by Cassie Cross
“I’m so sorry,” he says, pressing his forehead against mine. “I’ll never be able to tell you how sorry I am. For what I did, for who I was.”
“Show me, then.”
“How,” he says eagerly. “Tell me how, and I’ll do it.”
“You’re doing it,” I say, smiling. “You care about the things that I care about. You’re being supportive, and helpful, and amazing. Be the guy I know you can be. That’s how you show me you’re sorry.”
“I can do that,” he says through a smile.
“I know you can. I have a condition, though.”
“Anything.”
“The past?” I say, sliding my hand across his chest before wrapping my arm around his neck. “It stays right here. If we’re going to be together, if we’re going to move forward, we have to let it go. No bringing it up in fights, no guilt, no angst. Okay?”
Ben blinks, like he can’t believe this is happening. “Okay. I just wanted to apolo-”
I press my finger against his lips. “Clean slate.”
He nods. “Clean slate.”
Using the arm that’s anchored around his neck, I pull myself up and give him a proper kiss. A kiss that’s full of promise, and hope.
A kiss that’s like a beginning.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“Oh my god, I love these,” Mia says, as she delicately removes the top of the box full of colorful macarons that I brought her from a fancy French bakery downtown. After she takes a few seconds to survey the delicious inventory, she smiles at me. “You brought all my favorites.”
I shift in my chair, as some of the nervous tension I was feeling drains out of me. To be honest, when Mia suggested that the two of us get coffee together the night we met at the Murphy Building benefit, I never thought that I’d actually take her up on the offer, much less be the one who arranged the meeting.
Yet, here we are.
“I’ll admit to cheating there,” I tell her. “I called Caleb and asked him what you would like.”
She tilts the box in my direction. “Share one with me.”
Normally I would beg off, but Mia has this friendly warmth to her that makes it difficult to say no.
I reach forward and pull out a pink one, which is rose-flavored, if I remember correctly. I take a small bite, and have to stifle the groan that threatens to come out. We’re in public; I can’t make noises like that over food, I remind myself.
“So,” she says, before pulling a green cookie out of the box. “I’m always up for treats, so please don’t think I’m being ungrateful, but what is this for?”
“It’s a thank you,” I reply.
“What for?”
“For everything you did to help my sister and me. And Ben, too.”
She gives me an unassuming smile. “I was just doing my job,” she says.
“No,” I reply, not wanting her to get away with shrugging this all off as some part of her job description. “Please don’t make it sound like less than it was.”
She takes a sip of her latte, and nods. “Okay.”
“I know we don’t know each other very well-”
“Yet,” she says.
I grin at her. “We don’t know each other very well yet, but Ben told me how hard you worked trying to decode that flash drive, and some people, they might’ve given up. You did that for me and Corinne, two people who are strangers to you, and I owe you the world for that.”
“It was nothing,” she says.
“It was everything. Both to me and to my sister. And to Ben, too. Macarons don’t even begin to cover it, but it’s a start.”
Mia puts the top back on the box of macarons, and pushes it aside, giving her room to lean forward and rest her elbows on the table.
“I don’t have any blood relatives left,” she explains. “But I know how important family is, and I know that you can build one that means just as much to you as the one you’re born into. Being with Caleb has given me the opportunity to build a family. Oliver is part of that, and Ben is, too. Ben might be my boss, but he’s my friend, too. If he needs me, I’m there. And he cares about you and your sister, so of course I was willing to do whatever I could to help.”
She’s right about family, about how your friends can take you in, and give you shelter and comfort and love that you sometimes can’t find from the people in your life who are supposed to give you those things. That family can be there for you when the other one falls apart.
I’m just getting to know Mia, and getting reacquainted with Oliver and Caleb, but they’ve all offered me a network of support over the past few weeks that I thought I’d lost the day my mother and father got arrested.
The realization that I can have that tight knit feeling with a family of my own making gives me a hope for the future that I didn’t think I’d have again.
“Ben told me that he thinks you and I have a lot in common,” I say, before wrapping my hands around my warm coffee cup.
“A protective streak a mile wide is the way he put it,” Mia replies, laughing.
“Well, if you’re going to do something stupid, do it for someone you love, that’s my motto.”
Mia laughs. “I couldn’t agree more.”
I want to ask her more about her family, about why she’s had to find one in our small group of friends, but we don’t know each other well enough for that yet. I want to, though. Anyone who has such a great capacity for caring in her heart that she would do what she did for me after only meeting me a handful of times, and for Corinne, having never met her at all…well, that’s the kind of person that I want to have in my corner.
And I want to be in her corner, too.
When I called and asked her to meet, she told me that she didn’t have a lot of time this afternoon, so I know she’s gonna be going on her way soon.
“Do you think we could meet for coffee again?” I ask. “It’ll be nice to talk to you away from the guys.”
Mia’s whole face brightens.
“I’d really like that,” she says. “I’m still new in the city, and even though I’ve met a bunch of people through work, it’ll be nice to have a friend, friend. That probably doesn’t make any sense.” Her face turns kind of red, and she lets out this nervous chuckle.
“It makes perfect sense. You need someone you can talk to without work being the focus of the conversation. Someone you can share things with and not have to look in the eye at the office.”
She nods enthusiastically. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant.”
“I’d love to be your friend, friend. I work for myself, and I tend to spend long hours at my kitchen table, wrapped up in my site.”
“A site that I love, by the way.”
I can’t help the short wave of bashfulness that overtakes me. My site is successful and getting bigger by the day, but it still catches me off guard whenever someone talks about how much they like it. It’s so fulfilling, putting something out into the world that people enjoy.
“Thank you,” I reply. “I get a ton of great samples, and I’m always happy to share.”
Her whole face lights up. “Seriously?”
I nod, laughing. “Seriously.”
“Next time we meet for coffee, we can take it back to my place, and I’ll show you.”
“That sounds great.”
“If you don’t mind,” I say, pulling my phone out of my pocket. “Give me your cell number. I’ll text you my address, and we can set a date.”
Mia takes my phone and happily taps away at the keys.
I smile as I watch her, thinking about how life is full of happy little coincidences. I probably never would’ve met this woman if I hadn’t let Ben back into my life.
Pushing one door open opens so many more. I’m ready to walk through them all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
After everything with Preston Pollard settles down, Ben and I drift into an easy rhythm together. When Stuart and his team complete a full sweep of my place and find nothing amiss, Ben
and I start splitting our time between our places.
Some mornings I wake up in Ben’s arms in my own bed, and some mornings we wake up together in his.
The two of us are both slammed at work. Development continues on RV-7, keeping Ben and Mia at the office until way past dark most nights. Clothing, jewelry, and accessory designers continue flocking to my site, wanting to take advantage of its growing popularity to get a wider audience for their products.
Felicity and I work together more and more often; we become a pretty good team.
With the overwhelming demand of our jobs, it would be easy for Ben and I to drift apart, to lose sight of each other, to put our relationship on the back burner.
Somehow, it only brings us closer together. We carve out time in our day to make each other a priority. Sometimes I bring lunch to Ben between meetings, and sometimes he meets me on set at a shoot to share some takeout. Ben sneaks away during his late-night programming sessions for a quickie in his office.
It’s not ideal, but it’s exciting.
Every night, we manage to find our way back to each other.
We only get the chance to spend one or two full days together a handful of times in the months since we got back together, until Ben and I decide to make it a point to have one day every weekend to ourselves, no interruptions. It takes some doing, but it’s worth it.
Sometimes we dress to the nines and go out on a date. Ben is still pretty good at the wooing. Even though he has me, he doesn’t stop trying to hold on. Sometimes we stay at home, never leaving the bed, getting lost in each other over and over again.
Tonight, we’re in our pajamas, cuddling together as the credits for a movie we just watched together roll across the screen.
“I thought you were kidding when you told me you learned how to lay tile,” I tell Ben, because he’s just revealed some plans to me about wanting to redo his kitchen floor that took me by surprise.
“Why would I kid about that?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, laughing. “I thought it was a metaphor or something.”
“When have I ever gone that far for a metaphor?” He looks so amused, I just want to kiss the look right off his face.
“It’s just that when some rich guy tells you that they took a tile laying class at a hardware store, it’s like…I don’t know, you assume that it’s fiction, or him trying to get in touch with his everyman. A version of a mid-life crisis if you will.”
After catching the look on Ben’s face when the words “mid-life crisis” come out of my mouth, I make sure to backtrack as quickly as possible. “Not that you’re middle-aged. You’re not even thirty,” I reply, stating the obvious.
“But I am some rich guy?” Ben says, laughing, pretending to be offended.
I lean over and playfully kiss his cheek. “You’re my rich guy.”
He squeezes me tightly. “Your rich guy who can actually lay tile and wants your opinion on something.”
“My rich guy who’s going to lay tile after he finishes rehab on that hand, right?”
The cast is long gone, and Ben is probably tired of me bugging him about keeping up with his physical therapy appointments, but his hands are talented, and I want him in tip-top shape. I’m annoying him, though. The look he gives me tells me as much.
“Ask away,” I say lightheartedly, dropping the PT talk. “I’m ready to opine.”
“Do you like the slate or the grey for the kitchen?” Ben asks, motioning toward the two different tile samples that are sitting on his coffee table.
“They both look grey to me,” I say, snuggling against his chest. His arms are wrapped around me, and I’m warm and comfortable. Perfect.
“This one is more blue.” He lifts his bare foot up, tapping on the edge of the tile on the left with his big toe. “The other one is more grey.”
“Which is why it’s called grey, I guess.”
Ben tickles my side a little, and I lean into him to get away from it. Judging by the way he nestles his face into my hair, I’m guessing he doesn’t mind that too much.
“I like the slate, I guess.”
“Don’t sound too enthusiastic about it,” he teases.
I shrug. “They just…”
“Don’t say they both look grey.”
I tilt my head up and kiss his chin. “Okay, I won’t. I shouldn’t have to point it out, because that’s grey on grey, babe.”
Ben rolls his eyes. “You’re lucky that I love you,” he says.
The words just tumble out, and steal all the breath out of me.
It’s not the first time I’ve heard that this time around, but it is the first time that he said it without any explanation. When we first got back together, he let me know that his love for me never went away, so I knew it was there, but this time he’s saying it because he just wants me to know.
No agenda, just love.
He catches himself almost instantly, realizes exactly what he’s said. His eyes widen for just a moment, like he surprised himself. Then he gives me that look that he has so often, the one that makes me feel precious and safe and like I’m the only woman in the world.
He leans in, tangles his fingers in my hair, and says it again. Right against my lips. Then he kisses me, and puts every single ounce of that emotion into it.
I feel it crackling and sparkling all the way down to my toes.
“I am lucky,” I say, and Ben looks like he doesn’t believe it. That night out on the balcony really rattled him, and it seems like he’s still struggling to see the good in himself sometimes.
I feel lucky to be loved by this Ben. He’s charming and thoughtful, and he cares about me and my sister. He’s everything that I want in a boyfriend, flaws and all.
He’s all that I hoped for, and thought I would never have.
“And I love you,” I continue, because the feeling is so strong right now that I can’t not say it. I’ve been feeling it for a while now, sooner than I thought was wise, given our history.
But that love I feel is filling up every part of my life now: making me excited to open my eyes in the morning, making me look forward to stolen moments and quiet kisses. That love makes me feel at home here in his arms, and it’s only right that I should tell him that.
Ben tugs on my waist, the words spurring on something inside of him, so I lift myself up until I’m straddling his lap.
He reaches up and cradles my face in his hands. He’s looking up at me, full of wonder, and I’m beaming back at him like he’s the sun.
“Say it again.” His voice is completely wrecked. “Please.”
I scrub my hand lightly across his stubble, letting the pad of my thumb trace the curve of his lower lip.
“I love you, Ben.”
He turns his head, and kisses my palm, his eyelids fluttering shut. He seems completely overcome with emotion, which is something that I so rarely see. It looks good on him.
“You okay?” I ask.
He nods. “Yeah, I just…I didn’t think I’d ever hear that again.”
I give him a kiss, long, and slow, and deep. “I’m happy to tell you any time you like. But remember our deal?”
Seems like a little love fog has made him completely forget about the fact that I forbade him from ever bringing up the past again. I don’t want what’s supposed to be an incredible sentiment to get swept away in a sea of self-doubt and deprecation.
“No bringing up the past,” he says dutifully, with a gorgeous grin, like he’s so proud of himself for remembering.
It’s so cute I have to kiss him. Positive reinforcement, and all that.
“Absolutely not.”
“Since talk of the past is forbidden, how about I bring up the future?”
My heart skips a beat, just hearing that f-word, but I’m quick to answer, because I don’t want him to think that I’m freaking out or anything.
“What about it?” I ask.
“Before I get started with a big project that will take up some of our time toge
ther, and probably require you to come with me to the hardware store to pick up things like cement and tile spacers.” I groan, but he ignores me. “I wanted to know what you thought about something.”
“As long as you’re not going to ask me to choose between two grey tiles, I’ll tell you anything you want.”
He smiles, but it’s apprehensive, and he trails his fingers up and down my side, like he’s trying to work up the courage to ask me something. I’m pretty sure I know where he’s headed, but I’m going to let him get there on his own.
“We haven’t spent a night apart since…”
That night on the balcony. I know. “Yeah,” I breathe.
“I like that you’re the first thing I see in the morning when I wake up,” he admits, fingers still trailing across my skin. “And the last thing I see at night.”
“I like that too.” Nervous Ben Williams is a sight to see, and I can’t help but grin, even though he’s suffering.
“I was wondering what you think of moving in together. Making the waking up and going to sleep together more of a permanent thing.”
“I like permanent things,” I tell him, and he visibly relaxes at that. “Where would you like to fall asleep and wake up with me?”
He shrugs. “We could find a new place together. You could move in here, or I could move in with you. Honestly, I really don’t care where we are as long as you’re with me.”
Completely on its own, my mouth lets out this strangled, high pitched noise.
“What?” he asks, smiling.
“You’ve become such a sap in your old age.”
Ben tilts his head up and kisses me. “You like it.”
“No,” I correct. “I love it.”
Truth is, I love my place, but with my work bringing me downtown more often, it would be more convenient to be closer. Ben’s neighborhood is great, but his apartment isn’t a place I would choose for myself, and I could see the two of us running out of space with all of our stuff.
“What do you think?” he asks, sounding a little anxious, probably because I haven’t answered him yet.
“This time around, we’re all about the clean slates. So if we’re going to move in together, then I think it should be a new place that we pick out together.”
