by Vi Keeland
“It’s not really music.” His face wrinkled up.
I smiled. “That’s what I used to tell your mother. But she told me I didn’t listen well enough.”
Lucas concentrated for a minute, trying to hear something other than the sound holding a seashell up to your ear made. He shrugged. “It’s okay. Would be better with a fishing pole.”
I agreed with his sentiment.
I’d always been a spit it out, say what’s on your mind kinda guy, but I couldn’t figure out how to dive into the conversation I’d brought him here to have. Apparently, Lucas knew something was on my mind.
He picked up a small rock and tossed it into the water. “Are we gonna have the birds-and-the-bees talk or something?”
I chuckled. “I wasn’t planning on it today. But if you want to, we can.”
“Tommy McKinley already told me all about stuff like that.”
“Is Tommy the pimply kid who smells like a hamster that we took to the movies a few months ago? The one who tied his own shoelaces together and fell over.”
Lucas laughed. “Yeah, that’s Tommy.”
Oh, we definitely needed to have that talk. “I’m guessing Tommy’s experience with girls is pretty much zilch. So why don’t we have that talk next week. I wanted to talk to you about your mom today.”
“What about her?”
I suddenly felt lightheaded. How did I tell this kid I adored that I’d ruined his life? My mouth went dry.
“You know that your mom and I were best friends, right?”
“Yeah. Even though that’s weird. Who wants to be best friends with a girl when you’re a kid?”
I wilted a smile. There wasn’t an easy way to confess to this kid. I’d rather a giant wave wash over the rock I was sitting on and take me out to sea than finish this conversation. But I looked over at Lucas waiting.
Like a coward, I looked down. “You know your mom died in a car accident.”
“Yeah.” He shook his head. “I don’t remember it, though, really. Just a lot of people kept coming to our house.”
I nodded. “Yeah. A lot of people really loved your mom.”
When I got quiet again, he asked, “Is that what you wanted to tell me?”
I looked up and found Lucas’s eyes so full of innocence and trust—trust he’d had in me for eleven years, trust I was about to shatter.
“No, buddy. I need to tell you something about the accident.”
He waited.
There was no putting the cork back in the bottle after this. I took one last deep breath.
“I should have told you this a long time ago. But you were too young, or I was too afraid to tell you, or maybe both.” I looked away, then back at Lucas to deliver the blow. “I was the one driving the car the night of the accident. Your mom and I, we’d just had a big argument and… It had rained a lot. A big tree needed to be cut back and was partially covering a stop sign. I didn’t see it until we were almost on top of it. I hit the brakes, but the ground was wet…”
The expression on Lucas’s face changed immediately. It seemed to take forever for him to swallow what I’d said, to allow it to fully register. But when it finally did, he stood.
“Is that why you spend all this time with me?” His voice was full of hurt, and the more he spoke, the louder he became. “You feel guilty for killing my mother? That’s why you come visit me every other week and pay off my grandmother?”
“No. That’s not it at all.”
“You’re a liar!”
“Lucas…”
“Just leave me alone!” He took off running down the jetty.
I called after him a few times, but when he stopped down the path to pick up rocks and hurl them into the water, I thought it might be better to give him some headspace. He didn’t usually get upset talking about his mother, but what I’d told him was a lot to absorb and probably opened a lot of old wounds, along with creating new ones.
Lucas didn’t speak to me for the rest of the afternoon. But he also didn’t ask me to take him home early. So I didn’t. Instead, I stopped at the store and picked up a cheap rod and some tackle and took him to a lake to fish. If I asked something, he growled a one-word answer. I found a certain amount of comfort in knowing that even when he was upset and angry, he still didn’t completely ignore me.
As we got close to his house, I knew he wouldn’t leave me any time to talk to him once we arrived. He’d hop out the minute I stopped and slam the door behind him. Hell, I would’ve done the same at his age. Which is why I eased up on the gas and said my piece during the last five minutes of the drive.
“I understand you’re upset with me. And I’m not looking for you to talk to me right now. But I need you to know that none of the time I’ve spent with you was borne out of guilt. Do I feel guilty about what happened and wish it had been different? Every damn day of my life. But that’s not why I come visit you. I come visit you because I loved your mother like she was my sister.” I started to get choked up, and my voice broke. “And I love you with all of my heart. You can hate me if you want for what happened. I deserve that. But there’s nothing more honest in my life than what I’ve got with you, Lucas.”
We pulled up in front of his house, and I turned my head to try to hide wiping my tears. Lucas looked over at me, stared into my eyes for the longest time, and then turned and got out of my car without a word.
Chapter 43
* * *
Annalise
“You sure you’re okay?”
I took Bennett’s plate from in front of him. He’d barely eaten anything.
“Yeah. Just tired.” He rubbed at the back of his neck.
“Did you not like the chicken?”
“No, it was great. I…umm…ate with Lucas earlier. I wasn’t thinking. Sorry I didn’t finish when you went to all that work.”
I set our plates in the sink and prompted Bennett to pull his chair back from the table a little. Sitting on his lap, I stroked his hair. “It’s fine. I don’t care at all. You just seem…somewhere else tonight.”
“Sorry.”
“Stop apologizing.” I stood and offered him my hand. “Come on. You’re tired, and you’ve been rubbing at that neck since you got here. Let me get the knots out.”
Bennett took my hand, and I led him into my bedroom. He slipped off his shoes and sat down on the edge of the mattress.
I walked into the bathroom and grabbed the half empty bottle of baby oil I kept under the sink for my dry skin. “Take off your shirt, so I don’t get it oily.”
When watching me pour oil onto my hands didn’t invite any lewd comments, I knew whatever was bothering him was more than neck pain and being tired. I got up on my knees behind him and began to massage the baby oil into his skin. His chin dropped to his chest as I worked my fingers into the muscles.
“You weren’t kidding. You’re so tense. It’s like one giant knot back here.”
Bennett made a sound that was a cross between a groan of pleasure and pain as I dug my fingers deeper into his flesh.
“Feel good?”
He nodded.
After I’d loosened the muscles in his neck, I figured I’d loosen another muscle. So I reached around his chest and unbuckled his belt while kissing the back of his neck. Then I climbed off the bed and stood between his legs before dropping to my knees.
The sound of the zipper on Bennett’s jeans echoed through the room. Reaching into his pants, I cupped his cock, and he let out a loud, shaky breath. I’d thought it was the sound of his self-control slipping, but when I looked up, I found his eyes shut and his face twisted in pain.
“Bennett?” I pulled back. “What’s wrong?”
His eyes opened. “Nothing.”
“Don’t tell me it’s nothing. You look so upset.”
He stood and took a few steps away from me. “I’m sorry.”
“Stop saying that. What’s going on with you?”
I waited quietly for him to say something, but he just continu
ed to take deep, steady breaths, in and out. It seemed like he was trying to pull himself together, rein in his control.
Bennett ran a hand through his hair. “Fuuuuuck!” He sounded angry, but I could tell whatever it was, he was angry with himself, not me.
“Talk to me.”
He paced a few times and then sat back down on the edge of the bed, head in his hands and fingers pulling at his hair.
I knelt in front of him. “Bennett?”
I watched his Adam’s apple bob up and down as he swallowed. And then his shoulders started to shake. At first, I thought he was laughing—some sort of maniacal laughter that needed to come out because it was either that or break down and cry.
But then he looked up.
And I saw his eyes filled with unshed tears.
My heart stopped.
He wasn’t laughing; he was silently crying—doing everything in his power not to let it out.
“Oh God, Bennett. What’s wrong? What happened?”
Chapter 44
* * *
Annalise
I held him tight.
His shoulders shook for so long, I knew I needed to brace for the sound when it finally came. It was an ear-splitting, heart-breaking, soul-crushing noise when it did. I had no idea what could possibly cause so much pain. But I knew I wanted to take some of it away for him.
I rubbed his back, stroked his hair, assured him with tender words that everything was going to be okay. Whatever it was, this was pain that had built for a long time. It wasn’t new, not the type that happens when you lose someone unexpectedly or suddenly find out the man you thought you knew wasn’t the man you fell in love with. The pain that emanated from Bennett was the kind that had spent years bottled up—like a volcano that erupts after a hundred years of being dormant and suddenly its fire is shooting three-hundred feet into the air.
I started to cry with him, even though I had no idea what we were crying about. It was just too emotional to watch and not be moved to tears of my own. We held each other for such a long time.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”
Eventually Bennett’s shudders started to slow. I wasn’t sure if it was because I’d brought him comfort or he just had no more tears to cry. He took a few long, deep, shaky breaths in and out, and his grip on me loosened.
His face had been buried in my neck. I wanted to look at him, to see his face, but I was half afraid that once I pulled back and saw the pain in his eyes, I’d lose it all over again, even if he was okay.
When both our breathing had returned to normal and neither of us was crying anymore, I cleared my hoarse throat. “Do you want me to get you something to drink? A water or something?”
Bennett shook his head, keeping it down so I couldn’t see him, but one of his hands lifted to my face.
He pressed his palm to my cheek and whispered, “Thank you.”
“Anytime.” I smiled sadly, taking his hand from my face and bringing it to my lips. “Anytime.”
He lifted his head and leaned his forehead to mine. His eyes were swollen and red, but the half smile he managed was real. “Thanks for the offer. But I’m hoping that was the first and last time you’ll be seeing that.”
He sounded more like Bennett already.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He looked up. “Not yet.”
“Okay. Well, you know where to find me if you do.”
He grinned sadly. “In Texas?”
I started to laugh. “Boy, that didn’t take you long. And here I was thinking you’d be nice to me after how nice I was to you. I should’ve known better.”
Bennett scooped me up and surprised me by swinging me up to the top of the bed near the headboard. He climbed on top of me. “Are you saying I owe you one?”
I nodded with a giant, ear-to-ear grin. “Maybe more than one.”
He chuckled. “Well, I’d better get started on that right away.”
His face moved to my neck once more, only this time he definitely wasn’t crying. We wrapped ourselves around one another. Not ten minutes ago, we’d both been emotional wrecks, and now those feelings had transformed into want and need.
Bennett kissed me passionately, with so much tenderness and worship. Our desire for one another had never been an issue, but this moment felt different for some reason. When he broke the kiss to slip off my clothes, he looked down at me as if no one else in the world existed. The smile he wore when he pushed inside of me touched me deeply. I knew in my heart that something had changed. Then he solidified that feeling by making love to me for the very first time.
***
“I told Lucas the truth about me tonight.”
The room was pitch dark. I’d just started to doze off and couldn’t be sure if I’d heard him right. “The truth?”
I felt him nod, even if I couldn’t see it. My head was tucked into the crook of his shoulder, and he continued to stroke my hair gently as he spoke.
“Sophie was my best friend. People thought it was weird that we spent so much time together but weren’t hooking up. She was like the little sister I never had, even though we were the same age. We were nineteen when she got pregnant with some loser’s baby. Her mother kicked her out, and she came to stay with me in my dorm room for a while and then went back home. It went like that off and on for years. But after I graduated, she couldn’t take it at home with Fanny anymore. We got an apartment together so we could share expenses and I could help out with Lucas while she went to cosmetology school at night.”
He paused, and I waited in silence until he was ready to continue.
“One night she got out of class early. Lucas was already asleep in her room. I’d met a woman in our building, and we’d started hanging out once in a while. Sophie walked in on me and her having sex in my room.” He blew out a deep breath. “I don’t even remember the woman’s name. Anyway, Sophie freaked out, saying Lucas could’ve walked in on us, and we had a big fight. The next night, she dropped Lucas off at her mother’s instead of leaving him home with me when she went to school. Or at least I thought she went to school. A buddy of mine called later that night and said he was at a bar, and Sophie was there, and she was pretty loaded. So I drove to pick her up. It was a shitty night, pouring out, and I found her making out with some dirtbag biker. There was a big scene—the biker wanted to kick my ass, but I got her the hell out of there before she did something stupid.”
He took another deep breath.
“Our fight continued in the car, and Sophie kissed me.”
“She kissed you?”
“I thought she was just drunk at first. I pushed her off me and told her to cut the shit. But she started to cry. Then everything came out. She told me she’d been in love with me for years. Apparently the night before hadn’t been about finding me with another woman while Lucas was sound asleep; it was because she had feelings for me.”
“Oh, wow. And you had no idea?”
“None. Like a fucking blockhead, I didn’t see any of it. Until long afterward. And I didn’t handle it very well. I told her that was ridiculous, and she was like my little sister.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah. That didn’t go over too well. She was pretty upset, so I thought I better take her home.” He paused. “We never made it. I missed a stop sign because of some trees weighed down from the rain, and there was an eighteen-wheeler coming. We skidded, and the car flipped a few times.”
I turned over onto my stomach. “Oh my God, Bennett.”
He shook his head. “I shouldn’t have been driving while I was upset and pissed off, not at night with bad visibility and wet roads.”
I clutched my chest. The story itself was heartbreaking, but then I remembered what he’d said earlier. “I told Lucas the truth tonight.”
“Lucas didn’t know any of this?”
He nodded. “Not until this afternoon. It’s a long story, but Sophie kept these journals, and her mother recentl
y read them. Lucas almost read them, too. The last entry in her journal was written the day before she died and said she was going to tell me about her feelings. Her mother knew we’d had a fight the night Sophie died, but when she read the journals, she realized what we must’ve been fighting about. Fanny never liked me to begin with, and rightly blames me for the accident.”
He sighed. “She only lets me stay in Lucas’s life because I help her out financially. Lucas and I both got a settlement because the tree should’ve been cut back and the trucker was speeding, but his is in a trust, and Fanny only gets a stipend for his living expenses each month. I’ve always known I needed to tell him I was driving. I just thought I could wait until he was a little older.” He shook his head. “Reading those journals stirred up a lot of feelings. For both of us.”
I shut my eyes. “Oh God, Bennett. I’m so sorry. You told him all that today? I’m guessing it didn’t go well?”
“He could have told me never to contact him again. So I guess it could have been worse.”
It didn’t take a shrink to figure out why Bennett didn’t do relationships. A woman he cared for deeply had told him she was in love with him the night she died in a car accident—an accident that happened while he was behind the wheel, an accident he obviously harbored a lot of guilt over.
In an instant, the rest of the missing pieces of Bennett Fox clicked into place. Such a complex man, with scars inside that ran a lot deeper than the one on the outside from the accident.
“He’ll come around. He’s a smart kid, and in the little time I spent with you two, it was clear how much you care about him. I’m sure he was just upset at the shock. It must’ve felt like a big secret kept from him.”
“He thinks I’ve been spending all this time with him out of guilt for what I did. And honestly, I do have a lot of guilt. But that’s never been the reason I stayed involved in Lucas’s life.”
We were quiet for a long time. I needed to wrap my head around everything he’d shared, and Bennett obviously needed space. But first…I needed to ask one more question.
