Page 19 of Operation Sunshine
“Let’s get out of here before you combust,” Franco teased, but his voice came out rougher than he’d intended.
Ben stared at him, his lips slightly parted, as if words had become a foreign concept.
At the car, Franco loaded the bags, humming softly. Ben stood a few feet away, his chest heaving, every nerve raw.
Franco paused and turned to gaze at him. His hair fell over one eye, and he brushed it back from his forehead.
Ben couldn’t look away.
Franco stepped forward, closing the distance between them again. He reached up slowly, brushing a stray leaf from Ben’s hair, his fingers drifting down to the curve of his ear, then the edge of his jaw.
Ben’s head tilted unconsciously into the touch, his breath stuttering.
“There you are,” Franco said quietly, scanning Ben’s face as if memorising every line.
Ben’s lips parted, his words trembling on the tip of his tongue. But before he could speak, Franco’s thumb ghosted across his bottom lip, feather-light.
Ben let out a ragged, involuntary sound.
Franco’s pupils blew wide, and for one electric moment, they stood there on the verge of something irreversible.
Then Franco pulled his hand back sharply, swallowing hard. He stepped away as if physically restraining himself, forcing his usual bright grin back onto his face like a mask.
“Next week,” Franco said, his voice too loud, too bright, “we’ll have you cutting squid guts like a pro.”
Ben slammed the boot shut so hard the entire car shuddered.
As they drove, Franco kept stealing glances at Ben.
Ben’s knuckles were white on the wheel, his eyes fixed dead ahead, his jaw locked tight. But the tips of his ears were pink, and every so often, his fingers tapped restlessly on the wheel, a rhythm that betrayed something deeper stirring beneath that carefully guarded surface.
Franco felt it too. Like a current running between them, tugging and sparking, waiting for one of them to slip. He pressed his palm to his own thigh, trying to ground himself, trying to keep from reaching across the console and touching Ben again.
The tension in the car felt heavy enough to crush them both.
Franco’s heart hammered, each beat screaming.
He wants this too.
Ben told himself he was angry. Furious, even. But underneath the fury lay a molten, terrifying truth.
He’d wanted every single touch, every tease, every accidental brush of fingers, every moment Franco leaned in too close.
It had been years since he’d let anyone get this close, and yet Franco had slipped past all his defences in one morning.
Ben pressed his heel down harder on the gas. He needed to get away. He needed to—
Franco’s humming drifted over, low and absentminded, a melody Ben didn’t recognise. Ben’s chest ached. He forced his eyes forward, gritting his teeth.
Do not fall. Do notfall. Do not—
Franco watched Ben from the corner of his eye, smiling softly to himself despite the riot of nerves twisting in his stomach.
He knew Ben was terrified. He also knew he should back off.
But after every micro-touch, every charged look, they were already past the point of no return.
And Franco wasn’t sure he even wanted to stop.
