Page 69 of Just Enough

Benjamin had his arms draped over Kelly as they walked to her car.

I thought my heart hurt when I didn’t say what I truly felt.

This time it hurt so much more.

Because the image of the two together stole all my bravery away.

Chapter 24

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Benjamin

3 days prior…

We were losingeach other.

I didn’t know any other way to put it. Ever since I left that day to go see Kelly, we’d barely spoken to each other. I had drunk too much that day after spilling my guts out to Kelly. I hadn’t felt bad about it either. It felt good to tell someone how much I loved Emily. Only Kelly said she had already known. She just wished she’d been wrong. She still tried to hit me up that day, but I turned her down, and she drove me to the apartment and dropped me off. Emily had already left. I hadn’t seen her at work yet though, but I had been drinking.

I wished she had been home when I got there. Alcohol made me bolder. I might have spilled my heart out if I had seen her. Emily had still never told me if she had gotten her chance to get drunk yet, but she hadn’t asked me again either.

Now she was distant, and I was too.

I wasn’t sleeping well. I was tired throughout the day. When I got home, I wanted nothing more than to spend my time with her because I missed her so damn much this month. But she didn’t offer me a chance to say much every night when she laid down, and maybe I didn’t give her the chance either. We were off-kilter.

I knew she had contacted Tiffany for the fourth volume’s cover, and it gave me the chance I needed to strike a conversation with her that evening. She was off work, but she wasn’t in the living room. She was in her room. I headed straight for her door when I got off work and knocked.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure.”

I didn’t like her cold response. I wanted to shake some sense into her and me because this shit was uncomfortable, and I hated being at odds with her. I didn’t know what went wrong. I didn’t make a move and still fucked up our friendship somehow.

I opened her door and stood there. “You going to let me read the fourth volume?”

She was sitting on her bed reading. I might have had a chance against her if my heart didn’t tremble at the sight of her. She wore a pair of shorts that didn’t cover her ass cheeks and a baggy white T-shirt.

“I wasn’t aware you wanted to read it.”

“What the fuck, Emily?” I snapped. “Of course, I’d want to read it.”

She lifted her head and seemed almost afraid of me. “I’ll send it to you then.”

“All right, what’s going on? Something’s been off all month. We’re not even talking to each other.”

“We do talk.”

“Saying ‘hi’ and ‘bye’ doesn’t count.”

She tilted her head, her eyes sweeping over me. “Go away, Freddy.”

“No, he’s here to stay until you stop this—whatever this is.”

“Why don’t you go hang out with Kelly? Bet you’d have a good ole’ time with her instead of coddling me!” She was glaring at me. If I wasn’t so pissed at this entire situation and her, I’d say there were heat waves rolling through her room. Even her anger was giving me a hard-on.

“I DO NOT CODDLE!” I yelled. “Damn, I care, Emily. You’re making me so damn crazy.”

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