Chapter 3 #3
Bennett was beautiful in profile. His jaw and nose were sharply defined, his lips soft and pouty.
His brow was oddly more pronounced in profile, and the fine hairs at his temple, too short to tie back, had curled from the rain in the short jog from the coffee shop to the parking lot.
His bun kept getting in the way of him resting his head back against the headrest, so he sat slightly hunched forward with his hands at ten and two as he drove like someone who was new to the city.
“What?” Bennett asked during a quiet moment between the GPS directions. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
Because you make me miss what was.
Because you shouldn’t be here.
Because you remind me of why I haven’t been able to open myself up to anyone since you left.
“How is work going really?” Sandro asked him, recalling the stress on his face when his camera guy had left the coffee shop.
“Good. Great,” Bennett said, repeating what he’d told Eli earlier.
Sandro didn’t know why he was disappointed. He’d just hoped that . . .
What?
That Bennett had learned to open up about his struggles in the past fifteen years? If Sandro hadn’t been there to coax them out of him with BJs and soft touches, then who had?
And why didn’t he want an answer to that question?
“What?” Bennett said. “Why are you looking at me like that now?”
“You have a coffee stain on your chin.”
“What? No I don’t. People don’t get coffee stains on their skin. They get them on clothes. And countertops. And somehow even on kitchen cabinet doors.”
“I told you—some of it dripped out of my mug and I didn’t notice.”
Bennett’s lips twitched. “The upper cabinet doors, Ro.”
Sandro sucked in a breath at the nickname. He’d snapped at Bennett last year not to call him Sandy, but that had mostly been from the surprise at seeing Bennett in his space.
Ro, though . . . that had been reserved for lazy Sunday mornings and gentle teasing and whispered confessions in the dark and hand jobs in the shower.
They were both probably a lot better at sex at thirty-eight than they had been at twenty-two, right?
Facing forward again, he unzipped his jacket and fanned his shirt away from his chest. “Can we turn the heat down in here?”
Bennett reached for the controls. “Yeah, sure, I’ll—”
“At the lights, turn right,” intoned the GPS.
Bennett returned his hand to the wheel, so Sandro lowered the heat a couple of degrees himself and adjusted the fan speed. “So which is it?” he found himself asking as a distraction from thoughts he shouldn’t be having. “LA or New York?”
“LA. It seemed like the place to be at the time that I was looking to step into the film industry.” Bennett made another right per the GPS’s directions. “I worked a bunch of industry-related jobs for a few years before I met someone who was willing to fund a short film, and—oh, is this you?”
“A little bit further down.”
“Cute complex.”
Sandro lived in the end unit of a row of townhouses in a complex that included multi-story townhomes as well as one-, two-, and three-bedroom apartments.
Wet brown leaves littered the waterlogged lawns, and here and there were wet tricycles, three-wheeled scooters, and abandoned sports equipment leftover from the weekend.
Sandro leaned forward to peer at the sky out of the windshield as Bennett pulled up to the curb. “Got an umbrella?”
“No. And if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. What if I need it?”
“Asshole,” Sandro replied, laughing. “Give me your jacket at least. Yours has a hood.”
Bennett stared at him for a long moment. “No.”
“Man. Chivalry is dead, I tell you.”
“Here. I’ll get a little closer to your front door.” He eased the car forward a few inches, then put it in park. He jerked a thumb at his own chest. “Chivalrous.”
Sandro snorted a laugh and took off his jacket, ready to use it as a stand-in umbrella. “See ya. Thanks for the lift home, even if you won’t walk a boy to his door.”
There was more he wanted to say, but he couldn’t figure out where to start.
Go back to LA?
Never leave again?
Why are you really here?
But he needed time to get his thoughts in order, so he splashed out into the downpour.
To his surprise, Bennett met him on the sidewalk and, using his own jacket, held it over the both of them as they jogged up to the covered porch.
“You didn’t . . .” The words got stuck in Sandro’s throat as Bennett shook the rain off his jacket.
Strands of blond hair had escaped his bun and hung loose around his face, beginning to go frizzy from the moisture in the air.
Sandro curled his hands into fists in the material of his jacket, hanging wetly in front of him, to stop himself from reaching out and tucking one behind Bennett’s ear. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Tell me again how chivalry is dead?”
A laugh escaped him again, and his gaze snagged on Bennett’s.
There’d been times those eyes had squinted in annoyance or flashed with anger or heated in desire. Right now, as Bennett slowly lost his smile, they were none of those things.
Just vulnerable in their desperation.
Sandro’s chest squeezed tight, and with a sudden clarity, he knew he didn’t want to hear whatever Bennett wanted to tell him.
“Sandy—”
“Don’t. I don’t want to hear it.”
“San—”
“No.” Heart pounding, Sandro took a step back. “It’s ancient history. It doesn’t matter anymore. We need to move forward, not back.”
That vulnerable desperation turned to naked hope that broke something in Sandro.
Bennett swallowed audibly and said, “As friends?”
Obviously not, Sandro meant to say. There’s too much history between us. But what came out was, “Maybe.”
“Maybe,” Bennett repeated with a nod. “I can live with maybe.” He shrugged his jacket back on and looked out across the yard to his car at the curb. “Got an umbrella?”
Amusement crawled up the back of Sandro’s throat. “Fuck no.”
He went inside and closed the door on Bennett’s booming laugh.