Chapter 12 #2
Ben’s hand is still on my back, and I can feel the tension radiating off him in waves. But when I glance up at his face, I see the ghost of a smile touching his lips, a quiet current of pride in his expression. Because, for the first time in a long time, he’s in on the joke, and not the butt of it.
The guys drift back into their conversations, the party swallowing us up again, and I should feel victorious. Instead, I just feel tired of being the spectacle, the sharp-tongued girl who exists to entertain, but Ben’s reaction fuels me up for now.
It doesn’t last, and an hour later, I need air.
The party hasn’t gotten quieter. If anything, it’s louder, bodies packed so tightly together that the air feels suffocating. I’ve been doing my job—laughing at the right moments, leaning into Ben when his teammates are watching, playing the role of the cool, edgy girlfriend—but I’m exhausted.
I slip out the back door onto the porch, and the cold night hits me like a slap, sharp and utterly welcome. The temperature has dropped since we arrived, and my breath comes out in small white clouds that dissipate into the darkness.
I lean against the railing, pulling my jacket tighter around me, and let the quiet settle over me. A moment later, the door opens behind me. I don’t turn around, but I know it’s Ben. I can feel him, the way you can feel a storm coming before the first drop of rain.
He doesn’t say anything. He just comes to stand next to me at the railing, his hands shoved into his pockets, his breath visible in the cold air. For a few minutes, we just stand there, and it’s comfortable in a way that surprises me. Because he’s a guy who doesn’t need to fill every silence.
“You having a good time?” I ask finally, my voice low.
“Actually, I am.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” He glances at me, warm and sincere. “You make this easier.”
“That’s the whole point, right?”
Before he can answer, the back door slams open.
“Yo, Kellerman!”
Nash stumbles out onto the porch, his grin wide and wicked, his eyes bright with alcohol and mischief. Behind him, Stiles and a couple of other guys are crowding the doorway, their faces lit by the glow from inside. And I know, instantly, that whatever this is, it isn’t good.
“We all made a bet.” Nash’s voice carries across the yard. “Are you going to kiss your girl at all tonight?”
The challenge is public, deliberate, and designed to expose Ben’s awkwardness and make him the joke. I feel Ben tense beside me and watch his face flood with panic. He’s about to retreat, to make himself the punchline, and something fierce and protective surges through me.
Not on my watch.
I turn to face him, blocking out Nash and the guys in the doorway, my voice low. “Hey, this is what we’ve been practicing for, right?”
His eyes snap to mine, wide and startled.
I step closer, close enough that I can see the rapid rise and fall of his chest, the way his breath hitches when I move into his space. “Shall we?”
His gaze drops to my mouth, lingers there for a heartbeat that stretches into eternity, then comes back to my eyes. I can see the war happening inside him—the instinct to run crashing against the desperate need to stay, the desperate need to prove himself and shut these guys up.
For once.
Just once.
“Yes.” The word is rough and raw and utterly honest.
“OK,” I say, then grab the front of his shirt and pull him down.
The kiss starts slow—his lips soft and tentative against mine, like he’s afraid I’ll break or pull away or realize this is all a terrible mistake—but then I lean in, pressing my body against his, and he responds with a sureness that makes my knees weak.
His hand comes up to cup my jaw, his thumb stroking my cheek in a gesture so tender it makes my chest ache. When I open my mouth, he deepens the kiss, his tongue sliding against mine in a way that shorts out every coherent thought I’ve ever had.
His other hand slides down to the small of my back, then lower, his palm settling firmly over my ass and pulling me flush against him. And right then, I can feel everything. The solidness of his body. The hard ridge of his arousal, impossible to ignore.
But what gets me most of all is the way his breath hitches when I make a small, involuntary sound against his mouth—half gasp, half moan—that I didn’t intend to make and can’t take back. Because this isn’t performance, this is us, and it’s terrifyingly real.
The party, Nash’s whooping, the cold night—it all dissolves.
When we break apart, both breathing hard, I see it in his face, dazed wonder mixed with fear and the stunned realization that something has shifted, that the script we were following has just been torn to shreds. And I know I have the same look.
You want him, and he likes you. The familiar panic floods in, cold and certain. But they all like you, until they see what’s underneath.
Suddenly, I’m the one panicking, because it’s at this exact moment with every guy I’ve been with that I get my hopes up, only to get crushed when they see the real me. The doubt, the fear, the fragility. And, despite our deal and our assurances, that was real.
Behind us, Nash and the guys melt back inside, the bet resolved and the show over. The door swings shut, cutting off the noise and the light, and suddenly it’s just the two of us alone on the porch with the giant elephant waving at us from the lawn.
I watch Ben process it all, the new reality taking shape in his expression. He opens his mouth to speak—to say something honest that will shatter the safe frame we’ve been hiding behind, and force me to break his heart because I won’t risk letting him see the real me.
Because, if he does, he’ll recoil, like they all do.
And it’ll be my heart in pieces.
If he names it as real, I’ll have to respond. And if I let him in—
Panic is flooding me, but I also see his fragility in the trembling of his hands, in the vulnerability shining in his eyes. He’s the gentle boy who came in his pants a few days ago and begged me to leave. If he names this as real and I reject him now to protect myself, I’ll destroy him.
I can’t do that.
He’s too nice a guy for that.
My phone buzzes in my jacket pocket. I pull it out, my hands shaking slightly as I unlock the screen. It’s a text from Milo—something about tomorrow’s set list, completely innocuous and utterly irrelevant—but instantly I cling to it like a life raft from a sinking ship.
“Shit,” I say, loud enough for Ben to hear. I look up at him, forcing my expression into something tight and controlled. “Band emergency.”
It’s a lie, and I can see in his eyes that he knows it, but he doesn’t call me on it. “I can come,” he says. “If you need my fake boyfriend energy…”
“Save that for the gig in a few days,” I say, then soften it with a forced smile. “Stay. Enjoy your win. You earned it.”
“OK…”
I reach up, my hand resting briefly on his chest. His heart is hammering beneath my palm. “I’ll text you later, OK?”
He nods slowly, and a look of relief washes over his features, because he knows it’s real too. He felt it. But he’s choosing the lie, retreating into safety, hiding from his own feelings just like I’m hiding from mine. It’s straight from the Ben Kellerman playbook, the patented Kellerman Retreat.
The mutual cowardice should make me angry.
Instead, it just makes me deeply, terribly sad.
For what could be, and for what I can’t risk.
I turn and walk away, down the porch steps and into the cold night, my boots crunching on the frost-crisp grass with each step that takes me farther from something I want and can’t let myself have. But halfway down the block, I stop and look back.
Through the lit windows of the hockey house, I can see him re-entering the party. Nash throws an arm around his shoulders, pulling him into the circle with easy affection. Stiles says something that makes the whole group laugh, their heads thrown back, and Ben laughs too.
And for the first time since I’ve known him, I see him belong.
He’s one of them, finally, completely accepted. And I did that for him. The thought should feel good. Instead, it feels like a fist closing around my heart, because I’m standing out here alone in the cold, watching him be happy through a window.
The one person who might like the messy, scared me under the facade…
The person I was trying to build up to support our deal… our lie…
The person I somehow, at some point, caught feelings for…
The person I’m too scared to chance.