by Lucy Lennox
All because he’d spied me through the car window sitting on that swing and had decided I looked like I needed a friend.
I smiled to myself at the memory and involuntarily glanced up to search Bennett out. Electricity fired through me as I saw him watching me, and I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d somehow known I was thinking about him. He was still telling the kids the horror story he’d loved scaring me with when we were kids about the boy on the antique roller coaster.
“CRACK!” Bennett boomed, and the kids all jumped where they sat around the fire.
Several of them cursed under their breaths and one of them blurted, “Seriously, B? Shit!”
Bennett just started laughing the way he always did when he got to the part about the boy finding the skeleton in the coaster right as the coaster begins to break apart.
“Then the skeleton grabbed the boy to keep him safe, but when the boy looked down, it was nothing but twigs wrapped around his arm,” he continued. The firelight glinted off his amused eyes, and I couldn’t hold back a smile.
He’d fucking loved telling me that story because he’d known it scared the shit out of me every single time.
The first time he’d told it to me had been when we’d convinced our fathers to let us sleep under the stars down by the pond on the Crawford’s estate. We’d rolled out our sleeping bags next to each other and had started a little fire after making a fire ring with some rocks.
As the firewood had popped and snapped, Bennett had begun to tell me about this kid, Damien, he’d met at one of the fancy summer camps his parents had sent him to. I had always hated when he’d gone off to camp because it’d meant I’d be stuck at home without him. We’d written letters back and forth, but it hadn’t been the same. When he’d returned home, we’d spent hours catching up and making up for missed adventures.
The story about Damien had scared the fuck out of me. According to Bennett, the kid had gone to the shore to visit his grandmother and had found this haunted roller coaster. As the story had continued, it had gotten more and more farfetched until I’d finally realized it was all made up.
But the kicker about that damned story? It didn’t matter if you knew it was bullshit, and it didn’t matter how many times you heard it. It was still scary as all fuck. Because the sounds he used to tell the story were the sounds you heard sleeping outside at night. Cracks of the roller coaster were cracks of branches. Pops of the coaster struts were pops from the firewood. The wind itself was the cold breath of death, and so help me fucking god, Bennett was an expert at making the old woman’s voice sound like the hoot of an owl.
The first time he’d told it to me and I’d realized it wasn’t true, I’d smacked him on the back of the head and called him something ridiculous like buttwipe. He’d laughed so hard, he’d fallen over backwards off the log we’d been sitting on. I’d yelled at him that it served him right to fall on his ass, and then I’d tried like hell to pretend the story hadn’t scared me. I’d lied and told him I was over it, but he’d known the truth. He’d always known when I was bullshitting.
So, that night when it had been time to slide into our sleeping bags, Bennett had pretended like he was the scared one, afraid of being alone. He’d asked me if we could zip our bags together so he’d know if I left him during the night. As if I’d ever, ever leave him alone in the dark.
Of course I’d agreed, and we’d ended up falling asleep telling each other as many jokes as we’d been able to think of in order to keep from getting scared. I still remembered what had happened right as we’d been about to finally drift off to sleep.
First a log had cracked somewhere off to our right, and then a giant boom of thunder had split the air about ten seconds before the skies had opened up.
I wasn’t sure our feet had even hit the ground before we’d been safely back inside Bennett’s bedroom in the big house.
We’d dried off, re-settled ourselves in his double bed under the covers and laughed at being such scaredy cats. When our laughter had died down, Bennett had turned to me with his trademark goofy grin on his face.
“Dude, I’m totally telling that story like a million more times in my life. That was the best.”
I chuckled as I recalled that moment.
Bennett’s goal in life had always been to make me laugh.
And I’d sure as hell needed that, especially as I’d been forced to watch my parent’s marriage implode. I’d never really understood what had brought my parents together, because they’d never actually seemed happy.
In love? Maybe.
Happy? Most certainly not.
Not if their constant fights had been anything to go by.
My parents had met in college, though they’d been an unlikely couple even then. My father had been an art history major with dreams of teaching someday. My mother had been an energetic business student with the lofty ambition of someday running her own Fortune 500 company. I’d heard enough stories to know my arrival hadn’t been planned, and while neither of my parents had ever said I’d been the reason they’d gotten married, I had always wondered if that was the reason I’d never seen any pictures of my mother in her wedding dress from the neck down.
As a child, I hadn’t thought it unusual that my father had been the one to stay home with me all day. I’d learned later on that my mother hadn’t even needed to take time off of school to actually have me, since I’d been born a week before the fall term of their junior year. My mother had been there for the start of class, my father hadn’t. When graduation day had rolled around, my mother had accepted all sorts of scholastic awards and accolades while my father and I had sat in the crowd. I’d asked my father once why he hadn’t gone back to school when my mother had completed her degree, but he’d never really answered my question other than to say, “It is what it is, Son.”
Once my mother had graduated, she’d gone on to get a Master’s degree and my father had been left to continue caring for me during the day and working as the night janitor for the college my mother had attended. I’d spent the nights with my father’s parents, since my mother had been preoccupied with studying. I’d heard my parents argue often enough as a child to know that had always been the plan— for my mother to establish herself in a career that paid the bills, with the promise that my father would be able to finish his own education once they had more money to go around, as long as he took care of me until that happened.
That promise had been one in a long line of many that she had broken.
A mere two years after graduating with her MBA, my mother had accepted a prestigious job with a hoity-toity marketing firm overseas. When my father had expressed his worry about uprooting me to move to Europe, my mother had come up with a simple solution. The divorce had been finalized the day before she’d left the country, and neither my father nor I had ever seen her again. I’d learned later from Aunt Lolly that my mother had agreed not to seek sole custody of me if my father agreed not to ask for child support. It wasn’t that my mother had actually wanted me, she’d just used the threat of taking me thousands of miles away from my father to get out of any parental obligation the courts might have enforced upon her.
My father had done his best to insulate me from the fact that my mother hadn’t wanted me, but even before I’d known about the custody arrangement, I’d still felt left behind. Luckily, I’d had Bennett in my corner at that point, and on the days he hadn’t been able to draw me out of my sadness at being unloveable, even by my own mother, he’d held me and promised me he’d always want me.
Just like with my mother, it was a broken promise I hadn’t seen coming.
“Here.”
I glanced up to see a hand thrusting some gooey, chocolatey marshmallow goodness my way. While I should have berated whoever it was who’d wasted space in their pack for the ingredients necessary to make s’mores, I couldn’t begrudge the kids the fun of toasting marshmallows on sticks over an open flame and slapping them onto a perfectly-shaped chocolate bar between two
crispy graham crackers.
“Thanks,” I said as I took the treat. I expected the kid to return to his spot by the fire, but to my surprise, he sat down next to me. Bear immediately began nuzzling the kid’s chocolate-covered fingers.
“It’s okay?” he asked as he motioned to Bear.
I nodded, since the amount of chocolate was so insignificant that it wouldn’t cause the dog any harm. The boy smiled when Bear’s big tongue came out to lap at his fingers.
I guessed the boy to be around fifteen or sixteen. Gary had told me that all the boys in the group were between the ages of fifteen and seventeen, while the group Jake had taken charge of had younger boys between twelve and fourteen. The kid next to me was on the short side and pretty scrawny. His short black hair was spiky, like he was constantly running his fingers through it. His darker skin tone had me thinking he was at least part Hispanic.
“You don’t want to listen?” I asked as I motioned to where the rest of the group was sitting.
He shook his head. “Heard it before. B tells it good, but…”
“He tells it too good,” I ventured.
The kid smiled slightly. “They’re gonna be pissing themselves all night in this place,” he said as he nodded towards the kids. True enough, each boy was completely fixated on the story, which was the point. In mere minutes, Bennett would be performing his signature shock and awe move that would have the kids falling all over themselves to get away. I’d at least had Bennett to hold onto when he’d been scaring the ever-loving hell out of me.
“You’re Lucky, right?” I asked. Bennett had had the kids introduce themselves one by one yesterday morning, but truth be told, I’d still been reeling from seeing Bennett again, so I’d only half-listened.
The boy nodded.
“I’m Xander,” I said as I reached over to shake his hand. I knew the introduction wasn’t really necessary, but it still felt like the right thing to do.
Lucky shook my hand and then put his hands back on Bear.
“You got a dog back home?” I asked as I finished the s’more.
“Nah,” he murmured. “Had a cat once when I was little, but Jerry got pissed that it kept scratching his good chair so he let the neighborhood dogs have it.”
The food I’d just eaten threatened to come back up as what he was saying sank in.
“Jerry?” I asked, simply because I had no idea what else to say.
“My mom’s, ah, boyfriend… well, at the time anyway. Not sure if she’s still with him.”
“You don’t live with your mom?”
Lucky shook his head, but didn’t say anything more. I fully expected that the conversation was over when the boy remained silent for several minutes, but he surprised me by saying, “It’s cool out here.”
“Yes, it is,” I acknowledged.
“Did you… did you like, go to school or something?”
It dawned on me what he was asking. “You mean college?”
He nodded.
“I did. But not specifically because it was a requirement for this job.”
Lucky glanced at me, his confusion clear as day in the firelight. “You went to school because you… wanted to?”
I chuckled and said, “Yeah, I did.” I let my eyes drift off into the darkness. There was enough moonlight filtering through the clouds that I could see the outline of the trees and the shimmering lake. My heart swelled at the sight. “I went to Colorado State University and got a degree in Fish, Wildlife and Conservation Biology.”
“Oh,” Lucky murmured, his eyes downcast. “I do okay in school, but I don’t get straight A’s or nothin.”
“Lucky,” I said and I waited until he looked up at me. “I belong in these woods,” I murmured as I motioned around us. “Degree or no degree. I went to school because I wanted to learn more about the wilderness I loved. I can’t say I was always the best student when I was your age, but if you want something bad enough, you’re willing to work as hard as you have to for it.” My eyes automatically drifted to Bennett.
I hadn’t been lying when I’d said I hadn’t been a great student… not like Bennett. I’d been fortunate to get a scholarship to Bennett’s private high school, but I’d had to work hard to keep up with the intense private institution’s curriculum. While I’d wanted to make my dad proud by maintaining the scholarship, I’d been more afraid that losing it would have also meant losing that last connection to Bennett. Sensation shot up and down my spine as Bennett’s eyes once again met mine over the fire. I immediately returned my attention to Lucky so I wouldn’t get caught up in Bennett or his damn story and the memories that came along with it.
“You have to fight for what you want, Lucky,” I said softly. I didn’t add that you also needed to know when to walk away. The kid needed to keep his dreams for as long as he could, after all.
Lucky nodded and fell silent again. Bear began prodding my hands, and I knew he could sense my anxiety building. I let my fingers sift through his thick fur.
“You and B, you were friends, huh?”
Lucky’s question had me sucking in my breath. I didn’t want to answer him. “A long time ago, yes,” I finally acknowledged.
“But not anymore?”
Pain exploded in my chest and I was sure I was going to have a heart attack. “People change, Lucky. They go their separate ways,” I forced myself to say. I was so on edge by the shift in conversation, I jumped when I heard the kids scream and shout at Bennett when his story hit its crescendo. I leapt to my feet and said, “I should go check things out.” There was absolutely nothing that needed to get checked out, but hopefully Lucky didn’t know that.
“Yeah, sure man,” I heard him mumble and I felt like a shit for just ditching him. But as I listened to the kids giving Bennett a hard time about the story at the same time that they were saying how cool it was and they couldn’t wait to hear it again, I wanted to throw up. Because memories of lying huddled with Bennett under a blanket, his head tucked against my shoulder, our hands linked between us… it was all just too much. I forced myself not to look at Bennett as I hurried from the fire into the darkness, Bear at my side.
I didn’t look at him, but I felt Bennett’s eyes on me just the same.
Chapter 6
Bennett
“Can’t sleep?”
I shook my head as Aiden came around behind me and stepped over the log. He sat close enough that his hip was brushing mine, and I automatically laid my head on his shoulder. It was a move I’d done countless times in the years since we’d ended our brief and very one-sided relationship. I wasn’t sure why Aiden still allowed the contact… maybe because he knew I was a tactile person, or maybe because he just felt sorry for me when I got like this.
The fire hadn’t completely died out when I’d crawled out of my tent an hour earlier, so I’d built it back up and had been staring into the burning embers ever since, as if they could somehow tell me how I’d managed to mess things up so badly.
“I don’t suppose it’s because you’re feeling guilty for scaring the shit out of everyone, is it?” he asked.
I smiled. My story had gone off without a hitch… well, depending on how you looked at it, anyway. The kids had cursed me to hell and back afterward, and I’d seen more than one take a buddy with them when they’d gone to answer nature’s last call before bedtime. If they hadn’t been so worn out from today’s hike, I suspected at least two or three of them would have been sitting with me around the fire, too rattled to go to sleep.
Unfortunately, my insomnia came from a whole different place.
My eyes automatically drifted to Xander’s tent.
He hadn’t spoken even one word to me since our run-in in the woods. I’d caught him shooting looks my way now and again, but his expression had been unreadable. I’d been surprised to see Lucky approach him and even more surprised when Xander hadn’t chased the young man off. I was tempted to ask Lucky what topic had had them in such deep discussion, but I’d managed to hold back. I�
�d known how hard it was for the troubled teen to open up to anyone, so I hadn’t wanted to make a big deal about it or make him feel self-conscious. And whatever Xander had said to him hadn’t seemed to upset him, nor had he dismissed the teenager outright.
“I don’t like seeing you like this,” I heard Aiden mutter. I could tell by his inflection whose shoulders he was placing the blame for my mood on, and that didn’t sit well with me. Yeah, I knew Aiden wanted to protect me— it was in his nature, after all. But I didn’t like that Xander was the target of his fury.
I lifted my head and glanced at him. “You don’t know him, Aid… he has a reason to feel this way.”
“So do you, B.”
I shook my head and turned my attention back to the fire. “It was different for me.”
“Why? Because you were the one with all the advantages? Because you had money and his family didn’t?”
“It was more than that. He never saw me as Bennett Crawford, son and only heir to the Crawford fortune. He didn’t care who my dad was or that people were making all these plans for me from the moment I was born. To him I was just… Benny. It wasn’t until high school that he started to look at me differently,” I murmured. “Not that he didn’t have a reason to.”
“You didn’t have a say in the matter, remember?”
“I never told you about his family and mine, did I?” I asked.
“No.”
“After my parents realized I wasn’t going to stop asking to see him, they began arranging play dates. Sometimes I’d go over to his house, sometimes he’d come to mine. When we were seven or so, our parents finally started hanging out… I guess they figured it just made sense. My parents actually liked Xander’s mom a lot… it took them a little longer to warm up to Mr. Reed because he was pretty quiet… like Xander,” I said with a smile. Xander had definitely inherited his mother’s dirty brown-blond hair and cool blue eyes, but he’d had his father’s quiet nature and stoic attitude… something I’d worked my damnedest to overcome.
