spots to kiss #20: georgia & benjamin a kiss on where the back of the neck turns to shoulder.
“Did you see who they were?” She’s got a bag full of groceries under her arm as she leads out of the elevator, walking down one of their long hallways.
“Only briefly. But they were carrying things, it didn’t seem appropriate to stop them.” Benjamin says mindlessly over the phone. She caught him while he was working and he said he could talk, because how could he say no to her, but it’s clear he’s doing something on top of it.
“Shame, Ben. For shame.” She hisses. “I have to do everything myself. I’ll have to take one of the bottles from the fridge as an impromtu gift. Unless you have a fruit basket laying around.”
“I’m sorry, is that something you think people just... have?” He laughs.
“Don’t joke, you never know when you’re going to need a gift basket. Before moving in with you, I always had supplies for making a spa basket on the fly.” She looks around her, rounding another corner. “How do you think I got to be so successful.”
“I wont question your ways.”
“Oh shit---!” Georgia stops dead in her tracks, seeing a door wide open. “They’re home.” She hisses.
“Why are you acting like they’re outlaws? They’re just new neighbors. They looked perfectly approachable. A little young, but, who am I to question anything.”
“What, like, how could young people afford a place like this?” She pauses. “How young we talking?”
“I don’t question people’s income. But certainly under thirty.”
“Wow, good for them.” She stands up straight. “I should say hi, I hear music playing.”
“Why is their door open?”
“I don’t know I haven’t talked to them yet.”
“Seems strange is all. You don’t think they’ll cause any problems do you? Have lots of parties or anything?”
“You’re the one that’s met them, Benjamin.”
He hums, then there’s a pause for a second before he finishes. “Well I should go, you go investigate and report back.”
And she did just that. Georgia hung up her call, rushed her groceries back into the apartment, and grabbed a bottle of wine from her fridge before she dipped back out into the hallway.
Music still poured from the open door. Nothing loud, and it was rather slow and sensual rhythm and blues that she couldn’t really complain about the music choice. When she neared the corner, she was shocked to find a baron apartment, with some furniture with tarp over it. There was tarp over pretty much everything in fact, and a small woman standing on a stool, painting the wall a lovely mint color.
She was petite, tan, and Georgia couldn’t see her face but from her rather toned body, she imagined her to be beautiful. He hair was tied back in a bandana and her clothes were splattered with paint.
He knuckles tapped against the door frame, gathering the woman’s attention in the large condo. When she turned, her suspicions were confirmed, she was utterly beautiful. And very young.
Benjamin refuses to question income but in a place like this, she can’t help the questions.
“Hello!” Georgia chimes. “I just wanted to come by and say hello. We’re your neighbors across the hall. I’m Georgia. My fiance Benjamin is at work but he says hello in spirit.” As she speaks, she’s watching the woman get down from her stool, and start to approach her in the doorway, wearing a smile.
“Hi,” She says, her voice light, a bit breathless, but in a way that just sounds like that’s her voice. It’s alluring, no doubt. “I’m sorry if having the door open was bothering you, I just wanted to get this place aired out with all the painting.”
“Oh no, it’s totally okay, it gave me the nudge to come by and say hello, I just got home from work early, went to the store, now I’m here, saying hello.”
The woman laughs politely and nods, then holds out a hand. “I’m Laney, My partner James lives with me but he’s out ... “She pauses, her smile looking the fondest it could. “I’m not sure, sitting at a cafe thinking something whimsical or buying furniture, who knows. He’ll be back later.”
Georgia laughs in return, taking the outstretched hand to shake. “Seems very far from my fiance. I don’t think whimsy is a concept he even comprehends, but we definitely have a friend like that.”
“Yeah, he likes his alone time though. As do I.” She smiles. “I would love to show you around the place but as you can tell, it’s really not ready.”
“Oh no, that’s totally okay. When I moved in with Benjamin I nearly redecorated the whole place. He’s a man with very good taste but you know, not my kind of taste.” She winks playfully.
Laney laughs lightly, and it sounds like clouds and sparkles and she can imagine just about anyone would fall for her. “James is a very fashionable person, though he’s been hanging around all kinds of fashionable people since he was very young.” Her eyes crinkle, and she looks behind her. “He picked out the mint, but we’re doing something a little different. Patterns and stuff.”
“Oh, that’ll be interesting.” Georgia nods. Maybe they’re a little different. She’s not getting the vibe that they’re much like the modern architects that live in the building. People her and Benjamin’s age who work downtown in the finance district. It’ll be a breath of fresh air.
She sighs, and then looks down at the bottle still in her hand. “Oh! I wanted to bring this by to you guys, a little welcoming gift. This is my favorite dessert wine, perfect for a date night.”
She watches as Laney looks at the bottle, her smile turning quaint with her lips in a thin line. For a moment, Georgia considers that she picked the wrong wine. Or maybe it was too cheap? Who knows with these guys, they might be far too out of her pricerange.
“Thanks,” She says softly, looking up to meet her eyes. “We’re actually sober, though.”
Well at least it wasn’t her. “Oh gosh, of course! You know, I was talking to Ben over the phone, told him we should keep an emergency fruit basket around. I’m sorry about that.” She tucks the bottle under her arm, then reaches out to squeeze the other’s arm gently. “You know what, why don’t you guys come over for dinner? Neither of us are that great at cooking but we can make one thing really well so our treat!”
“That’d be nice, yeah. James and I are free tomorrow night, is that okay?” She lets out a nervous laugh, as if thankful for the interaction.
“Perfect! Just give us a knock okay?”
//--//
Georgia moves around the table to light the candles before rushing back to the kitchen, where Benjamin stands over the stove. “This has to look perfect. Something in my bones just tells me they’re way cooler than any of us and I want to impress them.” She huffs, reaching into the fridge where she’d picked up raspberry soda. Something made in Brooklyn where the guy said it was frequently sold out. “You don’t think they’re too cool for soda, do you? I told you they don’t drink but like... I don’t want to make them drink just water. Oh god, this is why we don’t make new friends. Why did I invite them over, they’ll see what big of losers we are.”
She closes the fridge and bangs her head against the aluminum, only to find a pair of arms sliding around her waist, and a pair of lips kissing the back of her neck. “You do this for a living, love, it’ll be fine.” He continues kissing her skin. “You look beautiful and it was very kind of you to invite them and I’m sure the appreciate the warm welcome.”
Georgia sighs, her head resting against the cool metal. “Tell me what a cool unstoppable sexy babe I am, please.”
“No,” He says plainly, reaching down to give her ass a squeeze. “You don’t need me inflating your ego anymore than I already do.” A final kiss to her neck and he’s back to the stove, cooking the only thing Vincent really taught them to cook. But they like it enough they make it almost once a week.
It’s not long before there’s a knock on their door and Georgia launches to answer. When she does, the door swings open and she nearly gasps.
They’re a little too good looking and she nearly falls over.
When she’d met Laney, she was dressed for painting, which was obviously not her prime. But here, dressed in a tight little crop top and shirt skirt and she looks perfect. Her hair was tied back and yet immaculate.
And then the partner in question was just as perfect. Shining seafoam eyes, covered with tattoos that could mean any number of things. Dressed in some sort of pleated high waisted pant and patterned blouse that looks far more expensive than anything in her closet, yet effortlessly cool and slick.
“Hey!” Georgia coos, letting them both in as she tries to ground herself in what might be something completely out of her league. She’s never had to plan a wedding for two people that were so absolutely unapologetically cooler than her.
She turns around to find that Benjamin rounds the corner greet them, raising an eyebrow in her direction. It lasts only a second, before he steps forward to introduce herself, and a collection of hands are being exchanged in shaking.
Laney introduces James to her, who is polite and far too sweet to be even real. Then again, it took her over a year to come to the conclusion Vincent was real, so she should be accustomed to this.
Everyone gets situated with dinner. Georgia’s thankful when they say they love raspberry soda. Either she guessed right, or they were painfully polite. Both made her just a little bit more relaxed as they began eating their dinner.
“So where did you guys move from?” Benjamin starts with the simple questions, and she’s thankful for that too. To her, she feels she has to come up with wildly intricate questions to engage the table. She hadn’t even considered the basics.
“Los Angeles. But we both grew up in California.” James responds, poking around his plate. “This is really good, you guys are really good cooks.”
Both Georgia and Benjamin let out a full laugh, but it’s the latter to clarifies. “One of our close friends is a very good cook, he taught us to make this at one point. We like it because it’s easy and tastes good.”
“Carbonara fits that bill, yeah.” Laney nods, picking up more of her’s. “James and I tried to go on a cooking journey a while back. We needed something to do together after we hadn’t been doing anything at all...” Her nose scrunches when she looks to James, who shakes his head fondly.
“Needless to say, that was not the way we needed to bond together. We decided puzzles was a lot better.”
Georgia snorts, looking over the Benjamin. “Can you imagine us doing a puzzle together?”
“Georgia would spent thirty minutes trying to tell me a corner piece belonged in the center.” He grins. “After the first ten, she’d realize she was wrong but she wouldn’t be able to accept it so she’d just fully commit. Most likely to try and make me annoyed.”
Georgia playfully hits him with her napkin and rolls his eyes. The couple across from them laugh, and after a few seconds, she sighs. “I mean he’s not wrong, I would almost certainly do that.”
The table laughs again.
Georgia picks off a piece of her bread, adding onto her statement. “Explains a lot though, being from LA, you guys give off a very coastal cool vibe.”
“Do we?” Laney looks at James, her hand reaching over to, what Georgia presumes, squeeze his thigh. “We don’t feel very cool. In terms of Los Angeles, and where we come from, we are extremely uncool.”
James nods, sucking in his bottom lip as he moves thing around his plate, and then takes another bite.
The air’s a little stiff, so Georgia decides to move on. “So how did you guys meet?”
“Rehab.” James says after swallowing his bite.
The air gets a little more stiff. Georgia’s holding her fork in mid air and she’s not entirely sure what to do with this information. She looks to Benjamin, who’s eyes are glued to the couple, and he’s just continually nodding his head.
“I’m sorry.” Laney laughs nervously, rubbing James’ leg again. “We’re trying this thing we learned in therapy where we’re a lot more open and honest with ourselves and the people around us. Secrets and being closed off didn’t really do us any favors.”
“Okay.” Georgia nods, taking a sip of her soda. “I’m sure we could do some good with that.”
Benjamin snorts, then takes another bite of his food.
“How long have you two been together?” James changes the subject, pushing a smile forward.
Georgia looks to Benjamin, eyebrow raised. “I think... less than two years? Got engaged about six months ago.”
“Congratulations.” James nods. “Love is a beautiful thing, and an important thing to cherrish and hold onto.”
Georgia nods, reaching out to squeeze Benjamin’s forearm. “Had some rough patches but no one puts up with me quite like this guy.”
He pats her hand before she pulls it away, and the two look to the young couple to find them soft-eyed, looking at them with adoration. “That’s lovely.” Laney says softly.
“We had our own, too.” James says, looking over at Laney. “Though who’s surprised when you come to meet the love of your life while you’re both trying to get clean.” He huffs in amusement, then looks back to the others. “We do a lot of therapy now. We’re kind of at the point where we’re not interested in things failing again, and we want to put in the work. It’s taken a lot of time but it’s good.”
“That’s so nice.” Georgia feels herself sighing, unable to help getting wrapped up in their romance. “And you guys decided to move to the East Coast?”
“Yeah,” Laney adjusts in her seat. “Just needed to get Los Angeles off of us. All the bad reminders and the enablers. Plus, my work is easier to do here, and James is kind of between things now.” She looks to her partner, who nods.
“Oh, what do you guys do?” She’s itching to know, considering how tastefully expensive they both look.
“Laney is the most talented fashion designer on earth.” James grins before she can interject.
“Oh god.” She huffs, sinking lower into her seat.
“Wait, really?” Georgia’s eyes beam.
“Now you’ve done it.” Benjamin shakes his head, digging deeper into his plate.
“Like, what kind of fashion? Couture or like with a store or what?”
Laney shrugs. “I got to show my stuff in Fashion Week for the first time last year but that’s only after James wore my suit to his red carpet.”
Georgia’s eyes gape, and she leans back in her chair, bringing a hand to brush back her hair. “Whoa, hold on a minute, who the fuck are you guys?” She doesn’t mean it to sound so brash, but now there’s mentions of a red carpet and she might faint.
“James makes movies.” Laney says simply.
She looks to see that James’ cheeks are pink, and he’s looking down, “I wrote And End a long time ago, I was a script doctor for a while. Couldn’t really make anything good because I was too busy snorting cocaine. Uhm... and then two years ago I wrote and directed and produced Over Sunset Drive.”
The room is quiet. Georgia slowly looks to Benjamin, whose face has now gone pale. He’s got a single spaghetti noodle hanging from his lip and it takes him a second to realize it before he chews and swallows his bite.
“He makes me watch And End all the time.” Georgia points to Benjamin, then looks back to James. “You wrote that?”
“At nineteen, yes.”
“What?” Both Benjamin and Georgia say in unison.
“I am thoroughly impressed.” Benjamin adds. “I don’t want to act inappropriately, but I loved both of those films.”
“Thank you, I appreciate that. It’s no inappropriate, you guys have pretty reasonable reactions. It’s always weird to bring it up. But it’s even weird to not bring it up and then have that come up way down the line.”
“So you’re not going to make any more movies?” Georgia frowns.
“That’s a bold thing to say. I’m not so sure. I write a lot of poetry. Sometimes Laney tells me I should publish all the love notes I write I quite like them being just for her. But I have a lot of personal stuff that could get published. I also like to paint. I’m fortunate enough that I can spend some time, figure it out. I also just want to support Laney on the direction her career has taken.”
“God that’s so sweet.” Georgia pouts. “You two are so adorable, you have to be our friends.”
The couple laugh, and look between each other. “We don’t really have much for friends here since moving, so we can’t really turn that down.”
“You guys would love Maggie and Vinnie, they’re the most sickeningly sweet disgusting couple there ever was.” Georgia leans forward. “And they’re out best friends.”
“That’ll be fun. People used to call us gross.” James laughs.
“Yeah I’d like to see you guys try and compare to them. Though who knows, they could use actual good competition.” Ben adds in.
“You know what though, I know for a fact Zebby is in all the cool New York circles. If you want the art circle, I’ll get you her number too.” Georgia wags a fork at them. “She’s also probably closer to your age.”
“Oh, really, you guys don’t have to do that. We appreciate your warm welcome as it is.”
“No no, Georgia wont stop with this until you have too many friends you don’t know what to do with.” Benjamin looks over to them with an annoyed look, which only lasts seconds until he looks back over to her, sees her with her phone out, and shakes his head with an endearing smile. “Love, why don’t we do dessert, we can do that later.” His hand reaches out, slowly taking the phone form their hand so they can continue their evening.