Chapter 27 Ella #2
I said goodbye to them and then carefully pulled out into traffic. Parallel parking the truck had been a bitch, and I was thankful no one had parked in the space in front of me.
The drive out of Boston took all of my focus.
I swear the Massachusetts Department of Transportation was run by some sort of sadist who took pleasure in the misery of commuters.
Half of the streets I traveled down were familiar, because, over the years, I’d visited Megan enough to learn them.
I knew which ones were supposed to be two-way streets, but twice I came to intersections expecting that and was instead faced with “one way only” signs, the last of which led me straight to a brand-new toll.
Imagine that.
“You win today, MassDot,” I said, merging onto the highway and heading toward the Tobin Bridge, where I’d get to pay yet another toll.
Traffic stayed heavy out of Mass and well into New Hampshire. By the time I hit the Maine bridge on I-95, it started to clear up a little. After exit 75, I was the only vehicle on the road.
I spent the rest of the long drive stuck in my own head.
At dinner, Megan had kept harping on the fact that over a month had passed since Ben and I had last seen each other.
Was that enough time for him to decide if it was healthy to let me back in?
How did I even broach the subject without him feeling like I was pushing him?
I ended up doing that thing that I’m sure everyone does when they’re nervous: I rehearsed the conversation in my head, coming at it from all angles, practicing what to say if he seemed uncomfortable or uneasy or even standoffish.
This exercise took up the entire last leg of the drive, because apparently Ben still brought out the neurotic side of me.
The sun sank behind the mountains as I crested the hill leading to Jack’s, its dying rays staining the sky an ugly, mottled puce that spoke of another storm rolling in.
Jack waited for me on the front porch.
I got out and hugged him.
“Hey there, kiddo. Glad to have you back.”
“Glad to be back. Thanks again for watching the dogs.”
“You’re welcome. They’re pretty worn out.”
I let him go. “Did you take them snowshoeing?”
He turned and led me up the porch. “Nope. I had Boots and Doodle too, and those little gremlins have even more energy than yours do.”
I paused halfway up the stairs, shell shocked. “Is Ben here?”
Oh, God. Was I ready to see him right now if he was?
Jack chuckled, and for once it felt like our roles were reversed and I was the one to miss the joke. “Nope. He picked ‘em up about an hour ago.”
“Oh.”
I took the stairs up. I wanted to ask so, so badly why he’d watched them, but that suddenly felt intrusive. Which was weird after Ben and I had been all but attached at the hip.
“He asked about you,” Jack said, pushing the front door open.
I tried and failed to crush my rising hope. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he answered. “Seemed like he missed you.”
It felt like my hope lifted me clear off the ground. I floated into the living room. The dogs lay by the fire, sprawled out in exhaustion. They saw me, and with what looked like a heroic effort, they heaved themselves up and came over, tails wagging.
I crouched down and hugged them both. “Hi, you two. I missed you.”
The dogs whined and cried like we’d been apart a year instead of a week. Fred nearly knocked me over. Sam tried to crawl into my lap, whimper-howling in a way that made me want to promise that I would never leave them again.
Dogs. They’ll break your frigging heart.
Eventually I calmed them down enough to take them out and buckle them into the truck. I paused at the driver’s side door. “Thanks again for this, Jack.”
“Anytime. Hey, maybe give Ben a call before you head home.” He held his hands up. “Just a suggestion from a meddling old man.”
“I’ll think about it,” I told him.
I got into the truck and put it in reverse. What would I even say to Ben right now? Which of the seven hundred and eighty-six scenarios that I’d thought of on the drive up was the right one?
I made it to the end of the driveway, lost the battle with myself, and shifted into park and pulled out my phone.
Instead of calling, I texted, because I had no idea if I could handle speaking to him without breaking down.
I had a few voicemails from him saved on my phone that I’d listened to on repeat over the past few weeks, and they always made me cry.
Hi, I texted. Simple. So simple it didn’t have to mean a goddamn thing.
Hi, he immediately responded. You back yet? Jack said you were on your way.
My pulse spiked, adrenaline flaring like I was getting ready to run a race. Yeah. Just picked up the dogs.
Want to swing by? he asked.
Yes, I answered.
The butterflies in my stomach shapeshifted into a herd of stampeding wildebeests that seemed hell-bent on trying to break free. I felt like I could laugh or cry or vomit. Maybe all three at once.
That had gone so much better than anything I’d rehearsed.
In all my scenarios, I was the one to broach the subject of meeting, carefully, and without strings attached.
That Ben immediately invited me over gave me so much hope to cling to that if this went sideways, I’d be beyond devastated.
I’d be wrecked to the point that I didn’t know if I could ever come back fro –
“No,” I told myself, shaking my head against those thoughts.
I couldn’t allow myself to think of worst-case scenario right now. I was about to see him face-to-face for the first time in over a month. I needed to focus on that, take it one step at a time.
I pulled into Ben’s driveway a few minutes later.
He stood on the porch waiting for me, a big, looming shadow because the sun had just slipped over the horizon.
He stepped into the floodlights, and the sight was enough to still my heart.
He wore jeans and a blue button-down. His hair fell in loose waves to his shoulders, stirred by the breeze.
He tucked it behind his ears as he took the stairs down.
I got out of the vehicle and unbuckled the dogs before he reached us. They padded straight over to him.
“It’s only been an hour, you two,” he said, leaning down to pet them. The sound of his deep voice rumbled through the twilight. Hearing it felt like coming home. He straightened, and our gazes caught, a half-smile still frozen on his face. “Ella,” he said.
“Ben.”
And then I was moving forward. I didn’t even question this overwhelming need to hug him. There was some invisible force, drawing us together. The look of open longing on his face made it clear I wouldn’t be rebuffed.
What I didn’t anticipate was him hauling me completely off the ground. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on for dear life to keep from slipping.
“I fucking missed you,” he murmured into the side of my neck.
Oh, God. Don’t cry.
“Are you…Ben, are you sniffing me right now?” I asked, teasing him, because if I didn’t, I’d break down instead.
“Yes,” he said, unabashed. He shoved his nose into my skin and took deep, panting breaths like he was some sort of deranged werewolf scenting his mate.
“Your beard!” I said, struggling to pull away.
His response was to let loose a muffled, “Muah ha ha ha ha!” and sniff his way lower, until it tickled so bad I started to squirm.
He finally let me down when a scream-wheeze-laugh burst from my mouth, but the second he released me, a sob followed.
Great. So much for keeping my composure.
“Shit, are you okay?” He leaned down to look at me. His hair fell loose over his shoulders with the motion. I wanted to wrap my fingers in it and never let him go. Even in the darkness, his eyes were an almost inhuman color.
“I just really missed you too,” I told him.
And then it just. All. Poured. Out. “This has been the worst month of my life. Are you okay to have me back in yours? We don’t have to be anything romantic yet, if you can’t handle that.
I can just be here to puppy sit and work on the reno and be your friend and maybe verbally abuse all your Twitter haters. ”
He took me by the shoulders. “Ella.”
“And I know that sounds desperate, and maybe kind of pathetic, but I don’t really care. I just know that if you’re ready to have me back in any capacity, I would happily take that and I won’t even try to touch your butt or anything.”
“Ella,” he said with a little more force.
“And before you question whether or not I’m really ready for this, you should know that I’ve been stuck at worst-case scenario for weeks, so I’ve had plenty of time to think about whether or not I can handle that and I can because…because I love you, Ben.”
Oh, shit. Oh, shit, oh, shit, oh, shit. I just said that. Out loud. To a man who might not be in a place to hear it, or a place to accept it, or who might not return the emotion.
What the hell had I done?
He opened his mouth to respond, but I barreled over him. “You don’t have to say anything back to me. How you feel doesn’t matter.” I wanted to open a hole in the earth and bury myself alive in it. “Oh, Jesus, I mean, obviously how you feel matters, but I just meant that -”
And then his lips were on mine, and hope began to rise like a phoenix within me, swelling with so much heat and ebullience that it might do real damage to me if it was allowed to grow any bigger.
I laugh-hiccup-sobbed against Ben’s lips.
He pulled back just enough to whisper, “I love you too.”