Every Hidden Truth (Far From Ruined #2)

10. Manliest of All Boners

10

Manliest of All Boners

The moment I put Mabel in Park in my driveway, the panic broke through. Gasping against my steering wheel, I tried and failed to keep control. My lungs twisted until I couldn’t catch my breath, and tears burned my eyes.

The faucet was drip, drip, dripping.

Eric’s fingers tightened around my throat.

I was surrounded by cucumber melon.

And I couldn’t breathe.

I lost track of how long the panic locked me in place, but when I finally surfaced, my head was protesting how hard my forehead pressed to the steering wheel. My jaw ached, and I was half-frozen.

Groaning, I righted myself with a wince as my stiff muscles complained. Thawing my frigid limbs, I crawled from my cab and staggered into the house.

I shed my clothes on my bedroom floor, then took a broiling shower. My face throbbed with every beat of my heart. When I finished, I dressed in loose sweatpants and one of Will’s old shirts.

I searched through the freezer until I found a bag of frozen peas and proceeded to lie on the couch with the cold vegetables melting on my face. It helped, and the swelling lessened as I moaned like a dying whale.

As I wallowed in my agony, I couldn’t shake the worry and guilt over Ben’s bloodied face. He would never have been on Eric’s radar if it wasn’t for me, and now they’d beaten the shit out of each other and could have been facing suspension for all I knew.

By the time headlights flashed over the walls of my living room, the peas had softened and the cushion beneath my head was damp from condensation. I scrambled to my feet and rushed to the door, breathing a sigh of relief as Ben parked his Impala behind Mabel.

He’d barely shuffled out of his car before I was flying down my porch steps and rushing to his side. My breath puffed in front of my face as I skidded to a stop, fisting my hands to keep myself from launching myself into his arms. I wanted to hold him, to make sure he was okay, but he moved gingerly, catering to the bruises most likely hiding beneath his clothes.

“Ben—”

He cut me off, grabbing the loose material of my shirt and hauling me into his arms. I circled his waist and hugged him like he was the last parachute on a plummeting plane. He grunted in pain, and I loosened my hold.

“Are you okay?” Muffled by his coat, my words were barely intelligible. “Are you hurt? Fuck, I’m so sorry!”

“I’m okay,” he said, his breath fanning over my ear. “Are you? Your jaw was swollen when you left.”

“I’m fine.” I dismissed my own injury and dragged him toward the front door, my bare feet and arms freezing in the winter cold.

As we climbed the porch steps, I inspected his face from the corner of my eye and cringed. His lower lip was puffy and split, his cheek swollen. An ugly bruise darkened his eye above a cut, and he lacked the normal grace in which he moved. He was definitely hurt under his clothes.

Once inside, I assisted him in removing his winter coat, and he hissed as he bent to untie his boots.

Pushing his shoulders, I forced him upright then dropped to my knees. “Let me.”

Unlacing his winter boots, I helped him out of them as his hands rested on my shoulders for balance. Once I finished, he offered me a hand, helping me stand.

I pointed at the couch. “Go sit.”

He arched an eyebrow. “You’re gonna order me around now?”

“Yes. Now sit your ass down.”

While he obeyed, I made my way to the downstairs bathroom and poured several aspirin into my palm. I swallowed one of them, leaving the other two for Ben. I retrieved a glass of water and a bag of frozen green beans before heading back to the living room.

When I returned to the living room, he was already sitting on the couch, head reclined on the back, eyes closed. They opened as I rounded the couch and handed him the glass and aspirin.

“Thanks.” He grinned, then winced when the action tugged on his split lip. “You hungry?”

He motioned to the veggies in my hand, and I rolled my eyes. “No, I just don’t have an actual ice pack for you.”

Chuckling, he swallowed the aspirin and half the water. “That’ll work.”

I cautiously lowered myself to the couch beside him, trying not to jostle him, and reached for his blood-stained shirt. “I know you’re hurt. Let me see.”

“It’s nothing, Silas. I’ve had worse.”

His nonchalance irritated me, and he sighed in defeat at my glare.

Lifting the hem of his shirt, he dragged it high enough to reveal his dusky nipples ringed with sparse hair. Purple and blue splotches covered the side of his torso, and my self-loathing threatened to drown me.

“Jesus, Ben.” I touched his torso lightly, and the skin trembled. He didn’t make a sound, but I withdrew all the same. “Here, this might help.”

He gritted his teeth as I nestled the bag of green beans over the darkest area below his ribs. I blew a frustrated breath through my nose. “What the fuck were you thinking?”

“Seriously?” His shirt fell, catching on the wet plastic, and his hand circled my forearm. “After what he said—”

“What did you expect him to say? He was goading you, you idiot! He would have insinuated worse just to get a rise out of you.” I shook off his grip as his discomfort melted into bafflement. “Did you get suspended?”

“Of course I didn’t get suspended. McKinney would do anything to keep his star wrestlers out of trouble, even cover up a fight. If there was no fight, then there are no consequences.”

“And your coach?”

Ben shifted, grinding his teeth. “He yelled at us and gave us detention with him for next week, which pretty much means we’re gonna be stuck at practice longer. It’s no big deal.”

“No big deal?” I lifted the bag of vegetables off his side pointedly. “This looks like a big deal, Ben. Shit, you could have a broken rib or something. I should take you to the hospital.”

Dropping the beans onto his torso, I rose to fetch my keys, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm. “Silas, stop! I don’t need to go to the hospital. Just—” He finagled me back onto the couch. “Just sit down.”

“You could have internal bleeding!”

“I don’t. I’ll be fine.” Capturing my hand, he brought it to his lips and pecked my palm. “Trust me, I know what a broken rib feels like, and this isn’t it.”

The statement sobered the atmosphere further, and I caressed his swollen face gently. “Are you a secret street fighter or something?”

With a grimace, he dropped his eyes and adjusted the frozen veggies. “Not exactly, but I’ve been in my fair share of fights.”

His attempt to change positions ended in a hiss, and I propped him up with a few couch pillows to ease his discomfort. “You don’t seem like the fighting type.” A golden brow arched, and I patted his biceps. “I mean, sure you did a great job of beating Boyt’s face in, but you’re usually so… nice.”

“I have my moments.” He studied his hands in shame.

I drew circles on the back of his wrist as I waited for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, I prompted, “Oh, yeah? Were you the chivalrous knight of the Sacramento school district?”

Pulling away from my touch, his face hardened. “Not exactly. But I sent a kid to the hospital once. It’s why I got expelled and had to repeat sophomore year.”

That wasn’t what I expected. “Holy shit, are you serious?”

He nodded, his eyes jumping around the room, unable to meet my gaze. “Yeah, it was the worst fight I ever got in. He was talking shit, and I… I just lost it. I don’t even remember most of it. It’s like I blacked out. I came to when two teachers pulled me off of his unconscious body.

“I was a minor, but it’s still a miracle his parents didn’t take me to court.” He swallowed hard, shifting the bag of vegetables on his side. “But I was a poor kid with a loser dad and a dead mom, so…”

Warily, he studied me from the corner of his eye, and I took his hand in mine. “I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“I beat a kid so hard he went to the hospital, and you’re sorry for me ?”

With a shrug, I nodded and traced the broken skin of his knuckles. “Hurt people hurt people. You’d lost your mom, and your dad…” I swallowed thickly. “Plus, I assume that kid said some pretty messed up shit to piss you off enough to do that. So he probably deserved it.”

Chuckling without humor, he cupped my chin, and his thumb traced my bottom lip. “Violence shouldn’t be the answer, even when people deserve it. The world’s ugly enough.”

I puckered my lips against the pad of his thumb, and his mouth tipped at the corners. “Sometimes we need ugly.”

He looked away, voice cracking as he said, “I try not to be that person anymore. I never want to be my dad.”

And God, that cracked me down the middle.

“Hey, you’re not—Ben, look at me.” I framed his bruised face and forced him to meet my gaze. “You’re not him. You’ll never be him, okay?”

“How do you know?” The ocean in his eyes crashed with turbulent waves. “What if this is what it was like for him? All that rage, and then you blink and there’s a body under you and—”

Careful of his injuries, I guided him into my neck, wrapping my arms around his shoulders as he grasped at my back.

“I get so angry,” he confessed, breath hot on my throat. “And it scares me. It scares me, Silas.”

Nothing I could say would fix this, so I settled for hugging him tighter. I cradled his head as he gasped into my neck. I thought maybe he was crying, but when he finally pulled away with a sniff, his eyes were red-rimmed but dry.

“I wouldn’t hurt you,” he whispered before I could say anything. “I need you to know that I wouldn’t hurt you.”

I cupped his cheek. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He nuzzled into my palm, expression pinching. “Maybe you should be.”

“Shut up,” I said firmly. “You are not your dad. Okay? I know that, because I know you. I see you, Ben, and you’re not him. You’re you, and you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

The truth cinched my throat closed, and I swallowed thickly. Ben stared at me with an awe that I was wholly undeserving of. And when he leaned in to kiss me, I sighed against his lips.

“How are you real?” he murmured between kisses, and I swallowed the words, hiding them away forever.

As I deepened the kiss, I forgot about his injuries and attempted to climb into his lap. He hissed, and I tasted blood from his split lip.

“Shit,” I said, pulling away and straightening the bag of melting green beans at his side. “Sorry.”

“Making out right now probably isn’t the best choice,” he teased, and I chuckled.

“Pity. I kind of like making out with you.”

And through the pain and turmoil, his cheeks still flushed pink. “Same.”

Curling up beside him, I held his hand in both of mine, tracing the veins and the baby hairs on his knuckles. “Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Why didn’t you ever go to the cops? About your dad, I mean.”

“Why didn’t you?” he said, not unkindly.

I exhaled roughly. “Touché.”

He stared down at my fingers drawing designs on his hand. “I guess I was used to it for the most part. When Mom was alive, she made excuses for him. She talked about how he never meant it, how he loved us even if he made mistakes. And if that logic didn’t work, she’d blame herself and tell me it was her fault.”

With a shrug, he cleared his throat. “When you hear something enough times, eventually you start to believe it. After she died, the blame shifted to me; it was my fault somehow for setting him off. He used to say, ‘See what you make me do?’”

Eric had said the same that night behind the stage, but I forced the memory away.

“And for a while, I felt like I deserved it,” Ben continued. “You know, for not saving my mom.”

My eyes burned, and I dropped my forehead to his shoulder, squeezing his hand. “You can’t think like that. It wasn’t your fault your mom died or that your dad was an abusive asshole.”

“I know. I tell myself that every day. Most of the time, I believe it.” He buried his face in the top of my head, exhaling hotly against my scalp.

“And on the days you don’t?”

His shoulder rolled in response.

So I answered for him, “On the days you don’t, I’ll remind you.” I kissed the corner of his mouth and felt his cheek crinkle with a smile. I kissed his dimple, and his next exhale was stilted.

In an attempt to break the heavy atmosphere, I grinned against his cheek and said, “And if that still doesn’t work, I’ll jerk you off, and then you won’t be having a bad day anymore.”

To my delight, he laughed, turning to face me. Our noses brushed, and he cocked an eyebrow.

“You’re that confident in your skills, huh?”

“Oh, baby, I have skills,” I purred, and he laughed again, neck splotching red with another blush. Looking him up and down, I waggled my eyebrows. “I’d prove my skills right now if you weren’t so... bruisey.”

“I don’t think I could get it up if I tried.” He shifted on the couch with a pained grimace. “Rain check.”

The thought of getting my hands on him made my brain short-circuit for a moment, but I managed to nod. “Yeah, okay. Rain check. Cool.”

He eyed me, and I flushed and looked away.

“You good?” he asked with a knowing smirk.

“Shut up,” I snapped, and he grinned up at the ceiling.

“You have a lady boner for me,” he teased, and I very gently punched his shoulder.

“Excuse me, I have a very manly boner for you.”

He laughed, then winced. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts.”

“Tell me my boner is the manliest of all the boners,” I demanded, grinning as he laughed harder, clutching at his side.

“Oh my God, stop. I’m serious. It hurts so much.”

“Okay, okay.” I removed the now-melted bag of green beans from under his shirt. “I think I have some cauliflower in the freezer if you want.”

Ben shook his head. “Nah, I’m good. Just stay here.”

As he rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes, I tucked myself into his side. I hugged his arm loosely and laid my head on his shoulder. His temple met the top of my head, and together, we released matching sighs.

“I have a lady boner for you,” he admitted, making me snort.

“Yours is a lady, huh?”

His shoulder jostled my head. “I’m confident in my masculinity. My boner can be a lady.”

“You’re so fucking weird.”

“You like me anyway,” he said confidently, and I squeezed his arm.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

And when he kissed the top of my head, I held on to him for dear life, wishing I could stay here forever.