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Chapter 2

Ben

Normally I would’ve been more than okay with how the way the night was going, but I just wasn’t in the mood tonight. Not for this.

The girl leaned in, her hand slowly making its way down south.

“I’m sure you’re a lovely person, but I’m afraid you’re wasting your time.” Apparently, she was going to make things hard for me. Possibly in more ways than one.

“It doesn’t look as though he agrees with your statement,” she countered, shooting me a smug grin.

I tried to recall if she’d told me her name, but honestly, I couldn’t remember most of what she’d said to me, and maybe that made me an asshole. But my mind had been elsewhere, occupied by another girl—one I was too much of a coward to tell the truth to.

“Look, hon, you’re a gorgeous girl. I’m sure you can find someone in here that will appreciate both your time and company more than I can right now.”

It wouldn’t take much effort on her end. She was a knockout. With red, wavy locks that cascaded down her back, piercing green eyes that pulled you in with one look, and full lips that were begging to be kissed, she could bring a grown man to his knees.

And had my mind not been elsewhere—lost in images of her—I was sure I would’ve happily surrendered to her teasing.

“The only man I want in here is you,” she whispered into my ear, her warm breath brushing over my neck.

I bit down on my bottom lip, trying to ignore my body’s response to her touch. She went to kiss me again, her lips mere inches from mine when I stopped her, resting my hand on her shoulder. “Hon, you’re wasting your time.”

I was trying like hell to get her to leave, without being a complete dickhead. But she was a determined little thing.

“Why don’t you let me help you?” she purred, her hand clutching my belt buckle. “You know you need a release as much as I do.”

Man, where the hell was Nate when I needed him?

“It’s not going to happen, all right?”

She pushed off of me and readjusted her jeans before reaching for her the clutch she’d laid on the table earlier. “Suit yourself, loverboy.”

I leaned back in the chair, grabbed what I hoped was my beer from the table, and took a long sip, trying to lose myself in the music.

Pull it together, man.

What the hell was I doing? This was Gemma—my best friend, the girl I went to for relationship advice, the girl who had seen me at my worst, the girl who deserved better than me, and the girl who was off limits.

“What was the purpose for coming here tonight again?” Molly’s voice tore through my thoughts, and I turned to find her leaning on the table, her arms crossed underneath her chin.

“This was all your idea, genius,” I teased.

She smiled at me and rested her head against her fist. “Hey, you didn’t have to listen.”

“I’ll remember that next time you talk me into coming along with you.”

“Don’t even. We both know the reason you’re here tonight is because you wanted a night out with Gemma.” She grinned as she called over one of the shot girls. Molly purchased two test tube shots and tried to coax me into taking one with her.

“All yours,” I said, pushing the shot away. The last thing I needed was heavy liquor. My thoughts were scattered enough as it was.

“Works for me.” She downed both and thrust the empty test tubes at the shot girl before handing her fifteen dollars.

I ran my finger along the rim of the beer bottle, setting it on my knee, and ignored my sister’s rant on her latest failed date. I was sure I’d hear about it later, but it was damn near impossible to focus right then.

I stared up at the ceiling and the flashing lights as they danced along the packed pub, trying to shake her face from my thoughts. When I dragged her out with me tonight, I had a plan. But that plan seemed to go out the window the moment I’d parked the truck and seen the look of panic on Gemma’s face.

“Are you all right?” I’d asked her.

She’d climbed down, slamming the passenger-side door shut behind her, and looked over at me as I rounded the front of the truck.

“I’m okay.” Her words had come out barely more than a whisper.

I knew then, by the look on her face something was off, but when I’d offered to take her home, she protested. “I’m okay. I promise. Now, shut up, and let’s go have some fun, all right?”

She’d taken hold of my hand and tried like hell to pull me toward the front door, but she was no match against me. Gemma was feisty, but she was also a heck of a lot smaller than me. Even with her determination, there was no way she would succeed in making me budge. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy watching her try.

Watching as she struggled to drag me alongside her, all I wanted to do was pull her up against me and press my lips to hers, to show her how much she meant to me, and how much I wanted her. But I’d made a promise, and I knew I needed to keep it.

But that promise grew harder to keep with each passing day.

I had spent the past five years watching as she built relationships with other guys, all the time wishing it was me—wishing it had been my lips she’d been kissing, my arms wrapped around her waist; that it had been me she’d given herself over to completely. But I knew what I wanted came with a cost, and I wasn’t entirely sure I was ready to take that risk.

A wet bottle top slammed into my arm, and the sharp edges grazed my skin. “Cheer up, will you? Tonight is supposed to be about having fun. No more of this mopey nonsense you’ve got going on, okay?”

I rolled my eyes, tossing the bottle top back in Molly’s direction.

Fun. The entire reason I’d gone along with Molly’s idea in the first place. Tonight was supposed to be a fun night with Gemma, and so far, it had been everything but.

I really needed to learn to keep my tongue in my own damn mouth. And I really needed to figure out where my favorite strawberry blonde had gone off to.

“Have you seen where Gemma went, by any chance?”

Molly smirked, which was enough of an indicator I probably wasn’t going to like her answer. “While you were busy sucking face over there with Red, Gemma took off with Nate.”

The mention of Nate’s name took me by surprise. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

She shook her head. “Hey, the girl’s got needs. What do you expect her to do, sit around all night while you get yours? It doesn’t work that way, Ben.”

Sometimes I found myself wishing my sister had a filter, though I knew that, in this case, I needed to hear the truth. Even if I wasn’t a fan of it.

“Damnit,” I grumbled, taking to my feet.

Before I could ask which way they’d gone, I caught Molly pointing toward the other side of the pub, past the pool tables and the crowd. “If you don’t tell her, Ben, I will.”

“I’ll tell her when I think the time is right, Mols, all right?” This was not the conservation I wanted to be having right now. Especially not with my twin sister.

“Stop being a chickenshit, Benjamin,” she teased.

“I know you did not just call me Benjamin.” I looked back at her and laughed.

Other than my mother, no one used my first name. And I preferred to keep it that way. “Benjamin” reminded me too much of an old man, and I definitely wasn’t there yet.

“Love you, brother.”

“Love you too, you ass.”

She pretended to take a bow in her chair. “Now go get your girl.”

My girl. If only, I thought to myself.

I found her leaning against the jukebox, holding on to an empty glass as she gazed out into the parking lot.

The moon peered in through the windows, casting a soft glow over her. Her pale skin peeked out beneath her black tank top, standing out against her long, strawberry blond locks. There was no denying it. The girl was fucking gorgeous, but she was also off limits.

It all stemmed back to the conversation I’d had before her brother passed away last year. We’d stopped by her parents’ house after I’d picked her up from work, just like we had every other Sunday. for family dinner.

While Gemma helped her mother clean up, I would follow Trey out onto the carport to talk. Over the years, I’d developed a sort of friendship with him. He was a good guy—a bit screwed up, but even still, his heart had always been in the right place.

We’d been talking about Gemma, and how Trey was proud of her for going to college. He had always beamed when he talked about her, and that night had been no different.

I remembered how he’d asked me if she’d been dating, and I’d told him no. Which wasn’t exactly a lie. Sex and relationships were two different things, and I wasn’t about to talk to my best friend’s brother about her sex life. Even I had my limitations.

Everything was fine. We were laughing, talking, and just enjoying the night.

And then his mood had started to shift. He grew antsy as he pulled a cigarette from his pocket. At the time, I’d thought he’d been high.

Trey had been struggling with addiction for years. For a few months, he would manage to stay clean, but then one of his old pals would come around, and any progress he had made would be for naught. Just as soon as he managed to get his life together, he seemed he destroy it just as fast.

I knew the cycle well. I’d seen what it’d done to Gemma over the years. And in that moment, I feared he had fallen off the wagon again.

His movements had been alarming, but when he’d spoke, he seemed like himself. He seemed like nothing more than a worried older sibling.

“I worry about her, man.” He leaned against the gate, his cigarette resting at his side.

“She’s a tough girl, Trey. She’s more than capable of taking care of herself.”

He let out a laugh. “She may be tough, but this world has been known to break even the toughest of people,” he rebutted. “And she’s my baby sister, man. I’m always going to worry about her. After all, I’m not always going to be here to look after her.”

“Don’t start with this shit, Trey.”

“Promise me you’ll look after her, Ben.”

I lowered my head, unable to face him. “What the hell is going on with you? You’re acting as if you’re not expecting to be around much longer. Is there something I should know?”

He waved me off, lifting the cigarette back to his lips. “You don’t get it.”

“What the hell is there to get, Trey? You’re not making any damn sense.”

He tossed his cigarette on the ground, stomping it out with his foot. “I can feel it taking over me. This thing? This addiction? It’s killing me, both physically and emotionally.”

I stood up from my chair, ready to head back inside, but Trey stopped me.

“You may not want to admit it, but we both know I’m telling the truth,” he said. “And we both know how Gemma is going to react when it happens. She still believes I can beat this thing, Ben, but I’m not strong enough for this shit.”

When Trey had been admitted to the hospital a few months prior for an overdose, I was the one Gemma had called. I’d been in the middle of a shift at work, but nothing was going to stop me from being there for her when she needed me.

I raced over there, and ran up the stairs to her place, fearing what I would find.

Even during Ben’s relapses, he had always been there for Gemma. Always. And that night, she’d been forced to consider a world without him—a life without the brother who had always been there to protect her.

I remembered finding her curled up in the fetal position, just barely inside of her apartment, tears running down her cheeks. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t even look at me. It was as though the world had faded away, and all that remained was this broken girl, this fragile girl who needed someone to help keep her together, to remind her life was an asshole at times, but there was always something worth fighting for.

I couldn’t even bring myself to say anything, at first. What was one supposed to say when someone overdosed? It wasn’t as though my words would have changed anything or helped to ease her pain. Words didn’t mean shit. So I did the only thing I could think of. I lowered myself onto the ground beside her and pulled her into my arms.

She sat there in my arms for hours, with her head pressed against my shoulder, crying as the pain overtook her. I watched her heart break when he passed, and I promised myself I would do whatever possible to see to it she never hurt like that again.

“You can beat this, man. You can’t give in to this shit.” My words came out rushed, and my voice was uneven. “We can get you help, Trey.”

Even as I had spoken the words, I had known them to be bullshit.

Trey had been past the point of return, and we’d all known it. Everyone except for Gemma. She believed he could beat it. She had chosen to ignore reality; she chose to ignore the fact Trey was already lost to his disease. But I had to try to help him, for her. I knew what would happen, and I feared the impact it would have on Gemma.

“I need you to promise me you’ll be there for her and that you’ll take care of her in my place. Please, Ben.”

I wanted to tell him no. Not because I hadn’t intended to watch after Gemma, but because I wanted to believe he was just coming down. It’s nothing, I’d convinced myself. He’ll be fine.

“I promise.” Those were the last words I’d said to him.

Two days later, Gemma called me to tell me the news. Trey’s landlord had found him on the floor of his apartment, an empty pill bottle in one hand, and his cell phone in the other, with her number visible on the screen.

When I’d asked her if she wanted me to come by, I expected her to say no. There was no chance of Trey returning. There was no escaping the truth. This was different than the last time—this was permanent.

But she didn’t.

“I need you here, Ben.” Her words had tugged at my heart. I could hear the desperation, the pain in her voice, and I wanted nothing more than to pull her into my arms and do my best to piece her back together, just as I would do whenever she needed me to.

The night Trey passed away changed everything between us.

It was then I realized just how much I loved her, and just how much I couldn’t have her.

“There you are.” I sneaked up behind her, resting my head atop hers. I pulled her back against me and wrapped my arms tightly around her waist.

“Hey.” She peered over her shoulder and smiled at me. “Where’s your friend at?”

I tried to ignore the way she’d said “friend”. Almost as if she had been jealous of some random pub chick. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

I reached up, brushing her long hair over her left shoulder, and placed a light kiss on her neck. Her body shuddered against mine, as though my touch had awakened something inside her. “I’ve missed you, Gem.”

“Is that so?” she asked, spinning around to face me. Her hands pulled on my T-shirt, bunching the fabric in her hands.

Her eyes, a soft shade of gray, stared up at me, full of what appeared to be hunger.

Fuck. It was going to be hard to keep it together if the girl kept staring at me like that.

“What?” Blood rushed to her cheeks, staining them red. “Why are you staring at me? Did I do something wrong?”

I bit down on my bottom lip, grinning as I did so. “Not at all, Gems. Not at all.”

“Control yourself, Benny-Boy.” Nate crept up behind me, a glass of what I assumed to be rum and Coke within his grasp. It wasn’t as though he drank much of anything else. He extended the glass out to Gemma, waiting for her to grab it. “Where’d your little redheaded friend go? Ginger-girl was hot, man.”

I rolled my eyes at him.

That was the one big difference between Nate and me. He was a major playboy with a seemingly never-ending supply of girls willing to go home with him. I wasn’t like him at all.

I had occasional hook-ups. My mind was far too wrapped up in Gemma to even consider sleeping around, something I was perfectly fine with, because I’d yet to meet another girl that could compare to her—and I highly doubted I ever would.

“I’m sure she’s around here somewhere,” I said, pulling Gemma closer against me, grabbing on to the belt loops of her low-rise jeans. I brushed my thumb along the exposed area of her belly, grinning as her body responded to my touch.

She spun around, leaning her head against my chest, leaving just enough room between us for her drink.

“I like this.” She beamed.

I watched as she stirred the drink with the black plastic straw, as if she was trying to work up the nerve to say something—or do something. Either one was a good guess when she was drinking.

She glanced up at me, her long lashes highlighting her hungry eyes, and took a long sip from her drink. Was it normal to be envious of an inanimate object? Because all I could think was how I’d never wanted to be a straw more in my life.

“How many drinks have you had tonight, Gems?”

Nate laughed. “Let’s just say you may want to watch out for your pants.”

As much as I wanted Gemma to try and rip off my clothes, I wanted her to be sober. Not drunk. Because if that were ever to happen, I was going to make sure it was damn well memorable for her. “Ah, shit.”

“I’m fine,” she assured me, running her fingers down my chest. “No need to worry.”

“Except I am going to worry.” I grabbed the glass from her, handing it to Nate. “I think we’re going to get out of here. Can you make sure Molly gets home safe?”

He nodded. “Of course, man. No problem.”

I lifted Gemma into my arms, deciding it’d be a hell of a lot easier to carry her than to pull her through the crowd. She was starting to sway, and I didn’t want to lose her.

Gemma wasn’t a drinker, so for her to drink, something must’ve really pissed her off. And for her to be around Nate when she was drinking? It was pretty damn clear I’d missed something important.

Just as I started making my way toward the exit, a heavy hand pulled me back.

Nate stood behind me, Gemma’s nearly empty glass still within his grasp.

I arched a brow at him, both annoyed and curious as to what the hell he wanted. “What’s up, Nate?”

He rubbed his free hand on the back of his neck nervously and took a deep breath before speaking. “I know you’re blind as a bat, and you’re far too stubborn to tell her how you feel, but the girl loves you, man. It’s written all over her face every single time she looks at you.”

“You’ve clearly had too much to drink, Nate.” I went to move again, but he stepped in front of me.

“I’ve been drinking, yes, but my drinking isn’t the problem here. The problem here is you’re oblivious to the truth, Ben.”

“I don’t have time for this, Nate. I need to get her home.” I shrugged him off and made my way out of the pub with Gemma in my arms, stopping only when I’d made it to my truck.

“Where are we headed?” she asked, her voice heavy with exhaustion.

“I’m taking you home, Gems. You need to get some sleep.”

I opened the passenger-side door with one hand, careful to balance her petite body with the other. I slid her into the seat and helped her with her seat belt. I was just about to shut the door when I heard her speak.

“He’s right, you know.”

“Who is right, love?”

“Nate,” she answered. “He’s right.”

Well, this is about to get interesting, I thought to myself. After all, it wasn’t every day someone said Nate was right, and I was really hoping he wasn’t around to hear it. The last thing his ego needed was to hear Gemma say he’d been correct about whatever bullshit he had been spewing. I would have never heard the end of it.

“And what’s that he’s right about?” I asked.

“You.” She looked over at me and smiled. Her gray eyes were electric underneath the night sky, and her smile all-consuming. “I love you, Ben. Always have.”