Chapter 45
CHARLIE
I am glad I have Bennett Forrester as my friend.
And I’m even glad that all we’ll ever be is friends.
Because I wouldn’t want to lose this… this easiness between us, the way he makes me smile, the way he fell off his chair when chocolate milk went shooting out of my nose because I was laughing too hard, how we can talk about anything and everything and never run out of things to say, how I know he’s got my back and would never talk bad about me, how I feel like I belong with him.
I don’t have that with my boyfriend, and I never have. Just with Bennett.
Idrank in the beautiful sight of Bennett. I placed my hands on his cheeks as his tears fell across my fingers. “How did you find me?”
“The paracord,” he said, his raspy voice filled with emotion. “Did you do that?”
I nodded, laughing through my own tears. “I had nothing else to do, so I tied a path down every possible trail leading to the cave like breadcrumbs.”
“Brilliant. You are so brilliant!” He kissed me then, his lips desperate against mine.
I kissed him just as eagerly—maybe too eagerly, because he lost his balance and had to catch himself on the cave wall.
Still, he didn’t break the kiss but pulled me closer as he adjusted his weight against the side of the cave.
“I knew you’d come,” I said breathlessly between kisses. “I hoped it so much, Ben.”
He pulled back from my lips, and I groaned in disappointment. “Kissing in a minute,” he said reluctantly. “We should talk first.”
“First? That ship has sailed.”
He laughed and I wanted to wrap the sound around me like a blanket. Since I couldn’t, I buried myself deeper in his arms, warm for the first time in days. He was wet, he smelled like mud and sweat, and his beard was threaded with leaves and debris, but I would never, ever get enough of him.
“Fair, but better late than never,” he said.
“Fine.” I hugged him tighter. “But I’m not letting you go.”
“I can talk like this.” He cupped his hand on the back of my head, where I’d rested it on his chest.
I sighed, happiness bubbling through me like fizzy soda. Bennett was here. He’d come. He’d found me.
“I know about Greg,” he said, ruining the moment.
Greg was the last person I wanted to talk about right now. Or ever again. When he’d called with his salesman pitch, telling me Bennett had chosen to come back to base camp, I’d almost let my old insecurities win. I’d almost believed him.
But not quite.
And the not quite was enough of a wedge for me to truly see Greg for who he was: a selfish manipulator. The exact opposite of Bennett. I didn’t know if Bennett would be able to find me, even with my clues, but I knew he’d never stop trying. And I wasn’t going to leave until he did. Period.
Bennett continued. “He came to base camp to get you.”
I gave an annoyed grunt in response. Super ladylike and sexy. But I’d been lying on a bed of spider moss in a freaking bear cave in the woods for three nights. The sexy ship had sailed.
The sexy ship had not sailed for Bennett, on the other hand. The rugged mountain man look was working for him. It made me want to take up drawing in my journal again.
“Charlie,” he said, and hearing my name in his mouth sent a shiver through me. He tipped my chin up so he could see my face. “Why didn’t you go with him?”
My mouth curled in disgust. Greg had made it sound like I was obligated to come back, since he’d come all this way. Well, no one had asked him to. “Why would I?”
“To get the money for your mom. To have everything you want.”
I repositioned myself with both forearms on his shoulders, my fingers scraping against his scalp, my hands lost in his beautiful hair. “Listen to me, Bennett Forrester,” I said fiercely, holding his head firm. “You are everything I want. I love you.”
His eyes widened, so I said it again. “I. Love. You.” It felt good to say what I really felt, to be bold, to confidently state what I wanted. “I think I wanted the idea of Greg and the life he represented more than I actually wanted him.”
“The money, though.”
“We’ll figure it out. People pay off bills without selling their souls all the time.”
“We’ve only sold fifty percent of our souls, so we can still recover,” he teased lightly, before turning serious again. “I can’t give you what Greg could.”
“No. You can give me so much more.” I held his face in my hands, and brushed my thumbs along his cheekbones, marveling that he was here. “I’ve been poor before, Ben. It won’t break me. But being without you? That will.”
His eyes filled with emotion. He lifted me at the waist, and I wrapped my legs around him. It brought me up to his eye level, where he studied me with a soft expression. “I was worried you’d left.”
“But you still didn’t give up,” I whispered.
“I’d go to the ends of the earth for you, Charlie.”
“I’ll never make you do that.” I kissed one side of his cheek and then the other. “I’ll never leave.”
He let out a long, shuddering breath. “I love you, Charlie. More than I ever imagined it could be possible to love someone.” Then he kissed me again and again, until we fell onto the bed of moss, laughing and crying and not letting each other go.
“Should we tap out?” Bennett said.
We were lying beside each other, and I was using his arm as a pillow. His fingers dragged a slow, lazy trail along my forehead and temple as he tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.
“Yes,” I said, relief whooshing out at the suggestion. I was done with the show interfering in our lives. “I’m so ready.”
“Me, too.” He kissed my temple. “Let’s go home, pal.”
“Nope! Veto.” I poked him in the side, digging in deeper when he let out a shout and squirmed away.
So he was ticklish. This was dangerous information for me to have, especially since he loved to tickle me.
I danced my fingers playfully into his side as he laughed. “What have I said about pet names?”
He grabbed me around the waist and pulled me on top of him, silencing our laughter with a kiss. “What if what I want to say to you, I can’t say in front of the camera?” he murmured close to my ear.
Hmmm. I basically purred against his neck. “I’ll allow it. For censorship purposes.”
“We must think of the children,” he said.
“And our families all watching this,” I muttered.
He laughed, then kissed me thoroughly until I was nothing but jelly in his arms. Our families would just have to deal with that.
I’d been dreaming of this reunion nonstop, and it was even better than I had expected.
But that was just Bennett—he somehow made everything better than I could ever imagine.
Way too soon, he grabbed his backpack and unzipped it. “Do you want to do the honors?”
“Let’s do it together,” I said. The same way I hoped we’d do everything from here on out.
“Done.” We linked fingers and clicked the button. A loud beep sounded, and then static.
“Base camp? This is Team Forrester,” I said, staring Bennett in the eyes.
Bennett kissed me quickly. “We’re ready to come home.”