Chapter 26 #2
“A week.” Bennett scoffs, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Let me ask you this: If you had never been given this assignment, and we still ran into each other, would you have even cared?”
“I—I…” The words refuse to form. I try to think of a way to salvage this, but when I meet his gaze again, I know there’s nothing I can say to fix this right now.
The hurt on his face breaks my heart more than anything he could say.
The only thing I can do is be completely honest with him.
“I don’t know what I would have done if not for this, because the person I was then is not who I am now.
That girl would have never willingly sat through and enjoyed multiple EWE shows.
She would have never gotten in the ring and learned how to take a bump.
She missed out on this chance last time—may have even let it slip by her again—but it was her loss because she never got the opportunity to know you. To fall in love with you.”
“Don’t say that,” Bennett says, shaking his head. Black eyes pierce through me. “Don’t say you love me. If you loved me, you would’ve come clean about this when I asked.”
“And face you dropping me off on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere?”
Bennett recoils. “You think so little of me that you think I’d actually do something like leave you on the side of the road?
” He bites down on his bottom lip, staring up at the stars, and takes in an unsteady breath.
When his gaze drops back down to mine, tears coat his eyes.
“I might have been mad about it, but the fact you even thought I’d do something so heinous and mercurial proves you don’t know me at all.
I only wanted you to be honest with me, Sloane. Was that too much to ask?”
The door opens, and Savannah pokes her head outside. “Hey, Bennett, what’s taking so…Oh.” She pauses, looking between the two of us, then motions over her shoulder to Brooks, I presume. She steps outside, and the sounds of the party cease when she closes the door. “Everything okay out here?”
“Was it?” he asks me again, completely ignoring his friend. Tears well in my eyes again, but I fight them back. Bennett scoffs, shaking his head. “Looks like you were right all along, Sav. She was just a journalist looking for the biggest story of her career.”
His words are like a stab to the heart, but it doesn’t make them any less true. Or they were true. I was just some journalist looking for my big break, but the longer I’ve been around, the more I’ve gotten to know him, the more I fell in love.
Without another word, Bennett stoops back down, clutching the handrails of the crutches, and pushes past his friend to go back inside.
“What is going on?” Savannah asks as the door closes. “What changed in the last twenty minutes since you came out here?”
“You heard him—”
“No.” She cuts me off. “I want to hear it from you.”
My eyes burn, but I force my shoulders back and hold my head high.
“My name is Sloane Jenkins. I’m a journalist at The Boston Baller, and I was assigned a story about the fortieth anniversary, which turned into a story about Amos, but I had no idea where to start.
That’s when I ran into Bennett in Wexley Hollow, and I decided to use our past to my advantage. ”
Savannah stares at me for a moment, eyes narrowed, but then she does the most unexpected thing: She smiles. “But you fell in love with him instead.”
I blink away from her, hoping she doesn’t see the tear glide down my cheek. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Of course, it matters, Sloane.” She takes a step forward, taking my hands in hers.
“I know I haven’t been the most welcoming person in the group, and I will admit, I was very skeptical of you at first. Clearly, I was right to be.
” Her small laugh makes one of my own bubble to the surface.
“But with that came a lot of observation, and if I didn’t know it before, I would’ve known the second I saw you after he got hurt at Paradise City. You’re in love with him.”
I am. Completely and irrevocably. It doesn’t make sense. I’ve only known him for three weeks. Three weeks. You can’t fall in love with someone in three weeks, and yet, I did.
“What do I do, Savannah?” I hate how pathetic it sounds. How pathetic I sound.
She sighs, glancing back through the window before turning back to me. “Only you can answer that, Sloane.”
“What would you do if—”
“Believe it or not, I’ve been in a similar situation, and for both of your sakes, I hope you choose better than I did.”
“What does that mean?”
Savannah inhales deeply, staring inside again, and I catch a glimpse of Brooks staring back at her.
His eyes are slightly narrowed, but soften when their gazes meet.
His brow lifts, and she nods in reply. There’s a tug on her red-painted lips before she turns back to me.
“Long story short, my husband thought he was doing the right thing. He thought he was protecting me by not telling me the truth about some things, and all it did was drive a wedge between us. When I found out, I left when I should’ve stayed and worked things out. ”
“I don’t think Bennett wants to—”
“I didn’t think I did either, but Sloane, I regretted walking away from him every day for the two and a half years we were apart.
What happened wasn’t worth losing that time, regardless of whether John lied or not.
Right now, Bennett feels betrayed, but the worst thing you can do is walk away.
” Thunderous applause catches our attention inside, where the Raffertys have taken the stage.
The crowd chuckles at something Noah says.
When I look her way, there’s a new layer of softness in her words.
“Go back to the hotel, take a bath, and have a glass of wine while you wait for him to get back. I’ll make sure he leaves as soon as they’re done with all this, and you guys can talk—”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I say, rubbing my left arm and taking a step back.
Bennett and I aren’t Savannah and Brooks with years of history.
While I appreciate her trying to help, I don’t think she’s right about this.
“The best thing I can do is not be at the hotel when he gets back, because the last thing he’ll want to do is deal with this after tonight.
I always knew this was a possibility, but still chose not to tell him, and now I have to face the consequences.
” Lifting my shoulders, I bite down on my bottom lip and swallow the fresh round of tears in my eyes.
“Thank you for your help, Savannah, and for being such a good friend to Ben…but this is one thing I don’t think you’re going to be able to fix. ”