Chapter Seventeen #2
“Damn right it won’t,” Raj muttered. He scowled at the staff. “Back to work, people. Nothing to see here.”
They scattered like leaves in the path of a leaf blower.
Franco aimed a tender glance at Ben and stilled when he caught that same tenderness directed at himself.
“Mm-hmm.” Raj’s voice was deceptively mild. “You keep on pretending it’s a secret. But I’ll give it a week before the whole staff knows.”
“Knows what?” Ollie piped up immediately from the bar.
“Nothing,” Ben barked.
“Everything,” Franco added, smirking.
Raj snorted. “Never mind a week. You’ll be lucky if you make it past today.”
From the gleam in Raj’s eyes, Franco knew they were so busted.
It had been a long day, and it wasn’t over yet, Ben was certain of that.
The last plates had been washed, the blinds drawn, the dining room lights dimmed, and the staff gathered around a table for their usual wind-down. Normally, it was laughter, leftover tiramisu, and maybe a bottle of wine smuggled from Willow’s “secret stash.”
Tonight, though? Ben knew exactly what to expect.
There’d been a vibe running through the place all day, and coupled with the frequent glances, the whispered conversations, and the way everyone clammed up whenever Ben was in earshot, he knew they weren’t about to stay quiet, not when they had a big, fat, juicy story that had just landed on their plates.
Lexie perched on a stool, her arms crossed, watching Franco and Ben like a cat with a cornered mouse.
Mina fidgeted with her necklace, biting her lip as though she wanted to say something but didn’t dare.
Ollie and Willow exchanged looks that all but screamed do you see this shit ?
Raj, meanwhile, sat at the head of the table, sipping water like a man resigned to watching the circus unfold.
Hell, all he needed was a bucket of popcorn.
Beside Ben, Franco sprawled dramatically in his chair as though nothing was amiss. “Why the long faces? Was it the guy who asked for ketchup to put on his risotto? Or the group of twelve people who all wanted separate bills?”
Ben had to admire the way Franco had dodged bullets all day, whereas he’d been walking on eggshells, expecting the bomb to drop at any moment.
“We’re waiting for one of you two to explain why Raj found icing on the goddamn spice rack.” Lexie’s voice was as sharp as one of Raj’s knives.
Ben stiffened. “It was—”
“—a tragic baking accident,” Franco cut in, his eyes wide with mock innocence. “It was a catastrophe. We’re talking batter everywhere, icing in places you wouldn’t believe. Devastating.”
Willow snorted. “Oh, I believe it. Question is… what kind of baking were you doing, exactly?”
“I never knew horizontal baking was a thing until now,” Ollie muttered before letting out a cackle. “You learn something new every day.” Mina’s face went bright pink .
Ben scrubbed a hand over his face. “This is ridiculous. We don’t need to—”
“Yes, we do,” Lexie interrupted. “Because it’s obvious.
Do you think we’re blind? Ben, you’re actually smiling these days.
Franco, you’re not flirting with everything that has a pulse.
And today? You were looking at each other like…
” She threw her hands in the air. “Like you’re in one of those cheesy French films Mina’s always crying over. ”
Mina made a choking sound. “I wasn’t gonna say a word,” she whispered. “But she’s not wrong.”
Franco’s gaze met Ben’s, and Ben had to admire his steady, calm expression. Silence fell, heavy and charged.
Finally, Raj sighed. “Look, they’re both adults. If they’re… involved, that’s their business.” He shot Franco a cool glance. “As long as they keep it off my prep table.”
That broke the tension. Half the room dissolved into laughter again. One look at Lexie, however, told Ben she wasn’t letting go so easily. She leaned forward, her eyes narrowing.
“Look, if you two are a thing, just say it. We’re your family. We deserve to know if our boss and our chaos gremlin are… whatever it is you’re doing.”
Ben’s jaw tightened. He hated being put on the spot, his private world dragged into the open, under the spotlight. But then he felt Franco’s hand brush his under the table, light, quick, and reassuring.
When Ben looked at him, Franco wasn’t grinning or deflecting. His eyes were warm, searching, almost pleading.
Denial was a lousy place to stay, anyway.
Ben exhaled. “Fine,” he said at last. “Yes. We’re… seeing each other. Sort of.”
A chorus of cheers and groans followed his declaration, accompanied by applause. Ollie whooped loud enough to rattle the pots. Mina clapped her hands together, her eyes shining. Willow smirked like she’d just won a bet .
Lexie threw a serviette at Franco’s head. “Took you long enough,” she muttered.
Franco beamed. Under the table, his fingers stayed tangled with Ben’s, a quiet anchor in the storm of teasing and laughter.
Ben breathed a little easier.
Maybe I don’t have to be afraid of this after all.
The laughter from the staff still lingered in Franco’s ears as he leaned against the closed office door, his arms folded tight as though he could hold himself together by force alone. The smile he’d worn all night was gone now, and what was left of him was raw and restless.
Ben closed his laptop, packed it into his bag, then rolled down his sleeves, his gaze steady. “You did fine.”
Franco gave a hollow laugh. “I always do fine. Fine’s my specialty, didn’t you know?
Put me on a stage, give me a crowd, and I’ll spin it into gold.
” He waved a hand toward the dining room, the teasing voices all gone along with the rest of the staff.
“But when it’s me up there—when it’s me they’re looking at—I…
” His voice faltered. He rubbed at his wrist, unable to meet Ben’s eyes.
Ben got up from behind the desk and walked over to him. “You hate being seen.”
“Hate it?” Franco’s voice cracked. “Try terrified. I don’t… I don’t do real. When people see you, they start expecting. And then they wait, for the mess, the crash. For me to prove I can’t actually hold onto anything.”
Ben stared at him as though he’d never truly seen Franco until that moment.
“Is that what you really think they’re waiting for?”
Franco pressed his palms to his eyes, expelling a long breath. “Isn’t it obvious? Hell, maybe I’m waiting for it too. It’s always been the same pattern: I shine, I burn, I bolt. And if they know that—if they see me—it’s only a matter of time before I let them down.”
Ben closed the distance between them. “They weren’t judging you.” His warm hand found Franco’s. “They were happy. For you. For us.”
Franco froze, staring at their joined hands. The words hit something fragile inside him, something he didn’t know how to protect. He swallowed hard. “That’s what scares me the most,” he whispered.
“What does?”
Franco finally looked at him, his voice raw with the truth he’d been dodging all night. “That I liked it. That you said I was yours and I… wanted it. Like some idiot who believes in fairy tales.”
Ben’s thumb brushed slowly over his knuckles, soothing him. “Not a fairy tale,” he murmured. “Just us.”
In what was starting to become a pattern, Franco didn’t joke or sidetrack. He let the silence fall, let himself lean into Ben’s chest, trembling with the weight of being seen—and wanting it anyway.
The restaurant around them was silent now, and Ben’s hand lingered in his, firm and unyielding.
“Come on,” Ben said softly. It wasn’t an order or even a plea.
It was an invitation, one Franco knew he wouldn’t ignore.
They walked out into the night, the cool air brushing against Franco’s flushed skin. They didn’t talk much on the way to Ben’s flat, not that they needed to. The comforting weight of Ben’s hand around his was enough, an anchor against the tumult in Franco’s head.
At Ben’s flat, Franco hesitated in the doorway. The urge to crack a joke bubbled up— What, no red carpet? No champagne? —but he bit it back. For once, he didn’t want to hide behind noise.
Inside, Ben kicked off his shoes, then glanced back at him with his usual quiet steadiness that always unravelled Franco in ways he didn’t understand.
It was a look that said stay with me tonight.
Franco had no intention of declining.
He toed his trainers off and sniffed. The air smelled faintly of coffee and something cedar warm. They moved wordlessly through the motions: Ben fetched him a clean t-shirt for the morning, the cotton soft and smelling faintly of Ben’s detergent.
When he emerged from the bathroom, Ben was already stretched out naked in the bed, propped on one elbow, watching him in a way that made Franco’s stomach twist with both terror and want.
“Gotta like a man who sleeps in the raw,” Franco murmured. He slid under the covers, and Ben shifted closer, until Franco found himself tucked against his chest, his head resting under Ben’s chin.
The silence pressed in again. Franco hated silence.
It left too much room for his thoughts to gnaw at him.
But then Ben’s fingers traced slow circles at the small of his back, and Franco felt himself unravel in a different way.
The knots inside him loosened. His body softened against the solid warmth holding him.
“Ben?” His voice was barely a whisper.
“Mm?”
“I don’t know how to do this.”
Ben pressed a kiss to his temple, lingering. “You don’t have to. Just… be here.”
And somehow, impossibly, that was enough.
Franco’s eyes slipped shut, his body finally giving in to exhaustion.
For the first time in longer than he could remember, he fell asleep not with the churn of restlessness, the mask of bravado still clinging to his skin, but with someone’s arms wrapped around him.
When sleep claimed him, he dreamed not of fire and flight, but of staying.