Page 107 of Falling into Place
Tears flowed down her cheeks in earnest now. Now that they’d started, she couldn’t stop them. She had to get off the phone.
“I have to go.” She didn’t wait for his reply and ended the call, sank back into the cushions, and let the flood take over.
Carly barely moved for three days. She had nowhere to go professionally and had zero interest in social functions. The beauty of food-delivery apps meant she didn’t even have to leave to eat and had meals delivered to her doorstep twice a day. For hours on end, she zoned blessedly out as she binged series after series, and for the most part, that kept her calm. But occasionally something tripped her memory—about being unemployed or worse, about Brooks—and she’d break down again.
After ignoring her calls and texts for several days, her mom stopped by unannounced, banging on the door until Carly finally let her in. With wide eyes her mom had taken in the disaster that was Carly’s apartment—food containers on the counter, dishes in the sink, randomclothes and books strewn around the living room, and demanded to know what had happened. After Carly told her everything—from falling for Brooks to alienating her best friend and getting fired, and finally him deciding to call things off—her mom made her take a shower then tucked her back in on the couch, cleaned the place up, and made Carly her first home-cooked meal in five days. She’d also offered Carly money, which she politely declined. She’d go crawling back to her old accounting firm soon enough.
An hour after her mom left with a promise she’d check back in tomorrow, another knock sounded on the front door. Carly looked around as she got up, wondering if her mom forgot something. Maybe she’d gone against Carly’s orders and told Sasha what happened, and her oldest friend decided to come check on her, too.
But the person standing on herGot Wine?welcome mat was the last person she expected to see.
“Benjamin?”
He looked exactly the same as the day he left nine months ago, from his cropped blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses to the University of Oklahoma T-shirt he wore at least twice a month.
Benjamin gave her a shy sort of smile. “Hey.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I, uh, came back early. Can I come in?”
“Sure,” she said, stepping back. “Yeah, of course. Come in.”
He crossed the threshold but didn’t go far, and turned to her with arms open and an expectant expression. She walked into his embrace, inhaling the familiar scent of his laundry detergent and trying not to compare it to the way it felt when Brooks hugged her.
“It’s good to see you,” he said into her hair.
“You too.”
He lingered there for a beat, then released her and walked farther into the living room. Pepper lifted his head from where he’d sprawled out in the middle of the couch, but made no move to vacate. Benjamin stopped in the middle of the rug and looked around for a moment.
“Not much has changed in here,” he said, smiling at her.
Thank God he hadn’t shown up a few hours sooner. “You know me,” she said. “Creature of habit.”
He remained standing there and rubbed the back of his neck, as if he wasn’t sure what to do next. They hadn’t spoken since their conversation about dating other people, and to be honest, once things had started up with Brooks she hadn’t thought about Benjamin all that much.
“Can I get you something to drink?” she asked, remembering her manners.
“Sure, I’ll take a water. It’s so hard to stay hydrated when I’m traveling.”
“When did you get back?” she asked, grabbing a glass from the cabinet.
“Today.”
“Today? As in, you flew back from South Koreatoday?”
“Well, technically the trip started yesterday, but yeah. I hope it’s okay I came over. I ... I didn’t want to wait to see you.”
She filled up the glass and brought it to him, then nudged Pepper off the couch so they could sit down. She wasn’t sure what to make of him being back in the States or of coming directly to her place, and asking about the former seemed like the safest place to start. “Did something happen to bring you back early?”
“The director of our program quit unexpectedly. It kind of shook things up at the company, especially with their internship program, so they cut us loose early.”
“Oh no, I’m so sorry.”
Benjamin opened the drawer in the end table to grab a coaster and set the glass on top. “It’s okay. I’ll figure out my next steps in the next couple of days. They still offered to give us letters of recommendation, so I’m not worried about finding a job somewhere.” He ran his palms up and down his thighs, which he usually only did when he was nervous. “But I, uh, I didn’t come over to talk about my job. Not right now, at least.”
“Okay,” she said, waiting.
