, a patisserie. I’d gone there a few times and each time I regretted not stocking up for the entirety of the day.

I didn’t make the same mistake this time. Having come in so late the night before (technically morning), Ben had been fast asleep when I woke. The downtown Sunterra location wasn’t very big but I could still spend an unreasonable amount of time there deciding what to get. I thought Ben might still be asleep when I returned with breakfast. He was lying in bed on his back, typing away on his phone with his thumbs.

Engrossed in whatever he was doing, Ben didn’t seem to notice or didn’t seem to care that I was standing in the threshold of the bedroom doorway. I’d walked by Roscoe, who was grooming himself on the couch, on my way. I knocked twice on the open door to make my presence known and greeted, “Hey.”

“Hi,” Ben returned, looking up at me. “Nice timing. I was just about to call you. Wasn’t sure if you’d gone off to the studio for the rest of the day.”

It was later than when we usually woke up on the mornings that Ben drove me back to Sherwood Park but nothing drastic. Actually, Ben always drove me home too early when he dropped me off before his morning skates. I never went back to sleep but rather found something to do until it was time to hit the studio. The closer the time was to noon when I arrived in Sherwood Park, the better.

“I brought you breakfast.” I revealed a big paper bag from behind my back. “I thought that it could be a means of saying thanks for letting me stay here while you were gone.”

Ben shifted in bed and onto his side right at the edge of the mattress and set his Blackberry down on the nightstand. “What kind of breakfast?”

“I got some bagels, mini croissants, a yogurt parfait,” I listed off, “breakfast burrito, muffins, and a fruit cup.”

“How much breakfast do you think I need?” Ben asked, teasingly, and laughed.

“Well, these are all things that I like. Whatever you don’t eat, I’ll take to the studio for later.” I walked into the room.

Ben sat up in bed as I approached him. “I’ll go for the burrito.”

Setting the paper bag down on the nightstand, I unfolded the top and peered inside. Ben’s breakfast burrito would be on the very bottom. It was part of a complete healthy meal advertised to be made fresh that very morning, boxed with a small bowl of fruit and fresh-squeezed orange juice. I took out two smaller paper bags full of baked goods before I got to the flap of the box.

Ben wasted no time in peeling back the wax paper wrapping as soon as I handed it to him. I fished around in the bag for the single straw that I knew was in there and ripped the top off of its plastic wrapping so I could get the straw out cleanly in one swipe. I grabbed the plastic cup from the box and poked the straw through the crosshair opening and held it out to him. He was a few bites into his breakfast and swallowed all the food in his mouth politely before accepting.

He took a long sip before setting it down carefully on the now crowded nightstand. “Thank you.”

“Be careful,” I scolded him as he went back to his food. “I just changed these sheets yesterday.”

Rather than reminding me that it was his house and he could do whatever he wanted or shaking his head at my remark, he said, “Why are you standing all the way over there? It’s breakfast in bed, Mins. Come join me.”

All the way over there was right beside the bed in front of the nightstand. But his point was taken. I unzipped my bomber jacket to reveal a simple black and white striped long sleeve shirt that paired well with the skinny-fit sweatpants I’d been wearing on my runs the last two days since the snow fell. I pulled the spare keys to the building and unit from my pocket and dropped them beside Ben’s cellphone. I wouldn’t need them anymore now that he was home. When I was rid of my jacket, I swiped a croissant from one of the smaller paper bags before sauntering around the foot of the bed to the other side so I could crawl in next to Ben.

I pulled back the duvet and he held out an arm for me, eating with the other. I didn’t know what he’d been wearing when he crawled into bed with me hours before, but I assumed it was the same, his boxers and an old t-shirt, the kind I slept in when Roscoe felt like cuddling. I curled up against Ben’s side, my head at the crook of his shoulder, and he ran his hand up and down my arm.

“You must be freezing,” he guessed. “I saw the snow along the riverbank when we were driving over the Low Level Bridge last night.”

He knew I wasn’t cut out for a Northern Alberta winter. It wasn’t even winter, just the first snowfall. And Edmonton wasn’t even as north as, say, Fort McMurray, but it put fear into me nonetheless. It hadn’t snowed again but the city was a mess from the aftermath of melting slush. The road crews had plowed the main roads as soon as it snowed but the community roads, sidewalks, and all the city’s landscaping was covered in one of two things: half-frozen powder or brown slush. It was slippery and cold in the morning, just two days after the first snow, and it was always windy downtown. I just wanted to be inside.

“I guess I should be thankful that it’s only happened once and I got to wear dresses through October,” I replied once I’d polished off my mini croissant. “If I’m lucky it won’t happen again until December when I’m gone, right? Is that too much wishful thinking?”

Instead of answering my question, Ben asked a question of his own. “How many days?”

Without needing any further clarification, I knew he was asking how many days there were until I left Edmonton with my band.

“Fifteen. Maybe sixteen,” I ballparked.

The Automatic Flowers were at the start of our final week recording in the studio. We were getting down to the wire. Every day went by quickly with Grant. It was increasingly stressful. We didn’t have a choice but to get everything done by the end of the week. Our band master plan was still on track but that didn’t make it any less stressful as our money ran out and our deadline came up. Our final week in town was reserved for mastering and mixing, when we would overanalyze the result of our labours of the last two months. Just more stress.

“And how many days for us?” Ben asked as he crumpled the wax paper and foil of his breakfast into a ball. He was finished eating and exchanged the trash for the orange juice.

That question was more specific. The answer was more specific, too. I’d looked at the team travel itinerary on his refrigerator every day that I was alone in the apartment. I knew the overlap. I knew the possible days that I would be leaving. I knew the day that he was leaving on another road trip, before I was leaving. After that day, we wouldn’t see each other anymore.

“Seven.”

He offered the orange juice to me silently and I lifted my head from his shoulder to drink from the straw. I rested my head against the pillow instead when I was done and Ben set the drink back on the nightstand. He turned on his side so we were face to face in bed, foreheads aligned, sharing the same pillow.

“Exactly a week from today,” Ben said simply, looking me in the eye.

At the same time that I nodded, I felt the muscles in my arms clench. It was hard to look into Ben’s eyes of blue in the morning light and not want to touch him. And he still had the damn beard. I hadn’t been kidding when I told him that it made me want to jump his bones even more.

Ben wrapped his arm around my shoulder and then spoke, “I was thinking about you a lot while I was gone.”

I was trapped. The hand on my skin indicated that it wasn’t a conversation he was going to let me roll away from. I wasn’t meant to look anywhere but his face or change the subject.

So I gave him the sexiest smile that I could. “I thought about you, too.”

How could I go about my day and then go home to Ben’s apartment, play with his cat, and sleep in his bed without thinking about him? He was like the “one night at camp” stories you told your girlfriends about. Except it was night after night and I didn’t have girlfriends, I had Parker.

“I like you, Delia,” Ben told me boldly, without hesitation. “I like your black hair and your green eyes and your little nose. I like your hips. I like your curves.”

The things about me that he mentioned were things he’d told me before, usually before sex. But he wasn’t done yet. He went on, “But most of all I like you. Your independence and your boldness. The sexiest part of you is that you’re a firecracker. I know that you would never let a man tell you what to do.”

My heartbeat picked up. Those were what I considered real compliments. I liked a man who liked my thinking mind. Without giving myself a chance to overthink it, I let him know. “Ben, I like you, too.”

“Really?” he wondered, searching my face. “Do you?”

I nodded, not breaking eye contact. I wasn’t going to give him reasons like he’d given me. But I’d always been attracted to Ben and while he’d been gone, while I’d had time alone to think, I realized how much I liked him. He had more to offer than what I was looking for. He was like a prototype of what I would want in the future.

And I knew what he was doing. Ben was gauging to see what the status of our fling was. That was exactly why I admitted to him that I liked him. Like Parker had told me, I owed it to Ben to be clear that our hot sex and our friendship were finite. I liked him and I liked what we had but that was the end of the story. Like I had told Parker, I was pretty sure Ben already knew. That was why he had made it easy, telling me that I was a firecracker and he liked my independence.

“I can’t be her for you,” I told him honesty. “The relationship that you are looking for and that you deserve are nothing that I’m ready for.”

“Can you be her for seven days?” Ben’s voice was barely above a whisper. He stroked my face. “Whatever it is that we have…I want it to be real until we’re done. I just don’t know when I’m gonna meet another you.”

That was heavy. Real. If we became real, it was way, way past what we currently were. We could get affectionate all we wanted, without worrying about whether we were giving off the wrong impression. We wouldn’t be taking risks when we crossed the line with each other because there wouldn’t be a line. Our non-relationship would become a relationship.

I realized it would be something else, too. It would be closure. I didn’t want to end on a sour note with Ben. I didn’t want to leave any doubt that our time together hadn’t served its purpose. And the thought that I could have Ben for real, for a fixed term, well that was too good to pass up.

My fingers ran through Ben’s hair and I leaned in to kiss him like I meant it, because now I did mean it. “Yes,” I finally agreed to his proposition.

Ben grinned and kissed me again, thoroughly, before reaching back over to the nightstand to grab something.

“Here,” he pressed the spare keys into my hand. “You still need these.”

Notes

Well. These two are playing with fire.

Thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think. I'd love to hear from you. I really appreciate getting feedback from you lovely ladies. :)

Extended Chapter Notes