Chapter 13
Instead of dining out for dinner, we stop at a market and pick up a bottle of white wine and a box of pasta to cook at home.
Home.
When the word drifts through my mind, I take pause.
This isn’t home. Not even close. Iceland is thousands of miles away from home.
I’m staying in a suite I checked into exactly one day ago.
Yet grocery shopping with Ben, and then watching him carry those groceries into my suite and unpack them on the small kitchen table—just as he and the twins would do each time my mom returned from her weekly shopping trips with enough food for a small army—feels distinctly safe, distinctly comforting, and yeah, distinctly like home.
I definitely don’t want to feel this way, but I don’t think I have the power to control the way Ben makes me feel. The way he’s always made me feel.
“I’m going to run to my room and shower,” he says, shaking me from my thoughts. “I’ll be back over in a little while to start dinner.”
I stand in my own shower for far too long, replaying the kiss we shared today on a loop.
Last night when the power was out and I found myself wrapped in Ben’s arms again, I’d wondered if he could still kiss me the way he used to.
After today I know he kisses me better. Age and experience combined with the expert knowledge of what I like is a potent mixture.
Now I wonder what it would be like to do more than kiss Ben.
What it would be like if he were here with me now, in this steam-filled room with the hot water streaming over my skin like a caress.
I imagine Ben’s hands on me, his mouth on me, and as I do, I close my eyes and place my own hands on my body.
My fingers trace the smooth, rounded curve of my hips and head upward to cup my breast. A breathy sigh dusts over my lips as I lean against the tiled shower wall, my legs already in a weakened state.
As my thumb trails over the peak of my breast, I imagine it was Ben’s hand instead, and a rush of heat surges down to my pelvis.
While one hand caresses and teases, the other moves with the flow of water down my stomach and slides between my legs.
My middle finger lightly circles that particular spot, and I breathe a deep inhale as I sink into the wall at my back, my legs inching apart.
A shrill ping sounds from my cell phone on the counter next to the sink, jolting me from my…moment.
Probably not important, I think, eyes closing again.
Then I’m transported back to my fantasy of Ben in this shower with me, his tongue sweeping into my mouth, and I roll my nipple between my fingers, biting back the moan that rises in my throat.
My phone pings twice more.
Goddamn it.
Moment effectively shut down, I step through the steamy glass door. The cool air that greets me pimples my flushed skin and only heightens my current state of arousal. I grab a plush towel from the warming rack and wrap it around me, then pick up my phone to find out what is so fucking important.
Ben Carter
At your door.
You okay?
I’ve been knocking for five minutes.
“Shit!” I glimpse the time on my phone and realize I’ve been in the shower for forty-five minutes! “Oh my god.”
I check my reflection in the mirror. My skin is bright pink from my chest upward, my hazel eyes frenzied and unfocused, my lower lip swollen from being bitten between my teeth. I might as well hang a sign around my neck that depicts exactly what I was doing in that shower. “Shit, shit, shit!”
While I’m trying to figure out what the hell to do, my phone pings again.
Ben Carter
Starting to worry…
Without debating it further, I rush from the bathroom to the suite door, holding my towel tightly in place with one hand. When I yank the door open, Ben’s shoulders slump with relief. Then his posture stiffens again as his eyes sweep down my scantily clad body.
“Um, hi.” His voice is strained, eyes darting up to my face and then down again, like he’s really trying to be a gentleman here but is struggling.
I was already turned on before, and the way Ben’s looking at me certainly isn’t taming that desire.
A wave of silky heat sweeps over me like someone poured warm honey on my skin, and I make a deliberate effort to twist my towel in the palm of my hand instead of reaching for Ben and dragging him back to the bathroom to enact my very fantasy.
“I, uh, I was in the shower, obviously, and I lost track of time.” My voice comes out low and raspy, most likely a dead giveaway to the X-rated scenarios running through my mind. “Come in.”
I shuffle a few feet away from the door as he enters my room so he doesn’t get too close and tempt me further with his scent or his…Ben-ness. With the way my body is thrumming, I don’t trust myself to let him within arm’s reach.
“I’ll just finish getting ready while you start dinner. If that’s okay.”
Ben casts a look back over his shoulder with a devious smirk that dumps gasoline on the roaring flames in my belly. “Please. Finish whatever you need to.”
I practically sprint back to the bathroom and slam the door closed behind me, drop my towel and jump back into the running water, twisting the dial toward cool.
When I emerge from the bathroom a second time, now fully clothed, Ben is setting two plates of tortellini on the table by the glass wall overlooking Iceland’s southern coast.
“Sorry again,” I apologize as I pad barefoot to the kitchen area.
“No apology necessary.” He turns toward me, backlit by the evening sun streaming in through the floor-to-ceiling windows, and I take a moment to soak in how good he looks.
He’s wearing a charcoal gray sweater that appears soft, cashmere maybe, with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, dark jeans that fit his thighs just right, and brown leather oxfords.
His face is freshly shaved, and his normally tousled hair has been combed into place.
Ben put obvious effort into his appearance tonight, and I, well, I’m wearing an old college T-shirt with a hole in the side. It’s a small hole, but still.
An awkward silence falls over us, and I wonder if Ben can tell how ashamed I am for clearly misinterpreting his invitation to dinner as casual. After that kiss, I should’ve known better.
“How about some wine?” Ben asks, moving to the fridge and retrieving the bottle of pinot grigio we selected at the market.
“Yes, please.”
After he pours us each a full glass, we sit at the table opposite each other, the air thick and heavy while we both pretend to eat.
“We’re really not going to talk about it then?” Ben finally says, pushing his plate away.
I swallow a bite of pasta and take a long sip of wine. “Talk about what?”
“Hmm, I don’t know, Ems,” he answers dryly. “Take your pick. The way we had our hands all over each other last night, that kiss in the ravine today, or maybe”—the corner of his mouth flicks upward into the most aggravating, sexy smirk—“what you were doing in the shower when I arrived.”
My fork slips from my hand and clatters loudly against the ceramic plate, splattering pasta sauce all over my T-shirt. “Benjamin Harrison Carter!”
Laughing, he holds up both hands. “Okay, sorry. We won’t go there.”
I shoot him a reproachful look that screams, You’re damn right we’re not going there, while I futilely dab at my shirt with a paper towel.
“Let me take you somewhere,” he says then.
“What? Right now?”
“Right now.”
I don’t know if that’s a good idea. “Ben, I already showered. I don’t want to get dressed in all those layers again.”
He stands from the table, a look of determination tightening his jaw. “You don’t have to. Just throw on your coat and your sneakers. We won’t stay long. Please?”
With a resigned sigh, I nod, knowing there’s no way I can say no to Ben with the big, round puppy-dog eyes he’s giving me right now. I move from the table and slip on my sneakers and grab my heavy coat, and right before we head for the door, I down the remainder of my full glass of wine.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, Ben and I sit on a blanket he borrowed from the hotel suite on the black sand shore of Reynisfjara beach.
At this hour, dusk fades closer to twilight, and there are only a few other visitors out, mostly gathered at the cliff comprised of basalt columns to climb the steep vertical stones and pose for photos.
Ben and I weren’t supposed to explore this beach until tomorrow morning before we head farther east on our journey, but I don’t think this visit is about the job. He didn’t even bring his camera.
I gaze across the vast expanse of ocean and let out a long, peaceful exhale, pulling my legs into my chest and resting my chin on my knees, the sound of the crashing waves lulling me into a state of languor.
The smooth rounded stones and gritty black sand make for an aesthetically luring coastline, but like most things that have no business being as beautiful as they are, there’s a danger lurking unseen.
Sneaker waves have been known to take unsuspecting tourists by surprise on this beach, so one must always keep their guard up or risk getting swept to sea.
Ben and I sit far enough away from the shoreline to stay out of harm’s way.
“Ems, I know I screwed things up back then,” Ben says softly and out of nowhere.
My head jolts in his direction, but he keeps his gaze fixed on the horizon.
“I know I hurt you. Badly. And I know I have no right after what I did to ask you to forgive me, but I think we have to talk about it. And about what’s happening between us now. ”
Tears flood my eyes as my throat and chest simultaneously constrict, which is exactly why I don’t want to talk about this. Ben’s correct about one thing—he doesn’t have the right to ask for my forgiveness. So why keep bringing this up?
Anger simmers under my skin, mixing with years-old hurt, and when I speak, my words are clipped with resentment.
“Fine, you want to talk about it so badly? Let’s talk about it then.
You hurt me in a way that no one has ever hurt me before or since.
You were the first person I loved, Ben, and you broke my heart so completely that still to this day, I can’t fully trust another man.
Because how could I when the one person I thought I knew better than anyone else, the person that I cared about for my whole entire life, my goddamn best friend, ripped my world apart in a two-minute conversation and then literally disappeared as if he’d never existed.
So, there you have it, that’s the end of the story.
As far as what’s happening between us now, that’s called getting caught up in physical attraction. ”
The second I say those last words, I know they don’t feel right from the way they settle heavy in my stomach like I swallowed a brick. But fourteen years’ worth of resentment isn’t easily overcome.
Ben turns to me, watching with pain in his eyes as I swipe my tears away with the sleeve of my coat. “If you’ll just let me explain. Please?”
Scoffing, I shake my head. “Oh, you want to explain now? Where was the explanation when I showed up on your doorstep that next day? Or for the entirety of our senior year when you ghosted not only me, but my entire family?”
“I never wanted—”
“I don’t want to hear it!” I snap, ashamed my pent-up anger is surfacing on a public beach, even if no one is close enough to decipher my words.
“You were everything to me, Ben. Fucking everything. That summer was the best summer of my life. I know it’s dumb because we were just kids, but I thought you were my person.
” My voice falters, and my next words are nothing more than a broken whisper.
“I really thought we were going to get married someday. And I thought you felt the same way I did.” I pause, swallow past the painful lump in my throat. “I thought you cared about me.”
“It isn’t dumb, and of course I care about you,” Ben says, voice strained like he’s been sucker-punched. “But I—”
“But nothing, Ben.” I rise to my feet, needing an escape from this conversation while I still have any chance of surviving it. “When you care about someone, you don’t sleep with them on their seventeenth birthday and then never speak to them again!”
I storm off in the direction of the car, my feet unable to transport me over the gritty black sand fast enough.
Ben doesn’t try to catch up to me, so I suppose I’ve managed to officially squash this conversation once and for all.
For whatever that’s worth. Which right now, with tears spilling down both cheeks and an inconceivable ache throbbing throughout my entire core, doesn’t feel like a whole hell of a lot.
* * *
Back in my hotel room, alone, I clean up the remnants of our barely touched dinner and start to pour myself another glass of wine.
Then I think, What the hell, and lift the entire bottle to my lips like an anarchist. Pinot floods my mouth and spills down my old T-shirt, but it’s already covered in pasta sauce anyway, so I ignore the wet spot and flip open my laptop.
Sinking into a kitchen chair, I open my email and get an immediate sense of impending doom when I see a message from Calvin, sent a couple of hours ago.
I sit up straight and set my wine bottle off to the side.
As I click to open the email, I rationalize with myself that Calvin probably emails all the Internationals to check in during their trips.
Of course, it only takes a couple clicks of the mouse for that rationalization to be proven wrong, because the email is only one line.
One measly, infuriating line.
How is the recruitment of Benjamin Carter coming along?
—Calvin Cramer III