Lost and Found (Twist of Fate #1)(31)

“Fuck you. Take it back,” Bennett said, pretending to glare at me until we both burst out laughing.

“What I don’t get is why my dad didn’t just throw up his hands and offer for us each to wear a Clemens one and he could wear the Jeter one himself. It was his, after all. Not like he didn’t support the guy— he loved Jeter.”

Bennett shifted to stretch out his legs. I noticed his grin had turned into a nostalgic smile.

“He was trying to teach us a lesson,” he said. “About compromise.”

I watched the golden glow from the fire dance across his features and felt my stomach flip around. That face I’d seen in the light of a hundred campfires growing up. Eyes I’d looked into more times than I could count. And now lips I’d had the singular pleasure of feeling against my own.

Bennett Crawford was beautiful.

“Well,” I said just as softly. “I guess we never learned the lesson, did we?”

He looked up at me, eyes bright with unshed tears. “You must miss him. I know I do, Xander, so I can’t imagine how—”

“No,” I said swiftly, but firmly. “You agreed. No talking about that night and that includes what happened to my dad.”

Bennett sat up straight again and put his hand on my shoulder. The little hairs on my skin seemed to turn toward his touch like flowers to the sun. “You’re right,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

I pretended like he’d never brought it up. “So instead of just handling the jersey thing like adults, we ended up in a fistfight on the fucking lawn,” I reminded him.

He chuckled. “And didn’t see your dad walk up to intervene until it was too late.”

“You gotta admit— you’re lucky my right hook landed on him instead of you,” I said.

He shoved my shoulder. “Shut up, asshole. I could have taken that punch. You were like twelve years old and scrawny as shit.”

“Wanna prove it?” I teased. “Let’s go right now.”

Bennett laughed and shook his head, but not before eyeballing my body from top to toes. The once-over made my cock fill, and I stifled a groan. No way was I going to consider a repeat of our earlier dalliance.

When he spoke, his voice carried a husky quality. “Maybe tomorrow when we’re fresh, big guy. I had a little too much action already for one night.”

And there were the twinkling eyes again. I felt my face heat up at his reminder of the action we’d shared earlier.

“So you and Aiden…” I began.

“Me and Aiden…” Bennett said with a small smile.

“You, ah, aren’t really together?”

God, why did I sound like such a freak?

“Nope. I told you that. In fact, I’ve tried to tell you several times, but you either wouldn’t listen or you refused to believe me.” Bennett looked over at me and straightened again before continuing. “Why did you think we were together?”

I rolled my eyes at him, forcing a laugh out of him until he held his hands up. “Okay, okay. He made some personal comments. But really, is that the only reason?” Bennett asked.

“He touches you,” I said, feeling my jaw tighten. “I don’t like it.”

The minute the words were out of my mouth, I wanted to take them back, especially when Bennett’s eyes went wide, and he opened his lips to respond.

“Why the kids?” I quickly said before he could say anything.

“What?”

“What got you into working with these kids?”

I watched as he leaned forward for a bit and studied the ground in front of him. He picked up a small stick and began drawing little patterns in the dirt. It was a typical Bennett move. Whenever the focus was put back on him or he had to talk about himself, he would start playing with whatever inanimate object was around. If he couldn’t find something to self-soothe himself with, he’d play with his fingers in some way, whether it was tapping them together in a kind of pattern or using them to toy with his hair or another part of his body. The habit had never bothered me when we were kids, but I was surprised he still did it as an adult. I figured it was a coping mechanism brought on by stress.

“Not really sure,” Bennett said. “One of my friends in college was part of the Big Brothers Big Sisters program so I got to meet the kid he was mentoring. The kid was real quiet and withdrawn with everyone else, but sometimes I’d see him talking to my roommate while he was helping the kid with his homework or playing video games with him and the kid just… lit up. My friend said the program was always looking for more participants, so I signed up.”

“Where did you end up going to college?” I asked.

“Harvard,” he said quietly, almost like he was reluctant to tell me. Maybe it was a reminder of how very different our stations in life were.

“Did you get one… a little brother, I mean?”

Bennett nodded. He’d started drawing an infinity symbol in the dirt. “His name was Colin. He was twelve. He lived in Boston with his mom; his dad had died a few years earlier in Iraq.” Bennett’s eyes lifted to meet mine. “A soldier.”

I nodded in understanding.

“Colin hadn’t wanted to be in the program— his mom had signed him up when his teachers had commented that his grades had started slipping after his dad died. He’d already been to therapy, but he was still struggling and pulled away from the kids who used to be his friends. He didn’t really have anyone besides his mom, so she thought the program would help.”