I’ll Be Home for Ex-Mas #3
When they were a few feet away from the desk and no longer in earshot, Benji leaned his head toward hers, dropping his voice. “A cross between a porta potty and a vending machine? She really sold it.”
Francesca laughed. “Don’t tell me you’re not the least bit curious.”
“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Morbidly.”
Heather was right about one thing: the sleeping pods, whatever they were called, were impossible to miss.
And, weirdly enough, thanks to their glossy glass touch screens, they did look a little like giant vending machines.
Though Francesca would argue they more closely resembled fancy, high-tech photo booths than honey buckets.
“So, how exactly do these things work?”
“I think… Hold on.” She circled the cluster of napcabs, each a separate cubicle that butted up against the next, creating a big blocky rectangle at the far end of the terminal.
There were six sleeping pods total, five of their screens lit up red.
Upon closer inspection, those screens said, Occupied.
“You take it,” Benji said, realizing at the same time she did that there was only one vacant napcab, its screen lit green.
“No, you should—”
“Frankie.” He pinned her with a look that said he wasn’t going to back down.
She looked away, nibbling on her bottom lip as she eyed the sleeping pod. There was another option staring them straight in the face. “We could… we could just share it.”
She could feel Benji’s eyes on her, could feel him staring. Without looking at him, she shrugged.
It didn’t have to be a big deal. It was just sleep, and it wasn’t like they hadn’t shared a bed before.
“We… could,” he said haltingly. “If… I mean, if that’s okay with you.”
It was her suggestion. “Are you okay with it?”
Benji reached out and tapped the touch screen.
Renting the napcab cost fifty dollars for the first hour and thirty for each hour after that.
Six hours in the napcab was going to run them two hundred bucks.
It wasn’t cheap, but it was less than they would have spent on a hotel.
For the second time, Benji waved her off when she reached for her wallet, holding his phone over the contactless reader and selecting his Apple Pay.
“Can I least Venmo you for my half? Please?”
“Please.” Benji shook his head, chuckling under his breath. “You know what, if it’ll make you feel better, sure. Knock yourself out.”
The payment finished processing and Benji grabbed the door, opening it and taking a look inside before stepping back and sweeping out a hand for her to step over the threshold.
The pod was predictably cramped, but clean, everything sterile white from the sheets to the walls to the tile floor.
There was a teeny-tiny desk wedged into one corner, a closet just big enough to stow their carry-ons, and a bed that reminded her of the twin XL in her dorm freshman year at Lawrence.
She knew from experience that she and Benji would both fit.
“Here,” he said, holding out a hand. “Let me take your bag.”
While Benji tucked their belongings away in the closet, Francesca toed off her thick-soled winter boots, turned down the bed, and crawled under the crisp cotton sheets.
She hated sleeping in her jeans, hated it almost as much as she hated sleeping in her bra, but she wasn’t going to make this anymore awkward than it already was by stripping down to her underwear.
“Ha!” Benji laughed. “Hey, Frankie, look what I found.”
In his hand was one of those car air fresheners, the retro kind that hung from the rearview mirror and smelled like pine and was shaped like an evergreen tree.
“Someone left it hanging in the closet,” he said, beaming at her. He’d ditched the ball cap along with his hoodie and he looked more like himself with his golden curls unconfined and his colorful tattoos on display. “It’s… well, it’s kind of like a Christmas tree? Is that stupid?”
It wasn’t stupid at all. “No, it’s the perfect size tree for a napcab.
Here.” She held out a hand. “Let’s put it here.
” She leaned forward, propping it on the small shelf beside the bed.
“There.” She settled back against the pillows.
Or, well, pillow. There was only one. “That’s a good place for it. ”
Benji’s hand hovered over the light switched beside the door. “Are you good if I…?”
“Sure.”
He hit the switch and the room went dark, only the smallest sliver of weak light leaking in from under the door.
Francesca held her breath as Benji lowered himself down beside her, the mattress dipping softly beneath their combined weight. She couldn’t see as much as feel his hand hovering over her, just barely skimming the sheet tucked around her.
“You can,” she blurted, and god, was she glad it was dark so that he couldn’t see her blush.
“Put your arm around me. It’s a twin bed.
There’s really no way to do this without touching.
It’s fine. I mean, it’s not like we haven’t…
” She pinched her eyes shut. “You know, you could always just tell me to shut up.”
Benji’s chest rumbled against her back as he chuckled and curled his body around her, his knees tucked up behind hers and his arm wrapped around her waist.
“I like it when you ramble,” he said, his breath tickling the back of her neck. “I always have. You know that.”
“I don’t know. Time changes things.”
A pause followed, long enough that she’d convinced herself Benji was done talking until he whispered, “Does it?”
It took every ounce of restraint not to mold herself against him.
He was so warm, and he smelled just like she remembered, like fabric softener and spice and—home.
Benji had always felt more like home to her than anyplace ever had.
She wanted more than to mold herself against him.
She wanted to roll over and lay her head against his chest and listen to the beat of his heart.
She wanted to tell him that time hadn’t changed a thing for her, not where her feelings for him were concerned.
She wanted to tell him how much she’d missed him, that missing Christmas wasn’t so bad since it meant she’d gotten to see him, and that was a better present than any gift she could dream of finding under a tree.
That, if given a choice, right now there was no place on earth she would rather be than right here, crammed into the nap cabin—sorry, napcab—with him curled around her.
But she couldn’t. It didn’t matter how badly she ached to say the words; they wouldn’t change anything. Francesca had made her bed and now she had to lie in it. Crowded though it currently was.
“You asked me what it was like?” Benji murmured. “Being on a world tour?”
She nodded.
“You want the truth?”
Francesca frowned. “Always.”
“Well, then if I’m being completely truthful, most of the time it was pretty lonely.”
“Lonely? Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“You couldn’t have been that lonely.” She cringed, realizing belatedly how harsh that sounded. “I only meant… Come on, Benji, I’ve seen the pictures.”
She couldn’t imagine anyone who hadn’t. His face had been splashed across every tabloid in the supermarket checkout line, every gossip blog.
Francesca couldn’t even check her Instagram without stumbling across dozens of photos of Benji on dates with supermodels, stepping out of clubs and bars and climbing out of back seats hand in hand with some of the most beautiful men and women in Hollywood.
Clearly, Benji wasn’t wanting for company.
“Keeping tabs on me, Frankie?”
Hardly. The retort was on the tip of her tongue, but it would have been a lie.
Not the whole truth, at least. Yes, it was true that his exploits were inescapable, but Francesca hadn’t put up much of a fight.
She could’ve muted his name on her socials, but she hadn’t.
Maybe it made her a masochist, but she’d have rather had her heart broken every single time she opened Instagram and saw his face than go the rest of her life without seeing him, even if it meant seeing him with someone new.
“Maybe. Yes. I—” She took a deep breath. “I missed you.”
She was tired of pretending she didn’t, tired of keeping it to herself. Maybe it wouldn’t change anything, but maybe that didn’t matter. She wanted him to know.
He huffed against her skin. “Then why’d you break up with me?”
His voice had an edge to it that made her stomach clench.
“You know why,” she murmured. “It was—”
“So help me god, Frankie, if you’re about to say that it was for the best, I’m going to lose my ever-loving mind.”
Francesca closed her mouth.
“Who the hell was it supposed to be for the best for, anyway?” Benji went on. “Because it sure as hell wasn’t me. I missed you every day, Frankie. Every. Single. Day. Losing you? Could never be for the best. It was stupid, was what it was. I thought so then, and I think so now.”
“Maybe,” she whispered.
Benji sucked in a stuttered breath. “Yeah?”
She nodded.
“I didn’t want any of it without you,” he said, voice pleading, and something twinged near her heart. “You have to know that. Tell me you get that.”
“It’s been three and a half years,” she said. “Why are we even talking about this?”
“Can you look at me?”
She huffed out a wry laugh. “I can’t see a damn thing, Benji.”
“I don’t need you to see. I just need you to… Will you just roll over? Please?”
Francesca wiggled in his arms until she was facing him. Lying like this, she couldn’t figure out what to do with her hands, so she tucked one under her chin and rested the other lightly on his chest. “Okay.”
“You said time changes things.” Benji shifted beneath her.
She couldn’t see, not really, but her eyes had adjusted enough that she could make out vague shapes and outlines.
Benji tugged on the collar of his shirt.
A moment later his hand wrapped around hers, and then he was pressing something solid and smooth against her skin.
Her fingers closed around the skin-warmed metal, and her breath caught in the back of her throat. “Is this—”
“Time didn’t change anything for me, Frankie.”