Chapter 72: Garrett?
Benita’s POV.
Benita let herself into the flat, dropping her keys into the bowl by the door out of habit, the small space already showing signs of two people living in it rather than one. A second pair of shoes sat kicked off near the entrance, not hers. A cardigan she didn’t own draped over the back of the couch. The kitchen counter had two mugs drying by the sink instead of just her usual one.
She headed straight for her room, energy still buzzing from the day, and dropped her bag onto the floor before flopping back onto her bed.
For a moment, she just lay there, grinning at the ceiling.
Garrett-kun.
She replayed it, unable to help herself. Walking up to him. The exaggerated offense over him forgetting her name, mostly performance, though it had been a little bit real too. Asking for his number outright, no hesitation, no waiting around to see if he’d offer it first. And him actually giving it to her, despite the whole complicated-relationship thing he’d tried to warn her off with.
She hadn’t cared. She still didn’t.
Benita didn’t do the thing some girls did, sitting around wondering whether a guy liked them, waiting for some signal before making a move of her own. If she wanted something, she went and got it. Simple as that. Garrett had been interesting enough to chase, so she’d chased him, and now she had his number sitting in her phone like a small, satisfying trophy.
She was still smiling about it when the knock came at her door.
“You home?” Her sister’s voice, muffled slightly through the door.
“Yeah, come in!”
The door opened, and her sister leaned against the frame, giving her a look that immediately caught on something. “Why do you look like that?”
Benita sat up, unable to fully wipe the grin off her face even if she’d wanted to. “Like what?”
“Like you won something.”
“Kind of did.” Benita swung her legs off the bed, standing up as she launched into it. “There’s this guy I’ve been interested in for a few days now. I Finally got his contact yesterday.”
Her sister’s eyebrows lifted, amusement settling into her expression. “You got his number.”
“Obviously.”
“You didn’t wait for him to ask for yours?”
“Why would I do that?” Benita said, like the question itself was slightly absurd. “I wanted it and I asked.”
Her sister laughed, shaking her head. “Aren’t guys supposed to be the ones chasing? Isn’t that the whole unspoken rule?”
“There’s no rule. Or if there is one, I don’t care about it.” Benita shrugged, entirely unbothered. “He was too attractive to just sit around hoping he’d notice me eventually. So I went and got his number instead. Much simpler.”
Her sister’s amusement lingered, curiosity creeping in behind it now. “Okay, so who is he? What’s his name?”
“Garrett,” Benita said easily, still riding the good mood. “I call him Garrett-kun. It annoys him a little, I think, which makes it better.”
The shift in her sister’s face happened fast, faster than Benita fully registered at first.
“Garrett?” The word came out too quick, too sharp. “Are you serious? Garrett?”
Benita blinked, the smile slipping slightly as she took in the sudden change. Her sister’s posture had gone rigid where she stood by the door, her expression caught somewhere between disbelief and something harder to name.
“…Yeah?” Benita said slowly. “What’s wrong?”
Her sister didn’t answer right away. Her mouth opened, then closed again, like she was working through several different responses and rejecting all of them before settling on nothing at all.
The silence stretched a beat too long.
Benita’s confusion deepened, the good mood from a minute ago fading into something more uncertain now. She studied her sister’s face, waiting.
“What do you mean, Jacey?”
Jacey blinked, and whatever had been sitting so plainly on her face a second ago smoothed over, carefully, deliberately.
“Nothing,” she said, too quickly again, though this time with more control behind it. “Sorry…Just surprised. Small world, I guess.”
“You know him?”
“Kind of.” Jacey’s tone had leveled out now, casual in a way that didn’t quite match the tension still visible in her shoulders. “He was someone I knew from university. Just a friend.”
Benita tilted her head slightly, something about the timing still not sitting right. “Wait, but you already graduated. How do you know him if he’s still in school?”
“I knew him while I was still there,” Jacey said. “Before I finished.”
“Oh.” Benita considered that for a second, then shrugged, letting it go easily enough. It made sense, sort of, and she had no particular reason to dig further into something that clearly wasn’t a big deal. “Small world, then, I guess. Funny.”
“Yeah,” Jacey said. “Funny.”
Benita turned back toward her bed, already reaching for her phone, the conversation apparently settled as far as she was concerned. She missed the way Jacey’s expression didn’t quite return to normal even after the subject had moved on, missed the tightness still sitting behind her sister’s carefully arranged calm.
Jacey excused herself a moment later, something about needing to check on dinner, and stepped back out into the hallway.
She didn’t go anywhere near the kitchen.
She stood there instead, just outside Benita’s door, her back against the wall, staring at nothing in particular while her mind raced through everything that name had just dredged up.
Garrett.
Not just someone. Not just a name that happened to overlap by coincidence. The Garrett. The one she’d dated, the one she’d walked away from, the one she’d later shown up at his door hoping to use, only to be turned away.
Now her little sister was talking about him with stars in her eyes, calling him Garrett-kun, completely unaware of what that name actually meant.
Jacey pressed her palm flat against the wall, steadying herself against the sudden, disorienting weight of it.
Was it the same Garrett she knew? Could it be another person?. Garrett was a name only a handful bear at the university, Garrett was too specific to not be him.
Why was Benita interested in him? How had Garrett ended up talking to her sister? And worse, far worse than either of those questions, what happened if Benita ever found out the truth?
Jacey closed her eyes for a moment.
Garrett wasn’t simply someone Jacey had known once.
He was her ex.
And now her sister liked him.