33. Chapter 33
Chapter thirty-three
Benji
When Gina returns in the morning, I want her cabin back to normal. I take the decorations down first. Then I put away the food, snacking on it as I go, and wipe down the table and counter.
It’s easier to convince myself everything will be fine when I keep myself busy.
I’m in the middle of sweeping the kitchen when there’s a knock at the door. I’m stupidly hopeful before I remember Gina wouldn’t knock on her own door.
Briar steps in, holding Trouble. The moment the door shuts, she sets the cat down.
“I heard what happened,” she says with a sympathetic look. “Where’s Gina?”
“Staying with her mom tonight.”
She winces. “Are you okay? Did you want to talk about it?”
“Gina and I are good,” I say, and I hope it’s true. I’m good. I’m still all in. Gina seemed to be, too. But I have no clue if she’s having second thoughts about us.
I sigh and put the broom down. “Yeah. I want to talk about it.” I grab a beer and a bag of chips for each of us. Briar sits in the chair, and I take the couch.
“I don’t like that she needed space,” I say as Trouble jumps onto the couch beside me.
“Why is that?”
I bite my lip and think about it. “Maybe she’s not serious about me. There’s no point opening up to me if she doesn’t want me long-term. Or maybe she thinks I wouldn’t understand. Or I won’t want her forever because I’ll get bored or whatever. Or—”
Briar raises an eyebrow and waits.
Fine. I’ll say it. “Or I’m…not…enough.”
“Or Gina needing her mom tonight doesn’t mean she doesn’t also need you. It doesn’t mean anything is wrong in your relationship or that you are lacking. But it’s okay to be scared. Everyone is sometimes.”
I rub under Trouble’s chin and nod. I am scared, and I’ll always be a little scared of losing her. But Briar’s right—it doesn’t mean anything is wrong with the relationship. Or with me.
“She so clearly loves you,” Briar says. “Talk to her tomorrow. Let her know you might need more reassurance sometimes. She’ll understand.”
That’s exactly what I needed to hear tonight. “Thank you,” I say as Trouble starts purring.
There’s another knock at the door, but this time it opens, and Milo steps in.
Trouble immediately jumps off my lap and runs to him, twinning around his legs. He ignores the cat. “Gina here?”
“No.” I could say so many things to him, but the pinched look on his face makes me think I don’t need to. He knows. “Grab a drink and join us.”
Milo hesitates. But he leaves his shoes by the door, grabs a beer, and sits on the floor. Trouble climbs onto Milo’s lap.
“We’re talking about deeply seated personal fears and insecurities,” Briar says. There’s a challenge in her voice and how she looks at him. It might be because of her cat. It annoys her that Trouble likes me more than her but for Trouble to choose Milo? That’s gotta chafe. Or maybe it’s just Milo.
Milo, for his part, is looking at the cat on his lap in horror. He almost pets him, thinks better of it, and puts his hands on the floor, wincing as Trouble starts kneading his denim-clad thigh with those sharp claws.
“So?” Briar prompts with an approving smile for her cat.
“So what?” Milo asks when he realizes she’s talking to him and not me.
“What are you afraid of? What makes you fear you’re unlovable?”
His brows furrow as he stares at her, his expression all but screaming what the fuck?
So I answer. “I’m afraid that Gina needing to be alone tonight—even though we aren’t fighting—means she doesn’t seriously think of me as her husband, and maybe she’ll think I’m not worth the trouble all this caused her.”
Milo turns his stare to me, his expression unchanging. “She’s serious about you.”
“It’s a fear,” Briar points out. “Doesn’t have to be rational or based in reality.”
His gaze swings back to her. “What about you?”
“Oh,” she says lightly. “I’m afraid that I’m not cosmically jinxed and that I am, in fact, the problem.”
There’s an edge in that breezy tone of hers. I think she just got closer to the truth than she’d like to with us.
Milo’s looking at her a little too closely. Like he noticed, too.
Briar shifts uncomfortably in the chair.
“Your turn,” I say to Milo to take the heat off of Briar.
He’s silent for a long moment. He picks up his beer. Sets it back down. “I’m afraid I don’t know how to be a good friend.”
“It’s not that hard,” Briar says. “It all boils down to being kind and compassionate and communicating, doesn’t it?”
He glares at her. “Fine. Then I’m afraid I’m incapable.”
“Like you can’t change,” I say, and I think I understand.
It’s not so different from how I felt before Gina, trapped in a cycle of flings and one-night stands with people who didn’t want an emotional connection with me.
I thought I didn’t deserve more because I wasn’t enough.
“Like…if you try to change and make your friendship with Gina or your relationship with Diana more, you’ll fail and discover what you fear is true—that you’re not enough.
Which is probably everyone’s fear when you boil it down. ”
“Are you high?” Briar asks, side-eying me.
I shrug. “Gina’s mom left some cookies, so maybe.”
“I didn’t come here for group therapy,” Milo mutters, shifting like he wants to get up and causing Trouble to sink his claws in deeper. Milo gives up with a sigh.
“You are trapped under a cat,” Briar says. “So you might as well keep emptying your icy, shriveled soul.”
I don’t think that will work with Milo—or at least not tonight. But I’m sure he’ll be thinking about it. “Or,” I say, getting up and carefully removing Trouble from Milo’s lap. “We could sit by the campfire and eat some of those cookies.”
“Campfire,” Milo says, standing up.
“You two can enjoy some male bonding. I’m not getting chewed alive. You want Trouble tonight, Benji?”
“Yeah. I could use the cuddles.”
Briar stands and stretches. “And I could do without zoomies at three in the morning. He’s all yours.”
Robbed of Milo’s lap, Trouble is already walking toward the bedroom in search of either a place to sleep or some socks to steal.
Sitting in total silence with Milo at the campfire feels a bit weird. But we eat cookies and drink beer. He stares into the dark forest. I stare at the stars and think about the night Gina and I skinny-dipped.
She faced a lot of her fears tonight, and hers were a lot bigger than mine. I’m glad Dawn was there for her, and Gina accepted her. I’m proud of my wife. I’m going to make her so many pancakes tomorrow.
Occasionally, I glance at Milo and wonder if he’s also figuring things out. If he’s looking at those fears so he can conquer them and be a better friend.
I hope Diana’s thinking about things tonight, too. She might have been lied to, but the fact that Milo and Gina both felt they had no choice is something she needs to examine.
The fire eventually burns down. Milo gets up to put it out.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
I nod and yawn. “Any time.”
He disappears into the dark to wherever he’s pitched his tent these days. I head inside. Trouble curls up in bed with me, but it’s not the same as having Gina next to me.
I dream about her. We’re in the lake, and her hair is like gold in the sun. Her laugh carries across the water, but it’s too beautiful a sound to keep to myself. I’m glad the ducks and frogs get to hear it. When I kiss her, her lips are so warm and sweet. But then she pats my arm.
She pats my arm again and again. When she smacks it, I startle awake.
It’s not Gina.
I scramble to sit against the headboard as the two men from Vegas loom over the bed.