Page 32 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Instead, what eats away at me is how lonely his life seems. Always on the road. A few friends scattered across the globe that sound casual at best. It’s such a stark difference from how enmeshed in the Miller family he used to be. He didn’t go a single day without hanging with my brothers; I’m certain of that. And I know he’s capable of deep connections, because he was my friend, too, my best friend if I’m being honest, and the times we spent at the lake together talking and trading secrets late into the nightwere some of the best times of my life. So who does he talk to now? I’m curious, but I’m also treading a delicate line here, so I decide to leave it alone for now.
After I’ve stolen at least half his fries and both our plates are spotless, I stand from the table and stretch my too-heavy arms overhead with a deep yawn. “I should go. Better rest up so I can get my ass kicked again tomorrow.”
Chuckling softly, Ben stands, circumventing the table to approach me. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You did great today.”
“Tell that to my broken body.”
For the briefest second, his eyes trail down my body and back up, and an infusion of heat sweeps through me, chasing his gaze.
Ben stops in front of me, close but still a respectable,professionaldistance away.
“Seriously,” he says. “We’re doing hard shit here. This isn’t easy for me, either.”
“Right,” I reply with a short, humorless laugh. “You weren’t even winded any of the times I made you stop to rest on that staircase from hell at Kerið Crater, and it wasn’t you who only made it halfway up that goddamn mountain at Strokkur.” I fold my arms over my chest, self-doubt again weaseling its way into my head.
“My assignments aren’t usually this outdoorsy,” I admit, hoping he doesn’t press this topic and I end up confessing the most strenuous physical activity I’ve previously endured for work was a tug-of-war contest at a Highland Games festival (in Connecticut). And my team lost. “I’m not Marcus or Mason. I don’t hike every weekend for fun. I don’t go out in the elements. Sometimes I need to take a breather during gentle flow yoga. How am I going to get through this trip? This is day two!”
“Hey,” he soothes, moving closer and gently grasping my upper arms. “Ems, you’re doing great. I promise. Iamused to hiking, and I might have held it together out there, but I came back to this room and spent forty-five minutes just standing in the shower with my eyes closed. That’s the real reason I answered the door half-dressed.”
A small laugh puffs past my lips. “Really?”
“Really.” Ben smiles, his hands slowly stroking up and down my upper arms.Professionally?Of course!Casually?Certainly! “It’s entirely possible I lost consciousness in there.”
A deeper laugh this time, which makes my achy abdominal muscles burn. “Ouch.” I lay a hand over my stomach. “My body really fucking hurts.”
Ben laughs, too, a raspy sound that’s deeper than fourteen years ago but still familiar in a way that makes my chest fizzle like a firework. “Mine, too.” As he sobers, his expression morphs into something earnest, something resolute. “Ems, I really want to clarify something. About yesterday. At the Blue Lagoon.”
“Oh god, Ben, I’m so mortified by my mistake.” I drop my head to hide the heat of shame blooming in my cheeks all over again. “I am so, so sorry for misinterpreting…well, you were there, you know. And thenyellingat you. And theninsultingyou. Basically just all of it. I’m mortified by the whole encounter and it was—”
“Hey, that’s not why I brought it up.” He tips my chin up with a knuckle. “I don’t need, or want, your apologies, Ems.” He bites his lower lip, hesitating. Then, “I brought it up because I wanted you to know that you didn’t completely misinterpret the situation.”
“Oh.” Everything around us fades away. The only things that exist in this world right now are me and Ben and my drumming heart that I’m certain he must be able to hear.
“I just—” He squeezes my arms, his thumbs trailing underneath my short sleeves. “I wanted you to know that I wasn’t about to kiss you, but it’s only because I wouldn’t do that without your consent. Not because I wasn’t thinking about it. And not because I didn’t want to.”
“Oh,” I say again.
“But I fully respect what you said about why it can’t happen. I get it. I just wanted you to know that you weren’t the only one who felt…” His mouth quirks. “Well, you were there, you know.”
Though I’m not certain what to make of the admission—he could’ve simply been as caught up in the romantic setting as I was—it still makes me feel better. He makes me feel better. But I shouldn’t be thinking about that, or whether or not hestillwants to kiss me, because I know from experience that Ben Carter can also make me feel as if the world has been ripped from underneath me.
And it’s that thought, or memory rather, of my broken seventeen-year-old self that grounds me, and I pull away from him and take long strides toward the door. “It’s late and I really should go. Good night, Ben.”
I flee his room with no further explanation and return to my own, unsettled by my thoughts and feelings. I can’t deny the buzzing electricity between us, or the way my heart races and my stomach swoops whenever he’s nearby. But I also can’t ignore the way my brain screams at me all the reasons acting on that attraction would be detrimental to my future, personally andprofessionally. Most unsettling of all, though, is that despite how much Ben hurt me in the past, despite how many sleepless nights I spent crying over what he did to me, I still have a soft spot for him. One that’s expanding in size hour by hour.
I don’t wish to hate him, I just wish to be indifferent when it comes to Ben, and I’m afraid the fact that I can’t is going to be my downfall. Sure, I was a teenager when he walked out of my life. Under different circumstances, it’d be easy to discount the relationship and write it off as no big deal. A high school fling I should’ve been able to easily recover from. Forget even. Certainly not still feel the deep-seated hurt almost a decade and a half later. But when I lost Ben, I lost so much more than my first boyfriend. I lost my first true love, my childhood friend, and a part of my family all at once. I cannot lie to myself and pretend it didn’t affect me as significantly as it did.
Full truth: to this day, I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved Ben Carter.
Scarier truth: I don’t know if I ever will.
Throwing myself across the bed, I seek solace in the one person who may be worse at relationships than I am and call Jacklyn.
She answers immediately with a snarky, “Took you long enough to call.”
“Sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“Busy with Iceland or busy with Ben?”
