The Magnolia Chronicles: Adventures in Modern Dating(62)

I pointed the comb at him. "This isn't fair. You aren't playing fair, Ben."

"None of this is fair, Magnolia. It hasn't been fair since the start." He untangled his arms to set his hands on his hips. I looked away. "Don't do that. Don't hide from me."

He needed me right now. Needed to hate me and punish me and then turn his grief on me. Needed me to gather up his broken pieces and put him back together.

He needed me to save him, to fix him.

And why wouldn't he want that from me? It was all I'd ever given him.

"I'm not hiding anything from you." I waved a hand at the inside-out robe I'd pulled on after dashing out of the shower as proof. Being inside-out, the ties were lost to me and it hung open. But remedying that would've required a lengthy process of taking it off, putting it to rights, and then donning it again.

"You're hiding," Ben said. "You don't want to do this. No more than anyone else. But you're hiding because you don't want to decide. You don't want to do anything because you're afraid."

I shook my head, stabbed my comb at him. "I'm not afraid of anything, thank you very much."

He made a sound, some sort of snarl-groan-sigh, and I heard the hardwood floor creak under his feet. I didn't dare glimpse in the mirror. I didn't want to watch him approaching me. I didn't want to spend any time with the sharp realization Ben expected me to heal him more than he needed anything else from me. More than he needed me.

But then his hands were on my waist and his body warm at my back and his words in my ear when he said, "Go ahead, sweetheart. Lie to me."

"I'm not lying. I have nothing to lie about. I've been completely forthcoming with you," I argued.

I felt him nod, his chin brushing the crown of my head. "Yeah, you have," he agreed. "With everyone but yourself."

I tossed the comb down, flattened my hands on the bureau in front of me. "Seriously, Ben. We're going to need to reschedule the soul-searching. Okay?"

He squeezed my waist. "How about tonight? About five minutes after you cut the suit loose."

There was absolutely no way any of that was happening. Aside from the fact I was planning on spending the night at Rob's apartment, I wasn't ready to end things with him. I didn't want to end things with him. But I wasn't prepared for the conversation Ben was intent on starting. And I wasn't ready to contend with the possibility that he was right about any of this. Not in the way he thought he was right, but those shades of difference didn't matter to him.

More than that, I wasn't interested in working through his weighty issues right now. I wanted the bad handyman, the tattooed firefighter, the guy who gave as good as he got. The sweet, sad boy who'd bought a house for his grandmother to live out her final days and invited himself into my shower to cry on my shoulder and confess his need for major emotional repair wasn't it for me. Not today.

That wasn't some new-found nihilism on my part but the reality I couldn't change or fix or save anyone else. I'd tried. I'd tried so damn hard. I'd poured all the energy in the world into others. Giving and giving and giving until I'd hacked myself straight to the stump. And I'd never once succeeded at changing or fixing or saving anyone else. But through all that failing, I'd learned how to save myself.

Finally, I said, "You're not playing fair. You can't come in here and make these demands. It's not fair to me." I glanced over my shoulder but didn't meet his eyes. "You wouldn't appreciate Rob making the same demands."

"I don't care what he wants," Ben replied. "It doesn't matter to me and I know it doesn't matter to you."

"Oh yeah?" I shot back. "How do you know that?"

He stepped closer, sandwiching me between him and the bureau. "Because you've never given him what he wants."

"And I give you what you want?"

He laughed. Chuckled, as if this was really entertaining. So damn funny that I was dating two men. Two wonderful, damaged, hilarious, hot hot hot men who wanted me. Really wanted me. Crazy super wanted me. Most of the time, I let myself believe they wanted me because they wanted to win. It was easier to make this attention about competition rather than the possibility two men wanted me enough to share.

"Not once," he replied. "Not once have you given me what I want. But I can't stop hoping my day will come."

"I'm sorry about that." Motherfuck. We were not doing this again. "I'm not trying to make this more difficult for anyone. I'm not trying to hurt you."

"I know." His hand shifted, sliding under my robe. Goddamn this inside-out mess. Why couldn't I pull off a good dramatic exit from the shower? "I know," he repeated, his hand still on my belly. "That's what I love about you."

"What?" I asked. "That while you're putting me in a completely unfair situation and making requests I can't possibly fulfill, I still want you to be all right? To walk away from all of this in one piece?"

"Yeah. That. That's what I love," he replied. "But there's only one situation where I'm walking away in one piece and you know it."

"Don't do that," I warned, elbowing him away.

"I can't help it," he argued. "But you can. You can make this better, Gigi."