I shake my head, not quite up to the task of talking as I take a seat on my bench. Finally, the lump in my throat eases. “It was quick. Better than it could have been.”
“Still…”
He doesn’t have to go on for me to know what he’s trying to say. I finally peer back over, willing him to be less intimidating than he seemed a few moments ago.
Sadly, he’s not.
“How’d you know to find me here?”
“I didn’t, actually.”
I frown in confusion.
He looks between me and the building behind me. “I knew you had a class in the Cahill Center. I looked it up, but once I got here, I realized I couldn’t just walk in, not during the lecture. I was trying to figure out what to do—how to find you—when you walked out here.”
Genuine luck. We haven’t had much of that in the past.
“Well, you happen to be sitting in my favorite spot.”
He glances around the courtyard, assessing it with careful attention.
“It could use some love,” he notes.
Yeah, well, couldn’t we all…
“I like it,” I say, a bit defensively.
“So do I,” he says seriously, his gaze flitting back to me.
An unexpected pang of sadness and yearning settles over me.
God, why does it have to be like this?
I’d hoped I would run into him someday and get another conversation, maybe even one more night, but this isn’t how I imagined it would go. This isn’t carefree or fun. This isn’t one last hurrah between old lovers. This feels like I’m rubbing salt in an open wound. I realize now, to my chagrin, that my heart just doesn’t stand a chance against Ben. I’m right back in that diner dress, heart on my sleeve, desperate and hopeful.
I force myself to look away and sit up straighter, pretend to be okay so I don’t have to pick my dignity up off the floor later, after he leaves.
“If you’re wondering how I’m doing, I’m fine. Back in school, just like you wanted. Working on my master’s degree.”
“I’m glad to hear it, but that’s not the only reason I drove out here to talk to you. Yes, I wanted to check on you, of course, but…”
Nerves wash over me. I grip the edge of the bench, staring down at the worn path at my feet.
More silence reigns. We’re both squirming and uncomfortable, dragging out this awkward moment and making it worse. Why is it so hard to see him again? Why can’t I just treat him as I would a friend?
I swear I hear him curse quietly under his breath, and then he quickly asks, “Are you seeing anyone right now?”
My wide-eyed gaze darts up to him then shyly falls right back to my feet.
I shake my head slowly and gulp down a million questions.
Why does he care? Why does it matter?
Please, Ben, don’t do this to me again.
“Are—are you?” I ask after mustering an ounce of courage.
He shakes his head and I lean forward off the bench, hopeful despite all the warning bells blaring in my head.
“What about Shelby?”
He frowns. “What about her? She’s married.”
And then suddenly I remember the most important question of all, the question I’ve been dying to know the answer to for the last year and a half. “And the baby?”
He nods. “Caleb. My son.”
I smile, and for the first time since I recognized him here in the courtyard, I feel weightless. “Congratulations.”
He nods, studying me curiously. “Haven’t you looked me up online? You could have learned about Caleb. Seen him, probably. I try to keep him out of the public eye, but I’m sure people snap photos of him without my consent all the time.”
My stomach squeezes in anger. “I’m sorry to hear that. I can’t imagine what that must feel like. And no, I don’t look you up. I did…briefly in the beginning, but then I learned it’s better not to. There’s a lot of information out there about someone like you. A lot. Some of it is silly innocuous stuff, like which brand of coffee you prefer. But there’s other stuff too.” I can’t keep the sour expression off my face. “Things I didn’t like looking at, gossip about suspected girlfriends…”
God, I feel sick.
He nods, understanding where I’m going. “Right.”
I wait for him to set the record straight on that fact, but he doesn’t. I guess he already said he’s not dating anyone, and that’s good enough for now.
“I looked you up in the beginning too. I mean, you gave me no choice in the matter, really. You gave Lele a wrong number. I tried to call you after I left.”
I can’t meet his eyes. “I thought it was for the best then.”
“And now?”
I scrunch my brows, trying to figure out what he means.
“What do you want now, Birdie? You want me to disappear again?”
I don’t respond one way or the other because truthfully, I don’t know. I’ve survived this long without him, so maybe that’s a sign that I shouldn’t go back down this road.
No!
C’mon!
Are you aiming to merely survive?
I’m so desperate for more, I wrap my arm around my stomach to keep from tumbling headfirst into Ben and demanding he remind me of what it used to feel like between us, back when I had something in life to look forward to.
For so long, I’ve deluded myself into thinking I should be solely focused on school. I could easily spend my entire life inside the Cahill Center, and the faculty and staff would applaud me for it.
Push him away.
Leave now. Just like last time.
Instead, my lips press together.
I have no idea how he interprets my silence before he continues, determined, “Come to my game tomorrow night. Lele will be there. She wants to see you.”
Now I know he’s just being nice. I don’t know why Leanna would want to see me. She must know by now that I gave her a wrong number before she left town. I hated myself for doing that, but it seemed inevitable. I knew she was going to pass it along to Ben. I knew a continued friendship with her would be a continued friendship with them all, and how was I supposed to deal with that? I needed a clean break, so that’s what I made for myself.
He stands and takes a lanyard out of his back pocket. Dangling at the bottom, there’s a plastic sleeve covering a special gold-leafed badge.
“For the private box,” he says, handing it over to me.
I take it, but still, I tell him, “You should give it to someone else.”
A beat passes—too long, and I lift my head only to realize he was waiting for me to muster up the courage to look at him.
“There’s no one else,” he says, meeting my gaze with brown eyes so warm I melt into them.
The courtyard doors open, and I turn to see the huge man from earlier standing in the doorway, the man I now realize must be Ben’s security guard. It makes sense. He’s slightly older, wearing that tidy all-black suit. He’s got an earpiece, and I suspect the discreet bulge on his right hip is a gun.
“Tomorrow,” Ben says before walking away, but I make no promises.
I sit on that bench, staring down at the badge, ignoring my lunch until it’s time for me to head back into Cahill. I keep my encounter with Ben a secret from my friends. It isn’t completely intentional. At first, I was in a daze when I arrived back at our shared office. I didn’t know quite where to start, how to condense everything into manageable bites without overwhelming them. Then, the opportunity just passed—we had to get to work and I had assignments to grade and post before the end of the day. I tucked the lanyard and badge into the bottom of my book bag and mostly forgot about it until later that night.