Ignite ─ Ben Hardy

CHAPTER TWELVE ━ MOVING ON

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𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚕 𝚕𝚒𝚏𝚎.

          SHANESSA WOODLEY WAS NOT DUMB, she was only on the qui vive. Perhaps for most people, her doings was quite confusing and well, stupid, but she did it for her own self. Every single time she saw Ben, her heart was beating fast enough for it to come out of the cavity, there was heat rushing to her face and it was unstoppable nor it was controlled. But deep inside, it was. . . painful for her not to know what Ben true feelings were to her.

All Shanessa knew she didn't live in a fairy tale and she was just being realistic. Not all love stories wagged consorting to what she imagined, she wasn't even sure whether her feelings were real love or just a simple crush. Shanessa still liked to check another guy out at a bar or somewhere when Ben wasn't there with her, if there was a guy who helped her during her drunken state, she swooned a little inside. However, Tom and her other co-stars excluded.

Shanessa was still too disoriented to agree with what her heart felt. Or to say the least, she was only afraid of rejection.

So, it led the brunette girl to ask, probably even with a slight begging, to her neighbor who happened to be named Bethany under a daily nickname Bee to take Shanessa's role as Bumblebee. Surely it was a bit difficult because Bethany was a fashion designer and a businesswoman, hence she needed three weeks to persuade Bethany to do something that stupid. Once Bethany learned that Ben Hardy was the one she had to deceive, she was immediately on board, saying he was too attractive to pass.

Her heart slightly twitched at her words, but Shanessa could not blatantly interdict her to think that way, for one it was a fact that Ben was one gorgeous man alive, and second who was she to infuriated when people voiced their opinions out? She wasn't Ben's girlfriend, she was just a friend.

A best friend, to made it sound a bit better in her case.

But, again, was a friend willing to hit the road early in the morning to buy all of her needs for fear that she didn't have time to run some errands? He troubled himself to make sure she was well fed, and cooked for her because somehow he knew she was terrified of flame. Yes, a frightening past had happened to Shanessa and it contained a fire, thus created a stumbling block to have candles on her birthday cake since eleven years ago, much to her dismay.

And Shanessa believed the phobia had been tucked neatly away from the surface of public attention. Unless sometimes an older sister found intricacy to keep her mouth shut until someone else had access to that opaque secret. An urge to call Shailene to question which side she was on blistered within the sister, nobody could know about Shanessa's phobia because it made her look weak and also to forestall others from bringing up the matter against her.

However, today, Shanessa would let this one mishap slip out of her consent. Why? Firstly, Ben. Secondly, his homemade cooking was something that could harbor any rebuke in her. Thirdly, had she mentioned Ben? Overall, she did not seem to have the ability to waste an opportunity to be with him.

Not today.

Not after Shanessa discovered that the reason he came here in the morning was that he would spend the entire day with Bethany. Funny because a couple of weeks ago Ben looked for her to draw him and Bethany together, but now, he was still looking for her to find a mere encouragement that he wouldn't mess this one up by behaving like a dumber Rami described he would be.

Ben looked immensely happy, far better than before after he broke up with Katriona. That means Shanessa did the right thing, didn't she? He was finally out of the pit of dumps, she should be happy for him, wasn't she?