One, she’d spent so many years afraid of opening up and trusting people. Yet despite that, she’d found the very family she’d hoped for her entire life. And they trusted her, for whatever reason. Apparently, she’d earned it. Maybe it was time that she allowed herself to see they’d earned her trust, too.
Number two was more complicated. Because the entire time she’d experienced this emotional, overwhelming thing, she’d felt as though she were missing a limb. She didn’t let herself think of it until she was alone that night in her flat. When she did, she didn’t like that Benjamin had wedged himself so deeply in her mind that she couldn’t go through her day without thinking about him. That she couldn’t have important experiences without wanting him there. Without having him there.
She settled on the sofa, but it smelled like him, so she moved. It didn’t make sense—he hadn’t been there in over a week and her sofas were regularly cleaned.
Except it did make sense. She just didn’t want to face it.
At some point during the night as she tossed and turned, she realised she already had. She knew exactly what the problem was: Benjamin hadn’t wedged himself in her mind; he’d wedged himself into her heart.
Chapter 18
He’d never thought his dream job would become a nightmare. But it was. Working in a place he loved but had given up for—his darkest moments in the last week had made him think—nothing. He only had himself to blame. Alexa hadn’t asked him to do this, neither had Lee. He’d done it because he’d thought he was being principled.
He was being principled. He couldn’t work for a man like Lee. Someone whose cruelty would one day be turned on Benjamin or their staff. Benjamin would have left then anyway, so he’d just hurried along the inevitable by handing in his notice.
But principles didn’t pay the bills, or help the mind when dreams were dashed. The euphoria he’d felt after saying he was leaving was well and truly gone. Now he only thought of his responsibilities, of what his parents would say when he finally told them what he’d done, and how Alexa had walked away from his proclamation of love.
A knock brought him out of his thoughts.
It was Saturday night after the restaurant had already closed and most of his staff had gone home. Lee’s appearance in his doorway was perplexing for more than that reason though. The very fact that he was there after a week of radio silence was troubling. So was the fact that he’d knocked, which he never had, in all the years they’d worked together, done.
‘Can I come in?’
Benjamin opened a hand, gesturing to the chair opposite him. He tried not to think about how Alexa had filled it almost three weeks before. Or anything else they’d done in the office.
‘I’m surprised to see you here,’ Benjamin said.
‘I should have come earlier.’
‘Should you have?’
Lee smiled at the casual comment. Or maybe not smiled, but Benjamin didn’t think there was a description for Lee simply showing his teeth.
‘Yes. We should have had a meeting to discuss the implications of your resignation and the transition plans. Have you told the staff yet?’
‘No.’
‘Great. We’ll—’
‘Lee,’ Benjamin interjected. ‘Did you really come here this time on a Saturday night to talk business?’
‘No,’ he said after a moment. He leaned forward, rested his arms on his knees. ‘I’m here to apologise.’
‘Apologise?’
‘For setting this in motion.’ Now he clasped his hands. ‘I always knew you were ambitious, and that In the Rough wasn’t where you’d end up. But... I sped it up, by acting like a complete jerk to Alexa. And to you. I’m sorry.’
Benjamin sat back and let his mind figure out what was happening and what he should say next. ‘I appreciate that. I’m more concerned about whether you’re extending that apology to Alexa.’
‘No.’ Lee looked down. ‘She doesn’t want to see me. I want to respect that.’
‘I bet she’d want to see you if you’re intending on apologising.’
‘You think?’
‘You spent your life torturing her. I think an apology would be a nice change of pace.’
Lee winced, but he straightened and ran a hand over his face. ‘I don’t know how I didn’t see how much I was hurting her.’
‘We all have blind spots when it comes to family.’
It was one of the little nuggets of wisdom his brain had come up with at three or so in the morning some time in the past week.
‘Yeah, but hurting her?’ He shook his head. ‘That’s more than a blind spot. It’s...’ His voice faded, and for a while after, he didn’t speak. ‘It’s not what a brother should do to his sister.’
‘Agreed.’
Lee nodded. Got up. ‘I don’t have anything else to say right now.’
‘You could talk about the transition.’
He laughed a little. ‘That was me hedging so I wouldn’t have to apologise.’
Benjamin chuckled, too. ‘I’ve been there.’
Lee walked to the door but, before he left, turned back. ‘We do have to talk about the transition.’
‘I know.’
‘Maybe we could talk about you buying this place from me.’
‘What?’
‘It’s lost its appeal, now that I know what it did to Alexa.’ He angled his head. ‘This seems like a good way to restore balance.’
‘You should sell it to her, then.’
‘Are you kidding me? Her place is much more popular than this. It would be a downgrade.’
With a quick wink, Lee was gone.
He hadn’t left things any worse than the way he’d found them. Not even his offer to sell the place to Benjamin had made much of an impact. Perhaps because Benjamin already knew the answer: he wanted In the Rough. He wanted to run the business himself, and do things the way he’d learnt to do them. He had no doubt he would make mistakes, but that was part of the package. He was very much looking forward to making mistakes, in fact.
So yeah, he’d been lying to himself when he said he didn’t know why he’d decided to leave. He’d done that because he wanted something else. But he’d also done it because he was standing up to Lee—because he was standing up for Alexa. It smarted that she didn’t want him to do that. It hurt that he’d offered and she’d rejected him. She couldn’t see that he wanted to do this, that he needed to, so that he could make up for...
He paused. He didn’t have to make up for anything. He’d already apologised to Alexa for what he’d done to her before he’d known her. He’d tried his best to show her none of that would happen again. Why had his brain automatically gone there, then? To make up for something, as if he were in the wrong?
Because he’d taken responsibility for her life in some ways, he realised. He thought he could make the hurt she’d been through better by protecting her. But she was right: the way he’d protected her was all wrong. He had done what he thought was best, knowing that she wouldn’t appreciate it.
Did he always do that with her? With anyone? With his...with his mother?
Yes. He did. It was so clear to him that he could have been staring at its physical form right in front of him. But he didn’t want to look at it by himself. He wanted to talk to Alexa. He wanted to share it with her; share everything with her. Because she was his friend, and because he loved her.
He was halfway to her place when he wondered whether it was a good idea. It was the middle of the night on a Saturday. Not to mention the fact that she clearly didn’t consider him her friend. She certainly didn’t love him. It took the rest of the journey there for him to realise he didn’t do a good enough job of fighting for her. She might not love him, but he was sure she cared about him, and maybe they could still be friends. He’d take her friendship if he could have nothing else of her.
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Then she opened her front door in her pyjamas. A cotton nightgown that dipped in the valley of her full breasts and caressed her growing stomach. He felt a lot of things in that moment. Protectiveness. Desire. Tenderness. Love. None of it inspired him to think of friendship, and he knew he’d made a mistake.
‘I shouldn’t have come.’
‘You realised this because I opened the door?’
‘Yes, actually. What were you thinking, coming to the door like this?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘You’re wearing lingerie.’
‘This is not lingerie,’ she scoffed. ‘It’s an old cotton nightgown. My oldest, in fact, because it’s the most stretched and none of the others fit me.’ She frowned. ‘You’re one to talk.’
He looked down at his T-shirt and jeans. ‘I’m perfectly respectable.’
‘Except I can see your biceps and your chest muscles.’
‘You can’t see my chest muscles.’
‘Your T-shirt is tight. I can imagine them.’
‘You think I’m dressed inappropriately because of your imagination?’
She folded her arms. ‘Isn’t that what you were doing?’
‘I... Well, no. Your breasts are right there.’
She looked down, as if seeing them for the first time. ‘Oh. I guess this is not only stretchy around my waist.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not like you haven’t seen this much of them before.’
He closed his eyes and prayed for patience. And maybe a douse of cold water. Maybe an ice bucket, because then he could stuff his heart that was beating with love and amusement for her in it, too.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she asked when he opened his eyes.
‘Yes. No. Yes?’ He honestly didn’t know. ‘I have stuff to say.’
‘You don’t know where you want to say them?’
‘I...think I might get distracted inside.’
‘Why?’ She leaned against the frame. ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’ Folded her arms. ‘Say the stuff.’
‘You were right,’ he blurted out, because he was avoiding her chest and her eyes and because it was bubbling up inside. ‘I take responsibility when I don’t have to. But I’ve been doing it my whole life. With my mom, I mean. She needed me, so I don’t know if I didn’t have to—’
‘You didn’t,’ she interrupted. ‘You chose to. Because she’s your mother and you love her, and the way that you show you care is by helping. Doing. Protecting.’
He frowned. Her lips curved.
‘Maybe I have some stuff to say, too. But please, continue.’
‘Very gracious of you.’ He cleared his throat. Tried to remember where he was. ‘I blamed myself. For her being sick. I had no reason to. She never made me feel that way. But in my kid brain I thought that if I hadn’t been there, hadn’t been born, she wouldn’t have got sick and—’
She’d moved forward, so when he stopped because of the pain, because he needed to, she took his hands. Slowly, she put them on the base of her waist. Cupped his face.
‘Just look at me,’ she said. ‘Look at me and tell me what you need to say.’
She must have woven a spell on him because he said, ‘I don’t know why I blamed myself. Maybe because my father said we could make things easier for her. If we could make it easier, we could make it harder. Maybe I already had made it harder. Maybe I was the cause of it?’
‘Oh, Ben,’ she whispered, lowering her hands to his chest. ‘She got sick when you were too young to understand it. Of course your father telling you to help her made you think you needed to because you contributed to it.’
‘“Maybe”, not “of course”,’ he replied, though he appreciated the understanding. ‘But it happened. The responsibility of caring for her was heavy, but I got stronger. Too strong. I carried it even when she didn’t want me to. She might not have wanted me to carry it at all.’ He shrugged. ‘I did the same with you.’
She sucked in her cheeks, releasing it before her mouth fully became a pout.
‘Remember earlier, when I said I have some things to say, too?’
‘You mean a few minutes ago? Yeah.’
She’d begun to walk her fingers up his chest. At his comment, she paused to pinch him.
‘Okay, okay,’ he said with a small laugh. ‘No more wise-guy comments.’
‘Good, because I need to be serious for a moment.’ She took a breath. ‘You need to learn how to balance it. Caring for someone, and protecting them so blindly that you do silly, unnecessary things.’
‘I know. Lex—’
‘Shh,’ she said, putting a finger on his lips. ‘I’m not done yet.’
He nodded for her to continue.
‘I need to learn how to not push you away because I’m scared.’ She knitted her brows. ‘It might be easier for me because I’m tired of doing it. Protecting myself... It’s so much work. It takes so much energy to keep up the shield and to be careful.’ She leaned her head against his chest. ‘And I’m tired of doing that and of being pregnant.’ She lifted her head. ‘Do you know how tiring it is to be pregnant? I still have five months to go. I can’t do it all.’
He bit his lip to keep from laughing.
‘Yeah, okay, laugh at the pregnant lady.’
‘I’m not laughing at you,’ he said, catching her hand and pressing it to his lips. ‘I’m happy. It sounds like you’re telling me you want me to do the protecting for you.’
‘Did you hear nothing of what I just said?’
‘Yeah, but I’m still me. I’m still going to want to protect you. But I’m going to try,’ he said sincerely. ‘It’s not healthy. I know that. I know the situation at home with my family isn’t healthy, too. It’s...it’s safe.’
‘For them,’ she said gently. ‘For you, it’s familiar. But it’s hard. And every time you see your mother in pain, you’ll think it’s because of you.’
‘I can’t snap my fingers and have it disappear.’
‘I know that. I’m not asking you to. But I am telling you to be intentional. If you want to be happy, you need to move away from safe. You need to stop taking responsibility for people and things that don’t need you to do that for them. Or that, quite simply, aren’t your responsibility.’ She ran her hands up and down his arms. ‘Your mother’s illness isn’t your fault. Nor is my pregnancy. Or my problems.’
He inhaled, then exhaled. Again, when the first time he did made him feel lighter. He hadn’t realised until that night how much he’d blamed himself for a range of things. This conversation made him think that he’d gone along with Alexa’s plan because he’d blamed himself in some way for how Lee had treated her. He wanted to make up for it, though he couldn’t possibly do that when he wasn’t the cause of the treatment.
He saw it now. And, as he told Alexa, it wouldn’t immediately go away. Especially not with his mother, where things were more complicated. But he promised her he’d try, so he would.
‘Does this mean you’re not pushing me away any more?’
‘What do you think?’
He smiled when she bumped her belly lightly against him, reminding him of how close they were.
‘I need you to say it.’
She rolled her eyes. ‘You’re annoying.’
‘But you love me.’
She hesitated, but her eyes were fierce and sure when she nodded. ‘I do.’
Who knew such simple words could set off such intense emotion in him?
‘I love you, too,’ he said softly.
‘I know. You’ve loved me from the day you first saw me.’
‘An exaggeration, I think.’
‘I could see it in the way you looked at me. You were such a sucker.’
They were still debating when she led him into her flat. Smiling, he closed the door.
Epilogue
‘Do you know what’s worse than having twin toddlers?’
Benjamin didn’t look over, too busy trying to get Tori, his daughter, off her brother. ‘Tori, come on. You know you’re bigger than Tavier.’
‘Don’t you dare get off your brother because you feel sorry for him,’ Alexa said, kneeling on the sofa and looking over its back at them. ‘He needs to learn.’
‘You’re encouraging this?’ Benjamin asked.
‘He loves it.’
Tavier gave a giggle just then. Benjamin threw up his hands. ‘Honestly. I was trying to help you.’
Tavier grinned, and pulled his sister’s hair. She responded by sitting on him. All things considered, they were playing fair.
‘You haven’t answered my question.’
He went to join her on the sofa. ‘I’m too tired to pretend to remember what you asked.’
‘What’s worse than having twin toddlers?’
‘Is this a riddle?’
He pulled her against him. Because she’d been kneeling, she had no way of resisting. Not that she would have resisted, he knew. Their marriage was a lot of debating, teasing—she was still talking about how he’d never found her handkerchief in his room—but none of it had to do with touching.
‘It’s not a riddle,’ she said.
‘A puzzle, then?’
‘Same thing.’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Ben,’ she said, taking his face in her hands. She did it whenever she was being serious with him. After four years together, two of them in marriage, it had happened all of four times. So he knew she was serious.
‘What’s worse than twin toddlers?’ he repeated. ‘I’m not sure. Our restaurants failing.’
‘Our restaurants aren’t failing.’
Of course they weren’t, but he’d needed to say it because he needed to get over that fear. It was still there, though he’d been running In the Rough for three years now. It was still competing with Infinity, but somehow that competition didn’t matter, since they were both doing what they loved. They both seemed to be good at it, too.
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