Eleven
“Is it much farther?” Ben asked. He kept stealing glances at Franco as they walked, as if to convince himself this was real: the gentle slope of Franco’s shoulders in the streetlight, his eyes darting to Ben every few steps, as if making sure Ben was still there.
“We’re nearly there.” Franco gestured to their surroundings. “This is Black Forest. I’ve lived here about six years. It’s a nice neighbourhood, handy for the restaurant.”
“I appreciate you waiting until the others had all gone their separate ways before heading home.”
Franco’s lips twitched. “Okay, two things about that. I figured you’d feel a bit awkward if I asked you to come back to my flat in front of everyone.”
Ben chuckled. “And you’d be right. What’s the other thing?”
His eyes gleamed. “They’re not stupid, so don’t delude yourself into thinking we got away with it.”
Ben wasn’t paying much attention to the bare trees that lined the avenue. His mind kept flashing to that look on Franco’s face in the van on the way home: open, gentle, as though he had been offering something fragile and precious in his palms .
A look that had terrified Ben and undone him in the same instant.
He remembered other things, too, from his pre-Adelaide life: nights alone in a too-large bed, how he’d trained himself to escape every sexual encounter he’d ever been through before intimacy could seep in.
How he’d run from it before things became too real.
But tonight, he wasn’t running, and that was down to the man walking beside him.
They reached Franco’s building, a line of two-story houses. Ben followed Franco up the ironwork steps to his front door. Ben’s breathing caught at the sight of Franco fumbling with the keys.
He’s as undone as I am right now.
Maybe just as breakable too.
Franco finally pushed the door open and turned. The hallway light hit his face, and Ben saw everything there: desire, fear, awe, and a silent question: Do you still want this? Do you still want me?
Right then Ben wasn’t sure what he wanted, but Franco’s offer of a drink seemed like a good start.
The living room was uncluttered, its white walls lined with prints, mostly landscapes, but one picture caught his attention.
It was a pencil drawing of two men, clearly lovers, and their expressions, the naked emotion in their eyes captured perfectly by the artist, constricted Ben’s chest. He stood in front of it, unable to tear his gaze away from the men lost in each other.
What must it feel like to be one of them?
It had been years since he’d allowed himself to feel anything for real. His life had followed a pattern: Too many years of burying emotions under work, under achievement, behind walls so thick that nothing could break through.
Franco had chipped away at those walls, bit by bit, without even trying.
“Make yourself comfortable. Coffee’s on,” Franco called from the kitchen.
Ben barely heard him .
Franco had pulled him since the day they met, and Ben had done his best to ignore it, without much success.
There was something about the man that made him feel seen in a way he hadn’t in years.
His reckless energy, his chaotic passion, the way he lived so freely, so openly, both fascinated and terrified Ben in equal measure.
It was as if Franco had tapped into a part of him Ben had long since abandoned.
“You okay?” The chink of cups on the coffee table announced Franco’s presence.
Ben didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t want to answer, not yet. He wasn’t ready to share the mess of thoughts swirling in his head, to be vulnerable, to admit that everything he’d built his life around—his career, his walls, his detachment—felt suddenly small, insignificant, and suffocating.
“I’m fine.” The words came out too tight, too rehearsed. When Franco didn’t respond, Ben turned his head to look at him.
Franco arched his eyebrows, a slight smirk playing at the corners of his mouth. “Right. ‘Fine.’ That’s what you always say.”
“Hey, it’s been a long day,” Ben retorted. “Are you telling me those team-building exercises didn’t wipe you out? Mentally, if not physically?”
He laughed. “They were fun.” There went his eyebrows again. “Especially when my hands slipped.”
“About that...” Ben narrowed his gaze. “That was all deliberate, wasn’t it?”
Franco fluttered his eyelashes. “Maybe? Which is exactly why I merit more of a response than fine .”
He stilled. “What kind of response were you expecting?”
Franco shrugged. “Just… more, I guess.”
Ben’s jaw clenched. “What do you want from me, Franco?”
The question came out harsher than he intended, but it was too late to take it back now. The conversation had suddenly veered from light to heavy, not that he’d intended for it to go in that direction.
My mouth needs a brake .
Whatever irritation he’d been feeling melted when he saw Franco’s expression, open, patient, as though he wasn’t going to back off until he got an answer.
Something inside Ben cracked.
Franco didn’t respond immediately, his gaze steady. “I don’t want anything from you, Ben. I just want you to be here, with me—just us. You’re always so distant, so…” He trailed off, as if searching for the right words, “... closed off. It’s like you don’t trust anyone to get too near to you.”
Ben opened his mouth to retort, but the words stuck in his throat. He sat on the couch, picked up his coffee cup, and tried to focus on the steaming dark liquid, but it didn’t help.
He couldn’t shake the feeling Franco had seen something Ben hadn’t even allowed himself to acknowledge.
“Maybe I don’t want anyone to get close,” Ben said quietly, his voice quaking under the weight of the confession. “Maybe it’s easier this way.”
Franco’s brow furrowed, his posture shifting from teasing to something more serious, more concerned. “Why?” He sat beside Ben, ignoring the coffee.
Ben didn’t answer right away. The evening light pressing against the windows felt oppressive, the air thick with silence, and for the first time in years, he felt exposed.
Unprotected. It was as though the walls he’d spent so long building had started to crumble, and he wasn’t sure he was ready for what might come rushing in.
He turned away from Franco, staring out into the street.
“I’ve spent my entire life trying to prove something.” Ben kept his voice low, as if he was talking to himself. “To my parents, to my bosses, to me. Always chasing success, always trying to be better, to be something more than... than whatever I am.”
Franco stayed silent, but Ben could feel the weight of his gaze, steady and unwavering.
“I thought if I kept pushing, if I kept achieving, I’d eventually find... something. I don’t know. Fulfilment? Maybe. But all I’ve found is emptiness.” At last, he looked Franco in the eye, his heart pounding, his chest tight.
Franco’s expression was warm, and he shifted toward Ben, his voice gentle. “Ben, you don’t have to do it all alone.”
Ben’s bitter laugh echoed in the room. “You don’t get it.
I’ve never had anyone. I was always the one people turned to when they needed help, when they needed guidance.
But when I needed someone... when I needed to let go of all the shit I’ve been carrying for years.
.. there was no one there. No one to trust.” He swallowed.
“So I shut down. I learned to keep people at arm’s length. ”
Franco was quiet for a moment, as though processing Ben’s words. When he spoke, his voice was calm but there was an edge to it Ben wasn’t used to. “I get that more than you think.”
Ben blinked at the sudden shift in Franco’s tone. “What do you mean?”
Franco sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“You think I just act like I don’t have a care in the world, right?
That I’m all jokes and energy and never take anything seriously.
But the truth is, I’ve been running from my own shit for a long time.
” Another sigh fell from his lips. “My family’s messed up, Ben.
My parents... they’ve got their own problems, their own walls.
I grew up in a house where love was treated like a currency, something you had to earn, something you could lose at any moment. ”
Ben blinked again. Franco, the perpetual ball of energy, the man who couldn’t stop talking about love and connection…
He has his own set of walls, too.
“I tried to be everything for them,” Franco continued, his voice low, almost inaudible.
“The golden child. The one who kept the family together, who could make people laugh, who could fix things with a joke or a smile. But it never worked. The harder I tried to make everything perfect, the more I realised how alone I felt.”
A lump formed in Ben’s throat, and a strange mix of sympathy and understanding washed over him. It was hard to imagine Franco as anything but the vibrant, larger-than-life character who seemed to have an answer for everything.
And yet here he is, opening up in a way I never expected.
“You’re not alone anymore, Franco.” The words came out before he could stop them.
Franco gave him a searching gaze. “What do you mean?”
Ben shrugged, uncomfortable with the sudden vulnerability that spread through him at a slow crawl. “I mean... you’re part of something now. The restaurant. The team. You’re not alone.” He managed a smile. “ We’re not.”
For a moment, neither of them spoke, the sound of traffic outside filling the silence between them.
It feels so strange to be so honest. To admit to someone else that he wasn’t the only one carrying around all this baggage. And in that moment, something inside him shifted, creating another tiny crack in the wall he’d built around his heart.
Franco finally spoke, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve been afraid for so long.”
“Of what?”
“Needing someone and not being enough for them. But with you, Ben... I feel like maybe I don’t have to be perfect. Maybe I can just be .”