Ben opened his eyes, squinting and putting an arm up to block the sun’s rays. When he’d closed them God knows how long ago, the sky had been overcast, allowing him to watch the clouds as they passed overhead. But now the brightness of the surrounding world seemed too much to handle, as if the sun brought light to so many things Ben would rather have kept hidden in the shadows.
When he was a kid, he’d come to this same pond to think, lying on the grass or sitting on the small wooden bridge that connected the two sides. He remembered how he used to spend hours trying to get a stone to skip all the way across the pond. He’d come close a few times but was never quite able to make it go the full distance.
He sat up and grabbed a nearby stone. Then he threw it into the water and watched it skip, just as he had years ago, its ripples gradually becoming smaller until the rock eventually seemed to give up and sink. And even then, with only a small pebble, its slow descent still had an effect on the water around it. No action was without a reaction. That had been clearer today than ever before.
He looked at his phone, which showed four missed calls, and noted the time. He’d been gone a few hours and had no plans of returning to his parents’ house. There was no way he could go back and face everyone who’d witnessed his virtual implosion. And truthfully, they shouldn’t have to face him either. Today should have been a celebration of a union between two people who loved each other. But somehow Ben had turned it into the complete annihilation of an already tenuous relationship.
Or maybe relationships was more accurate. He hadn’t only decimated the small amount of progress he and David had made, he’d managed to simultaneously destroy any possibility of having a relationship with Ryan. Clearly, he had a knack for multitasking.
“You gonna play with rocks all day?”
He knew the voice, but unfortunately it was too deep and too annoying to be the person he wanted to hear. That person was probably long gone. He turned around to see Gabe and Jace walking toward him. They’d gotten there faster than he expected. They must’ve left the hotel right after Ben had texted them.
“I haven’t decided yet,” Ben answered truthfully. How the hell was he supposed to go back to the life he had in Philadelphia if that life didn’t include Ryan? “Thanks for coming.”
“Of course,” Jace said.
Ben took a seat on the worn wooden bench nearby and rested his forearms on his thighs. His head dropped so that his gaze fell on his clasped hands.
“What happened?” Jace asked, taking a seat next to him. Gabe flanked his other side, effectively containing him in case he decided to make a run for it. There was no telling what he was capable of lately.
Shaking his head, Ben let out a humorless laugh. He’d told the guys that Ryan had left, but that was all. “I got into it with David in front of my entire family. Told him I don’t look up to him and I hired an escort so it looked like I’d moved on.” Ben pushed himself back against the bench and tapped this thumbs on his thighs nervously.
“Jesus,” Gabe said.
Ben was sure the look on his friends’ faces mirrored his own. “But it wasn’t even true.”
The guys looked thoroughly confused, and Ben could understand why.
“Ryan’s not an escort.” He stood and, feeling a sudden need to move, walked a few feet in front of the bench before turning back to Jace and Gabe. “Well, she wasn’t until she met me.”
“What are you talking about?” Gabe asked.
“I’m talking about”—Ben’s voice grew louder—“the fact that not everyone who works in that little strip club of yours is an escort. Turns out some of them are only waitresses trying to pay their bills.” Ben put his hands on his head in frustration. Despite the fact that he was basically yelling at one of his best friends, Gabe didn’t get defensive or loud back.
“Jesus, Ben,” Gabe said. “I’m so sorry. I really thought—”
“It doesn’t matter what you thought,” Ben snapped back. “It’s done. Everything’s done. My relationship with Ryan, with my brother, with my entire fucking family. I just told everyone I hired a fucking escort.” He picked up a nearby stone and threw it hard against the water. It made it three hops before halting its progress and sinking. He threw his arms up and let them fall back down to his sides. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Go on with my life like none of this ever happened?”
The guys remained silent, probably trying to figure out if his question was rhetorical or not. He wasn’t sure himself.
Finally Jace spoke. “There’s no way this is all your fault. I’m sure David is as much to blame, if not more. He’s the one who’s always starting shit, not you.”
“Yeah,” Gabe said. “And you said yourself that I got you into this mess. I’ll go back to your parents’ with you, and we’ll explain—”
“You don’t get it.” Ben shook his head, letting it drop as he focused on the spot in the dirt he’d been rubbing with his shoe. “It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. All that matters is that things were said that shouldn’t have been and innocent feelings were hurt. And no amount of explaining will change that.” Hearing his own words caused a visceral reaction deep inside him. No matter how much he wanted to go back to that moment and say anything else but what he’d said, he couldn’t. There were no mulligans in real life. No five-for-fighting penalties to equalize what had been made unfair. “Just take me back to the hotel,” he said, his voice sounding devoid of any emotion. He didn’t even know how that was possible.
The guys nodded but said nothing. They finally seemed to have realized what Ben knew all along: There was no undoing what had been done. And as the guys turned toward the car, Ben picked up one more stone and skipped it across the pond that he wasn’t sure he’d ever see again.
And for the first time, it made it to the other side.
* * *
The ride from the airport had been eerily quiet. Camille hadn’t said much, other than an obligatory “I’m so sorry, sweetie,” to which Ryan had uttered a “So am I.”
Eventually, she’d tell Camille about what had happened to cause her split with Ben. But for now, all her friend knew was that Ryan and Ben had gotten into a fight and that she needed a ride from the airport. Though that wasn’t entirely true. She could easily have taken a cab back to Ben’s apartment to pick up her stuff, but she wanted the company of someone she could trust. Even if that company was relatively silent.
Camille parked on a street close to Ben’s apartment, and the two women got out of the car. “Why are you bringing up your bag when we’re here to get your things?”
“Because it’s not my bag.” The answer was simple. At least to Ryan. Camille, on the other hand, looked like she’d been she asked to solve some sort of physics problem. “The bag’s his, and so is most of the stuff in it,” she clarified.
“Why did you bring home his bag? Where’s yours?”
“This is mine.”
Camille turned toward her as she nearly ran to keep up with Ryan’s pace. “Should I be as confused as I am right now? Because I’m pretty confused.”
Ryan stopped suddenly, causing Camille to move a few steps past her. “He bought all this stuff, so it’s his.” Ryan realized that that wasn’t technically true. Ben had bought it for her as a gift, and Ryan had every right to keep it if she wanted. But she couldn’t stand the thought of keeping any sort of reminder of Ben Williamson, especially one that had to do with their “arrangement.” She didn’t want Ben, and she sure as shit didn’t want his money.
They made their way to Ben’s building, and Ryan barely registered the doorman and the woman at the front desk saying hello to her. It was like she was trying to remember a dream she’d had, but since she only got bits and pieces of it, it was impossible to put together.
Ryan nearly walked right into the elevator doors as she waited for them to open when they got to Ben’s floor. All she wanted to do was get this shit over with so she could move on and forget all about Ben, and his proposition, and their “relationship” or whatever the hell it was. She wanted to forget about his perfect, stupid family who had made her feel more welcome than some of her own family ever had. And she wanted to forget about how right things felt when she was with him.
As soon as she unlocked his door, she set his key on his kitchen counter—she wouldn’t be needing that anymore—and headed for his bedroom. She opened the bag she’d taken to Connecticut and began pulling all the clothing and shoes out of it and tossing it onto the bed.
“I thought you weren’t keeping the bag,” Camille said.
“I’m not.”
“Then why are you taking everything out? Why don’t you leave the bag with everything in it and grab your own stuff?”
It was a perfectly valid question, but Ryan didn’t know how to answer it. She didn’t know why she was taking everything out even though she didn’t need to. Maybe because she wanted Ben to see everything that could have been in the form of material possessions. Or maybe it was that she didn’t want him to come home to a neat apartment when she felt so chaotic inside. “Why are you asking so many questions?” she said to Camille. She picked up the bag and shook it over the bed to make sure everything was out and then she headed to the kitchen to grab a trash bag.
“Because, to be honest, you’re scaring me a little,” Camille said as she followed her to the kitchen.
Ryan let out a bitter laugh. “If anyone should be scared, it isn’t you,” she said, grabbing some of her own clothing and toiletries and throwing them into the white kitchen trash bag.
“Ryan,” Camille said. When she didn’t answer, she said it again, this time grabbing her arm to get her attention. “Ryan! What the hell happened up there?”
“Nothing.”
“This doesn’t seem like nothing,” she said, gesturing to the mess of clothing and personal items around them.
“I was an idiot, that’s what happened. I was stupid and naive and hopeful, and I shouldn’t have been any of those things.” As she spoke, she let the bag she was holding fall to her side and she stopped filling it with her belongings. “I should never have believed that there was something more to us. There was no us,” she said, finally letting the dam that had held back her tears begin to deteriorate. “There was only Ben Williamson, the wealthy professional athlete and Ryan Cruz, the out-of-work waitress.”
She shook her head, disappointed in herself. “We were never anything more than that. And I was foolish to think we were. That’s on me,” she said, pointing a thumb at her chest. “That part’s no one’s fault but my own. The one fucking time I let my guard down and some asshole tramples all over me.”
And that’s when it happened. The tears that had stung her eyes from keeping them in finally made their way to the outside world. And once the first few came, they seemed to multiply. She made no effort to wipe them away, instead letting them fall to the floor of Ben’s bedroom.
“That’s it, Camille. Never again. Don’t ever let me trust someone again.”
“You know I won’t agree to that.” Camille stepped toward her, her hands rubbing Ryan’s biceps before pulling her into an embrace. Ryan felt so weak in that moment, and she was thankful Camille was there to hold her up when she would have otherwise fallen.
Ryan took in a few shaky breaths before pulling back to look at her friend. “He told everyone I was an escort.”
Camille’s eyes widened with each passing second until Ryan thought her eyeballs might fall out of her head completely. “Oh no, fuck that prick,” she said, the anger rising in her voice. “Grab some of his shit. We’re gonna burn it in the street out front.” She’d already begun pulling things out of his drawers and was headed to the window, presumably to drop it onto the concrete below. “Does he have matches in his kitchen, or do you need me to grab some from the store down the street?”
“Camille,” she said, a faint smile cracking her somber expression for the first time since she’d left Connecticut. “Have I ever told you how much I love you?”
Camille smiled back, pausing long enough to run her free hand over Ryan’s shoulder. “I love you too, girl.”