Melani Blazer

Brand Name Dates was a FUN book to write. I came up with the concept of “shopping” for men but also the idea of a central relationship between Jill and Benny that was truly a comedy of errors. It was the first book in which I wrote several vital scenes and then connected those scenes and ideas together to form a complete book. One of those first scenes was the meteor shower scene. It got tweaked big time in edits, but it still remains one of my favorites.

I was reminded of it today when talking to a co-worker about the meteors we’d witnessed over the weekend. I totally smiled when I remembered Jill and Benny out at the edge of a field staring up at the stars. What else could I do then, but share it with you!

“Where have you been?”
“Out,” I responded, searching Benny’s face. “I had a date. Did I have a curfew?” Was I missing something?
Benny wasn’t normally pacing the floor at quarter after midnight. In my house.

Then I realized something. “Hayley? Is she okay? What’s wrong with her?”

Benny shook his head and turned to look out the window. He wasn’t glad to see me. In fact, now that I stopped to look around I realized that he seemed quite miffed to see me. This did not make me happy.

“Uh, Ben?”

He whirled on me like a hurricane on Florida. “We had a date, Jill. An agreement to meet here at ten to have coffee and then check out the meteors. Or did you forget that in your rush to see Mr. Perfect?”

I was checking out the meteors all right, they hit me like giant flaming balls of guilt. “Benny, I’m so—”

“Can it. You can’t shove your friends aside just because—”

Just twist the knife, Benny. Thanks. “Well, is it too late? I’d love to go. Just let me change.”

He stopped and stared me. And blinked. “Didn’t figure you’d want to, now.” Stony voice, eyes as dark as the night outside. And his temper, obviously.

Someone make up my mind. Any remaining residue of the ego boost of saying “Thanks, but no thanks,” to Isaak had been blown away. Now I was off guard and off balance. I wanted to take my dear friend Benny by the shoulders and shake him.

It was my fault. I’d damn forgotten that I’d said I’d wanted to see the meteors. And I had wanted to go, still did. But I didn’t want him to think I was going on guilt. Nor was I ready to deal with a sulking Ben. Not that he was, but well, I half expected him to start.

“I do want to go. I’m sorry I didn’t get back earlier. It really is my problem, my fault. But let’s not let it ruin our friendship or tonight’s show, okay?” Uh, was that me talking? I turned and dashed to my room before I really said something I’d regret. I’d just talked to him like he was a junior high school nerd asking me out.

I shivered, then shed the black hipster pants and flouncy shirt. I needed my Levi’s for this. And a long sleeve T-shirt. I pulled out the one that said, “Shoot!” across the chest and had a picture of an unwound roll of film on the back. Easy, comfortable. Like second skin.

“Ready!” I announced as I jogged back down the steps.

The living room was empty.

Oh, nice. Not that I was surprised or anything. I deserved it. I did.

“Benny?” I called out. Not very loud. Didn’t want to wake Hayley. Lord knows she’d be on to me the in the morning for this. She protected Benny like he was her Mr. Perfect. Hell, he might be.

So why was it me, not Hayley, that was going out to stare at the heavens and contemplate life?

“Benny?” I checked for his car. Well, hell. It was still there, sitting right behind Hayley’s Volkswagen Bug. I wondered why he didn’t have his pickup. I’d have recognized that. But then again, it hadn’t even registered there was a foreign car in my driveway.

Great. I pushed open the front door. “Benny?”

“It’s starting,” came the voice from the corner of the house, the darkest recess near the lilac bushes.

“Starting?” I stared to see what he was talking about. I couldn’t see so much as a shadow. “Benny?”

“Too much light here, too close to the city. Let’s go out to Grandpa’s. We can go out in the field and get a big-screen kind of view.”

It took me two seconds too long to catch what he was talking about. He grabbed my arm and led me to his car.
The engine purred to life and I heard the telltale click of the locks into place. Excuse me! “Wait!”

He applied the brake and looked over at me.

“I don’t have my camera.” Not that I really expected to set up tripod and everything. Somehow I’d never been very good at those nighttime exposures anyway. Me and the moon shots never worked, so it was likely the stars wouldn’t cooperate either.

“Do you really need it?” Despite his apparent hurry, I couldn’t detect even an ounce of impatience in his voice.
What a guy.

“I guess not.” Ben was my friend. I could do this, even without my security blanket. And Hayley, for whatever her excuse was, didn’t need to worry about Benny in her absence.

The farther we drove the more nervous I got. Why? I wasn’t sure. Must have been the whole coming in late, forgetting thing. Getting tossed off balance. I liked my balance. I’d be okay once I got there and got familiar with my settings.

I had no idea Benny lived so far out. He drove all this way just to come visit Hayley and me? But then again, he was like me. If I found someone worth it, I would.

Ben was worth it. I trusted him immediately—I knew right away that he was one of those “what you see is what you get” type of people. I was damn lucky he popped into my life when he did.

“Where are we going?” I asked as he turned on the exit for the expressway that led out of town.

“To my house.” The low throaty answer stole my breath. Funny, I’d heard Benny mention his grandparents and that he’d lived with them, but never actually pictured Benny as having a house. Well, to the extent that I tried to imagine it or anything. For the first time I really thought about what he was like.

I’d known that’s where we were going, however, I was fishing for the town, street, something. But I didn’t think about it. I already knew it was practically in a different area code. I tried not to think of the fact that Benny would have to drive me home, then drive all the way back. Not that there were many options. I highly doubted cab service would be an alternative.

“So, how was your date?” His voice reached out through the dim yellow light and jolted me back to the here and now.

“Not too bad.” I’d never thought to feel weird talking about my dates to Benny, but somehow all that information seemed to be corked up in my throat.

“Where’d you go?”

I took a deep breath and tried to relax. Somehow, being away from my own house with Benny and without Hayley made it seem more like a date. And you didn’t talk about a date while on one. But I couldn’t ignore him, regardless of this inner war. “Dinner show. The entertainment was better than the company. We had nothing to talk about.”

“Then I must not be good company either. You’re sitting over there in a little cocoon all silent like.” He laughed. “Usually you get home and can’t wait to spit out all the juice of your date. Who was it tonight? Leather skirt, feather boa, maybe rubber catsuit?”

I forced the laugh. “Mr. Leisure Suit actually. He looked good, but acted like a total dweeb.” I had to giggle at the wimpy way Isaak acted when the waitress gave him the wrong meal. The dunce was too chicken to bring it her attention and appalled when I did.

“What am I, by the way?”

“What do you mean, what are you?” My friend, my confidant, one of my anchors to reality. I wasn’t keen on voicing those things.

“What outfit am I? If this were a date, what would you be trying on?”

Here was my cue to crawl under the floor mat. I stalled. “It’s not that easy, Ben, I know you now, so it’s not like you’re any one outfit.”

“So what am I at this moment?”

“Pajamas.”

Ruh-ro, George. My mind talked to me in Astro of the Jetsons style. Kind of how I felt—like this scenario was straight out of a cartoon. I can’t believe I blurted that out.

I saw the little muscle in his jaw flinch. “Pajamas?” he whispered.

“That’s a good thing,” I rushed to tell him. “Honest.”

“Pajamas?” I really wish he’d look at the road and not at me. “Gee. Thanks, Jill.”

Forget hiding beneath the floor mat, just toss me on the highway and let the big trucks roll over me. What was I thinking?

I didn’t know what to say. I opened my mouth to apologize. But when I did, he barked. “Don’t say another word. At least as it stands I can imagine I’m one of those little lacy things rather than a long flannel nightie like Grandma wears.”

My smile threatened to burst forth at that. “Uh, yeah, no long nightgown, okay?”

He flashed a grin so brilliant that I forgot for a moment he was Benny, my friend. He bared his whole fragile soul in his smile.

I took his advice and kept my mouth shut, or at least otherwise occupied. So the radio got cranked and flipped to a place that played Eighties music in the late night hours. We both sang off-key about “Tainted Love” and bragged about being “Born in the USA” until we reached his house. I finally relaxed.

The barn was probably red in the daylight. But now it was giant and almost shapeless. Except the little rectangle of light in the upper window.

“Do you want to come upstairs?” Benny asked as he half loped toward the access door on the main floor.

No. I still hadn’t recovered from “pajamas” and I didn’t really want to see where Benny slept. Friends didn’t need to know that kind of stuff. “I’ll wait out here. It’s beautiful out.”

I stared up at the sky, but the halogen lamp at the curve of the drive and the bright porch lights on the white farmhouse cast a gray haze that prevented me from really seeing much above me.

“I’ll be right back.”

And he was. With a backpack and two blankets. I wondered if Benny and I needed to talk before we did this. But no. I’d already opened mouth and inserted foot once tonight. I didn’t know what he had in mind with the blankets, but I couldn’t see Benny as a crazed rapist. I’d be fine. Just fine.

I followed him up over what looked like a gentle slope…and caught my breath. From that viewpoint it seemed we were standing on the top of a giant hill. Just enough light filtered down this far, plus Benny had flicked on his flashlight. Barely outlined below us I could see the rolling hills and open fields.

“Awesome, isn’t it? You’ll have to see it in October when all the trees down below are changing colors. Or in the winter when it’s all white with snow.”

I shivered.

An arm slipped around my shoulders.

I turned out of it. Friend or not, I wasn’t going there. “So where are these mete— Oh!” A white streak arced above us. My breath caught.

“You want to sit here?”

“Uh, I guess.”

“Or we could go down a bit away from the house.”

I was venturing into the darkness with Benny. This would be interesting to tell Hayley about. I just hoped she didn’t read way too much into it.

He traced an invisible trail down the side of the hill. There ground leveled to a natural plateau. A perfect place for a picnic, or a chance to look up at the falling stars.

Benny had lain back and laced his arms over his head. He smiled up at me as I pushed my hair behind my ears and sat down. I really didn’t want to lay down next to him. That was too much an invitation.
But sitting up was also too much of a neck strain.

“Lay down. That’s why I got the blankets. It’s the best way to do it. Let your body and your mind relax and enjoy.”

He made it sound so simple. But I struggled to stay well in control. Why? my brain, the ever-wise one, asked me. This isn’t one of your “work” dates, it’s Benny!

So I listened. And relaxed.

And fell asleep staring at the white flashes overhead.

The first touch was…like a feather. But I knew it wasn’t. All my blood revved up and started racing around my body, waking it up. My brain was the last to become conscious, and then it was too late. I was being kissed. And damn, I liked it.

Clothes stuck to my body from the heat of the moment and the humid air that blanketed us. I reached up through the darkness and fisted whatever I could find. Thin cotton slid through my fingers until I met with the firm flesh beneath it. I felt him quiver.

Teeth claimed my bottom lip for an instant before his tongue slid between them. Sweet pressure, not demanding, but not asking either. Those meteors I’d been watching overhead were imprinted on the back of my eyelids and now exploded like a fireworks display.

His hand slid over the curve of my hip and onto my waist. God, I needed him to touch me, I needed to feel the warm skin against me. He wasn’t close enough. Couldn’t get close enough. He drove me to the brink with just a kiss.

I never expected Benny to kiss like that.

Oh my God. Benny!

In case you’d like to read Brand Name Dates, you can get it in ebook here, or in print from Amazon or the Cerridwen Press store.