Page 87 of Just Enough

I knew I broke his heart. I could see it in his eyes.

“Emily, please.”

I didn’t want to be this girl. It would have been easier if Roger hadn’t been a decent guy. He just wasn’t my guy. He wasn’t Benjamin. Not that I would ever have more of my best friend.

“You deserve to love someone that loves you back just as much…That’s what I want too.”

“So what? You’re just gonna go run to Benjamin now that you’ve realized your feelings?”

I shook my head. “He’s my best friend… And he doesn’t see me like that.”

I turned to grab more of my things and he wrapped his arms around me. “Please,” he mumbled again.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, then I pried his arms away. “I’m sorry. And thank you.”

“For what?”

“For showing me that there are more good guys out there other than Benjamin.”

Still, Benjamin was the good guy I couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Don’t reply,” Benjamin muttered, breaking my trance.

I lifted my head, studied the scowl on his face as he stared at my phone screen, but it was in his eyes that I saw his vulnerability.

“I wasn’t planning to.”

Mom and Sarah had already disappeared back in the kitchen when he placed a muscled arm over my shoulders and tilted my chin up with his hand so that he could kiss me. Not just a peck. He delved his tongue into my mouth as if searching for my desire, my feelings, just anything he could take. And I gave him everything. I didn’t stop him. I let him pull me under a wave of smoke and desire until he was satisfied. Once he pulled away, something he saw must have pleased him because he rubbed his thumb across my chin and said. “My heart.” He used his free arm to grab one of my hands and placed it over his chest. “It needs you.”

“You have me,” I whispered.

“It doesn’t mean I’m not terrified of losing you.”

“Emily! Benjamin! Come, eat!” Mom called for us. I didn’t want to pull my gaze from Benjamin’s, but he broke it on his own and led us into the kitchen. There was a feast on the table.

“Wow, so much food,” I murmured.

“Do you like peach cobbler, Benjamin?” Sarah asked him.

“I do. Even more, if there’s ice cream involved.”

She grinned at his response. “I got you covered.”

“Great,” he replied.

Benjamin pulled out a seat for me and I sat down, then he joined me. Mom took notice and smiled. “So… How did this happen?” She was referring to me and him.

“Well, it just recently happened,” I mumbled, sneaking a peek at Benjamin who was watching me intently.

“Although we’re new together, my feelings for her are far from it,” Benjamin added, turning back to look at Mom. Even though he was smiling, Benjamin was on edge. I wondered if seeing Roger upset him a lot more than I realized. We were new and this with him was so terrifying because I didn’t want something to go wrong. He had to know Roger was nothing while he was everything, right?

“How’s your mom taking this?” I was surprised that Mom didn’t care to ask him that. Growing up next door to Benjamin, it wasn’t hard to learn how much Faith disliked me being Benjamin’s friend. She never told me to stop hanging out with him, but I was sure she tried to get him to stop hanging out with me. She’d just act and frown upon me and everything I did or said around her to the point that it was very clear that she disliked me.

“She helped me get with Emily,” he told her, fixing himself a plate of food.

“Really?” Mom looked at me.

“I guess that’s one way to put it.” I scooped me out some mashed potatoes on my plate. “The outcome was me ugly crying, and Benjamin getting to see what I had been trying to hide.”

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