This Is Not How It Ends(95)

I was too afraid. If I looked at him, I’d lose myself. I’d fall in and be lost forever.

“Philip cornered me before he died. He asked me to take care of you. He was incoherent by then, making little to no sense, and you know what, Charley, I laughed at him, but I told him I would. I promised.

“But you . . . you were so damn angry. All that regret . . . You couldn’t see what was right in front of you. I thought you’d come around because you felt the same things I did.” He paused. “I loved you. I wanted to give you all the things he couldn’t. But then you didn’t want the same things . . . and I knew it was a lot to ask, having just lost Philip, so I waited. And I tried. But you kept pushing me away. So I did what you finally asked. I broke my promise to Philip, and I left.”

I was trying to hold back the emotions that were forming in my throat. I loved him so much I thought my heart would burst. I wanted him to reach over and kiss me, grab me in his arms, and never let me go.

“Why’d you come to New York?”

Sunny brayed, and I patted him on the head. My voice was gravelly. “You know why I came.”

The hammock tilted, and he grabbed the ropes. “I want you to say it.”

“It doesn’t matter now. It was a mistake.”

“It matters to me.”

“Why, Ben? You’re with someone else. You married her. That guy at the bar told me. What did you expect me to do?”

He dropped his head into his hands. What could he possibly say? I had lost my chance. It was over.

But then he laughed.

“I’m glad you think it’s funny.”

“Tell me what you want, Charley. I won’t ask again.” The laughter faded, and he was serious.

“You have no right to ask me that.”

He stood up, inching closer, his words stretching out. “Tell me what you want.”

“You love someone else . . .”

He pulled me up to meet him until I couldn’t look away. His eyes were deep pools, and I was falling in. “Forget everyone else.”

“It’s wrong, Ben . . .”

“Charley, tell me what you want.”

I concentrated on Ben. Ben standing in front of me. Ben asking me for something I had no right to give. It slipped out. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. “You.”

“Say it again, Charley. I didn’t hear you.”

My cheeks flamed, but I did what he asked, raising my voice a little louder, speaking a little clearer. “I want you.”

He pulled me closer, his breath in my ear. “Good, I’m glad we’ve got that settled.”

I shook my head, not understanding. He was so close, but we’d lost our chance. There’d be no more touching him, no last chance to love him. When he spoke, it was a whiff of air against my cheeks. “Charley, my guys have names for their significant others. ‘Ball and chain.’ ‘Girlfriend.’ When they think it gets serious, they tease . . . ‘the Mrs.’”

I was half listening, and he was inching closer, but what he was saying hadn’t fully registered. “Claudia’s not my wife, Charley. She’ll never be my wife. We broke up. It was a short visit. That’s when I got the letter.”

The world stopped spinning. I searched his eyes. “Say that again.”

“I’m saying you have no more excuses to push me away.”

A tear slid down my face. He kissed it softly, and I told myself this wasn’t a dream. This was Ben kissing me. Ben was here. Ben loved me.

“Do you know how much I’ve missed you?”

Now that I was able to tell Ben how I felt, I couldn’t find the words. I hugged him instead. I pulled him toward me and circled my arms around his waist. His found their way around my shoulders until the longing disappeared.

He was kissing the top of my head. “I love you so much, Charley.”

That’s when I realized I hadn’t said it back.

I took his hand and rested it on my heart.

“You don’t have to do that, Charley. I plan on touching you again.”

“No,” I said, feeling myself come alive. “Feel this. Feel my heart.”

His fingers spanned over my breast, and our eyes met.

“I love you,” I said through my tears. “I need to give you this. It’s yours.”

That’s when his lips came down on mine, and his hands flung the towel away. His mouth was urgent and powerful, our bodies knowing just where to touch. I was out of breath, overwhelmed with wanting. This was love. This was Ben and Me. But this is not how it ends either.



We barely made it to the front of the house and up the stairs of the Love Shack before he was on top of me. The want between my legs was almost as strong as the desire within my soul. Our bodies found each other again as though they’d never parted. When we were done, we lay there spent, my body snug against the curve of his chest.

“We just did it in the love shack.”

He tickled my skin with his fingertips, and we didn’t talk about the fact that neither of us had wanted to make love in Philip’s house.

“I want you to live with Jimmy and me,” he said. “I want us to be a family.”

I let the idea simmer, warming my skin.

“I want to make you breakfast in bed. I want to watch you fall asleep at night, and the hours in between . . .”—he slid his hand toward my inner thigh—“we can find stuff to do.” He was inching closer, and I felt him move against me. “Say yes.”