Chapter 9-Benji
The room is decent.
That’s the best word for it.
Cheap roadside motel, two floors, shitty-looking neon sign outside with at least two letters that don’t work, and a parking lot that’s seen better decades—but inside?
It’s clean.
Thank fuck.
Fresh sheets.
No stains I can see.
Air smells like industrial cleaner instead of something worse.
A rattling AC unit hums in the corner, fighting the lingering summer heat.
It’ll do.
But as I stand there, watching Esme drop her bag on the chair by the door like she’s done this a hundred times before—I hate it.
Hate that this is where I took her.
Hate that this is what I can offer her right now—not because of money but because of time and where we are.
Because the thing is—she deserves more than this. More than me.
She always did.
Back then?
We didn’t have anything.
I was just a soldier.
Living on base. Counting every dollar. Scraping together a future one paycheck at a time and pretending that was enough.
But now?
Now I’ve got land.
Money.
A damn empire in the making.
And that house—Christ.
That house—the one we used to dream about.
And yeah, that’s why I built it.
Because maybe somewhere deep down, I always thought…
She’d come back.
Or I’d find her.
Or we’d—fuck.
I scrub a hand over my face.
“Don’t go there,” I mutter under my breath.
Because that road leads straight into something I’m not ready to deal with.
Not yet.
She tells me to shower first.
I don’t argue.
Because if I stay in this room with her too long, smelling like dust and sweat and everything we used to be?
I’m going to lose control.
And I already came too damn close yesterday.
I replay it again in my mind.
Yesterday morning.
Esme in my bathroom, barely dressed, hands on me, looking at me like I’m the answer to all her prayers.
Goddamn straight that was a close fucking call.
And this?
This is worse.
Because now we’re alone.
No interruptions.
No ranch.
No people.
Just us.
And everything we haven’t resolved.
I take the fastest shower of my life.
Cold water.
In. Out.
Done.
By the time I step back into the room, dressed in jeans and nothing else, I can feel her eyes on me.
Feel them like a touch.
Like she’s taking me in the same way I’ve been trying not to take her in.
I don’t say much.
Just tell her it’s her turn.
Because if I open my mouth right now, I don’t trust what’s going to come out.
She disappears into the bathroom.
The door shuts.
And the second it does? Everything gets louder.
The room.
My thoughts.
Her.
I hear the soft shift of fabric.
The quiet sound of her clothes hitting tile.
My jaw tightens.
“Jesus. Fuck,” I murmur.
The water kicks on.
And a second later—I hear that subtle change.
The one I know too well.
The very moment she steps beneath the spray.
My hands curl into fists at my sides.
This is fucking torture.
I should be doing something.
Checking the route.
Texting Micah.
Thinking about the delivery.
Instead, I’m standing here, staring at the bathroom door like it’s the only thing in the world.
Because part of me already knows where this is going.
Knows how it ends if I let it.
And the worst part?
I don’t even think I want to stop it.
But I really should, because I still need answers.
I need the truth.
Did Paul—the guy I knew since we were kids, my buddy who joined up with me to risk life and limb for our country—lie?
The question hits me again, harder this time.
Did that bastard set her up?
Did he fake those motherfucking videos?
Twist something innocent into something else?
My stomach turns.
Because the more I think about it—the less it adds up.
Esme.
The woman I thought I knew. Who knew me.
The woman I married after one damn weekend because I knew she was it—the love of my fucking life.
Would she cheat?
Would she lie?
Would she throw everything away for one night with Paul?
But then—would she leave eleven thousand eight hundred and something dollars sitting in our joint account?
Walk away from it?
Sleep in her van instead?
My jaw tightens.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I mutter.
It doesn’t.
It never did.
I just didn’t want to look too hard at it.
Because believing him?
Accepting that I was never good enough for her in the first place?
That was easier.
Easier than wondering if I got it wrong.
Easier than facing the possibility that I was the one who broke us.
“Fuck.”
The water shuts off.
My head lifts instantly.
Every muscle in my body goes tight.
The seconds stretch.
Slow.
Heavy.
The doorknob rattles.
And when the door opens—I stop breathing.
She steps out, wrapped in nothing but a long T-shirt, damp hair falling over her shoulders as she towels it dry.
Bare legs.
Bare feet.
Soft skin flushed from the heat.
And that look in her eyes—God.
That look.
It hits me right in the chest.
Because it’s the same one.
The one she used to get when she wanted me.
When she knew I was already hers.
My control snaps.
Because I can’t do this.
Can’t stand here pretending I don’t feel it.
Pretending I don’t want her.
Pretending this isn’t inevitable.
“Fuck it,” I growl.