Ben worked late. He didn’t get home until seven. He’d been texted approximately a million times by both Luke and Jack, demanding his presence for dinner.
They’d clearly sensed a tremor in the force, and now they wanted to drive him crazy. He had missed calls as well, wanting to know where the hell he was.
Ignoring it all, he opened his fridge. Empty. Damn. Figuring he might as well face the music sooner rather than later, he drove to the Love Shack and dropped into a chair at Luke and Jack’s table. “You called?” he asked drily.
Luke looked at Jack.
“Me?” Jack asked Luke. “I thought we’d agreed you’d do it.”
Luke shook his head and pointed at Jack.
Jack sighed and pulled out his phone.
“Forget it,” Ben said. “I don’t want to see Facebook. Nor do I want to know how the hell Lucille already found out that Aubrey and I broke up.”
“Uh…” Luke said, and looked at Jack.
“You and Aubrey broke up?” Jack asked Ben.
“You weren’t calling about the breakup?”
Luke shook his head.
Jack tried to pull his phone back, but Ben snatched it, and then went still as a stone.
The picture on the screen was of a woman in a very skimpy kitten costume, which wasn’t the problem. The problem was that the woman was hotter than hot.
And she was Aubrey.
She was clearly younger, maybe even not of legal age, posing on her knees, one hand curled like a cat with its claws out, the other holding a whip. She wore cat ears, and her “tail” was curved around her million-dollar bod, which was encased in a snug leather bodice, tiny leather shorts, and stiletto heels.
“It’s from an adult costume website,” Jack said. “An X-rated costume website. Near as I can tell, there are a small handful of different models, maybe five in total, modeling close to a hundred different costumes that you can order for home delivery—sans the girls, of course.”
Luke snorted. “Thorough much?”
“I like to do my research, especially when it involves nearly na**d women.”
“That’s my woman,” Ben said, and both Luke’s and Jack’s brows went up.
“Thought you broke up,” Luke said lightly.
Ben ignored them and flipped through the site, sucking in a breath because Jack had showed him the most PG-rated costume in the bunch. He found the same younger Aubrey as a “slutty nurse,” a “slutty French maid,” a “slutty bunny,” and a “slutty police officer.” Christ. He closed the browser window and handed the phone back. “How the hell did you find this?”
“Lucille came to me with it,” Luke said. “Apparently it was in Ted Marshall’s book—the one that no one in town read until the seniors got hold of it for their book club.”
“Why did Lucille come to you?”
Luke smiled. “She wanted me to arrest Ted for being a ‘spineless dickhead.’ She’s worried about Aubrey because it’s already getting around. Someone tweeted about it, and someone else posted some of the pictures on Instagram, and she doesn’t want this to affect Aubrey’s grand opening on Saturday.”
Ben stood up.
“Where are you going?” Jack asked.
“To make sure she’s okay.”
“Didn’t you just say you broke up?” Jack asked.
“He also said she was his woman,” Luke said, studying Ben’s face. “And speaking of that, maybe we should hear that story.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t,” Ben said, and started to walk away.
“Hey,” Jack said, managing to block his way. “How come when I’m f**ked up, you’re all in my face about it, but when you’re f**ked up, you get to be alone?”
“I’m not f**ked up,” Ben said firmly.
“You look pretty f**ked up to me,” Jack said. “I’m with Luke. Let’s hear the story. Or should I guess? You decided you were too happy.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ben asked, his voice very quiet. It was the voice that usually sent men running. But Jack just looked at him, not running anywhere. In fact, he went toe-to-toe with Ben and stared him straight in the eye.
“It means,” Jack said, “that ever since you lost Hannah, it’s like you don’t think you have the right to be happy. She’s dead and buried, and you think you have to be, too. That’s what running for the past five years was all about.”
“It was about helping people,” Ben said. “You might recognize the concept, since you’ve been doing it all these years as a firefighter.”
“Bullshit. It was running, Ben.” Jack punctuated this with a little shove. “I gave you the five years, but it’s time to get better. It’s time to let yourself have a life.” A bigger shove now. “It’s okay to do that; there’s nothing to feel guilty about.”
Ben shook his head. “I get why you think I might feel guilty, and I did feel guilty for a damn long time. But I’ve moved on.”
Jack’s gaze said he thought otherwise and that Ben was an asshole.
“You two going to need a referee?” Luke asked, still sprawled out, all relaxed in his chair. “Because if I have to arrest you, Dee’s gonna kill me.”
Jack didn’t look like he cared, and Ben blew out a breath. “This has nothing to do with my happiness,” he said. “Aubrey lied to me. So it’s over, end of story.”
“What was the lie?” Jack asked.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Ben asked.
“A lot,” Jack said. “If she lied and said, ‘Oh baby, that was so good,’ when it was only okay, that’s not exactly a breakup lie.”
“It was an omission,” Ben specified.
“Like I-forgot-to-tell-you-I-hate-pizza omission?” Jack asked. “Or, like, I’m-really-a-male-in-chick-clothing kind of omission?”
Ben considered swiping the smirk right off Jack’s face with his fist. But then Luke would get all pissed off and call Sawyer, the sheriff, just to make a point. Plus, it was probable that even off-duty Luke was armed. “It was an omission, okay?” he said to Jack. “Drop it.”
“Well, I would,” Jack returned. “Except I’m bad at that.”
Luke pulled out his phone and started thumbing through his contacts.
Ben caved. Not because he was afraid of Sawyer but because he didn’t have time to be arrested tonight. “Aubrey told Hannah we’d slept together,” he said. “That’s why Hannah dumped me. Aubrey lied to her and cost me two years with Hannah.”
Two years that Hannah deserved…Ben didn’t give a shit about himself. But Hannah. She was dead and gone, and she didn’t have a voice.
That just about killed him dead and gone, too.
Jack, staring at Ben, dropped the teasing note in his voice. “Well, hell.”“Yeah.”
“Wait,” Jack said, putting his hand on Ben’s shoulder as he turned to leave. “Wait. Are you telling me that Hannah believed her? And that she never brought it up to you? Ever?”
“So?”
“So?” Jack said. “Don’t you have to ask why? Or put some of the blame on her?”
“She’s dead,” Ben said flatly.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “And that sucks. Sucks hard. But think about this, Ben. So Aubrey was a bitch in high school. We were dicks. For that matter, Hannah was no angel, either. Whatever. It’s old history. Don’t let that be an excuse to—”
“If you say not be happy, I swear to God—”
“—not be happy,” Jack said, the dare in his eyes.
It was an arrow to the chest, because it was the cold, hard truth. He’d done exactly what Jack had said, and he planned to continue onward, thank you very much.
“Okay.” Luke stood up. “Look, I should knock both of you knuckleheads into next week myself, but I’d rather go home and be with Ali.”
“Tell him he’s being stupid, Luke,” Jack said, not taking his eyes off Ben. “Maybe he’ll listen to the voice of reason.”
“I’m not telling him shit,” Luke said, and met Ben’s gaze, too. “Because he already knows he’s being stupid.”
Ben shook his head and walked out of the bar, the questions floating in his head. Why had Aubrey done it? Why had she lied to Hannah?
And even more than that, why had Hannah believed her? Why would Hannah buy into the story that he’d cheated on her so readily?
Because she’d been eighteen. Young and foolish, like him. Of course she’d believed it. This was Lucky Harbor, where gossip was gospel.
And then there was the baseline truth: He’d fully and freely enjoyed the freedom that the two-year breakup had afforded him.
He was going to have to live with that.
He drove for a good thirty minutes before he ended up parking in the alley behind the bookstore. “You are so f**ked up,” he murmured to himself, and took the stairs to Aubrey’s place.
He was only here to make sure she knew about the pictures. He may not have forgiven her, but he didn’t want her to be blindsided. That was all. He stared at Aubrey’s door for a very long moment before he knocked.
Chapter 27
Aubrey opened her door to Ben and felt the shock reverberate through her. She’d wanted, desperately, to talk to him, to get the chance to explain. There was so much left to say, like how badly she’d felt all these years, and how she’d never meant for them to get into a relationship without telling him the truth, that it’d just happened…
God, it had truly happened. She’d fallen for him, hard.
And she’d blown it, just as hard. He hadn’t called or been to the store.
But now here he stood on her doorstep, wearing jeans, scuffed work boots, a gray henley, and an open down jacket, hood up against the rain. Given that she could see only part of his face, and that the part she could see was an unshaved jaw, she shouldn’t have felt weak in the knees, but she did. She nearly threw herself at him in relief, but before she could move, he said, “Do you know about the pictures?”
She blinked and began to realize that this visit might not be what she hoped. “You know about them?”
A muscle ticked in his jaw. “Yeah.”
Oh, God. “You read Ted’s book?”
“No. But I heard about them and—”
“Heard about them, or saw them?” she asked tightly.
“Saw them.”
Damn it. She drew a shuddery breath and tried to figure out what the silver lining might be, but really, there was none. “Do you think a lot of people in town know?” She closed her eyes. “Never mind. This is Lucky Harbor, right? Everyone knows by now. I can’t even imagine what they think.”
“They think you’re hot as hell, that’s what they think,” he said. “At least the red-blooded males do.”
“The pictures are old,” she said. “Nearly a decade old. And in some of them I’m in a mask. Maybe people won’t recognize me…” Her words faded away at the look on his face.
“You’re pretty recognizable, Sunshine.”
“I was young,” she said softly. “And it was an okay job as far as modeling gigs went. I didn’t have to sleep with the photographer, and I made enough money to pay for college.”
“Aubrey,” he said, and let out a long breath. “I’m not judging you. At all. You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing,” he repeated, voice like steel, making her eyes sting. “I just wanted to make sure you knew they were out so that you weren’t blindsided by them.”
He was here because he cared about her, and she decided to take that as her silver lining. She stepped back to let him in, but he was already stepping back as well, away from her. “You’re…not coming in?” she asked, hating the na**d vulnerability in her voice.
He didn’t take off his hood, so she couldn’t really see his expression, but there was a definite edge to him tonight—and a sense of exhaustion that broke her heart.
“No,” he said. “I’m not coming in.”
She absorbed the hurt, just one more hurt on a pile of hurts. He gave one curt, barely there nod and started to go. “Ben, I’m so sorry. I—”
“I’m sorry, too.”
She stared at him, throat burning. “Why did you come?” she whispered.
“I told you. To make sure you knew.”
“Why?” she pressed.
He was still a moment, looking at her intently. “It was the right thing to do,” he finally said.
An arrow to her heart. Her gut. Her soul. Because the implication was, of course, that she wouldn’t know the right thing if it bit her on the ass.
“Do you need anything?” he asked.
She nearly laughed, but it would have been a half-hysterical one. And in any case, she had far more pride than sense at this point, so she lifted her chin and looked him right in the eye and shook her head. “I’m fine.” She was always fine.
He paused, so she added a smile to prove it. Hell if she’d let him see her sweat. If he didn’t want her, she wouldn’t beg.
Oh, hell. She wanted to beg. Bad.
But after one last long look at her, he turned and walked away.
And she let him.
Aubrey had thought she was at rock bottom when she’d screwed up with Ben.
She’d underestimated herself.
The next day was a painfully slow day at the store. The day after that was the grand-opening party, and she was beginning to think it might also be her grand closing.