Chapter 30
thirty
Harper
MOVIES AND MORE.
It was finally Friday.
I’d left work slightly early so I could race home and shower before heading over to Benny’s. I couldn’t remember a time when a week at work passed so slowly. And it hadn’t even been a full week.
Without Benny there, my nights had gone back to being restless, and sleep had been difficult again—it didn’t want to be there without him either, it seemed. Along with that, my appetite, or lack thereof, had also returned to normal.
Matthew still bought breakfast for me on the drive to the office each morning.
On Tuesday, when I hadn’t eaten anything, he threatened to tell Benny on me.
I’d simply rolled my eyes at him and ignored the threat.
That was until he followed through and my phone blew up over lunch with concerned and upset messages from Benny about me not eating enough.
I’d begrudgingly eaten something under Matthew’s watchful eyes in the rearview mirror every morning since.
I’d called him a snitch. He didn’t seem to mind.
After I showered, I dressed in my gear and headed off to the address Benny had given me, feeling increasingly impatient to see him again.
My father hadn’t seemed suspicious of the time I’d spent working from home, but it was always difficult to know exactly how he was really feeling, so I still took a longer route than necessary to ensure he hadn’t sent anyone to follow me.
Benny’s house was cute, newly built with two stories and a double garage, and located in the Harborview hills, away from the coast. It was a nice neighborhood, where all the houses were large and classically homey complete with white picket fences.
It was the kind of neighborhood where well-off families lived.
But I couldn’t see Benny living in an apartment, so this place made sense for him.
I was about to kill my engine when one side of the garage’s door opened to an empty space, so I pulled in there instead, thankful that my bike would be out of view from the street.
A sleek black Audi S7 took up the space on the other side.
Benny appeared in the doorway leading into the house as I dismounted. His eyes locked onto my bike as he frowned.
“What?” I asked him as I pulled my helmet free.
“You don’t have a car?”
“I don’t need a car. I have a bike.” I did have cars. Multiple of them. My father bought me a new one every year for my birthday, most recently a Bugatti W16 Mistral, but Benny didn’t need to know that.
“Well, it isn’t as safe as a car. Plus, there’s only one seat.”
A hand on his chest forced him to take a few steps backward so I could close the door and block his view of my Ducati.
Then I pinched his cheek and used the hold to pull him down enough for me to claim his lips—hard and deep.
It was only the start of my desire to express how much I’d missed him the last few days.
“Well, I only have one butt.” I smirked as our lips parted and he blinked, processing, the kiss clearly having distracted him to the point he needed to find what I was talking about again.
“Still, you’d be safer in a car.”
He was probably right. I didn’t care, but I wasn’t going to tell him that.
“It’s plenty safe.”
Benny rolled his eyes. “Not as safe as a car, though. I tell Rikky this too. Are you goin’ to ignore me like he does?”
“Probably.”
Benny huffed, and I pulled my eyes away from him to take in the space.
Just as I’d imagined, it was filled with color. The walls were a cinnamon orange, and the dark wood floors were lined with rugs that didn’t match the walls or each other. I liked it.
“Give me a tour?”
Benny took me through the ground level first and revealed more of the same.
Oranges, greens, reds, blues, yellows. They filled every room.
Cushions that didn’t match the sofa or each other.
Dining chairs that looked like they hadn’t even been built in the same time period, not to mention the same factory.
There was a huge Pride flag on his living room wall.
Nothing matched and yet everything fit. It suited him perfectly.
Then we were upstairs and Benny was telling me he didn’t use most of the space, but when he’d bought this place, he’d done so with the intention it would be his forever home, and it was ready for whatever life gave him.
One bedroom had been converted to a home gym, then there were two guest rooms, and an office filled with dust and excess gym equipment. There was a huge bathtub in the upstairs bathroom, definitely big enough for more than one person—a fact my brain was noting and storing away for future reference.
“Where’s your room?” I asked him when he turned to head back downstairs.
He chewed his lip and gestured to the only door that was closed. I stepped toward it.
Benny’s hand rested on my shoulder to stop me. “I’ll show you after dinner.”
“Why not now?”
“Because. Now come, food is almost ready.”
He was definitely up to something. But I’d let him keep his secrets… for now.
We made our way back down to the kitchen, where he’d already started cooking.
“What are you making?”
“Braised short ribs with mashed potatoes,” he told me and I nodded.
Benny took two beers from the fridge, opened them, and handed one to me. I took a sip.
“You don’t like beer?” He chuckled, apparently reading that from my expression.
“It’s fine.” The only time I’d had beer was with the Strays. It wasn’t something I’d ever buy for myself or drink on my own.
Benny took it back. “What do you like?”
“The beer is fine.” I held my hand out for it, and he pulled it further away.
“I have other things. What do you like?”
I sighed, because I didn’t know what I liked.
I drank beer with the Strays because it was what they gave me.
I drank the fancy wines provided at the events my family hosted because that’s what was there and what was done.
It didn’t bother me, but I didn’t particularly like any of it enough to ask for it. I shrugged.
“Well, let’s find out.” Benny opened his fridge again, this time pulling out a can of rum and Coke. “Have you tried this?”
I shook my head.
He opened it and handed it to me. I took a sip. “It’s… fine?” I went to sip it again, but Benny snatched it off me.
“I can do better than fine.” Back to the fridge.
He pulled out a bottle of soda water, a lime, and a glass, making another drink and handing that one to me too. I didn’t know why he was going to all this trouble. What did it matter what I drank?
I took a sip. It was fizzy and citrusy, flavor zinging over my tongue. I took a bigger sip, and he smiled. “Vodka lime soda. Now you know one thing you like to drink.”
I guess I did.
When dinner was ready, Benny plated it up, then refilled my drink and led us to the living room rather than the dining room like I’d expected.
“What should we watch?” he asked as he flopped down right in the middle.
I sat beside him, our legs pressed together.
“Whatever you want is fine.”
“Are you sayin’ that because you don’t know what you like to watch?”
I reached for my cup instead of answering.
“Do you have a favorite movie or TV show, love?”
I shook my head.
“Well, have you seen that new gay hockey show?”
“No.”
“What?” he gasped. “Okay. What about the Barbie movie?”
“No.”
Benny exhaled slowly. “Okay. Let’s pull back to the classics. Lord of The Rings?”
“No.”
His jaw clenched. “Star Wars?”
I shook my head.
“The Princess Bride?”
I raised an eyebrow and shook my head again.
“Shrek?” he squeaked.
“Nope.”
“Come on. The Lion King?”
“Oh, I think maybe Matthew put that on for me and Logan when we were kids, but then he had to turn it off when Logan started crying about that lion dying.”
“You didn’t cry?”
“It’s a cartoon.”
“I’m goin’ to pretend you didn’t just disrespect Mufasa like that.”
I rolled my eyes.
“Okay. Okay, this is fine.”
I had the feeling he was trying to convince himself more than me.
“All fine. We’ll just have to watch them. All of them. I’ll make a list.” He groaned. “No, but seriously, how have you not seen Shrek? It’s been out since we were kids.”
I shrugged. “I didn’t watch much TV as a kid either.”
“Why?”
“My dad never wanted us to. Especially me. He said it was what rotted Logan’s brain.”
I’d forgotten that memory until it slipped from between my lips. Dad had often said things like that about Logan while we were growing up. He’d say it right in front of him too.
Through all the memories I’d shifted through recently, I understood more than ever why Logan had wanted to cut Dad off—and everything connected to him, which unfortunately included me. I only wished I could speak to him again, so I could explain to him that I was nothing like Dad.
Benny seemed concerned, his hand gently squeezing my knee in silent comfort. Because what could he even say to that?
“Do you know where Logan is now?”
I shook my head.
“We could probably find him.”
I shook my head again. “I’ve tried. I’ve looked him up. I can’t find anything on him—no articles, social media accounts, nothing. And he doesn’t reply to my texts.”
He thought about that for a while. “I can ask Rikky to find him.”
“Is he in law enforcement or something?”
Benny huffed in amusement. “Or somethin’.”
I gave him a questioning look.
“I don’t ask questions because I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know. His family’s intense and I really don’t want to know the details of what they do, but from what Rikky tells me, they’re good at trackin’ people down.”
I pondered that. I’d considered hiring a private investigator to track Logan, but it’d be difficult to do that without Dad finding out. He had access to all my bank accounts and would ask questions about large expenditures.
I’d also considered asking Archer. He’d told me once his family were kind of like bounty hunters or something. But he’d cut ties with most of them before I’d built myself up to it. Besides, the Kovats family were also connected to Dad.