Page 85 of Operation Sunshine
“How long will you be gone for?” Willow demanded.
“Three months. Sunshine, pasta, wine, and me dazzling the old master himself with my charm. Try not to miss me too much while I’m gone, eh?” He grinned.
The staff laughed, tossing congratulations his way. Someone shouted, “Bring back recipes!” Another yelled, “Bring back wine!”
Franco winked, batting away their remarks. “Please, I’m not a mule. But maybe if you’re lucky…”
“When do you leave?” Lexie asked.
He rolled his eyes. “You’re already anxious to get rid of me? I haven’t even bought my ticket yet. The stage begins the first week in September.”
Willow blinked. “But… that’s only two weeks from now.”
He nodded. “I only found out yesterday. To be honest, I’d given up hope.”
On the surface, it was vintage Franco: the loud voice, the quick smile, the magnetic energy. But underneath the banter and bravado, his chest ached with the echo of the morning, with the memory of Ben’s arms around him.
His eyes flicked for a second to where Ben stood, quiet, unreadable, his jaw tight, and Franco felt the ground tilt beneath him. He forced the grin wider and let the laughter carry him.
No onegot to see the crack in his armour.
The restaurant had emptied, and Franco sat opposite Ben in the quiet of the office, his legs sprawled, his smile more subdued now the crowd had gone.
They’d been talking logistics—flights, schedules, cover shifts. Practical things. Safe things.
And then Franco leaned back, his gaze softer. “Three months isn’t forever, you know. I’ll come back.”
Ben’s throat tightened. God, he wanted to believe that, but people changed. Three months in Florence could be three months of new horizons, new people, new opportunities. Franco could taste freedom, ambition, a bigger world than their little corner of Adelaide.
And if I asked him to stay? If I said don’t go, I love you?
That wasn’t love, that was selfishness. That was clipping Franco’s wings because he was afraid of being left behind.
Instead, he forced a nod, steady and calm. “Then I’ll be here when you do.”
He didn’t say the words burning his chest, not because they weren’t true, but because love was supposed to be open-handed. He couldn’t risk making it a tether, forcing Franco to say them back out of guilt or obligation.
Better to hold his silence than to tell the truth and lose everything.
Ben’s words rang in his head.
Then I’ll be here when you do.
It should have been enough. It should have eased the gnawingache in Franco’s gut, the fear that leaving meant destroying the best thing he’d ever stumbled into.
Ben hadn’t asked him to stay. He hadn’t saiddon’t go.And Franco couldn’t be the one to break first. Because what if he said those three little words—I love you—and Ben didn’t feel the same? What if all this tenderness, all the nights wrapped in warmth, all the laughter, was comfort, pleasure, and not permanence?
What if Bendidsay it back? Franco still had to go. Only then he’d be the bastard who broke a good man’s heart.
Better to retreat into humour, into safety.
He grinned. “You’d better not let Raj replace me with someone too handsome. Can’t have the kitchen forgetting me that fast.”
Ben’s smile was sad.
Franco swallowed down the words he couldn’t say.
Because God help him, he did love Ben. But love meant risk, and risk was a leap he wasn’t brave enough to take, not with everything else about to change.
