Page 50 of Let Me Love You (Excess All Areas 5)

“Youalwayssay it’s okay. No matter how I treat you, but this month has given me some insight. And my behaviour has been polarising. I can see that now. I’ve walked this entire line where, when I was with you, I could forget all the other priorities. I could act like it was just you and me forever. I’ve been saying I wish you would see me, but I also knew that to follow my faith, you could never be mine. And then, when we were apart, I was this whole different person. It was unfair to both of us, but especially you. And I’m sorry.”

He wanted to dismiss it, say it was nothing, that it was okay. As she pointed out, this would have been his normal response. But he realised they needed to express the hurts with the love. The rough with the smooth. They needed to clear the air and be honest with each other if they wanted this to work. And he didn’t want to start their relationship off by snipping this kind of conversation off at the stem.

He interlaced his fingers with hers. “I understand how conflicted you felt. When I turned you down or pushed you away, I did it because I knew you’d regret it. Regret us, at some point. And I’ll be honest, in the quiet moments over the last four weeks, it’s the main thing I’ve worried about. That you choose me now, but then change your mind again later. Which is why we need to take this slowly. So you can figure out if you mean this.”

“I’m a work in progress. And I don’t want to hurt anyone more than I already have. I’ve made everything weird, haven’t I?”

“Breakdown? Breakthrough.”

Chaya huffed a laugh. “Always with the Cameron Crowe quote.”

“Don’t underestimate the power of a good manifesto. It also states you should get the bad news over with first. And that’s what we’re doing. We walked a tightrope and fell off. We’re both hurt by that. We reacted to it in different ways. But we’re both stood here. And granted, I probably stink to high heaven, but now we need to see if we can land on solid footing this time. To see if we can’t catch each other when we fall. Because we will. Every relationship has ups and downs.”

“I hate it when you make sense, Ben. You were the same when I was trying to decide where I should go to university. Or when I got that money after my grandfather died. I wanted to go on holiday, and you told me to get a car.”

Ben shrugged, thinking of all the conversations they’d had over the years. “Let’s make our first date New York City tomorrow. Tonight, we’re just going out for drinks with friends.”

“Will you hold my hand?”

He looked down between them where his fingers gripped hers. “I think we already do that. Only now, I’ll play with your fingers. Kiss them, maybe. I might even kiss your lips a few more times, just for good measure.”

Chaya grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

“Let’s go back to the hotel and get cleaned up, yeah?”

Half an hour later, after the band had made their way to the cars to take them back to the hotel, Ben and Chaya stood in the hallway, Chaya’s suitcase between them that she’d grabbed from Iz’s room.

“But we always shared a room,” she said, holding the key card to the room down the hall from his own.

“We did. And we will. But, babe, do you honestly think we’ll be able to…”

“Keep our hands off each other?” Chaya offered helpfully.

Ben grinned. “Yeah. Exactly that.”

Chaya executed the Girl Guide salute. “I promise I can be on my best behaviour.”

“No offence, but your behaviour was shit when we weren’t supposed to be doing anything. I can’t imagine it’s improved much.”

Her smile was the one thing guaranteed to make him fold like a bad hand in poker. “I think I might have more restraint, given that I know all the things you are referring to but aren’t saying out loud will happen at some point in the future.”

Ben closed the distance to her lips. “We start talking about them,” he said, his lips barely brushing hers, “we’ll start doing them.”

Chaya grinned. “Promises, promises. We’re in this amazing hotel with great beds. It’s all as rock and roll as it gets.”

“Behave.” He slipped her key card from her hand and tapped it against the lock on the door. “Your room. My room is next door but one. We have Matt and Iz between us. They get loud when they’re drunk.”

“What will we be like when we’re drunk?”

Ben grinned and placed his hand on the curve of her arse, nudging her into the room. “Be ready within an hour.”

“Spoilsport.”

He raised an eyebrow at her but grinned as the door closed between them.

Fifty-four minutes later, mainly because he couldn’t wait another six minutes, he knocked on her door.

“You said an hour,” Chaya said as she tugged the door open, hair straighteners in one hand, pulling a length of her dark hair through them.

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