Chapter 10
Benson
I barely have time to catalogue what’s happening, don’t even have time to react, before Remi’s lips are pressing to mine. It’s short. A blip, at most. And then he’s leaning back.
“Sorry,” he says, breathless. “I shouldn’t have done that without asking.”
It takes me a long moment to respond. Remi’s hand isn’t on my jaw anymore, and he’s stepped away, giving me space I’m not sure I want.
“Did you…” I clear my throat and try again. “Did you kiss me because you wanted to? Or because you’ve been drinking?”
A pause. “I haven’t had much to drink.”
I let the implications of that settle in. My skin feels tight as the silence stretches, my muscles and bones practically vibrating. The instinctual tapping of my fingers on my leg helps keep the sensation at bay.
“Why?” I finally ask.
Remi seems to understand I’m talking about the kiss and not him drinking sparingly because he laughs once. “Are you kidding?” After a second of staring at my face, he says, “Oh, you’re not kidding.”
I swallow heavily as Remi closes the gap between us. Not touching, just bringing himself near. Every ounce of his expression is earnest.
“Because you’re handsome. Kind. You smell nice. And care about animals. I like your beard. Although I liked you without a beard, too. You’re a good person. You have nice hands. Gorgeous eyes. A great smile. And when you laugh—”
I hold up my palm, my pulse racing so fast it’s a drum in my ear. “Okay, okay. Just… Hold on.”
Remi huffs lightly, the beauty marks above his lip my sole focus as I try to reconcile Remington Darling, youngest son of my mother’s closest friend, with the man standing before me telling me he’s, what, interested in me? In what capacity?
“Is…kissing me something you want to do?” I ask. “Again, I mean.”
He shrugs, voice even but soft. “Yeah.”
Oh, God.
“I… I need to think about that.”
Remi’s smile is slow-growing. I can’t look away from it. “But you will? Think about it?”
“Yes?” I manage, knowing I won’t think of anything else for quite a while.
His smile widens. “Yeah, okay. Am I…allowed to sway you in my favor?”
“What does that mean?”
Remi sets the cardboard with the flower aside before stepping back into my space.
His hand on the side of my neck has me sucking in a breath.
It’s brief, the heat and pressure of his palm.
The swipe of his thumb along my beard. The gentle squeeze before his hand slides down, brushing against my chest and falling away.
“That,” he answers. “Flirting with you, Ben.”
Christ, I’ve forgotten how to breathe.
“Not no,” I say slowly.
His lopsided smile hits me square in the gut. I find his eyes, twinkling blue, looking so damn pleased I can’t fathom what I did to earn that reaction.
Footsteps on the stairs have me stiffening. Remi takes a small step backwards, angling himself toward the doorway.
August appears, a furrow in his brow as he sees us standing inside the room. “Uh… You guys coming back?”
“Yep,” Remi says cheerfully. “Sorry if we held up the game.”
“What are you even doing up here?” my brother asks, his eyes flitting around us like he’s looking for evidence of some sort. He stops, briefly, on the flower set near the wall before his gaze skips back to us.
Remi’s shrug is nonchalant. “Just waiting for the bathroom breaks to be done.”
“Right,” August says, the word dragged out. “Well, they’re done.”
Remi pats my brother’s shoulder on his way past. “Anyone ever tell you scowling makes you wrinkle faster?”
“Shut up,” my brother grouses, no real heat in his words. He glances my way with a raised eyebrow. “Coming?”
I nod, taking a beat before following August and Remi down the stairs.
I swear I can still feel my lips tingling, although I know the sensation is only in my head.
It’s late when Remi’s birthday party disperses. Lawson and Oakley leave with Wendy. Virginia heads off when Ash and Jackson do. Colton still lives at the ranch, but he goes home with Noah. And August?
My brother keeps shooting me looks, like he’s waiting for me to go, too.
Once everything is cleaned up, I can’t find a reason to delay any longer. Remi follows me to the door, lifting my coat off the hook and handing it to me.
“I’m glad you came,” he says, voice soft. “Even though you made my brother cry.”
“It was one tear,” I defend. “And I think it was the jalapeno Colton accidentally ate.”
Remi snorts, amusement in his eyes. “Have a good night, Ben.”
I give him a nod, my own wish for him to have the same caught in my throat. August steps into the hallway behind Remi, but he doesn’t move to grab his jacket.
“Are you coming soon?” I ask him.
He shakes his head. “No. I’m staying here tonight.”
I nod again, more of a jerk this time. “Okay. Well… Bye.”
It’s quiet on the walk to my vehicle, apart from the squeak of my shoes through the snow. Lights are on in the small cottages beside the main house, Remi’s parents likely inside. The moon is wide overhead, lending light in the otherwise dark.
It takes me until I’m halfway home to identify the curl in my stomach and the tightness of my throat as the emotion it is. Jealousy.
I’m jealous.
Of my brother.
And the fact that he’s still with Remi when I’m heading home all alone.
There’s a knock on my bedroom door early the next morning.
I grab Mouse off the floor before twisting the knob. My mom is standing in the hallway, her usual smile turning into an O of surprise when she spots the rodent in my palm.
“So Auggie was right. You’ve collected a mouse.”
“Only temporarily,” I tell her, waving her inside. I shut the door after her and let Mouse down.
My mom watches the rodent bound off before her gaze finds the makeshift mouse house made out of cardboard and the maze alongside it. “Huh.”
“So, uh… Is August home then?”
“What? Oh, no. He told me earlier this week.”
I try to ignore the pang of disappointment I feel at finding out he’s still at Darling Ranch.
“I don’t want to bother you for long,” my mom goes on, sitting at the edge of my bed. “I was just hoping we could chat for a minute.”
“You’re not a bother,” I say, seating myself on the floor beside her. Mouse comes over to investigate my pant leg, chewing at the seam briefly before climbing over my leg.
My mom hums. “That’s sweet of you to say, hon, but I know you need your space at times. And that’s perfectly fine. I’ve been trying to give you all the space you need. It’s just… Do you have a plan?”
“A plan?”
“Yes, Benson. A plan.” There’s humor in her voice that softens some. “You’ve been back here four months—”
“Five.”
“Five months,” she amends quickly. “Which—don’t get me wrong. I love having you back, and you’re welcome however long you’d like. But do you know how long that will be?”
I shake my head. Because although I suspect I might be back in town for good, I don’t know how long I’ll be here. In this house.
My mom lets out a quiet breath. “I talked to your dad the other day.”
“Yeah?”
“Mhm. He said you quit.”
I nod, staring down at Mouse as she tries to dig under the hand I have cupped over the floorboards. Once she sees I’m not hiding anything, she heads toward her maze.
“Will you tell me why?” my mom prompts, ever gentle.
My hand shakes. “Are you…familiar with autism?”
It occurs to me once the words leave my mouth, words I hadn’t even planned on saying, that I didn’t want to do this twice. Once with my mother and once with August. But August isn’t here. And there’s really no going back now.
My mom makes a thoughtful sound. “Probably no more familiar with it than the average person.”
It’s what I expect, but my stomach still sinks.
“Why do you ask? Are—” My mom cuts off, a small inhale filling the silence. “Benson, honey… Do you suspect you’re autistic?”
“I am,” I tell her, my voice rough like gravel. “I am autistic. I was diagnosed last year by a psychiatrist.”
Her hand, so small and warm, lands on my shoulder. “Is that why you quit? Why you’re back here?”
“In part.”
My mom scoots closer to me, wrapping the top of my head in a hug that has me huffing a small laugh.
Her fingers card through my hair, tugging gently, the same way she’d comfort me as a child.
“I’m not going to pretend to understand all it means.
I’ll needa learn. But what can I do right now? What do you need?”
I reach up for my mom’s hand. She gives it, and I tuck it over top of my chest. Her other hand continues to run through my hair, even as Mouse scampers by close to her foot.
“This is good,” I tell her, knowing I’m going to get hit hard when I process this later. Right now? Right now, I’m a little numb. Unbelieving, really.
“Benson, hon…” My mom ruffles my hair before going back to those soothing tugs. “I can’t quite tell. Is it good or bad that you found this out?”
I let loose a slow breath. “Good. Mostly good. I finally feel like…I make sense.”
Her exhale sounds like an “Ohh.” She keeps playing with my hair, and it feels too good to ask her to stop. “Would you tell me what it means for you?”
How do I explain something so complex in a few words?
“It means… There were very few times in my life when I could relate to other people. Everything I did felt like an act. I just didn’t know I was in a play. Knowing now what I do…that yes, I’m different. And there’s a reason for that? It’s…”
My throat clamps up, and I have to swallow a few times before I can go on.
“On the outside, learning I’m neurodivergent changes nothing. On the inside? On the inside, it changes everything.”
My mom leans down to kiss the top of my head, smelling sweet and floral from the perfume she uses.
There’s a lifetime of memories in that scent.
Complicated ones. It’s hugs on my way out the door.
The frown my mom tried to hide when I’d come home early from playing at a friend’s.
Her singing while she cooked, so expressive and open in a way I never knew how to be.
It’s bringing a new baby home from the hospital, this tiny thing I loved and hated in equal measure because it was so loud, and something must be wrong with me to be bothered by that when she never was.
I was loved unconditionally in this home. I know I was. And even now, I’m supported without question, a fact that has my eyes burning against my will.
Maybe it wasn’t acceptance I was worried about when faced with telling her and August.
Maybe it’s the fact that I know there’s no hiding after this.
I hear my brother arrive home at the same time my mom does. She hums, the vibration gentle against my head.
“All right?” she asks me.
I nod. “I haven’t told him yet.”
She straightens out my hair. “Whenever you’re ready. Will you be here for dinner tonight?”
“Think so.”
“Good,” she says simply, giving my shoulder a squeeze before standing. “I’ll make eggplant parm. And, uh, Benson? The mouse?”
I smile down at Mouse, the rodent currently attempting to climb up into my shirt pocket. I understand my mom’s concern about having a wild mouse indoors, but the vet confirmed she’s not carrying anything infectious. “She’s safe.”
“M’kay,” my mom says lightly, bending down to give my head another kiss. She leaves the room, carefully closing the door behind her.
I give Mouse a hand, helping lift her the rest of the way to my pocket. She disappears inside, twisting around a few times to get comfortable in the confined space. Satisfied, she curls up for a nap, her cast pressed against the fabric of my shirt.
Pulling out my phone, I check Steph’s calendar. Seeing an opening, I schedule an extra session with her this week.
She’s told me on more than one occasion that I have a tendency to intellectualize my emotions instead of feel them. Logic is comfortable. There’s cause, and there’s reaction. And when you know the former, you feel less like the latter is out of your control.
For a kid growing up with emotions that didn’t always match what everyone else thought they should be, that delay meant survival. Feeling could happen when I was alone. When no one would judge me for the way I felt.
While I can understand some of those defense mechanisms don’t serve me the way they once did, it’s hard to break habits ingrained over a lifetime. The idea of someone seeing me be emotional in the moment is not a pleasant thought in the least.
But it means, once again, I’m alone as I let some of those feelings past my walls.
The relief that my mother reacted the way she did.
The grief that my father didn’t. The fear, still, of facing my brother.
Of opening up channels of communication with someone who only sees me as an acquaintance at best.
I can’t blame August for not trusting me.
I left when he was so young. He doesn’t remember those early days when he was still drinking from a bottle, when I’d hold him at the kitchen table while doing my homework.
He doesn’t know I changed his diaper just as often as our mother did.
He has no clue I was there for his first word—apple—and that I remember his first steps just as clearly as his first fall.
I wish I could explain why I had to go. But even if I could put into words that desperation to find somewhere—anywhere—I fit, it wouldn’t make it better.
I wasn’t here for so many of his memories.
And there’s no changing that.
My head aches from fighting tears, but they don’t fall. I’ll face August another day. When I know I can withstand it.
I open my messaging app without conscious thought, staring at Remi’s name. He said I could have time to think about kissing him. The mere notion has my pulse kicking up.
It’s a blind spot I’ve always had: understanding when someone is interested in me. Remi isn’t the first person to show interest I never saw coming.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious, much as it scares me to contemplate. Relationships of any kind aren’t easy for me to maintain. August is proof enough of that. I’ve dated. Been exclusive. But like friends, those women passed from my life as quickly as they arrived.
I’ve never dated a man.
Not that Remi’s gender has any bearing on whether or not I want to kiss him. And not that he suggested dating, either. He didn’t.
It would be foolish to indulge in a physical relationship with a man so entwined already in my life, wouldn’t it? Remi isn’t a stranger. There’s more at stake.
I could lose him. The new comfort I’ve found in his presence.
I could lose my brother.
I could play it safe yet again, like I’ve done all my life. Keep my distance. Keep my feelings to myself.
Or I could break old habits and try something new.
I rub my hand over my lips, the memory of that fleeting kiss barely there anymore.
Small steps.
Me: Have you ever been to the antiques market in Darling?