by Lucy Lennox
“Yeah. I do.”
“So I’d hate to say that someone saying something bad to you at this age is unforgivable when I really think you should allow people to change as they grow up and mature. Plus, holding a grudge against someone sometimes does more harm to the holder of the grudge than the person they’re mad at.”
A sliver of recognition snaked through my gut at my stupid-ass words, but I did my best to ignore it.
“So, you think it’s okay?” Lucky asked.
“What’s okay?” I said, realizing my eyes had strayed back to Bennett, who was obviously stalling the kids to keep them from approaching me for their assignments. I knew Lucky and I didn’t have much time left before Bennett wouldn’t be able to hold them back any longer.
“To kiss someone,” Lucky said sheepishly.
“It’s okay to kiss someone, Lucky,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder and meeting his eyes. “It’s when you go to give them your whole heart that you need to be really careful. It doesn’t take much to get it broken.”
“Is that what happened to you?”
His question startled me and I automatically glanced at Bennett. Was that what had happened? Could you even get your heart broken if you’d never actually given it away? I saw Bennett’s eyebrows furrow, and I realized he must have seen a change in my expression or something. His gentle smile faded away and I saw a flicker of worry go through his gaze.
“Xander?”
“Huh?” I asked as I forced myself to look at Lucky again. “Um, no, not really,” I stammered.
He was quiet for a moment before he smiled shyly and asked, “What was it like? Your first kiss, I mean.”
I tilted my head at the question. “What? Oh. Hm. First kiss? Who was that… a guy named Ronnie or Ricky maybe? Reggie?” I felt my lips tilt up as the memory returned. “Don’t really remember his name. I just remember being ramped up after a pickup basketball game and yanking the guy behind the equipment shed in the park. It was nice.”
“Bullshit,” A familiar voice sounded from behind me. “Your first kiss was with Madison Franklin.”
I turned around in time to see Bennett’s mischievous wink at Lucky. His eyes returned to mine and I saw the silent question there.
Are we okay?
I didn’t blame him for wondering if he’d done something to cause my momentary mood change after Lucky had asked me about my own experience with nursing a broken heart. After all, all I’d been doing from the moment he’d stepped off that bus was blame him for everything that had gone wrong in my life after my dad had died.
“Who? Madison Franklin? Oh, hell. That didn’t count,” I said lightly.
“It sure did. It counted because I saw it and you never told me about it, which pissed me the hell off.” Bennett was laughing, but there was something off.
“What? That stupid kiss? It definitely didn’t count. She caught me unaware at that middle school graduation party and just laid one on me before I could stop her. And I didn’t tell you because it was noth—”
“Dude, it counted. There was tongue.”
My jaw dropped, and I stared at him. He’d seen a girl kiss me the spring before my dad died and thought I’d liked it? While I’d been going crazy with dealing with my newfound attraction to him, he’d thought I was feeling those same things for girls?
“No, there wasn’t,” I said more sharply than I’d intended. “No tongue. I swear.”
Lucky snorted and Bennett laughed. “Xander, you should see your face right now,” Lucky guffawed. “You’re redder than Toby’s hair!”
“I heard that!” Toby called as he and a couple of the other boys caught up to us. The older boy glanced at me and shook his head. “Dude,” he said with pity, and then he was brushing past me, grabbing Lucky’s arm as he went.
“He’s right, you know,” Bennett said. “Only time I’ve ever seen your cheeks that red was when you stole my mom’s lipstick and smeared it all over your face.”
“You know why, asshole,” I groused. “We were ten and I was going as Ickis from Real Monsters for Halloween, but I lost the mask so I had to paint my face to match the rest of the costume.”
Bennett laughed and said, “Whatever. You kissed a girl.”
I gave him a hard shove, but immediately latched onto his arm at the same time so I wouldn’t actually knock him down. He quieted and his eyes fell to where my fingers were curled around his elbow. Electricity fired up through my fingers and into my arm and I was drawing him forward before I even realized what I was doing. “It should have been you,” I murmured as my eyes fell briefly to his mouth.
“Wh… what?” he stammered.
“You should have been my first kiss.”
“Yo, B! It’s catching!” Lucky called, and we both turned to see the entire group of boys watching us with varying degrees of smirks on their faces. Bennett lifted his hand to his now very pink cheeks and then laughed. “So it would seem,” he said softly.
I forced myself to release him so he could step past me and head towards the kids who immediately began singing, Xander and Bennett sitting in a tree.
Bennett spoke quickly. “Okay, okay, last guy to stop singing has to sleep in my tent with Bear tonight!” Since my dog had gained quite the reputation for his potent flatulence problem, all the kids fell silent instantly. “Thought so,” Bennett said with amusement as he cast me a smile over his shoulder. Then I saw it.
And I couldn’t fucking believe it.
That wink.
That goddamned heart-stopping, soul-sucking, perfect wink that I’d been waiting a lifetime to see again.
Bennett turned his focus back to the boys, completely unaware of what he’d just done to me. “You guys ready to get your route assignments from Xander? Who’s ready to move on from here?”
His enthusiasm was contagious. I was engulfed by a pack of excited kids ready to begin the day’s adventure, so I didn’t get a chance to mull over everything that had just happened or what any of it meant. Once the kids were all on their way, I let my thoughts drift to the question Bennett had asked them just before we’d sent them on their way.
Who’s ready to move on from here?
When he’d said it, I’d known he was referring to leaving the Gin Lake campsite, but I couldn’t help but think about it in larger terms. After what I’d said to Lucky about allowing people to change, I thought back over all of my feelings for Bennett and wondered if I would ever take my own fucking advice and move past the bullshit with him. I hated the weird middle ground we seemed to have found with each other. We seemed to be old friends who’d been reunited as cordial acquaintances. And it didn’t fucking fit.
I didn’t want to be just old friends. I certainly didn’t want to be a cordial acquaintance. And with only a few days left before he flew back to a world I never wanted to be a part of again, we couldn’t be anything more than that. So, there we were— in this awkward no-man’s land of people who had a shared past but no shared future. And it fucking burned me up inside.
As I staggered each boy’s departure from Gin Lake, I thought about trying to relax and just enjoy the company of my old friend for the time we had left together. It wouldn’t fix anything and it wouldn’t let me have all of Bennett like I really wanted, but it would have to do.
Because I knew that if I didn’t use the next three days to soak up as much of Bennett Crawford as I could before I lost him again, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.
Chapter 22
Bennett
It should have been you.
Part of me was actually pissed at Xander for what he’d said, but the rest of me was reeling with the implications. And it was bringing me to my fucking knees— to think of what we could have had together if we’d just been given the chance.
If his father hadn’t died.
If mine hadn’t been such a selfish son of a bitch who’d cared more about appearances than he had about his own kid.
If I’d cast open that door to Xande
r instead of shutting it that fateful night.
I would have held on and never let go. He would have been my first everything and I, his.
Xander and I both spent the first part of the hike lost in thought, but as the day went on, I forced myself to focus on drawing us both out of our funk. With so little time left with him, the last thing I wanted to do was wallow in regret and lost chances. There’d be plenty of time for that once I got home. Not to mention the near-constant worry I had for Lucky. I’d barely managed to avoid grabbing him last night and again this morning to demand he tell me what his foster parents had been doing to him. But Xander had been right. Lucky deserved these last days to enjoy what remained of the trip. Reality would return soon enough.
It didn’t take much more than a few stupid knock-knock jokes to get Xander talking, and within an hour we were dueling to see who could make the other laugh harder.
Aiden had left the campsite first thing that morning to get a head start so he could arrive at Caldera Lake before the first boy, so it was just Xander and me hiking together to bring up the rear in case of stragglers.
Once the joke-off came to an end, we spent several hours talking about lots of different things. The more he began to relax and open up, the more he started telling me about his time leading wilderness trips and some of his craziest adventures. He wound up talking a lot about his Aunt Lolly who, despite being a little bit nutty, sounded like a loving woman who’d provided him with a much-needed soft place to land after Mr. Reed’s death.
When it was my turn to talk, I told him more about the foundation at work and how I’d managed to grow it through fundraising events and word of mouth. I explained some of the pilot programs we’d introduced with high-risk youth in fine arts programs after school.
I couldn’t keep from laughing when I described how Daryl, one of the program teachers, had asked me out for a drink to tell me about what had happened with the kids one day. “He was so upset, I was worried he was going to quit.”
“Why?” Xander asked. “What happened?”
“Apparently when he told the kids they were going to the park for a painting class, some of them assumed he meant graffiti. So, they brought spray paint and were prepared to start tagging shit. You should have seen the look on his face when he told me.”
I put the back of my hand across my forehead the way Daryl had and sighed dramatically. “‘But Bennett, the police. What if the police had seen us? I’m too pretty to survive a night in central lockup,’ he said. I thought I was going to choke on my beer.”
“Did he quit?” Xander asked.
“Nah. I sweet-talked him into staying on and treated him to a nice dinner. He’s been teaching that class now for six months and the kids love him.”
“What else do you like to do besides work and volunteering?” he asked as we approached the top of the pass. “Do you spend time with your family?”
I looked over at Xander and saw him looking at the ground in front of him while he walked. It was unusual for him. Throughout the trip, I’d noticed that Xander always looked ahead or around him, taking in the views and his surroundings like it was the very air that sustained him. But when he was unsure, he kept his eyes down.
“Yeah, I guess I do.”
He looked up at me then with a quirked brow, so I explained. “Well, I mean, I work with my dad, so I see him a lot. And I have plenty of obligations to see them at company functions. But they also expect me for family things like birthdays and holidays.”
“You make it sound like a bad thing,” he observed.
I sighed and looked away, trying to put my thoughts into words. “You know how they are… were,” I began, glancing at him to make sure he was okay with what I’d said.
“You always felt trapped,” he said softly. “Is it still like that with them?”
I shrugged. “Can you be trapped if you’ve never actually tried to escape?” I asked absently. I shook my head and said, “I think I keep waiting for that moment, you know?”
“What moment?”
“You know… the moment.”
Xander smiled. “Ah, the moment. I’d forgotten about that.”
“No,” I cried, clutching my heart dramatically. Xander laughed and I gave him a gentle slap on the arm. “You said you loved those movies just as much as I did.”
“I never said that. I said I loved that you loved them.”
“What’s the difference?”
“The difference is that I didn’t stay up night after night memorizing the lines from those moments and force you to act them out over and over again.” He had me there. I’d had a weird obsession with movies when we’d been thirteen. I’d honed in on the moments where the big gesture happened. Whether it was the hero telling the heroine he was sorry for whatever folly had befallen the couple or the poor bullied kid turning the tables on his tormentor… it hadn’t mattered. I’d waited breathlessly each time for “the moment” and the ones that had left some indelible mark on me, I’d forced Xander to reenact with me, which he’d done so without question. My favorite had always been about the kid at odds with his parents. It was pathetic, but every time the parents had wrapped their arms around their kid after some near-death experience or event that had made them appreciate their child more, I’d dreamed it was me. That it would be my mom and dad hugging me so tight I could barely breathe and I’d feel their tears against my skin as they told me over and over how much they loved me.
“So you never got it?” Xander asked, pulling me back to the present. “Your moment?”
I shook my head. “You think there’s a use-by date on those things?” I asked jokingly, but he didn’t smile. “Anyway, as you can imagine, the gay thing didn’t go over well.”
“Shit, Bennett,” he said. “What happened?”
“Well, I kept putting off telling them. Didn’t even consider coming out until I had my first real boyfriend in college, and even then, I chickened out. Finally, I knew I had to tell them because the stress of keeping it a secret was making me sick.”
“How’d you do it? What did you say?”
“I was all set to tell them. We were going to be having dinner together one Friday night at their house, and I knew it would be the perfect chance to tell them in private. That way I could leave if things got tense. But right when we sat down at the table, my dad beat me to the punch. Looked right at me and asked me what the hell I thought I was doing.”
I took a deep breath as memories of that night threatened to bring back long-forgotten emotions. “I didn’t know what he was talking about, and my mom must have seen the confusion on my face. She told me that Dad had run into one of my Harvard classmates on the golf course that day and he’d introduced Dad to my boyfriend. I thought I was going to die.”
“Oh shit, Benny,” Xander murmured and the sound of my nickname helped tame some of the rampant emotions I was feeling as I recalled my father’s fury. I doubted Xander was even aware that he’d slipped back into calling me that more and more these past couple of days, and I treasured every instance like it was gold.
“Yeah. It turns out it was Aiden, and he’d tried to stop it.” I slid a quick look at Xander when I mentioned Aiden’s name. They’d been getting along better, but I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about me bringing up the fact that I’d had a romantic relationship with the other man. Hell, I didn’t even know if he’d figured out that Aiden had been the guy I’d lost my virginity to. But Xander didn’t look upset. At most, there was a slight tension in his jawline, but it disappeared quickly, so I continued.
“He knew I wasn’t out to my parents, so he made a big joke about it. Said something like, ‘Ha-ha Brett, that’s hilarious. Nah, Mr. Crawford. Bennett and I are just friends. Nice to meet you, sir.’ He played it off, but I guess Brett’s face gave it away to my dad. And maybe that’s just when everything fell into place. It’s not like he didn’t already know.”
“What do you mean? You think he already knew you were gay?”
“He suspected it when you and I were in eighth grade. Seemed to be antsy about it. That’s why he—” I stopped myself. Shit. I’d been about to mention my dad’s warning about keeping things just friends with Xander, but I didn’t want to go there with him. It would bring up things between us that would most likely cause tension again. And I sure as hell didn’t want tension between us when we were alone together, sharing a beautiful hike on a perfect day.
“Why he, what?” Xander asked before whistling to get Bear’s attention from where he’d wandered a little too far.
“Nothing. I don’t want to talk about my parents anymore. Tell me about your coming out. Does Lolly know?”
Xander barked out a laugh. “Yes, Lolly knows. She thinks it’s the greatest thing ever and gets mildly inappropriate asking for details of all my relationships.”
I felt unease in my gut and tried to stop myself from asking the question, but it was no use. “Your relationships? How many have there been, exactly?”
Xander’s face flushed, reminding me of the shy boy I’d known so many years before. Fucking cute as hell. “None. I mean— well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve dated some guys, but nothing super-serious. I shouldn’t have said relationships. I just didn’t want to say my aunt was asking for details of my hookups. Sounds gross.”
I chuckled. “Yeah, kinda. But why haven’t you had any serious relationships? Just haven’t met the right guy yet?”
Xander looked at me with a small quirk of his lip. “Who wants to know?”
Now it was my turn to blush. “Never mind. Let’s change the subject.”
He bumped his shoulder into mine before mentioning that we’d reached the top of the pass. “We need to stop and use the binoculars to make a note of where everyone is,” he said.
Oh, right. The kids. I’d gotten so wrapped up in my hike with Xander, I’d forgotten about keeping track of the boys on their solo excursions. I reminded myself that it was a day to focus on the safety of the kids, but I began to wonder if I could find more time with Xander alone once we returned to the lodge the following day. Our group was scheduled to spend a couple of additional days there before returning home, and I could only hope Xander would be there too.
