“One second,” he said. “It’s been a while. I know I screenshotted it… Here.”
He handed me the phone. It was a screenshot of a text conversation, my name at the top of the window. It started with me saying how excited I was and how happy Benji made me. I remembered typing that out, after a particularly explosive night. I’d been floating on cloud nine all day, smiling even though I was in charge of cleaning dung off the floor that day.
I kept reading, my smile quickly fading. Underneath Benji’s reply to my text with a bunch of smiley faces and stars, there was another text. It said it was from me, but I didn’t recognize it. Not one word of it.
“Benjamin, we can’t ever speak about what we’ve done, and we can’t ever do it again. You were a mistake, and now that it’s out of my system, it’s done. Never again.”
I read the words out loud, mostly to myself, none of it making sense.
“I never… what the hell? Benjamin? Since when do I ever call you Benjamin?”
“I dunno, I thought that was just you trying to be formal.” He arched a brow, his arms crossed against his chest. “But calling me a mistake? I think I’d take my full name over that.”
“No, no, this isn’t—”
“Why? Everything was going so well. I… we… You were my first time, Rex. I fell hard for you.”
Another explosive reveal. “First? I was your first? But you said—”
“Yeah, I lied. I wanted to impress you.”
I set the phone down on the counter, pointing at it. “Benj, I never wrote that. Not a single word of that text came from me. I would never have sent that. I would never have even thought that.”
He cocked his head. I could tell he searched for the truth, the way his gaze bounced across my face. There was nothing to hide, no twitches to give me away.
It was the truth. “I didn’t send that text.”
“I mean, I didn’t photoshop it if that’s what you’re saying.”
“Of course that’s not what I’m saying. I don’t know what happened. Maybe someone in Costa Rica stole my phone, sent that text without me knowing. But I swear, Benji. On everything I’ve got. It wasn’t me.”
He bit his lip. Chewed it pink. “Really?”
“I swear. That wasn’t me.” I rubbed the back of my head, shocked at how this night began to unfold. “So all this time, six fucking years, all because of that?” I wanted to shout and laugh and cry, all at once.
“But then…”
“Who sent it?”
He nodded, shooting a worried glance at the phone. Did he trust me? How else could I prove it to him?
“I’ll figure that out,” I said. “I want to know as bad as you do. I can’t fucking believe it. Six years. I moved out of the state, thinking I’d be better off. Instead, I climbed deeper in the closet and ended up with an involuntary sex tape hanging over my head.” The room felt colder, even though the heater was blasting a wave of warm air in our direction.
“Meanwhile, I was wishing I just up and left to New York, thinking that I’d bump into you on the subway or at a coffee shop. I daydreamed about that pretty much twenty-four seven, after the initial anger over that text wore off.” His lips curled into a smile. “No matter what, I really couldn’t stop thinking about you.”
“Fuck,” I said again, but this time my smile matched Benji’s. “‘Benjamin.’ Who even calls you that?”
“No one. Absolutely no one, except maybe at the DMV.”
A laugh from the both of us seemed to warm the room up again, anxiety and questions drifting away, leaving only me and Benji, standing a few feet apart, so close I could practically feel his body heat on me.
Or was that my own? Rising up like a thermostat left under a blazing sun.
Benji looked at me, his smile slanting back down. “I’m sorry,” he said, his gaze dropping to the floor. “I shouldn’t have blown up on you. If I just talked with you about it, we could have figured it out.”
“No, don’t do that.” Without thinking, I put a finger under his chin and brought his eyes back up to mine. “We can’t live in the ‘what-ifs’ like that. Shit happened, it was unfortunate, but it’s history now. We have to take it, learn from it, and create an even brighter future from it. Who knows, maybe if we had stayed together, things would have somehow turned out a thousand times worse. Maybe we needed those six years apart so we could appreciate every single second that comes after.”
My hand, at some point, moved from his chin to the back of his neck. I rubbed soft circles with my thumb.
Benji didn’t answer me, not with words at least. Instead, he pushed upward, his hands falling on my chest, and, in one breathless motion, he kissed me.
It felt like a super-cut from the creation of the galaxy zooming in on the two of us little souls locking lips, pressing our bodies against each other like we were desperate to become one. His tongue probed and licked and swirled, dancing with mine. His hands made circles around my bare chest, and our gym shorts did absolutely nothing to hide either of our excitement.
And then I remembered. We were still in his moms’ kitchen, not exactly an ideal place for this rigid reunion.
“Let’s move this to the guesthouse,” I said, growling against his lips. He smiled and kissed me, both of our cocks throbbing between us.
“Let’s.”
He turned off the light and started out the kitchen door. It was much colder outside than in, but with Benji holding my hand, I felt like I could dive into a pool of ice water and be completely fine.
We walked across the dark path that led around the pool and toward the guesthouse, where the light from the living room shone through the drawn blinds. I couldn’t get him inside fast enough, already feeling a tightening in my core.
“Whoa, hold up a sec.” Seemed like Benji had slightly different plans. He stopped us before we got into the guesthouse, only a few steps away.
“Looks like Tarrek didn’t close the volunteer gate before he left.”
Tarrek Sarnihov was one of the new volunteers Mia had brought on to the sanctuary, and I remembered him because he had a little bit of an attitude when we first got introduced. I thought he seemed an odd fit at the Gold sanctuary, with his biker gang–like demeanor and take-no-shit-from-anyone attitude, but one thing about Mia and Ashley was that they never judged any book by their cover.
If he can’t even close a gate right, maybe it’s time to shelve him.
It was a bitter thought, and only came because I was in a hurry to get Benji behind closed doors and completely butt-ass naked, and this whole “gate being open” detour was taking at least fifteen seconds away from butt-ass-naked time.
Six years is long enough.
Benji came back onto the path, grinning with a devilish look in his eyes as he looked down at my bulging shorts.
“All done,” he said.
“Great, now we can get started, then.”
I led Benji to the guesthouse, every footstep making my heart beat that much faster, my shorts feel that much tighter. There was a growing and unanchored need for him inside my gut, growing up from my groin, taking over my entire body like a wind-driven blaze.
The second we made it into the guesthouse, all bets were off. I turned to him, met with a gaze that shouted with lust. He bit his lower lip, and I didn’t even have to ask, not like all those years ago. I already knew the answer. I could feel it, the way our shorts both bulged. He was close enough for me to feel the heat, the stiffness. I could feel him throb against me, matching my own desperate pulse.