Page 89 of Secret Nights and Northern Lights
Reaching his driveway, I maintain my pace, hurdling the few steps leading up to the cracked concrete porch and barely avoiding a collision with the front door. I pound my fist against it in rapid succession. My heart races faster than a Thoroughbred at the derby, and my cheeks burn from exertion. I’m out of breath and sweaty, my hair so wet I may as well have just stepped from the shower. I can only imagine how wrecked I must look. I also couldn’t care less.
The seconds I stand in anticipation of the door swinging open feel like an entire lifetime, and when it happens, when Ben stands before me in a white tee and those same light gray sweatpants he wore throughout our trip, his golden hair tousled and backlit by the warm interior lights, it hits me:I’ve already found my favorite spot on earth.
Not this house. Not this street. Not even this city. Not a location at all.
It’s Ben.
Ben is my favorite place whether we’re here or three thousand miles away standing on top of a volcano.
“Ems,” he says, voice scratchy before he clears it. “What are you doing here?” His eyes are wide with shock, looking at me like I’m a ghost. Perhaps that’s exactly what I look like, hair plastered to my cheeks and mascara surely accumulating under my eyes. There’s a guardedness to his posture, shoulders stiff and jaw taut, and that’s what brings me crashing down to reality as an overwhelming sense of déjà vu settles in my bones. The last time Ben and I stood at this door things didn’t go so well for me.
“I, uh…” I trail off, at a loss for words.
Ben shakes his head like he’s clearing his thoughts. “What’s wrong with me? Come inside. You’re soaked.”
He steps back and pulls the door farther open, allowing me to walk past him into the warmth of his house. A house I’ve never been inside of until this moment. As he closes the door behind me, I take a quick appraisal of my surroundings. I’m standing in a mostly barren living room, the only furniture a well-worn brown leather sofa and a scratched-up coffee table opposite a media console and television along the far wall. Hardwood floors lead to a brick fireplace where a heap of orange ash burns in what’s left of a fire. The walls have been freshly painted a neutral creamy white, and the small space might feel cozy if I didn’t know the history of this home. If these walls weren’t tainted by the pain and neglect I now know Ben experienced here.
“Here, come with me.” Ben gently takes my elbow and leads me toward the fireplace. “You must be freezing.”
He leaves me standing at the edge of the hearth and retrieves a neatly folded plaid quilt from the back of the sofa. Then he wraps it around my shoulders.
“Are you okay? What happened? Did you run here in thedark?”
Still breathless, I nod.
His eyes skate over me like he’s searching for the source of my pain. “Ems, you’re scaring me. You’re shaking.”
“I…I’m okay.” I pull the quilt tighter around my shoulders.
“You should sit.” Ben maneuvers me to sit on the brick hearth. The flames may be dying out behind me, but the remaining warmth envelops me. “Do you want me to add another log to thefire? Or I can make you some hot tea. Or soup. I probably have soup. Tell me what you need.”
I reach from underneath the quilt and take hold of his wrist. At my touch, his eyes drop to our connection. “I need your permission to use some of your photos for my article.”
His eyes narrow in on mine as he looms above me, confusion knitting his brows. “What?”
“I got my job back atAround the Globe. Calvin got fired and Suki’s running things now. She’s going to use my article as the December cover after all.”
“Oh.” He pauses. “That’s really great news. You deserve it.” I know he means it, but there’s disappointment in his voice. “So that’s why you came then? To ask to use my photos? Of course you can use them. I’ll send all the rest to you and you can use whatever you want. I know how much this means to you.”
You mean more.
The words are on the tip of my tongue, but my nerves and anxiety churn and crash together, leaving me unsure of what to say. I need to summon my boldness from earlier and just tell Ben how I feel and what I want, but the bourbon has worn off and I’m terrified it’s too late.
But maybe…
“I want you to read it. My article.” Releasing his wrist, I shrug the quilt from my shoulders and stand. If he reads how much what we shared in Iceland meant to me, maybe he’ll stay. Having put no thought into this plan, I reach for my phone in my back pocket only to realize it’s not there. “Shit. Where’s your laptop?”
“Uh, I’ll go get it.” He eyes me curiously, but then disappearsdown a hallway, returning with his laptop in hand a moment later.
He passes it off to me, and I sit on his sofa and pull up my email to Suki. Then I open my article and set the laptop on the coffee table. “Please just read it.”
“Yeah, of course.” He takes a seat at my side and leans forward to see the screen.
Unable to stomach sitting here and attempting to decipher his every expression while he reads, I say, “Can I grab some water from your kitchen?”
“Yeah,” he tells me, already absorbed in the screen. “Help yourself to anything you want.”
But I don’t want water, I just want a reprieve. I stay in the kitchen, pacing back and forth, taking in the newly installed butcher-block countertops and the freshly painted white cabinets, telling myself that if he reads it, he’ll know. And then I won’t have to beg him to forgive me for shutting him out the past two weeks. Won’t have to beg him to turn down South Africa. He told me to give him a reason to say no to the trip, and I need him to find that reason in my article.
