Lost and Found (Twist of Fate #1)(45)

I didn’t want to be just old friends. I certainly didn’t want to be a cordial acquaintance. And with only a few days left before he flew back to a world I never wanted to be a part of again, we couldn’t be anything more than that. So, there we were— in this awkward no-man’s land of people who had a shared past but no shared future. And it fucking burned me up inside.

As I staggered each boy’s departure from Gin Lake, I thought about trying to relax and just enjoy the company of my old friend for the time we had left together. It wouldn’t fix anything and it wouldn’t let me have all of Bennett like I really wanted, but it would have to do.

Because I knew that if I didn’t use the next three days to soak up as much of Bennett Crawford as I could before I lost him again, I’d regret it for the rest of my life.





Chapter 22





Bennett





It should have been you.

Part of me was actually pissed at Xander for what he’d said, but the rest of me was reeling with the implications. And it was bringing me to my fucking knees— to think of what we could have had together if we’d just been given the chance.

If his father hadn’t died.

If mine hadn’t been such a selfish son of a bitch who’d cared more about appearances than he had about his own kid.

If I’d cast open that door to Xander instead of shutting it that fateful night.

I would have held on and never let go. He would have been my first everything and I, his.

Xander and I both spent the first part of the hike lost in thought, but as the day went on, I forced myself to focus on drawing us both out of our funk. With so little time left with him, the last thing I wanted to do was wallow in regret and lost chances. There’d be plenty of time for that once I got home. Not to mention the near-constant worry I had for Lucky. I’d barely managed to avoid grabbing him last night and again this morning to demand he tell me what his foster parents had been doing to him. But Xander had been right. Lucky deserved these last days to enjoy what remained of the trip. Reality would return soon enough.

It didn’t take much more than a few stupid knock-knock jokes to get Xander talking, and within an hour we were dueling to see who could make the other laugh harder.

Aiden had left the campsite first thing that morning to get a head start so he could arrive at Caldera Lake before the first boy, so it was just Xander and me hiking together to bring up the rear in case of stragglers.

Once the joke-off came to an end, we spent several hours talking about lots of different things. The more he began to relax and open up, the more he started telling me about his time leading wilderness trips and some of his craziest adventures. He wound up talking a lot about his Aunt Lolly who, despite being a little bit nutty, sounded like a loving woman who’d provided him with a much-needed soft place to land after Mr. Reed’s death.

When it was my turn to talk, I told him more about the foundation at work and how I’d managed to grow it through fundraising events and word of mouth. I explained some of the pilot programs we’d introduced with high-risk youth in fine arts programs after school.

I couldn’t keep from laughing when I described how Daryl, one of the program teachers, had asked me out for a drink to tell me about what had happened with the kids one day. “He was so upset, I was worried he was going to quit.”

“Why?” Xander asked. “What happened?”

“Apparently when he told the kids they were going to the park for a painting class, some of them assumed he meant graffiti. So, they brought spray paint and were prepared to start tagging shit. You should have seen the look on his face when he told me.”

I put the back of my hand across my forehead the way Daryl had and sighed dramatically. “‘But Bennett, the police. What if the police had seen us? I’m too pretty to survive a night in central lockup,’ he said. I thought I was going to choke on my beer.”

“Did he quit?” Xander asked.

“Nah. I sweet-talked him into staying on and treated him to a nice dinner. He’s been teaching that class now for six months and the kids love him.”

“What else do you like to do besides work and volunteering?” he asked as we approached the top of the pass. “Do you spend time with your family?”

I looked over at Xander and saw him looking at the ground in front of him while he walked. It was unusual for him. Throughout the trip, I’d noticed that Xander always looked ahead or around him, taking in the views and his surroundings like it was the very air that sustained him. But when he was unsure, he kept his eyes down.

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

He looked up at me then with a quirked brow, so I explained. “Well, I mean, I work with my dad, so I see him a lot. And I have plenty of obligations to see them at company functions. But they also expect me for family things like birthdays and holidays.”

“You make it sound like a bad thing,” he observed.

I sighed and looked away, trying to put my thoughts into words. “You know how they are… were,” I began, glancing at him to make sure he was okay with what I’d said.

“You always felt trapped,” he said softly. “Is it still like that with them?”

I shrugged. “Can you be trapped if you’ve never actually tried to escape?” I asked absently. I shook my head and said, “I think I keep waiting for that moment, you know?”