Exes With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

  “Canaan—”

  Before I could attempt to figure out how to follow that, he lifted his hands. “I’m here to help. That’s all. No hidden agenda. I swear,” he added when I eyed the stack of packing supplies like there was a secret code I was meant to decipher.

  “I don’t want to fight. Or argue. Or debate. Or anything else you and I could never stop going on and on about.”

  “I don’t either.” He kept his hands raised for another moment before dropping them at his sides. “We didn’t always used to be like that, you know?”

  “I remember. And then we turned thirteen and hormones got the better of us and we couldn’t seem to stop fighting.”

  “I remember times we weren’t fighting. Lots of times.”

  “The only times we weren’t fighting was when we were making out or making something.” I closed the door and cleared my throat.

  “Fighting and fucking. We were damn great at both.”

  If it wasn’t for the boyish grin he gave me right then, he would have gotten more than a grumble from me.

  “We should have just stayed friends. That was the only relationship we were good at.”

  “We never could have just stayed friends.”

  “Why not?” I glanced around for a sweater to throw on, since that was the second time he’d looked at me like he had to convince himself not to misbehave.

  “Chemistry. You and I had it.” He started folding the first box, his hands working with all of his attention directed at me. “You and I still have it.”

  The warm jolt that shot through my veins whenever he came close confirmed his theory. However . . .

  “You need a lot more than chemistry to make a marriage work. To make any relationship work.”

  His shoulder lifted as he taped the box. “Of course you do. But a hell of a lot of chemistry sure doesn’t go bad with all of that other love, trust, and respect stuff. Does it?”

  Grabbing a box, I put a good distance between us before starting to make it. “I wouldn’t know.”

  Canaan stopped in the middle of yanking a strip of tape. “I felt like we had those things. Maybe not in the amount we should have, but I always loved and trusted you. And I respected the shit out of you too.”

  I thought back to all of those nights I stayed awake, waiting for him to come home. My hand cupped around my telephone, whispering silent prayers to whatever god was listening at the time. I thought about the empty bottles and mornings of him not being able to recall anything of the night before. The scents of other women on him. I remembered tending to wounds and mending injuries.

  Although the real ones that needed fixed I was never able to heal.

  My eyes met his and lingered there. “You had a funny way of showing it.”

  His mouth opened instantly, but it closed just as fast. He took a full breath. “I know.” Then he got back to taping the next box, saying nothing else.

  I tried my hardest to pretend that this was normal—Canaan and me taping boxes in silence after five years of nothing—but pretending was not my strong suit.

  “Since you’re here and it’s been a while . . .” I cleared my throat. “What have you been up to? Besides saving the world.”

  His mouth moved as he worked on another box. “Broad scope or fine details?”

  “Whatever you want to share.”

  His wide shoulders lifted. “I’ve been trying to figure out my life. That’s what I’ve been up to.”

  His blatant honesty surprised me. “Made any progress?”

  “Some. Not sure it’s enough though.”

  “Enough for what?”

  His head lifted, conflict lighting up his eyes. “To convince you to give me a second chance.”

  The tape roll slipped from my hands. “I have divorce papers ready for you. This isn’t the time to make your plea for a second chance. Or second-millionth chance,” I added, trying not to seem thrown by his abruptness.

  “And I already told you I’m not signing those divorce papers.” Veins surfaced on his forearms from the way he was clenching his fists. “Not until you give me a chance to prove to you I’ve changed.”

  As I was about to snap something back, I latched on to what he’d said. “Not until I give you a chance to prove that you’ve changed? Supposedly?”

  If this kind of an ultimatum was a testament of Canaan’s change, he’d gotten his definitions turned around.

  He caught on to what I was getting at, his jaw moving. “One month. Give me one month to show you I’m the man who deserved to marry you.”

  A sharp laugh slipped out of me. “A month? I’m leaving the day after Grandma’s funeral.”

  “That’s two weeks away.” He shoved aside the box he’d finished and folded his arms across his chest. “All I’m asking is for two more.”

  Setting down my own box, I stretched all five-six of myself to its very limit. “I’m leaving in two weeks.”

  “Fine. You’ll be leaving still my wife.”

  My teeth clamped down on my tongue so hard I could almost taste blood. “I’m not your wife.”

  “The State of Missouri would argue otherwise, sugar.”

  I gave him a big, overdone smile. “You call me sugar one more time and I’ll be taking my sugar and pouring it into your truck’s fuel tank.”

  “You can drop your sugar on whatever of mine you want.” Canaan’s eyes trailed down my frame, lingering on the curves and bends of my body. “Sugar.”

  A loud groan echoed in my chest as I stomped my foot. It only made his smile stretch because there I was, losing my shit while he was in full control of his. “You are not proving to me you’ve changed, Canaan Ford. You’re driving me up a fucking wall, exactly the way you used to.”

  “No, sugar. It was fucking you up against a wall.” He tapped his fist against the wall behind him, like it was the very place we’d done it before. Actually, come to think of it . . . “And if it’s any consolation, you definitely never complained about that. You were more of the opposite mindset. But rest assured, while I consider myself a changed man, I didn’t change that part of myself.” His fist tapped the wall one last time.

  “What? The part that got off before I barely got started?”

  His brow quirked. “Trying to hold off being inside a woman like you is impossible. You should take that as a compliment.” From the far-off look on his face, I’d swear he was reliving one of our sexual escapades right then. “And what’s this accusation of me getting off before you got started? From what I recall, I could barely get between your legs before you’d start praising the name of Canaan the Almighty.” He held his hand up as though he were singing hymns on Sunday.

  Ironic. Since the only time he’d stepped foot in a church had been never.

  “I took an acting class in high school. Remember?” I shot him a glare as I moved toward the door. Either he was leaving or I was.

  “I do.” He nodded. “The same one you flunked because Mrs. Carson said you couldn’t act a part if the fate of humanity rested on you delivering one convincing line. I believe that’s verbatim from your junior year report card.”

  Throwing open the door, I waved my arm through it. “You can leave.”

  “I just got here.”

  “Funny. It feels like it’s been forever to me.”

  He kicked at the stack of boxes beside him. “I came over to help.”

  “Ironic.” My arm waved out the door again.

  Giving me a minute to change my mind, Canaan shrugged then started toward the door. “Give what I said some thought. One month. That’s all I’m asking for.”

  I stepped aside when he passed by. “You’re asking for a hell of a lot more than one month.”

  He paused in the doorway, his hand flexing at his side. Almost as though he wanted to reach for me but wouldn’t let himself. “One month.”

  As I watched him bounce down the porch steps, I found myself blurting, “And what happens if at the end of that month I’m not convinced you�
��ve changed? If I haven’t fallen madly in love with you again, like you’re so convinced I’m about to.”

  Canaan’s expression suggested that was about as likely as him being hired on as the Baptist church’s new pastor. Backing down the steps, he sank his hands in his faded jeans. “Then I sign your damn divorce papers.”

  Now he had my attention. Tucking a strand of wet hair behind my ear, I crept out onto the porch. “You’ll sign them? You swear?”

  “I swear.” He must have noticed my forehead fold with doubt. “Come on. When have I ever broken a promise I made to you?”

  My heart still bore the scars from the last time. As I took the last step to put me at the edge of the porch so I was staring down at him, I steeled everything inside me that could be gilded. “Our wedding day.”

  I was in denial. About a lot of things.

  I was good at that.

  My grandma. The house. The funeral. My life back in Chicago. My life here in Farmington. Canaan. It was all too much to try to process at one time, so I went to that happy place known as denial. I wasn’t eager to leave.

  Since I was a few minutes early for my meeting with Grandma’s lawyer, Sid Barrington, I camped out in the parking lot and pulled out my phone to do some housekeeping I’d been avoiding—aka in denial over—the past few days.

  First, I shot a quick text to my PA, Mindy, who was the only reason my business stayed semi-organized. I drew; she did the rest. I let her know I was alive, accounted for, and might be stuck in Farmington longer than I’d anticipated. Of course her response came five seconds later with a dozen follow-up questions, but I let her know I was popping into a meeting and would get back to her later. Eventually.

  The next item on the check-in list I might have been tempted to do via text, but I knew better. He’d left how many voicemails, asking me to call him back, and I’d shot back a text instead? One more and he was going to accuse me of avoiding him. Okay, he might have had a point.

  The other end rang and kept ringing until it clicked over to voicemail. “Hey, just giving you a shout back. Looks like we missed each other. Again. Anyway, I’ve got a crazy day of meetings and packing, so if we don’t catch each other later, I’ll check in later tonight.” I felt lost suddenly. From what I should say next, to what I was doing with my life. “Bye.”

  This place. It was screwing with me. The people and the memories and the places. Last week, my whole life had made sense and I knew exactly where I was going. Seven days later, I couldn’t have felt any different.

  The girl who’d left here wasn’t the woman who’d come back. Maybe that was the problem. I didn’t fit into the same spot I’d occupied before. Maybe the problem ran deeper. Maybe the only problem was the one I’d created for myself.

  Maybe I needed to stop overanalyzing everything and get my butt into the meeting I was now late for, I realized with a sigh as I threw the car door open. At 11:05, the sun was already melting my skin off like it was made of candle wax. Nice of Farmington to save its heat wave for the week I made my reappearance. Reason number five thousand three I had an issue with this place.

  A woman was at the desk inside the old-house-turned-legal-firm. She had coral lipstick that was just as stuck to her front teeth as it was her lips. I didn’t remember her name, but I knew she’d played Bunco with my grandma and the rest of the older women who used it as an excuse to complain about their husbands or gossip about their neighbors.

  “Look at you!” she almost squealed. “Even more beautiful than the day you were crowned Miss Wheat Princess.”

  My smile collapsed. That was what bringing up Miss Wheat Princess did to me—among other things of an unchristian nature. “That feels like forever ago.”

  “What? Five years ago feels like forever?” The woman rose from her chair, motioning at a framed picture on the wall across from her. “Feels like just yesterday. And I don’t care what Mary Beth Hudson says, you were the most lovely Miss Wheat Princess in the history of Wheat Princesses. That daughter of hers might have been pretty enough on the outside, but she was one ugly biddy on the inside.”

  I was already bracing myself as I turned to look, so the picture hit me with less impact. There I was, Miss Wheat Princess with her “court,” all of us escorted by whoever our boyfriend or closest boy friend had been at the time. Canaan was beside me, fitting both of those roles back then.

  It really was forever ago.

  “I’ll always be grateful my grandma coerced—I mean convinced—me to run. Nothing like listing Miss Wheat Princess on a resume to further a woman’s position in life.”

  My sarcasm was lost on Coral Lipstick as we stared another moment at the portrait. Her with a smile; me with a frown.

  “Just look at that dress.” She clucked her tongue. “And that date of yours . . .” She made another sound with her mouth, this one all kinds of inappropriate given she was referring to an at-the-time eighteen-year-old boy she had an easy four decades on. Not to mention he was, by the law’s view, my husband.

  “Is Mr. Barrington ready for me?” I spun around, trying to erase the image of that photo from my memory.

  I’d always been more tomboy that princess, but Grandma had been a Wheat Princess in her day. Having only one son, she lived somewhat vicariously through her granddaughter. Truth be told, she hadn’t really coerced me into running, but she certainly hadn’t held back her excitement when she found out I’d turned in my application.

  Of course I hadn’t planned on winning. Who would have guessed the artsy, hippie chick would take the title in a backward’ish town like this? Parade waves, tiaras, and crossed ankles still haunted me to this day.

  “He’s ready whenever you are.”

  She was still silently gushing over the portrait, so I excused myself with a quick thanks and headed down the hallway. It was the same small office I’d visited a few times as a kid, after my parents had died.

  Mr. Barrington’s door was open, and he stood as soon as he saw me lingering outside. “Maggie, come in, come in.” He came around his desk to shake my hand. “It’s good to see you again. I wish it could be under happier circumstances.”

  After shaking his hand, I took a seat and tried to get comfortable. No such luck. “Yeah, me too.”

  “Betty was one hell of a woman.” Mr. Barrington waited for me to settle into my seat before taking his again.

  “That and more.” My hands fidgeted in my lap as I checked the time on the wall clock.

  “Since I’m going to assume you want to cut right to the chase and save the small talk”—he gave me a moment to object before continuing—“I’ll get right to it. As you know, your grandma left you most everything. Save for a few old photos she set aside for the Historical Society, most everything else she left in your name.”

  When my hands would not stop fussing, I tucked them under my legs to still them. “Most everything?”

  Mr. Barrington pulled at his collar, clearing his throat. “She left you the house.”

  There was just enough of an uptick in his voice over house that I knew a but was coming.

  “But she left the garage and apartment to someone else.” Mr. Barrington was staring at his desk like he was reading something from it. There was nothing on it other than an At-A-Glance paper calendar.

  “Who?” I asked, so surprised I didn’t have a chance to consider who she might have left it to. If I’d had another moment or two, I would have figured it out.

  Mr. Barrington’s chest lifted with his inhale. “Your husband.” He caught himself at the same time my breath caught. “I mean, Canaan Ford. She left it to him.”

  I wanted to say things, a whole hell of a lot of them, but no words would form. No shortage of questions was cycling through my mind. Why would she do that? Was there a mistake? Had Mr. Barrington read the wrong will? Was I having a nightmare?

  “Did you just say Grandma left the garage and apartment to Canaan?” My voice sounded strained as I leaned into the desk.

  Mr. Barrington
grabbed the closest pen and starting clicking it. I’d never taken him as a nervous habit type of person, but I suppose the topic, and the look on my face, could make the most stalwart of individuals uneasy.

  “She did,” he eventually answered.

  “Any idea why she would do that?” I asked, hoping he did because I didn’t have a damn clue. She knew how I felt about Canaan. Why would she do this to me when I already had to try to wrap my head around her death?

  “Is that a rhetorical question or one you actually want answered?”

  Both.

  “One I want answered,” I said.

  Mr. Barrington clicked his pen a few more times. “Canaan has been taking care of your grandma—looking after her—ever since you left. Driving her to appointments or the store, mowing the lawn, fixing things up around the house.” Mr. Barrington twisted in his chair so he could stare out the window. “I’ve seen devoted sons spend less time with their mothers than that boy did with your grandma. That, in my opinion, is why Betty left him what she did.”

  My hand rubbed my forehead. A minute ago, I’d been wanting to curse his name, and now I felt closer to wanting to praise it. I hadn’t known how close they’d stayed. How much closer they’d obviously become. He’d looked after her. When it should have been me, her blood, it had been him.

  It was a lot to take in, especially when seated across from the same man who, two decades earlier, had told me my dead parents had left me in the custody of my grandmother. I felt like the same scared, unsure girl I’d been back then.

  “In your opinion,” I echoed. “Are there other opinions?”

  “This is a small town. There is never a shortage of opinions circling around.”

  “The next most popular one,” I pressed.

  Mr. Barrington shook his head. “I deal in the law here. Not speculation and rumor. You want to hear what else people are saying, all you need to do is listen.”

  “And what if I’m not sure I want to hear the rumors?”

  Mr. Barrington’s chest puffed when he snorted. “Then I can recommend a life-changing pair of sound-canceling headphones. Whether it’s a snoring wife or a town full of gossips, they work every time.”