The Hardest Cut Jamie Bennett (top novels TXT) 📖

“You’re always fine.  Sit down.”  I did, and he slid next to me in the cold sand.  “Da—gravy, this is freezing.”

It made me laugh.  “I don’t know what you’re going to do during the winter here.”

“Well, I already started looking for someone to plow the driveway based on a suggestion I got before, and I think I’ll need a better coat.  Or, maybe someone can help me stay warm,” he answered.  I glanced over, expecting to see him smiling at the joke, but he just looked at me closely in the moonlight.  I had to look away.  “Why didn’t you like your birthday cake?”

“I don’t eat cake.  I can’t,” I explained.

“Even one piece, one day a year?” Ben asked skeptically.

“It’s a slippery slope.  You have a piece of cake, then the next day you’re putting milk in your coffee, then you have dressing on your salad, and suddenly you’re up three pounds.  It’s easier to keep it off than to have to lose it.  I’ve had to be really careful since I drank so much at the party at my house.”  I remembered talking to him after all those drinks and suddenly wished I hadn’t mentioned that night.

“That party was weeks ago,” he noted, but I just shrugged again.  “I think you’re a little hard on yourself.”

“The Woodsmen dancer uniform isn’t very forgiving, either.  But sometimes…sometimes I just want a burger.  And chocolate cake, too, even though I didn’t want to celebrate my birthday.”

“So what’s wrong with turning twenty-five?” he asked me again.

“Doesn’t it seem awfully old?”

He laughed and put his arm around my shoulders.  “No, it seems like you have a lifetime ahead of you.”

“I’m the oldest person at the Woodsmen cheerleader practices, besides the coaches,” I pointed out.

“I’m the oldest person sitting on this beach right now.  So what?”

“Maybe I should stop dreading my birthdays,” I said slowly.  “But as my mom always says—”

“If this is going to be another comment about your shelf life or expiration or whatever, I don’t want to hear it,” Ben interrupted me.  “It took me a while to interpret everything you said to me at your party, but that idea made me pretty angry.  Do you seriously think that?”

I nodded.  “It’s true, Ben.  Just like a football career, looks are gone pretty quickly, and they won’t last at all without a lot of work and some good luck, too.”

“That’s only important if how you look is the only measure of you.  Why is that the most important thing?”

“Everybody has something, don’t they?  Something that sets us a little apart?  Like Hallie, and how smart she is and determined and generous.  Or like you, how you’re able to make someone a better football player, but more important, how wonderful you are with Tessa, so patient and sweet.  And how you listen to what people say, really listen.  And how hard you work at everything, and how you take care of other people, like me with my stupid ankle, and…and you have a lot of good qualities.”  I’d noticed so many things, millions of things, that made him wonderful.

“You make me feel about ten feet tall.  Thank you for saying that.”

“It’s all true, all of it.”  A gust of wind stirred my hair and Ben’s arm pulled me a little closer.

“You know, I always thought of myself as a football player.  When my career was over after my injury, I wasn’t sure what I had left.”

“Maybe you started out as a guy but you sure went beyond, didn’t you?”

“Why can’t you do that?  You already have,” he told me.  “You’re not just a collection of body parts.  You’re the woman who’s so determined to succeed that she danced on an injury that would have kept most people from walking.  And you’re loving, so loving with Tessa.  My daughter is a different little girl now because of how you’ve cared for her.  Here.”  He carefully dabbed at my eyes with his sleeve.  “You’ve changed her life, Gaby.  Both our lives.  You make my ugly house feel warm and welcoming just by being in it.  I can’t wait to come home and see you there.  Tessa runs to me and you smile and it feels…that’s how coming home should feel.”

“Really?”

“Really.  None of that depends on how you look or on how little you eat, which bothers me a lot.  Maybe you could go and talk to the team nutritionist and figure out a better way.  Would you, if I could set that up?”

I bit my lip.  “I guess.  Maybe.”  It was kind of scary to think about changing anything, because I’d always had a lot of discipline about my diet.  I didn’t want to lose control.

“Maybe becoming a Woodsmen dancer isn’t the best thing for you,” Ben mentioned.

“What?”  I jerked away from where I’d been snuggling up against his side.  “You mean, you don’t want me to make it?”

“I want you to, because you want it so much.  But does it make you happy?  Are you enjoying it, or are you anxious and worried about it?”

“I’ll enjoy it a lot if I make the squad,” I answered, but I felt almost nauseated when I considered the cuts that would happen in the coming week.  “And it would have made my dad so proud!  I have a plan that I’ll tell my mom that she has to watch just one Woodsmen game, and there I’ll be dancing on TV.  She would think I looked really beautiful…”  No, she’d probably tell me that TV added ten pounds and she could see a lot of jiggle when I did the tumbling passes.  I sighed.  “I started the try-outs thinking I needed to make the squad to prove something to myself, to prove I could still do something worthwhile.”

“You do that every day at my house.  You don’t need some weird orange outfit to prove anything.”

“You don’t like the dancers’ uniform?  It’s iconic!” I protested, shocked.

“To tell you the truth, I’m not a huge fan of orange.  But