Tension
“Stop messing with your hair you look fine.” Brenna rolled her eyes at Jenna as she watched her put her hands up to fix her hair again. “He’s not even here yet.”
“Are you sure?” She asked with emphasis, nervously pulling on the hem of her dress.
“Why? It’s not like you care, right?” Anita teased with a purely evil smile on her face.
“Shut up.” Jenna responded intelligently. She found that when it came to the subject of Ben, she had trouble coming up with witty retorts.
“Where did Brenna go?” Kelsey asked, using her vertical advantage to scan over the crowd, looking for the shorter brunette, who was nowhere to be found.
Brenna, meanwhile, was making her way to the water fountain, unaware she was being followed. She turned down a hallway and an arm shot out, tugging on her arm and pulling her against the wall.
Ben.
“Did you tell her?” He whispered, hoping that the dark corner would hide their altercation.
“What the hell is-?” Brenna started to ask, pushing him off in a hurry.
“Just tell me. How much did you tell her?” He asked, sounding desperate. He glanced behind himself, paranoid, undoubtedly looking for either Jenna or his girlfriend.
“Nothing!” Brenna hissed angrily, pushing him back another foot.
He ignored the shove, sighing in relief and pinching the bridge of his nose. “Don’t. Please, please don’t tell her.” He begged.
Brenna huffed and looked away, hating that she was caught in the middle of all this. “This is your problem dude. But you need to get your shit worked out. You can’t do this to… either of them.” She said. He didn’t need her to elaborate on her vague statement. The meaning behind her words was fairly obvious.
“I don’t know what-”
“Don’t care.” Brenna stated before walking away, thoroughly pissed off.
Ben took a deep breath and straightened his tie with one hand before walking into the figurative lion’s den. He could see Kaitlyn out of the corner of his eye, but he ignored her.
He only had eyes for Jenna.
He made a beeline straight for her watching as she laughed with her group of friends. She had never looked so radiant, so glowing. His love for her grew the longer he looked at her.
He took a deep breath and steeled himself to go after her. As he walked over to that side of the room she looked up and searched the surrounding area. He made eye contact with her and smiled, but she glanced away as if she hadn’t seen him, even though she clearly had. He smirked. Her awkwardness was one of the many traits he revered about her.
“Hey. Don’t say hi to me or anything.” He joked to her as soon as he walked up. Immediately, her friends stopped their conversations and shrank back, trying to blend into the walls, but staying within earshot.
“I didn’t know you were here yet.” She said.
He grabbed her hands, intertwining their fingers. Whenever he was around her he couldn’t stop himself from touching her, even in the basest of ways. He swung their hands back and forth between them to make it seem more casual.
“Ben!” Kaitlyn shrieked from across the room. He jerked back, ripping their hands apart and putting his behind his back, his face a flaming red. He tried his hardest to wipe the deer-in-the-headlights look from his face. “Ben, it’s our song! Come dance with me!” She shouted again as Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” played on the speakers.
It took him a second to realize that he wasn’t caught. He gulped and looked back to Jenna, who was looking away. “I should, um… probably go.” He said, staring at his slightly scuffed dress shoes.
“Yeah.” She whispered, glancing behind her as if she were looking for someone else. He wondered if she was looking for someone else. Like, someone else-else.
“Um, but I don’t really have to.” He said, biting his lip.
Jenna’s brow furrowed, confused by his never-ending mixed signals. “But, she… She’s your girlfriend.” Jenna muttered, momentarily forgetting that she was supposed to feel uncomfortable as she tried to decipher the hidden message behind his statement.
Ben shrugged. He held out his hand. “Dance with me?”
Jenna struggled for words. “We… we shouldn’t do that.” She said, trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince him.
He looked at Jenna, sure of only one thing. He didn’t want to leave her.
“Do you want to take a walk, then?” He asked, offering his hand one last time.
Jenna fought an internal conflict and decided for the first time in their sudden, secretive relationship that she would throw caution to the wind. To hell with girlfriends.
She accepted his hand, fighting the grin off her face as they walked through the double doors together, into the cold nighttime air. “Where are we walking?” She asked, wrapping her arms around herself for warmth.
Ben shrugged his suit jacket off his shoulders, holding it out so she could slip her arms into it. He couldn’t help but love the way his clothes looked on her. It was the possessive part of him that made him think that way, he was sure. “Away from here.” He said, as if it were not obvious.
Jenna tried not to feel elated as they strolled the sidewalk, being careful not to wander too far off from the bright lights of front entrance of the Hippodrome. Ben shoved his hands down his pockets. Their silence thickened.
Jenna wondered idly if perhaps their awkwardness was, in fact, not awkwardness, but sexual tension, as her friends had tried to drill in her brain so many times before.
“I like your dress.” Ben stated as if he were fishing for things to say.
“Thanks.” Jenna paused, then realized that it was still her turn to say something. She decided to go with her gut and apologize. “So, um, sorry about Brenna the other day, you know, on the phone. That was just…weird.” She said, making a face that was between a grimace and a smirk.
Ben chuckled nervously. “Um, yeah… weird.”
“As much as I hate to break up this lovely little scene over here, y’all need to get back in there.” Brenna’s sarcastic voice cut through the tension like a knife cutting water.
They both snapped their heads in her direction, seeing her observing them from a few feet away, her thumb pointed in the direction of the Hippodrome. Although her words were mocking, her expression remained serious.
“Um, why?” Ben asked, not making eye contact with her.
“Your girlfriend is looking for you.”
A/N: Woah hold the fone, cliff hanger people. Yeah so this is pt. 1. And plz excuse any sort of inaccuracies about the venue, as I have never been to the Hippodrome before so I know not what it looks like. If I'm too presumptuous in assuming it has lights and a door and a sidewalk in front of it, feel free to reprimand me. Also, this one was a little more, um... weirder/descriptive/less-G-rated. Not to make excuses for my writing or anything, but Jenna was reading onedirection fanfiction in front of me as I was typing, so I was writing this in a blind rage. The goal was to punish her for such an action by making her feel as awkward as possible.