Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
jason
The music didn’t get any quieter after Bennet walked in. If anything, it felt louder and heavier. The bass thudded against my ribs, matching my pulse, and I stood there with my back straighter than it had been all night, beer still warm and untouched in my hand, suddenly too aware of my own body.
He was here.
That should’ve been enough. It should’ve been a relief, a payoff, the moment where everything settled into something familiar and easy. Instead, it made everything sharper.
Bennet smiled at me from across the room, that slow, real smile that never felt like a performance.
It had taken me weeks to earn the first smile, and then he shared them with me generously.
He threaded his way through the crowd with Rowan hovering half a step behind him, grumbling at someone who got too close.
Bennet didn’t rush. He didn’t look nervous anymore. He looked sure.
And that scared the shit out of me.
Because I wasn’t just excited to see him.
I wasn’t just thinking about getting him upstairs later, about the heat and the closeness and the way he fit against me like he’d always belonged there.
I was thinking about how my chest had gone tight earlier, just imagining him standing in front of my door.
About how the thought of him not showing up had felt so wrong it hurt.
This wasn’t just sex. It hadn’t been for weeks.
Somewhere along the line, it had slipped past that point quietly, without asking permission.
Late nights that turned into early mornings and silences that didn’t itch.
The way he listened, really listened, like my words mattered even when I was saying nothing important at all.
And the way he told me to shut up, cute and feisty and so very right for me.
I’d done this before.
Not like this, exactly, but close enough to recognize the pattern, falling too fast. The way I gave everything right away, like love was something you could earn by being generous enough. The way I let myself imagine futures before anyone else had agreed to be in them.
I always told myself I’d be smarter next time.
I always believed it, right up until the moment I wasn’t.
Bennet laughed at something Rowan said and glanced back at me, checking in without even thinking about it. The look he gave me wasn’t possessive or questioning. It was warm. Assured. Like he knew where he belonged in this room.
With me.
My stomach flipped.
I’d been beautiful and temporary to so many people.
A good time. A phase. Something they enjoyed until it asked for more than they were ready to give.
I’d learned to be charming about it. I learned to pretend it didn’t hurt.
I learned to convince myself that wanting less was the same thing as being strong.
Standing there, watching Bennet walk toward me like he wasn’t already halfway under my skin, I knew exactly how this could end.
And I knew, just as clearly, that it wouldn’t stop me.
He reached me then, close enough that I could hear him over the music, close enough that his presence cut through everything else. He smiled up at me, eyes bright, completely unaware of the quiet war going on in my chest.
I smiled back.
Because no matter how many times I’d been burned before, no matter how badly this could hurt later, I was already in too deep.
And some part of me, the part that had always fallen hard and stayed standing alone afterward, didn’t want to pull back at all.
Bennet stopped in front of me like the room had rearranged itself around us.
Rowan peeled off almost immediately, muttering something about finding snacks that didn’t look like we’d gathered them from between the cushions, and just like that, it was the two of us, standing just a little too close to keep up the appearances.
“Hi,” Bennet said softly.
“Hey,” I said. I smiled so hard my cheeks hurt. “You made it.”
“Eventually.” He tilted his head, eyes flicking to the beer in my hand. “Have you actually been drinking that, or is it just a prop?”
I looked at the bottle in my hand. “I like the aesthetic. Think I’ll keep it.”
He laughed, a quick huff that felt like a reward. “Figures.”
We shifted closer to the wall, half out of the traffic flow, our shoulders brushing. The contact sent a stupid thrill through me, electric and bright. I felt giddy, like I’d had too much sugar or not enough sleep, like my body didn’t know how to contain all of this without shaking a little.
“How’re you feeling about Stats?” he asked, leaning in so I could hear him over the music.
I grinned. “Dangerously competent.”
“That’s a bold claim.”
“I know. But I did a full practice exam yesterday and only panicked twice.”
“Only twice,” he repeated solemnly. “That’s real growth.”
“I’m basically cured,” I said. “You’re gonna have to find a new project.”
His mouth curved in that small, pleased way he got when he was proud of me. “I doubt that.”
We talked like that for a while, jumping from one small thing to another: the test next week, Dud’s latest heroic failure, and the shiny knight’s eternal patience. It was our own shorthand now, references layered on references, jokes that wouldn’t land for anyone else in the room.
Every time he smiled at me, something inside my chest tipped forward.
I watched him as he talked, red lips all sharp and defined and precise, eye glimmering with curiosity that ran so deep through him that it was the very core of who he was.
I’d wanted people before. I’d wanted them intensely, messily. This felt different. Quieter and louder at the same time. Like standing at the edge of something deep and beautiful and having the urge to take the next step, even if it killed you.
“Jason,” he said, and I realized I’d drifted a little too far into my own head.
“Yeah?”
“You’re smiling like you just solved a murder.”
I laughed, rubbing the back of my neck. “Sorry. I just…like you.” The words slipped out too easily. Not a confession, not really. Something lighter. Safer.
His ears went pink anyway. “I like you, too,” he said, just as simply.
I looked at him and felt it all at once. The warmth. The fear. The urge to pull him closer and the equal urge to protect this fragile, perfect thing from my own tendency to break it by wanting too much.
Bennet shifted closer, his arm brushing mine again, unthinking and natural. He looked comfortable. Happy.
I swallowed.
“No, that’s not right,” I said, my mouth dry but the warm beer in my hand resembling poison.
Bennet frowned and cocked his head a little. Peanut showed up by my side, the loyal companion that he was, lending me courage by pushing his nose into the back of my leg as if to nudge me closer to Bennet. “What do you mean?” Bennet asked, tensing.
Did he really expect me to walk back on every sweet thing I had ever told him? Did he really think I hadn’t fallen in love with him by now?
“I like you,” I said, repeating myself clumsily. “But it’s more than that, Bennet. I…there’s no other way to say it. I love you. I really do. You’re all I think about, and I can’t shake it off. I love you.”
Bennet blinked four times in rapid succession.
Peanut whimpered, embarrassed on my behalf.
A bottle thudded against the soft carpet covering the hardwood floor, and all three of us looked to the empty hand and the gaping mouth and the wide eyes.
Rowan’s green gaze swept from my face to Bennet’s, then to the bottle on the floor.
“Don’t mind me. I just stumbled into a private conversation.
” He bent down and picked up the bottle.
“Looking for a bottle opener…” he mumbled to no one in particular, then latched onto the first person he saw.
“Hey, what do you think about CERN shutting down the research on…” His voice blended with the laughter and music.
Bennet didn’t move.
For a second, I wondered if the music had swallowed my words whole, if I’d said it too quietly or too fast and it hadn’t landed the way it had detonated inside my chest. But then he swallowed, visibly, his throat bobbing, and I knew he’d heard every syllable.
“Oh,” he said.
Just that. One small sound, stretched thin with surprise.
The silence between us felt enormous. The bass kept thudding, people brushed past, they laughed too loudly, they shouted lyrics they didn’t know, but none of it reached us.
I could hear my own breathing, a little too quick, a little too shallow.
I felt suddenly exposed, like I’d taken off something essential in public and only just realized it.
Bennet’s hands lifted, then stalled halfway between us, like he wasn’t sure where they belonged anymore. His eyes searched my face with a kind of frantic care, as if he was afraid of choosing the wrong thing to say and breaking me irreparably.
“Jason,” he said slowly, gently, like he was approaching a skittish animal. “I…”
There it was. The pause.
I nodded once, sharp and reflexive, like I was helping him along. “You don’t have to,” I said quickly. Too quickly. “I know. I mean, I don’t know, obviously, but I get it. That was a lot. I shouldn’t have…”
“No,” he said immediately. His hand finally landed, light but firm, fingers curling around my wrist like an anchor. “No, don’t do that.”
His touch grounded me and unraveled me at the same time.
“I’m not saying it’s bad,” he continued, brows drawing together. “I’m just… I’m surprised. You’re very…” He huffed out a breath, almost a laugh, but there was no humor in it. “You’re very intense.”
The word hit exactly where it always did.
I smiled because my body didn’t know what else to do. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve heard that one before.”
“That’s not what I meant,” he said quickly, shaking his head. “I mean… God, Jason, you’re important to me. You matter to me. A lot. I think about you all the time. I just didn’t…” He trailed off, visibly frustrated with himself, cheeks flushing. “I didn’t expect this. Not like this.”
I felt the drop in my stomach, slow and sickening, like an elevator giving out beneath my feet.
“Oh,” I said, this time quieter.
“We haven’t even gone on a date yet,” Bennet said.
Damn. He was right. I’d dropped the ball hard on that one. Weeks had gone by, and all we’d done was Stats, sex, and more Stats because you could never have enough of that. “You’re right,” I assured him, trying to keep my voice light. It damn cracked in the middle of it.
He squeezed my wrist, like he could feel me slipping. “I care about you,” he said, earnest and unwavering. “I’m here. I like this, whatever this is. I just need…” He searched my face again, voice softening. “I need to make sure…” His eyebrows knitted together. He heard it, too.
The words settled heavily between us.
I nodded again, because nodding was easier than admitting how much it hurt. Easier than saying that I’d sworn I wouldn’t do this again, that I’d promised myself I’d be careful, that I’d failed spectacularly anyway.
“That’s fair,” I said, forcing lightness into my voice like I always did. “I’m sorry if I freaked you out.”
“You didn’t freak me out,” he said, almost fiercely. “You just…surprised me.”
I believed him. That was the worst part.
We stood there, still too close, still connected by his hand around my wrist, and yet suddenly miles apart. I could feel the shift, subtle but undeniable, because something fragile had been touched too soon.
The music surged. Someone bumped my shoulder. The party kept being a party.
Bennet didn’t let go right away. When he finally did, it was careful, like he was setting something precious down instead of pushing it away.
“I don’t want this to end,” he said quietly.
Neither did I.
But standing there with my heart fully out in the open and his still catching up behind it, I had the sinking, familiar realization that I’d done it again.
Fallen first.
Fallen hard.
And no matter how gently he’d handled it, I was the one standing in the space afterward, wondering how to hold all of this without breaking.