Chapter 7
Ben
By the time Ben finally punches out, the sky’s gone dark, and the parking lot is empty except for his own Jeep and the few vehicles belonging to the night shift.
Thick snowflakes fall slowly, lit orange by the sodium bulbs that line the yard.
Ben watches them drift for a moment, then gets to work brushing off his windshield.
He pauses mid swipe as a waste truck rumbles away from the loading dock, late and loud. It’s not the usual Finny’s Disposal rig with the goofy cartoon trashcan he used to love as a kid. This one is labeled MarineSelect Waste Services, a logo that’s all minimalist lines and zero whimsy.
“Subcontractor?” he mutters under his breath.
Weird timing, though. The closest waste facility is a solid eighty miles away, and by now they’ll definitely be closed.
The truck heads left, away from the highway, which is also strange, and Ben has half a mind to follow it.
Just to ease his own nerves. It’s not because he’s been dwelling on the plant’s waste since his run-in with Tom this morning.
And certainly not because that reporter, with his insinuations and his galling little smirk, had gotten under Ben’s skin.
‘You mentioned modernizing…’
Honestly, how did he expect Ben to answer? ‘Well, actually, I’m powerless to do or change anything right now, but please keep poking at my insecurities until I completely unravel.’ Not a great look for Ben or the company.
The whole thing had felt surreal. He had never spoken with a journalist who wasn’t writing a puff piece. Jackson had been positively conspiracy minded, talking about high mortality rates of marine life in the area, as if that could have anything to do with the plant.
He had looked foolish and unprepared in that office.
He couldn’t let that happen again. Just hold out, he reminds himself, getting into the driver’s seat.
A few more years, and he can streamline operations exactly how he wants.
Make changes that have impact. You just have to show them you can earn it.
At that exact thought, his phone rings.
“Hey, Dad,” Ben says, trying not to sound exhausted.
“How’s the cod line?” his dad demands without preamble.
Ben closes his eyes. Of course Kent already told him. The belt on the automatic filleter snapped just as he sat down to lunch, swallowing Ben’s entire afternoon and most of his evening. “It’s back up and running. I stuck around to make sure it’ll be good through the night shift.”
The heat finally kicks in, warm air blasting his face. He flicks on the wipers, pulling out of the lot, making the right turn toward his house automatically. The MarineSelect truck is just a flash of taillights in his rearview. “Just heading home now.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Thanks for taking responsibility.”
Ben knows it’s the closest thing to a compliment he’ll get. “How’s Chicago?” he ventures.
“Cold,” Dad replies. “Saw the Bean. Conference is fine.” A beat passes. “Just trying to give the caterer a rough ballpark for Friday. You bringing anyone?”
Ben knows the subtext immediately; one plate won’t derail the holiday buffet his dad commissions every December for his employees. This isn’t about numbers. It’s about whether Ben has someone to bring.
He doesn’t.
“Philip, maybe?”
Ben’s foot hits the brake harder at the four-way stop than he means to, sending the Jeep into a brief fishtail. Philip had been his plus-one last year, when Ben was so anxious to not be alone that he’d dragged his doomed situationship along to the company Christmas party.
“I don’t—no, not a good idea,” Ben stammers, bringing the car back under control. He and Philip had gone sour quicker than unrefrigerated eggnog, not even surviving till the New Year. Ben was clingy, Philip wanted casual. Things played out according to script.
Dad poses his next question oh-so-innocently: “What about Eli?”
Eli. The ex to end all exes. Ben’s longest relationship, the boat captain who’d followed Ben to Silver Shoals right after college to start a charter fishing business and a whole life together, or so Ben had naively believed.
Of course, Dad had adored Eli. Driven and ambitious in all the ways his father respected, Ben had realized too late that he was replaying everything he resented about his paternal relationship. Right down to coming home to an empty house night after night.
“Eli and I aren’t getting back together,” he replies, throat tightening in spite of himself.
“Well, maybe just as friends? Didn’t you say you’d keep in touch?” Dad presses gently. “He used to make you happy. You deserve that, Benny.”
Dad means well, he really does, but it also feels a little like he’s ticking off a to-do list item. Check in on son’s emotional well-being. He wants Ben to be ‘happy’ in the only way he understands: single-minded, productive, and building the Whitaker empire.
“I know, Dad. But I’m good. I promise.”
There is a brief and deeply unconvinced silence. “Alright. Well, drive safe. Call if there’s anything.”
“Sure. Goodnight, Dad.”
He hangs up, exhaling so hard his breath fogs the interior.
It’s not about Phillip, it’s not even entirely about Eli. He can feel himself falling off the path his father marked for him. He should be married, thinking about a family. It’s all mapped out, but he can’t help fantasizing about detours.
Immediately, he clamps down on a rogue, exhilarating thought. Nope. Definitely not. You do not get to picture that smug, irritatingly handsome face right now. Jackson James has absolutely no place in any version of Ben’s future, thank you very much.
Then his stomach growls so loudly it practically vibrates the seatbelt. He remembers his abandoned turkey sandwich, shoved back into the breakroom fridge when he left to go deal with the cod line. Okay, maybe this is less of an existential crisis and more that I’m just hangry.
Ben does feel better once he’s at home in sweats, shoveling in last night’s leftover stir-fry, plopping down in front of the TV.
He catches a glimpse of himself in the screen’s reflection and it’s one of the most painfully single things he’s seen.
Maybe Dad has a point. He unlocks his phone, deciding it can’t hurt to browse.
He nearly chokes on a noodle when the first match that pops up is Jackson James. With a startled yelp, Ben flings his phone onto the carpet. “Oh, come on,” he groans, pressing his face into a throw pillow for a solid five seconds.
It doesn’t take long before he fishes his phone back up, though; Ben’s self-control has all the structural integrity of a wet tissue.
He scrolls through Jackson’s dating profile with a guilty fascination.
The pictures definitely aren’t helping to settle his pulse; there’s Jackson on every page with those dark, clever eyes, and that knee-buckling smile.
It leaves Ben feeling fifteen years old again, all clumsy adrenaline and stomach-twisting self-consciousness.
It’s more than just the good looks. There’s that easy confidence, the way Jackson carries himself like he’s completely at ease with the world around him.
It’s everything Ben has spent most of his adult life wishing he could feel.
Seeing it come so naturally to someone else is equal parts undeniably attractive and deeply, deeply annoying.
He swipes to another photo: Jackson perched casually on the steps of Quincy Market in a subtly checked suit, flashing a stylish hint of ankle and that same arresting grin.
It looks like it could belong in a fashion editorial instead of a candid shot snapped by a friend.
The slow-burning arousal is enough to make him lock the phone’s screen with a sharp tap, pointedly shoving it between the couch cushions. Stop it.
Since unwinding is obviously off the table, he instead pivots straight to the next worry on his endless mental checklist, that weird truck from earlier. Ten seconds later, he’s typing ‘MarineSelect Waste Services’ into the search bar of his laptop.
Their homepage is sparse. Too much gray space: minimalist logo at the top, address and 1-800 number at the bottom, no information except for a two paragraph blurb promising ‘sustainable disposal solutions.’
Ben clicks through each section in turn.
Services. Contact. About Us. The pages are all equally barren, just bland buzzwords and a handful of reused stock images: a dumpster, a group of smiling employees, a gloved hand gripping a waste drum.
The single promising ‘Learn More’ link just loops him unhelpfully back to the homepage.
There’s no big red flag, but the lack of actual substance bothers him. But surely any meaningful issue would have been weeded out during screening?
Still, he searches Google one last time, trying a few extra keywords, ‘MarineSelect scandal,’ ‘MarineSelect lawsuit,’ but comes up empty. No reviews, no press releases, nothing. Outside of its official website, MarineSelect might as well not exist.
With a frustrated sigh, Ben closes the laptop and retrieves his phone from its exile in the couch cushions. Should’ve stuck with the dating app.
A yawn slips out before he can stop it. Ben rubs his eyes and shuffles toward the bedroom, promising himself he’s done chasing mysteries. But he’s already thinking about tomorrow’s waste logs. Just a quick check first thing in the morning, he decides.
“Stir-fry was supposed to fix all this,” he mutters, flipping off the last lamp and plunging himself into darkness, trying to shove MarineSelect and a certain dark-eyed reporter out of his head for the night. But as he flops into bed, he’s pretty sure neither of them is done haunting him yet.