35. BEN
35
BEN
“ H ey,” I said, clapping my hand into Luke’s when I arrived at Jester.
“What’s up,” Luke said, and I sank onto the couch.
“Nothing new,” I said. “What are we drinking?”
“Whisky, neat.” Luke lifted his glass.
I reached for my glass, which Luke had already ordered for me. A friend indeed, for sure. I picked it up and lifted it into the air in a salute.
Luke did the same, and we threw back our drinks.
The whisky burned down my throat with a smooth, smokey aftertaste. This was what I liked about well-crafted alcohol. It wasn’t just about getting drunk—although tonight was a great night for exactly that—it was about the art, the mastery behind it.
“You’re thirsty tonight,” Luke said when I refilled my glass from the bottle on the table, pouring way more than two or three fingers.
I shrugged. “It’s one of those days, you know?”
“Yeah…” Luke didn’t look like he quite knew , but whatever. I wasn’t going to talk about it.
“How’s work treating you?” Luke asked.
I shrugged. “Same old now that I’m back. Planes to sell, you know. Chris and Alex are gearing up for the yacht show in Monaco but I don’t know if I’m going this year.”
“Come on, it will be fun. We can go and have a ball.”
I nodded. Maybe. I would have to see if that was something I wanted to do. These days, nothing I used to love really felt worth it. Food turned to sand in my mouth. Activities I used to love bored me.
Hell, the last time I’d had a good cup of coffee that was worth my time was at the hotel. I didn’t even do that anymore.
It was just a bad patch, I told myself. It was just a slump because I was disappointed in myself for losing the contract.
“What’s Alex planning to do now that you lost Harborview?” Luke asked.
I knew he didn’t mean it in a bad way, but saying I lost Harborview stung.
I’d screwed the whole thing up, and I knew it.
“I don’t know,” I said, trying to act like I didn’t give a shit. “Find another location, I guess. Hopefully he sends someone else to do it, too. I’d rather be here in the office than work with people who don’t want to be helped.”
Every word I said was bullshit, and I knew it, but acting like I cared would just make everything worse.
Because I did care, and I didn’t want to admit to that.
I was a mess.
We drank together in silence for a while.
“How about you? Glad to be away from your family?”
Luke groaned. “Family is always bittersweet. We hate spending time with them and being forced into shit sucks. But they’re family, you know? You love ’em no matter what. They’re the ones who will stick to your side and be there for you no matter what.”
I wanted to argue with Luke, tell him he was talking shit. Family weren’t the people who stuck to your side, family were the people who gave you up because having you was too inconvenient… until I realized the Blackwoods had been my family for a long, long time. Sticking to my side no matter what. Loving me through all my mistakes and flaws. Caring for me even though there were times I didn’t deserve it.
Fuck, I’d been looking at my family as the pieces of shit who’d given me up, feeling like I just wasn’t good enough, but the Blackwoods were the ones who’d chosen me. They’d believed I was enough, and they’d made me a part of their family because they’d wanted me. From the moment they’d met me.
Those people who’d brought me into this world were… nothing.
The realization hit me in the chest like a ton of bricks, and it felt like my whole world was upended.
“You okay, there?” Luke asked.
He had no idea what monumental shift had just happened inside me.
“Fine,” I said and cleared my throat. “I just… Where’s your sister?” I glanced around. I wanted to get the attention away from me and it was weird that Luke and I were alone for this long. Usually, Luke and Amy were together, inseparable as they’d been since the day of their conception.
“She’s on her way,” Luke said. He glanced toward the door. “Oh, speak of the devil. Here she is now.”
We both glanced at Amy, who stormed into Jester with a scowl.
“And on the warpath, it looks like,” Luke said. He glanced at me. “Which one of us fucked up?”
“Ben!” Amy snapped.
“That would be me, I guess.”
Amy marched to me, wearing jeans and boots and a frilly boho top that made her look soft and approachable. But her expression was hard as nails, her light blue eyes nearly turning to ice.
“What did I do?” I already felt like I should apologize even though I had no idea what was going on.
“What the fuck were you thinking, leaving Sofia in the lurch like that?”
My uncertainty gave way to anger.
“That’s none of your business.”
“Of course it’s my business. Jesus, bro, don’t you have a heart in there somewhere? She’s fucking pregnant and you’re head over heels in love with her and you just want to be a monetary support?”
“Woah,” Luke said. “This is a little above my pay grade.” He started to stand, but Amy pinned him with a glare, and he sat down again. There was no doubting who was in charge between the two of them, and Amy looked like she wanted to eat both of us for breakfast.
“Sofia’s pregnant?” Luke asked when he sat down again. “You forgot to mention that to me.”
“That’s because he doesn’t want to be a part of the picture,” Amy said hotly.
“That’s not what this is,” I argued.
“Then what is it?” Amy asked.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luke asked.
I shook my head and gulped down half of my new glass of whisky. I needed the strength this alcohol could give me. I wasn’t ready to deconstruct this whole mess, but Amy looked ready to pull it all apart, and now Luke was on my case, too.
“You can’t just leave her to figure this shit out on her own,” Amy said.
“You’re not going to stick by her?” Luke asked. “Come on, dude, that’s not right.”
I gritted my teeth. “Gang up on me, why don’t you?”
Amy shook her head and sank into a seat, finally making me feel like I wasn’t staring down the business end of a gun. She had a way of making a man sweat bullets, and I felt sorry for the guy who tried to take her on.
Luke settled into his seat, too, and I sat down, but I stayed perched on the edge of mine. I took another sip of whisky.
“I was going to tell you when I was ready to fucking deal with it,” I said to Luke. “It’s not just something you blurt out along with talking about the weather.” I glared at Amy. “And you don’t have the right to take me on about this when you don’t know the full story.”
“Do you ?” Amy challenged.
“She doesn’t love me, okay? It was all fun and games, we played pretend to get the stupid contract. But joke’s on us because we didn’t get it anyway. So whatever. Let it go.”
Amy narrowed her eyes at me. “What makes you think she doesn’t love you?”
“She said so herself,” I said. “I overheard you talking to her. She doesn’t want to be with me and play happy families.”
Amy shook her head, pressing her hand against her forehead.
“You are such an idiot, you know that? Since when does picking up pieces of a conversation constitute a confession?”
“What are you talking about? I heard everything I needed to hear—”
“Or everything you wanted to hear before you decided to run with it. It’s more convenient for you to believe that she doesn’t love you because you’re too shit scared of the fact that you love her, too.”
I stared at Amy. I had no idea how to respond to what she was saying because she wasn’t wrong. Maybe a part of me had taken what I’d heard and used it in my defense because I wasn’t ready to admit that I was so in love with Sofia I could barely see straight.
And being in love was a weakness. It meant that all the stuff I was trying to hide would be laid bare, and what if there was something she didn’t want to see? What if what she found just didn’t cut it?
Amy still stared at me, but her face had softened.
“Do you want to hear the full conversation, or are you happy believing that she doesn’t love you?”
I pursed my lips together and shook my head.
“Are you seriously in love with her?” Luke asked. “Like, head over heels whipped for real?”
I glared at Luke but turned my attention back to Amy.
“Tell me,” I said.
Amy took a deep breath and told me the whole conversation. I’d only heard one part of it, and I’d taken that to heart, but there was so much more to it. Amy explained to me how a guy had fucked Sofia over before, expecting her to give everything up, making her feel like she was still not enough.
And that Sofia loved me.
That she was terrified of giving it all up again for nothing.
What hurt me the most while Amy told me all of it was that I’d done exactly that—I’d made Sofia feel like she wasn’t enough.
And if anyone had ever understood how it felt to not be good enough, it was me.
Fuck.
I hated that I’d done that to her. I hated that she’d been the collateral damage to my own disaster.
I hated it because I was in love with her.
And she was in love with me. Which meant that I had to do something to tell her that. I had to tell her how much I cared about her and how much I wanted her in my life.
I suddenly realized that I wanted it all. The wife. The child. The happy home. I wanted a family that was like the one I’d grown up in.
A family that was my home.
Sofia was everything, and I’d been an idiot letting it all slip through my fingers.
Richard had lost his wife because she’d passed away. He’d done everything in his power to show her how much he loved her and they’d done everything they wanted together… until he was forced to keep at it alone, with nothing more than her memory to keep him company.
Sofia was still very much alive, and if I let this go, if I didn’t do the right thing, I would lose what was important to me because I didn’t do the right thing. If we didn’t make memories together and grow old together, it wasn’t because of anyone or anything other than me and my stubbornness.
Alex was right.
I had found my Charlotte—the woman who’d changed everything for me.
And I had to go get her back.