Breaking Benjamin

by Haylee Thorne

  She laughs and nods her head at the memory. “I remember, Ben. But, to be fair, you were insanely sexy looking and that scared the crap out of me.”

  I chuckle and pull her hand into mine. “This is just my way of honoring you, your name, and everything you mean to me. I’m so fucking thankful and happy you’re in my life, Jill.”

  “Oh my God, Ben, me too.” She throws herself in my arms again, this time delivering a kiss that has me dragging her onto my lap, our breathing turning heavier as it grows more heated. I’m about to lower her to the floor when she rips her lips from mine and shakes her head back and forth.

  “Not yet!” She scoots herself off of me and wags her finger at me. “You are so naughty, which normally I like.” She grins wickedly. “But, first, you have to open your presents!”

  Today, Ben is seeing an entirely different side of me. Even though I am a respectable, well mostly, grown ass woman three-hundred and sixty-four days per year, on Christmas morning, I literally turn into a little kid. Christmas is my very favorite day of the year. I love everything about it. Spending the day with all your loved ones, eating amazing foods, hanging out in the most majestic decors… and then there are, of course, the presents. Who doesn’t love presents? Not only do I love getting them; I love giving them even more. And, this morning, I’m particularly excited to give Ben his.

  “Okay, are you ready?” I ask giddily.

  He smirks as he kisses my forehead. “Yes, my Angel.”

  “It’s not much,” I say shyly.

  “All I need is you.”

  After all the amazing gifts that he has just given me, I feel a little silly. I hand him a hand-carved square wooden box. It’s secured shut with a tiny padlock. Ben pulls at it for a moment before looking at me with his brow raised. I chuckle and hold up the key. He reaches for it, but I pull it away. “Uh-uh, you have to listen to the story attached to this gift first,” I direct with a smile.

  He pulls me toward him, and I nestle up against him. “Well, let’s hear it then.”

  “So, my grandmother and I were very close. When I was younger, she used to tell me this story about an insanely rich woman whose heart was broken and bruised by several men. The woman became jaded and scared to love. One day, she decided she’d had enough and carved a heart from the wood of a hickory tree. She cut out her own heart and replaced it with the wooden heart. She believed that, this way, nobody else would be able to hurt her heart or bruise it, because it was made of the hardest wood.”

  I turn my head to look at Ben and find him staring down at me with adoration. I feel my cheeks warm just from this single look and look away so I can finish the story. “One day, she meets a man, and this man didn’t want her money. He didn’t want her jewels. All he wanted was her love, but she was afraid she couldn’t show her love because her heart was now made of wood. So, to show him that she loved him, she took her wooden heart and presented him with it, knowing he would always care for it and for her.”

  Now that I’ve shared the story with Ben, I become nervous and avoid looking him in the eye. I reach out to tentatively hand him the key and watch as he opens the box. There, on a bed of purple satin, lays a wooden heart. Ben looks at it for a second, and then his eyes flash up to mine. I bite my lip.

  “Does this mean what I think it means?” he asks me.

  I bob my head up and down and finally meet his gaze. “These last few months have been the best of my life, Ben. I can honestly say that I have never been this happy, ever. So, yes, it means what you think it means. I love you, Benjamin Sapphire.”

  Ben pulls me into his arms and peers into my eyes. “Thank you for giving me the best Christmas present I have ever had, Jillian Baldwin. No contest.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.” He places a kiss on my lips and gazes into my eyes. “I’ll take your heart, Jill, and I’ll keep it safe, because I love you, too. More than I ever thought possible.”

  After opening presents and declaring our love, we spend a good chunk of time in bed. All our activity has worked up quite an appetite, and my stomach growls loudly, making me aware that I’m starving. Ben has fallen asleep, so I slip out of bed and into his shirt before tip-toeing into the kitchen. I’ve decided that I am making my man a full English breakfast; eggs, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes, white beans in tomato sauce, and toast.

  I am in full cooking mode when a big pair of hands pulls me backwards. “Hey there, beautiful,” he mutters against my neck.

  “Awe. I was going to surprise you with breakfast in bed.”

  “Angel, when the heavenly smells coming from this kitchen reached my nose, I had to come and investigate. You know I can’t resist your cooking.”

  “Oh, baby, flattery will get you everywhere.”

  He kisses my neck. “Hmmm, everywhere?”

  I turn around and point my spatula at him. “Back off, you fiend. I need to be fed before you kill me. You’re insatiable.”

  Ben picks up a piece of bacon and pops it into his mouth. “Takes one to know one.”

  I smile. “Touché.”

  I plate our breakfast and place it on the dining table. Ben is already shoveling food in his mouth before I even have a chance to sit down. The man has a healthy appetite, and I love it. I begin eating, and we sit in comfortable silence enjoying breakfast and each other’s company. When I look up, I notice him staring at me. I immediately pick up my napkin and start dabbing. “Do I have something on my face?”

  He chuckles. “Your face is perfect.”

  I throw my napkin at him. “Then why are you staring at me?”

  “Because I can’t believe I got so lucky, not just to have you in my life and love you, but to have you love me back.”

  I smile and rise to my feet, take the few steps toward him, and lower myself onto his lap. “You say the sweetest things, Benjamin Sapphire,” I tell him before kissing the tip of his nose. “But, trust me, I am the lucky one.”

  Chapter 14

  Jill steps out of the bedroom, and I can’t help but admire her with pride. She always looks amazing, but today, she’s dressed entirely in white, and she looks more like an angel than ever. The pants she’s wearing are loose and flowy like silk, and she’s topped them with a soft cashmere sweater that falls off each shoulder, her entire neck area exposed, highlighting the necklace I gave her earlier.

  I’m dressed for the day as well, and have on a charcoal gray, three-piece suit, sans tie of course, with a fitted white dress shirt. I walk to her and nod in appreciation. “If I didn’t know better…”

  She tilts her head and scrunches up her cute little nose. “If you didn’t know what any better?”

  I pull her flush to me and run my hand smoothly down her back. “I would swear there are wings hidden here somewhere.”

  She laughs and tilts her head up to me, a smile shining on her face. “And if I didn’t know any better, Benjamin Sapphire, I’d think you were trying to sweet talk your way right into the bedroom again.”

  I grin wickedly at her and then shake my head. “As much as I would love to do that, we’ve run out of time. There’s some place, or I guess, some thing, that I’d like to share with you.” I give her a quick squeeze before letting her go, and look down at her feet, currently clad in a pair of white heels lined with silver edging, and frown. “Do you think you could humor me and throw on a pair of boots? It will make where I want to take you much easier.”

  Not surprisingly, she shrugs and nods her head. “Sure. Let me go see what I might have in your closet. I can’t remember.”

  I follow her into the room and into the closet along the back wall, and slide my feet into my black leather biker boots, but I also grab a pair of dress loafers to take with me. Jill glides up beside me, a small tote bag in hand, and takes my shoes from me and stores them in the bag with hers. She looks down at her feet and clicks the heels of her boots together, then back up at me giggling. “Yee-haw.” She’s wearing a pair of black cowboy boots. “It’s all I could fi
nd.”

  I chuckle and nod approvingly. “They’ll do. Much better than the heels you had on anyway.”

  After pulling on our jackets, hats, and gloves, we take the elevator downstairs and exit into the lobby of the building. “Give me one second, okay?”

  “Of course.”

  I unlock the door to the gym, quickly stride across the large space into the kitchen, and grab a box I’ve stored in the large industrial refrigerator. Then, I make my way back to Jill.

  Her brows rise as she eyes the content of the box. “Um, morbid much, Ben? Wouldn’t red or white roses be more fitting on Christmas?”

  I look down at the bouquets of black roses stored in the box and then back at her, my lips trying to form a small smile. “I’ll explain in the car. Come on.” I offer her my hand, and we make our way out into the snow and down the alley where my car is parked. I help her into the car, ask her to hold the box, and then climb in on the driver’s side.

  The alley seems to have blocked the car from much snowfall, because the wipers clear what little snow is on the windshield and the back window is barely covered as I start the car and reverse out into the street. I head in the direction of the parkway and then reach over to take one of Jill’s hands. She’s taken off her gloves, and her hand is warmer than usual in mine. She hasn’t said a thing, intuitively seeming to understand that what I’m sharing with her isn’t easy for me. When she sees the direction we’re headed, she turns to me. “We’re going to Brooklyn?”

  I nod my head and figure there’s no time like the present to start explaining. “Yes, to Cypress Hill Cemetery.”

  Her hand squeezes mine more tightly as she looks down at the flowers and then back over at me. “The military cemetery?”

  “Yeah.” I grip the steering wheel a little tighter in the one hand I’m holding it with and blow out a sigh. “I go there a lot.” I shake my head. “Well, probably not as much as I used to over the last few months, but always on Christmas.”

  “Sorry. I’m guessing that’s my fault,” she lets out meekly.

  I squeeze her hand. “Don’t apologize. You’ve done absolutely nothing wrong. Believe me, Jill, none of these guys would blame me one bit for blowing them off to spend a little more time with you.”

  “So, tell me about your friends.” She turns in her seat so she can face me. “I want to know about them.”

  I turn my head and give her a loving smile. “Jesus, I know I just said this an hour ago, but damn if I’m not the luckiest bastard in the whole world.”

  “I’d say we both got pretty lucky.” She lifts my hand to her mouth and places a soft kiss on the back of it before lowering it back to her lap.

  “Well, you know, of course, about the gym, and that it’s dedicated to the guys I served with. Baker and Landon were in the truck with me when we hit the explosive that took my leg. Baker was one of my closest friends, and when I woke and saw him dead next to me, it was like someone had stuck a goddamn stake into my heart. I didn’t find out until after I woke up in the hospital that Landon had died as well.”

  I close my eyes for just a second, the pain from the memory causing my heart to contract tightly, but breathe out, trying to push it away. “I was sent home, of course. And pissed as hell, of course. Pissed my friends had died and I couldn’t even go to their funerals or help their families. Pissed I lost my leg and couldn’t go back and blow those mother fuckers up. And pissed that our country didn’t seem to give a flying fuck about what was happening to those still over there serving.”

  “So, basically, you were pissed.” She chuckles lightly, and I can’t help but let out a laugh in return.

  “Yeah, I guess that about sums it up,” I state jokingly. “I think the worst of it for me, though, was Rose, er, Jackson; Hannah’s husband. He was actually a Marine, not Army like me, but we were all stationed in the same area, and somehow, this squirrely little fucker got under my skin and seemed to be everywhere I was. We became friends… good friends.”

  “I’ve seen pictures of him in Grace’s room. Did you know that there’s one of you and him together on her dresser? You look so young in it!”

  “Yeah, I actually gave that to Hannah a while back. It used to be in my office, but I don’t know, it just seemed like something I wanted her to have. Hannah said she wanted Gracie to know that her daddy and her uncle were friends, so she thought her room was the best place for it.” I can feel I’m starting to get a little more than nostalgic, so I shake my head to try to clear away some of its weight.

  “You okay?”

  Jill reaches out a hand and places it softly on my cheek. I turn my head and place a kiss on her palm and then nod. “I’m good. Just a lot of memories.”

  Her hand moves back to her lap, covering the one that’s holding her other hand, and rests there, her fingers grazing back in forth in comfort over my skin.

  “Yeah, so Jackson came back to the States on leave when Grace was born, and he came to see me. I was still in the hospital healing, still angry as fuck. He was even madder than me, and was so eager to get back and, as he put it, ‘get even’. I begged him to reconsider. He just had a baby, for Christ’s sake. He had a beautiful wife. He had both goddamn legs. But he wouldn’t listen to reason. He died a few weeks later, killed in action.”

  I look over at Jill and am surprised when I see tears streaming down her face. “I’m so sorry, Ben. I wish there was some way I could take all this pain from you and carry it instead. You’ve lost too much already.”

  We’re in the cemetery now, so I pull the car over and put it in park, but leave it running so the car will stay warm, and then pull her into my arms. This is why I love this woman so much. To want to take my pain and have it be her own. Who says things like that? Who wants to do things like that? She lives up to my nickname of Angel more every day. I kiss her head and whisper, “I love you so much, Jill.”

  “I love you right back.” She hugs me hard and holds on until I slowly pull us apart.

  “This helps me.” I lift my hand and point a finger out my windshield toward the gravestones in front of us. “Coming here. Honoring them. Making sure they know I’ll never forget them or what they meant to me, to this country.”

  “And the black roses?” She looks down at the box she placed on the floor between her legs some time ago.

  I point to the tattoo on my arm. A few of us got these to honor Baker, Landon, and Jackson. The rose specifically for Jackson, and well, you know all about my black heart.” I shrug.

  “I know all about your heart, Ben, and it’s nowhere near black.”

  I look at her and smile. “Not anymore.”

  She goes with me then, and we walk through the cemetery, stopping at the grave of each of my friends, my brothers, and we place a bouquet of the roses on their stones. I tell her a little more about each of them. Hannah is the only other person I’ve brought with me here, but Jill is the only one who has ever made my heart feel lighter while doing so.

  An hour later, we pull back into the alley and park the car. We run up to the loft and grab three big bags of presents and a couple bottles of wine, and then head back outside. The snow is still falling gently, so we decide to leave our boots on and just walk the block over to Drew and Hannah’s place. Jill tries to catch snowflakes on her tongue as we walk, and I think my cheeks might actually crack if my smile grows any wider as I watch.

  We reach the building in minutes and stomp the snow off our feet as we enter the lobby and share Christmas greetings with the doorman. He knows us by name, our familiarity a product of the frequent visits we both make here. When we step off the elevator, Gracie is already standing in the hallway waiting for us, arms thrown wide as she runs over and hugs us both.

  “Merry Christmas, Uncle Benny and Jill!” I drop the bags and scoop her up in my arms, swinging her around before giving her a large hug. When I look up, I see my mom standing in the doorway to the apartment, a very content looking Brody on her hip, sucking on a green candy cane.

/>   “Merry Christmas, Mom.” I smile and set Grace on the ground so I can retrieve the bags and enter the house. I give my mom a one-armed hug and watch with warmth as Jill hugs her with both.

  “You two are all covered in snow.” My mom is already beginning her fussing. “Put those bags right there and take off those wet shoes and coats before you come in any further. Hannah will have a fit if you dirty up her floors.”

  “What will I have a fit about?” Hannah strolls in carrying a large tray of cut of vegetables, and places them down on a table before moving over to give Jill and I a hug. “Merry Christmas, you two.”

  She takes a step back, places a hand on her hip, and cocks her head at us. “You two are practically glowing. Any news you want to share?” She glances toward Jill’s left hand and lifts her brows in hope.

  Jill’s eyes pop wide, and her head begins shaking back and forth. “Oh God, no! Hannah!” She slaps at her playfully and then lays her hand flat against her breast bone under the necklace I gave her. “I mean, wouldn’t you be glowing if Drew had your name put in diamonds?”

  That’s all it takes for all three women to gather round and start chatting about presents and shoes, and whatever it is women go off and talk in circles about. I chuckle as they all head off in the direction of the kitchen, and then look down when I hear crinkling behind me.

  “Gracie, what are you doing?” Her little blonde head pops out of the bag, her wide eyes meeting mine.

  “Nothing, Uncle Benny. Just looking to see which presents are mine.” She starts bouncing up and down in place, and I can’t help but laugh out loud when I realize she’s the spitting image of Jill a few hours ago.

  “Well, let’s go find Dad and Grandpa and see if we can’t gather the troops so we can open these puppies up. Sound good?”