Page 26 of Coming Home

“I had thought about that already, so I called first. They are open until eight tonight. You have plenty of time if you get moving now,” Mom said.

“What about the dishes?” I asked.

“Don’t be silly, your mother and I can handle that. Go, sweetheart, and have fun. Ben’s been gone a long time, and we know how excited you are to see him. We’ll be fine,” Dad said.

I nearly choked on the sip of water I’d just taken. He couldn’t possibly be serious. I tried hard to see it all through his eyes, but I just couldn’t. I also couldn’t disappoint them, even if it meant spending the remainder of the evening alone with Ben.

Half an hour later we were in Ben’s car driving to town. I stared out of the window silently.

“You know this wasn’t my idea,” he finally said, breaking the silence.

“I know,” I said.

“Seriously, sport, this is the last place on Earth I’d want to go. If there’s something else you’d rather do instead, that’s okay with me.”

My whipped around towards him and I felt hurt. “Why wouldn’t you want to go get milkshakes?” I blurted out.

Ben grimaced in pain. He took a deep breath and gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white.

“I know now that that sack of shit lied to me, and it’s taking a lot not to drive over to his house and kick his ass even right now.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Grayson’s wolf came in right before graduation. He told me that he had bonded with you, that the two of you were true mates.”

“And you believed him?” I yelled. He flinched a little at my tone, but I was on the verge of hyperventilating. “Please tell me you didn’t do anything stupid because of that.”

Ben sunk a little lower in his seat, but kept his eyes fixed on the road.

“Mom asked me to run into town to pick something up after school. I swung by to grab you after your last class, but I saw you and Grayson standing outside your classroom. You were laughing and he put a possessive hand on you and winked at me. He was claiming you in public and you looked happy. I left before I bloodied his nose or did something stupid. I was planning to take you for milkshakes while we were in town. Anyway, it’s all a little blurry from there, but I did end up at the ice cream shop, I just couldn’t bring myself to walk in without you. I felt empty, like I’d just lost everything I had ever cared about with that one touch I’d witnessed. Somehow I walked in next door instead.”

“The Army Recruitment Center,” I whispered.

He nodded. “Yeah. I signed up on the spot. I just couldn’t bring myself to tell you what I’d done until the last minute. And I’d tried to get you to tell me about you and Grayson, but you wouldn’t, and that only made me angrier.”

“Because there was nothing to tell,” I reminded him.

“Don’t you think I know that now? For nine years the one thing that got me through it all was the thought that you had found your true mate and were happy. I could live with that, even if it was Grayson Ward.”

“But I wasn’t mated, and I wasn’t happy, Ben. You just left me. You tore out a piece of my heart and took it with you. It’s taken me years to get past all of this and honestly, it’s only been in the last few months that I finally have, and now you’re back and I can’t deal with this.”

“Shelby, I’m not going anywhere,” he said, parking the car in front of one of our favorite places. I couldn’t tell him I hadn’t been back there since the last time I went with him. It held too many memories I didn’t want to face.

“But you are, Ben. You’re home on personal leave because of your dad, but you’re going back. You’ll leave me again and this time, I’m going to be prepared and protect myself from you. It’s best if we just don’t talk or see each other again while you’re home.”

I opened the door and got out. I needed fresh air to breathe that didn’t smell like him. He was out of his door and channeling his wolf speed to reach me before I could even shut the door behind me.

“Are you crazy?” I whispered. “Anyone could see you out here.”

“I don’t care,” he said. “You can’t just run away from this.”

“You mean like you did?” That was low and I knew it, but I would say anything to get him to leave again so I could begin the long, hard road towards getting over Ben Shay all over again.

“Shelby, my wolf didn’t surface until a few weeks into Basic. I didn’t know.”

“Know what, Ben?” I asked.

“I didn’t know that you were actually my one true mate,” he practically yelled.

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