“Why are you being so awfully nice to me? Since the start. It’s making this whole friends-with-benefits situation a little confusing.”
“Confusing how?” he probes, his hands roaming my back.
My eyes blink closed as I inhale into his chest. “Well, you know. It’s about sex, but you’ve been acting…” I bite my lips, my heart banging and my cheeks going aflame.
“I’ve been acting how?” he prompts, a hint of fond amusement in his voice.
I groan. “God, are you really gonna make me say it? This is so embarrassing. I’m having a hard time acknowledging it to myself as is.”
“I won’t know what you are talking about unless you tell me,” he says, making a very valid point.
“Well, you’ve been acting like… a boyfriend. You know? Doing shit that you don’t have to do just because we are fucking. And I know I said I don’t believe in love, but it’s making it awfully hard not to…”
He holds me tighter, and I can’t help myself but lean into the embrace and soak up his heat. “Not to?”
“Ugh! Not to fall in love with you, okay? I thought I’d gotten over my stupid crush and then you come back and not only are you amazing in bed, but you treat me like the king I am. So, I think we need to stop this, because I won’t be able to keep things professional.”
He laughs with a full body shake. I scowl and want to scold him, but the easy, affectionate way in which he does it just stirs something warm in my chest. So instead of kicking him out for making fun of me, I laugh with him.
Once he calms down, he steps back and cradles my face with both hands, forcing me to look at him. The intense adoration swimming in his beautiful eyes as they drink me in like I’m the most precious treasure in the world almost undoes me.
“Did it ever cross your mind that I might’ve had an ulterior motive from the start?” he says, his pretty smile in full force.
“An ulterior motive? For sleeping with me?” He nods. “What are you talking about?”
His thumbs caress my cheeks, gentle and loving. “You remember I told you I hadn’t been with anyone for a long time? When we first slept together.”
I bob my head. “Of course, I do.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I don’t know? You were busy?”
He shakes his head and pecks my nose. “No, silly. I’ve had plenty of opportunities, but you see, I just couldn’t get a certain hotheaded nerd out of my head.”
I frown, trying to comprehend what he’s saying. He’s talking about me. Okay. Thinking about me made him unable to find others interesting. Okay… My chest suddenly feels too constrictive for my wild heart. Surely, he’s not saying what I think he’s saying…
“Hold on. Ben, this is… You didn’t—” I wave my arms around.
He kisses me on the forehead this time. “Did you think you were the only one with a crush back then? But you were my best friend’s little brother, Charlie, and it felt like I couldn’t do anything, so I decided to wait two years until you were eighteen. And then we had to move. I thought it was best we cut contact, so I could get over you. It worked for a while, but I just couldn’t make any relationship I tried last. There was always something missing. And then I ran into you when I moved here and it’s like everything just fell into place. I had no idea it was you when we met, and I thought that maybe I’d finally gotten over you.” He smiles and the open fondness in it, the yearning, squeezes at my heartstrings. “Imagine my surprise when I saw you sitting at that restaurant.”
My mind races with a million miles an hour. This can’t be happening, right? “So—”
“So,” he cuts in, “from the moment I realized who you were, I intended to make you fall in love with me again because I never stopped loving you.”
I can’t breathe. Oh my god, this is not happening. “I—You—”
I inhale deeply, trying to center myself. But the buzz his words unleashed in me, the electric current pulsing within me, is impossible to push down. Because I can feel it, with every cell I possess. His love. His adoration. His single-minded focus on me.
“We don’t have to rush anything. You don’t have to believe me just because I said it. I’ll take my time to convince you, but I want you to know that I’m going to make the most of this second chance I have with you. If you will let me.”
Do I? The truth is that I really thought I’d be forever alone, condemned to meaningless one-night stands and sex-centered arrangements with people who’d laugh behind my back. And then Ben just barreled back into my life and turned it upside down. I’ve had so much fun with him in the past weeks. He supports me. He nerds out with me. He gets excited about the things I love and he never pressures me into doing the things that I don’t.
He's the biggest curveball of the century, thrown precisely so it can put a dent in my resolve and replace the bitterness with titillating anticipation. With excitement, with the want to share with him every experience from now on.
So, really, why did I ever think I could have him back in my life without falling in love with him all over again when he’s turned out to be such a kind and devoted man?
I never stood a chance, did I?
