Read Other Side of Beautiful (A Beautifully Disturbed #1) for Free Online Page B

tears.
    “Usually people buy coffee when entering a coffee house.” I feel his warmth against my arm and smell his unique scent of freshly laundered clothing and citrus fruit. That smell never grows old.
    “Changed my mind, I guess.”
    “You feeling okay? I’ve never known Elly Dinninger to change her mind about coffee.”
    “Some days it’s just not worth the struggle. And it’s Elle now .” A sob cracks the last word in half.
    “Hey, talk to me.”
    “Nothing new. S-same shit, different hour.”
    “Did Cricket call again?”
    And I break. How humiliating. I break right there in front of Benton. He puts a warm to-go cup in my hand, helping me down to the curb.
    “C offee ?” I really try to collect myself, and it starts to work until he answers.
    “Mocha.”
    “B-but you don’t drink mocha.”
    “No. But you do. Looked like you could use it.” He had seen me? With that gorgeous brunette sitting in his lap, he had seen me skulking by the front door?
    “Where’s Kelsey?”
    “Who?”
    “Coed Kelsey. They’re all named Kelsey, Britney, or Hilary.”
    He pops out a laugh. “You’re close. Her name is Emily, and I don’t know. When she started whispering stupid shit in my ear, I told her she had to go. It’s one thing to show up at our table uninvited, but when you try to exclude my friends, no way.”
    “Won’t that make things uncomfortable tonight?”
    “I’m not seeing her tonight. We went out a couple of weeks ago.”
    “Why don’t you ever date a girl more than once?”
    “Is that what you think?”
    “It’s what I see. We’ve been friends a long time, remember?”
    “I’ve dated women more than once. But if I do too many they start to think we’re in a relationship. I’m not a guy who wants to settle.”
    “Commitment-phobe.”
    “No. I mean settle for Ms. Right Now. I want Ms. Right. So I date. It’s what college is about. But I’m not one of those campus manwhores like in the books I see you reading. I don’t even sleep with all of them.”
    He’d hit it, my exact thoughts. I visibly pall even though I really don’t mean to. The Benton I know has a very well established reputation, a well-deserved reputation from what I’ve always understood. But he hasn’t left a string of broken hearts behind. Women genuinely like him. When my whole face heats crimson from the stupid reaction I don’t mean to give, I turn away from him, hoping to save a bit of dignity. Even if what he says is the truth, it doesn’t fit with what the GHU population has accepted as fact. Maybe it’s easier for me to think of him as a man who doesn’t want to settle down. That way it’s not just me he doesn’t want. Of course, being my friend he won’t let me look away, and he pulls my face toward him. If I have to face his rejection, he has to face my question.
    “Dr. Branagh?” He winces. God, I knew it. “Rare talent is a euphemism.”
    “It was a bad night for both of us, and we ended up in the same bar. It was only the one time.”
    “You don’t owe me an explanation. I had no right to ask.” The words sound terse, much more so than I mean them to.
    “Are you upset about my love life?”
    “No. I’m upset that when you have a bad day you get to screw someone like Dr. Branagh. I just get my bad day.”
    “Come on, what happened?”
    “This semester has dropped me right in the middle of the seventh circle.” I start crying again. More humiliation, just what I need. “Swear to you, the seventh circle.” I set the coffee on the pavement next to me and drop my head to my knees.
    “And Cricket?”
    “I-if I c-could just die.” Benton hands me a napkin and I blow my nose. “I-in a way that wouldn’t embarrass her to t-talk about with some n-neighbor who remembered she had another daughter, then she’d be b-better off.”
    “She said that?”
    “N-not in those words, but her meanings were clear.”
    His hand moves to my back, rubbing small circles, the touch calming some parts