29. BEN
29
BEN
T he hotel was quiet and the living room area was empty except for Amy and Sofia sitting on the couches by the window.
It wasn’t just outside the holiday or tourist seasons, Harborview just didn’t have as many guests and visitors anymore. Not even with a hotel as fancy as The Seabreeze Grand.
Soon, if we could get Richard back on board with this business, all of it would hopefully change, and we could turn things around.
My mind mulled over these types of things, thinking about business. I was always thinking about business, but since Sofia had come into my life, a lot had changed.
Business wasn’t everything anymore.
And now, with her, it was taking more and more of a backseat.
Something was wrong with her, and I needed to find out what it was.
Amy and Sofia were sitting together on the couches when I stepped into the living room. Sofia covered her face with her hands, and Amy’s face was riddled with concern.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
Sofia dropped her hand and her face was stricken with tears. My heart constricted, and I wanted to rush in there and fight whatever was plaguing her. I wanted to be her hero, taking away whatever bothered her—
“It’s not about it being the wrong time or something like that, either,” Sofia said. I hesitated, waiting before I interrupted their conversation. “I don’t want a relationship, to play happy families, the white picket fence and two point four kids… The whole thing with Ben is just pretend.”
My blood drained from my face. I knew we’d started off pretending, but this had become something real. Hadn’t it?
“It’s not real, and when this is over, I’m going to Costa Rica so I can do what I love instead of being in this scenario where everything is like some fairy tale, something made up.”
My head started spinning. Every word she spoke felt like another punch to the gut, and I felt like I had to double over. I couldn’t breathe.
“Something that’s not real.”
Her final words made me turn away from them and leave the living room.
What the fuck! I’d thought this was real. I’d thought things were going well between us, that we were on the same page… I’d told her I was falling in love with her, for fuck’s sake! I’d done everything right even though it was completely against my grain because Sofia had become everything to me.
Because I’d thought there was something between us.
“Hey, man,” someone said behind me. I spun around, and Luke stood in front of me. It felt somehow out of place to see Luke here, even though I should have known. Wherever Amy was, Luke wasn’t far off. And the other way around.
He frowned. “What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing,” I barked and turned on my heel, marching toward the bar.
“Hey, wait up,” Luke said, hurrying after me. “What the hell is going on?”
I got to the bar and ordered whisky—whatever they had was fine—and told the barman to keep it coming. When Luke caught up to me, I added that I needed an extra glass.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, turning to Luke. My mood was blacker than black, and at any other moment in life I would have been happy to see Luke, but now my insides were burning like I’d swallowed acid, and I wanted to fuck up anything within punching distance to try to get rid of the feeling.
I would never do something to Luke.
But with the wary expression on his face, he knew he was in the danger zone.
“Amy and I came to say goodbye,” he said. “I was waiting outside. She said she would fetch you two, and then she didn’t come back…”
The whisky arrived, and I swallowed mine down in one big gulp. When I slammed my glass down, the bartender refilled it and left the bottle.
Smart guy.
Luke picked up his glass. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”
He was always so gentle and soft-spoken. He would never insist that I tell him or force it out of me. It had pissed me off so often, but it was his easy, quiet confidence and the fact that you could choose whoever the hell you wanted to be with him that always made me be myself.
“Amy is with Sofia, listening to everything Sofia says about how none of this is real and the moment she can get out of here, she’s leaving the country.”
Luke frowned. “You’re not making any sense. Out of the country?”
I nodded and sipped my whisky, stopping myself from downing it the way I’d done with the first one. If I did, I would just keep downing them, and downing a full bottle of whisky never ended well.
I knew that from experience. Turned out I could learn. It just always had to be the hard way.
Like now.
I took a deep breath, another gulp of whisky, and sank onto a barstool like all the life had been sucked out of me.
“I told her I was falling in love with her,” I said dully, staring at my half-empty glass.
“Ben…” Luke breathed, and I knew what he was trying to say. He had so many questions.
I never fell in love. I never got that close to women. I never spent more time with them than one night so that I could get what I wanted and push them away again.
“I know,” I said. “I was an idiot.”
“I don’t think so,” Luke said. “I’ve seen you two together. You’re magic. You work, somehow. I didn’t ever think you’d find someone who completes you the way she does, but she does.”
I groaned and emptied my glass, grabbing the bottle to refill it. Luke was still on his first and shook his head when I tipped the bottle toward him to offer a refill.
“Yeah, well, she doesn’t feel the same way,” I said. “And I was a fucking idiot to think that someone would love me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“No. You don’t get to come at me with some bullshit about how I deserve love just like everyone else, blah, blah, blah. That’s some pussy shit that Amy might tell me, but not you.”
Luke pursed his lips. If I wouldn’t let him say what he wanted, he wouldn’t speak at all.
Fine by me. It wasn’t like I had anything to say, anyway.
The silence only stretched out for a moment before I sighed again.
“She told Amy that it’s all just a game. She doesn’t want anything with me. She’s leaving the company and taking some different job or something, I think. I don’t know. I didn’t stick around long enough to find out the rest—I don’t need to know.”
“That doesn’t sound right to me,” Luke said, frowning as he mulled it over in his mind. He sipped his drink, one arm leaning on the bar. I drank my whisky, too, but it was more like gulping than sipping. “I’ve seen the way she looks at you, the way she touches you. The way you two move together, even when you’re not noticing. That wasn’t pretend, Ben.”
I shook my head. “Well, whatever it was, it was one big joke. She’s not interested, and when we go back home, this is over and we get to go back to life as we know it.”
“You should talk to her,” Luke suggested.
I snorted. “And say what?”
“Ask her what’s going on. You overheard a part of a conversation. It’s better if you actually talk to her and ask her directly, find out the whole picture. Or ask Amy.”
I shook my head. “I’m not doing that. I’m not going to run around between girls, trying to patch a picture together when I heard what I needed to hear.”
“You’re being an idiot,” Luke said outright.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. You’re being an idiot, and if you’re not going to try to find out what’s really going on, try to figure out where this is going and leave it at that, then you’re exactly the person you’ve made yourself out to be to the world.”
I blinked at Luke.
“I know there’s more to you, Ben,” Luke said. “Amy and I spent our whole friendship knowing that this mask you wear is to cover up your pain and to make sure you don’t get hurt again. We get it. But at the end of the day, if you don’t fix shit for yourself and figure out a way to get what you want, it doesn’t matter who you are under all that. You’ll just become the guy everyone knows. And quite frankly, that guy is an idiot.”
I stared at Luke.
He finally finished his drink and stood.
“Look, I want the best for you. I want you to be happy and I really think with Sofia, you have a shot at that. You don’t deserve a shitty future just because you have a shitty past. But you’re in charge here, Ben. No one else is anymore, and if you don’t make it happen…” Luke shrugged. “Amy and I are headed home. We’ll see you in Newport.”
He turned and left the bar, leaving me behind with the half-empty bottle of whisky, two empty glasses, and a heart that felt like it was cracking down the middle.
He was right, of course. I wasn’t the person I showed the world. But it wasn’t that easy. He didn’t know that because he’d grown up in a family that’s always wanted him. He was the one who didn’t want his family, not the other way around. He didn’t know what it meant to want to be someone else, to feel like the person he was just wasn’t good enough.
He didn’t know how it felt to think that everything would be okay as long as everyone stuck together… until he was the only one left and the rest had all walked away.
He could keep telling me that the guy I showed the world was an idiot, but at least that guy was safe from getting hurt. That guy could do anything because I’d made him up, so nothing could ever go wrong with him.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I wanted to grab it, but then I saw Amy walk out of the living room door to meet Luke.
I headed toward them.
Luke said a couple of things to her, and Amy shook her head… and then they turned and left.
My steps faltered, and I stood in the doorway that led to the bar.
I waited for Sofia to emerge. To see me.
I wanted her to come to me. I wanted her to tell me what the hell was going on. I needed her to so that she could tell me that this was real. That this was something we could work through, that it wasn’t just pretend.
When she didn’t emerge from the door, my heart cracked a little more, and that moment where I was willing to bare all slipped away.
I felt my mask slip tightly into place, and I turned back to the bottle of whisky that waited for me, pouring another glass.