CHAPTER 32 BENNETT
BENNETT
I don’t think I’ve ever raced off a plane the way I did once we landed after our game.
We won, but I didn’t give a fuck. I was rushing all my teammates in the locker room after, getting them on the plane, saying people wanted to get home to their families and the short hour-and-a-half flight felt like fucking five.
Once we landed, I bolted and told Nolan to grab my shit for me, and thankfully he agreed to it. And without the expected theatrics.
It’s now eight at night, I’m flying through my neighborhood and booking it up to my parking spot, where I throw my car into park and then get out, locking it as I hustle over to the elevator, with one thing on my goddamn mind: Bower.
I just have to talk to her.
Once I talk to her, then everything will be okay.
I fucking know it.
I get in the elevator, punch the number of her floor, and then rapidly press the close door button on the elevator that I swear doesn’t work.
As I ascend the building, I think about what I’m going to say to her, how I’m going to approach her, possibly even beg if I need to. I’m not opposed to it.
The elevator doors part and I make my way around the corner to her apartment, where I step up to the door, take a deep breath, and raise my hand, about to knock—just as it opens, surprising me.
“Oh, Bennett,” Bower says, shocked and looking fucking gorgeous in a red dress that forms to her stunning frame. Her hair’s curled in droopy waves and red lipstick paints her lips, making them look irresistible.
“Bennett, my man,” a guy says, stepping in behind her. Fuck. “Dude, I’m so glad I’m seeing you in person.” Cougar comes up to me and pulls me into a hug. “Thanks for hooking me up with your friend. Seriously, you did me a real solid.”
When he releases me, I feel like he’s taken every ounce of breath straight from my lungs.
“Bennett, you’re back,” Bower says, seeming uncomfortable.
“I am,” I say, looking between the two of them, clearly on their way out to a date. “Uh, Bower, can I talk to you for a second?”
“We’re actually on our way out,” Bower says.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Cougar says. “I’ll pull the car around.” Then to my fucking horror, he leans in and presses a kiss to her cheek before patting me on the back. “Meet you downstairs.”
Then he takes off, leaving me in the hallway with Bower, looking so damn fine, but not for me. For another man. The thought of that breaks me inside.
“I don’t want to keep him waiting,” Bower says, shifting on her feet, unable to look me in the eyes.
I don’t know how to handle this. I wasn’t expecting to find her going on a date with another man. Out of all the scenarios I ran through in my head on the plane ride back home, they never involved this, so I’ve lost all ability to speak. I’m so fucking caught off guard.
I want to tell her that I’m the man for her.
That she needs to give me a chance, to show her that we can make this work.
That there is no one on this fucking planet who is going to treat her the way I will.
That we’re meant to be together, and the sooner she realizes that, the better.
But every time I try to form a sentence, the pain of seeing her with another man, calling her sweetheart, kissing her…an aching pain I’ve never felt before ricochets around my ribs, nearly bringing me to my knees.
“Bennett, I really need to get going.” She looks me in the eyes, and when I don’t say anything, she starts to walk past me, but I stop her, my hand to her stomach, pulling a small gasp from her lips.
“Don’t,” I say, my voice raspy, full of emotion. “Don’t go.”
“I have to.”
“No,” I say. “You don’t have to go, Bower. You can stay here, with me, we can figure this out.”
“Bennett, you know—”
“I like you,” I say, turning toward her now and gently moving her up against the wall, cradling her beautiful face in my hands.
“I like you so fucking much, Bower. You’ve always been the girl I’ve wanted, but I’ve been waiting for my turn to make a move.
To show you that I deserve you, and I know I’ve taken so long, but I wanted…
I wanted to make sure you’d give me a chance.
” Nerves bloom in me as I find my words and throw my heart out on the goddamn table.
“I want you, no one else. It’s always been you, and I’m begging you to just give me that chance, to show you I’m the man you need. ”
Her lip wobbles as she tries to look away, but I don’t let her. I keep her eyes on me.
“Please, beautiful. Stay with me. I know you. I know there’s still so much more for me to get to know, but I want to be the one who champions you.
I want to support all your dreams and walk beside you.
I want to enjoy reading books with you, pleasuring you when you need it.
Let me be the one to spoil you, to worship you.
Let me be the one that gets to sleep next to you and wake up next to you in the morning.
You’re it for me, Bower. No one will ever own my heart like you do.
” I press my forehead against hers, our noses almost touching.
“Don’t go out with him. Be with me, Bower. With me.”
She tugs on the corner of her lip, her indecision written all over her face.
“Please,” I whisper, one hand on her cheek, the other on her hip.
“Bennett…I…I can’t,” she says, breaking the contact between us and moving to the side.
“Bower, you can’t leave. You don’t like him. I know you don’t.”
She walks backward, swiping at her eye, where a tear almost crests over. “It doesn’t matter, because you and me, it can’t happen. I need to move on.”
“But I know you don’t want to or else you wouldn’t be this upset. Please, Bower.”
She pauses, her eyes watering as she takes a step forward, hesitant, so I help her to close the distance as well.
“Bennett…I…”
“Just give me a chance, please, baby.”
Her hand falls to my chest, her eyes searching mine, so much indecision heavy in them.
“I want you, all of you, no one else,” I say as her hand crawls up to my neck. “I promise I’ll take care of you, be the man you deserve.”
Her watering eyes search mine as she cups my cheek.
She wets her lips.
“Please,” I whisper, feeling defeated in the worst way possible.
And then, she leans in and presses the softest fucking kiss to my lips, so soft that I barely feel it, making it seem like I’m living in some sort of fever dream before she pulls away.
“Please just let me be,” she says before releasing me and stepping back. “Let me go, Bennett.”
And then she’s gone.
Leaving me completely heartbroken.
I got so close…and she just took it all away.
“Thanks,” I say to OC, who hands me a beer and then takes a seat next to me on the couch.
After Bower left and I gave her a solid ten minutes, sitting outside her door, to change her mind, which she never did, I texted OC and asked him to meet me at Maritime, because if I am going to be in anyone’s company, it’s going to be with the guy who is also nursing a broken fucking heart.
“What happened?” he asks, leaning back on the couch with me as we stare out at the crowd.
“She’s out with Cougar, after I begged her not to go. After I basically tore my heart out of my chest, handed it to her, only for her to push it away and leave. But not without dusting a feather of a kiss across my lips.”
“Oh fuck,” he says, sipping his beer. “Dude, that’s…that’s brutal.”
“Yeah, I know.” I take a large gulp of beer, not interested in getting drunk tonight, but also not fighting the idea either.
“What did you say to her when you were begging?”
“I told her all the things I’ve been dying to say to her but have never said out of fear that it would scare her away, and well, it did exactly that.”
“I don’t think it scared her away,” he says. “She wouldn’t have kissed you if it did.”
“True.”
“Why do you think she kissed you?”
“Because she likes me,” I say, knowing deep in my soul that it’s the truth.
“There’s no doubt where her feelings are.
She wouldn’t have been so emotional if she didn’t like me.
She’s just not going to take the leap and risk it to be with me, and I think that’s what fucking hurts the most. Because I’d take the leap.
I’d do just about anything to be with her. ”
“That’s because you’re in love. Did you tell her that? Did you tell her you love her?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Thought that would be a surefire way to get her to run as fucking fast as she could away from me. At least when I told her I liked her, she just walked.”
“Shit, dude. That’s brutal. I’d like to say that the pain slowly eases, but I’m still living in it. At least Bower just went out on a date. My girl is getting fucking married to someone else.”
“With my luck, Cougar is proposing tonight.” I drag my hand over my face. “Fuck. I feel sick.” I set my beer down and rest my forearms on my thighs. “As much as I’m grateful you’re here, I think I want to be alone.”
“I get it,” he says.
“Sorry for dragging you out here.”
“Don’t apologize. I’ll grab a car with you.”
“Sure.”
Together, we head out of the bar as he types away on his phone before handing it over so I can enter in my address. As we wait outside, I stick my hands in my pockets and look around.
“Where the fuck do you think he took her? Do you think she’s snuggling into him, whispering into his ear?” I clench my hands in my pockets, wanting to punch my hand through the fucking brick wall behind me.
“Thinking about them together is not going to do you any good. Been there, done that.”
“He doesn’t even fucking deserve her,” I say, my anger getting the best of me.
“He doesn’t know her like I do. He doesn’t understand what she likes and doesn’t like, but then he’s able to fucking help her with her book truck idea.
Fuck!” I yell as I tug on the brim of my hat, starting to lose it as the pain and the unknown collide together, creating a war within me.
“Car service is here,” OC says as he nods toward a black Suburban.
We both get in the car, but I sit in the far back, away from the driver as OC joins me.