on her baby foster sister for her first year of college. Newly single Ben had shown up at her dorm room looking for Henry. Beatriz saw Ben. Ben saw Beatriz. Claudia had laughed out loud as her feisty, fearless sister turned the full force of her considerable charm on Ben. Poor gorgeous Ben, who owned any room he walked into, had turned tongue-tied as Beatriz interrogated him. Did he like Brooks? Yes, he loved it here but couldn’t wait to graduate. What was his major? Business administration. What did he plan to do with a business administration degree? Administrate businesses, maybe? Would his work help or hinder the progress of the human race and specifically the rights of women in underdeveloped countries? Um…yes?
Claudia had to cover her mouth with her hand to hide her smile that night. She’d wished she’d had some popcorn to watch the Beatriz and Ben Show. Beatriz had found Ben’s answers entirely acceptable and had proceeded to ask him to show her around campus. Such a simple request and yet Ben had smiled as if he’d won the lottery. As soon as they walked out the door, Claudia had told herself that those two would be engaged by graduation. She knew it in her heart. Well, her heart was wrong.
She looked at Henry across the pillows and saw he wore a guilty look on his face.
“What?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“Your hand is no longer on my boob and you look like you just killed someone. I don’t really care if you killed someone just as long you get back to the boob job.”
“I didn’t kill anybody.”
“That’s good.”
“But I did sort of do something bad.”
Claudia sat up and looked down at Henry. He sat up and leaned back against the headboard.
“What did you do?”
Henry winced.
“Don’t call off the wedding, okay? I did it for us.”
“Tell me. Tell me right now.”
“I was in love with you. Crazy in love with you. And I wanted you to be in love with me, too, just as much. Then when Ben met Bea, and he told me he had fallen hard and fast for my girlfriend’s baby sister, I saw the end of the world. So I kind of asked him not to pursue her.”
“You what?” Claudia nearly yelled the words at him. She picked up the pillow ready to hit him with it the moment another stupid confession came out of his mouth.
“She was a freshman. Barely eighteen. And Ben was almost twenty-three. And he’d had ten girlfriends in the last two years. Ten, Claudia. Ten.” Henry held up two hands and wiggled all ten fingers. “My best friend dumping your baby sister? Not good. The opposite of good. Bad even. When Ben told me he’d met the girl of his dreams, I saw the apocalypse.”
“The apocalypse?”
“The SEXpocalypse. Ben already had a job offer on the West Coast. Did you really want him having sex with her all year and then dumping her the day he graduated?”
“Well…not really,” Claudia admitted.
“And Ben was an old senior. You know he was twenty-three and she was eighteen? You remember that part?”
“I sort of forgot that part.”
“You would have hated Ben for dumping Bea and then hated me because he was my best friend. I couldn’t face that. I told him you wouldn’t want him dating your sister because of the age difference. So he did what I asked and backed off.”
“Yeah, but he didn’t. Because I was with you and she was with me, they were together for the entire school year. And she was in love with him and he wouldn’t even give her the time of day. He treated her like his own baby sister.”
“Yeah, he was nice and respectful and didn’t once hit on her.”
“She hated it.”
“Do you hate me?”
“Yes.” Claudia slammed the pillow down onto his stomach. He laughed and pulled her into his arms.
“I’m sorry, babe. I didn’t really think that maybe they were actually in love with each other. Ben didn’t want anything serious. That wasn’t his style. I thought they just wanted to fuck and they could do that with anybody.”
“True,” Claudia said. Beatriz had a gift for wrapping guys around her finger and Ben had a line of young ladies waiting to be his next one-night to two-week stand.
“You were the only person in the world to me back then. I would have done anything to keep us together. Forgive me? My cock and my heart were in the right place, right?” Henry asked, putting on his puppy dog eyes.
“I forgive you. Maybe.” Claudia could never resist the puppy dog eyes. “I mean you’re probably right. He probably would have dumped her. He’s had as many girlfriends as Bea’s had boyfriends and that’s saying something,“ Claudia agreed somewhat reluctantly. She sort of liked painting Ben and Henry as the bad guys. She hated to admit that Henry had a point.
“Ben was seriously stoked about the job waiting for him after graduation. He couldn’t wait to get his ass out of Brooks. I think Ben would have crushed her if they’d gotten together back then.”
“Probably.”
“See? I knew I was right. I’m the hero here really.” Henry puffed his chest out. Claudia rolled her eyes.
“Being right doesn’t make it okay.”
“How do I make it okay?” Henry asked. “I love Ben and I love Bea, and I really want you to take all your clothes off. And I’ll do whatever it takes to get you naked. And make them happy. But mostly get you naked.”
Claudia sighed.
“We have to fix this. She’s still mad at him. He’s still mad at you. That means…they aren’t over each other.”
“Good point. So what now?”
Claudia knelt on the bed and pulled her shirt off.
“Well, Bea has this book review to write. She’s gotta find a partner to have sex with since the book’s a sex position manual for Generation Y.”
“What’s Generation Y?” Henry asked.
“Us.”
“Gotcha.”
“You see, Bea has to try out the positions in the book. What if we tell Ben that Bea wants him to be her book buddy?”
“And tell Bea what?” Henry asked.
“We’ll tell Bea that Ben volunteered to help her out with this book thing. And so he’ll go to her room expecting sex. She’ll open the door expecting sex. They’ll have sex. And either it’ll work or it won’t and it doesn’t matter either way because you and I are getting married no matter what.” Claudia pulled off her bra and started to shimmy out of her jeans.
“Worth
