COMPETITION AND BEAUTY | Benny Watts ♛

Twenty

I'll put in pictures later, I just wanna get this chapter out for y'all. Thank you for the kind words:)

Song of the chapter: Star Treatment by the Arctic Monkeys

CHAPTER TWENTY

"I'm going out for coffee!" Thea yelled over her shoulder, just loud enough so that leather jacket stealing, blonde-headed, chess champion could hear her from the other side of the hall. She was sorting through her luggage, trying to figure out which blouse would look best with her drainpipe jeans. Paisley printed or button-down?

"I'm the highest-rated player in the fuckin' country playing at some second-rate university playing on cheap plastic boards with cheap plastic pieces. It's fuckin' bullshit is what it is- and now you're all dandy sunshine and rainbows- so I'd like to know why," he complained in the doorway.

She rolled her eyes at the sound of Benny's voice, covering herself and her bralette with a sage green long sleeve.

"Benny! You've got to stop walking in on me like that. I feel like I have to look over my shoulder every two seconds."

Teasingly, he tilted his head, "Since when are you scared of anything?"

Thea scoffed, "I'm not scared of anything particularly, your presence is just quite- eery."

He jokingly seemed offended, "How dare you!" He scoffed in response.

"Oh, shove it, Cowboy." She shrugged on the paisley printed blouse, not caring as much that he was in front of her anymore. He plopped onto her bed, laying down, and flipped through a magazine she had gotten from the lobby titled: Athens, Ohio - OHIO UNIVERSITY

"What's this, uh, about?" Benny asked, a confused look printing on his eyebrows.

Thea shrugged her shoulders, zipping her luggage back up, "Nothing, it's nothing."

Benny gave her a look, and Thea returned an excited smile and gave in. "Okay, it's not nothing."

She hopped on the unmade twin bed beside him and laid down, "I like the idea of going back to school, to college. I wanna learn, I wanna breathe the air of a giant book and read for hours on end, paint under the influence of someone I am most definitely better than and answer questions in class- that I'll finally know the answer to. You're smart though, as much as I hate to admit, so what do you think?"

The grin on her face must have been mesmerizing because the cowboy could not stop staring at it.

"I think..." He guided his hand to hers, pulling himself and her off the bed. "you deserve every giant book for you to waste hours with your nose in", he continued as he spun her into a twirl in which she giggled in response, "and do whatever will make you happy."

Thea stopped in her tracks and looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time in her life.

"Since when are you- nice?"

Benny chuckled, "Nice- me? Trust me, princess, I don't always play nice." He winked.

And then he was back. Great! Thea reminded herself to close her big mouth for once.

"You should be nice more often, I like it. A lot." Thea found herself spilling out words she did not mean to say and didn't even know she felt until she said it.