Page 177 of My Heart Still Beats
I knock. “Ben?”
No answer.
I try the door. It’s locked.
He must be in here. The door doesn’t lock from the outside.
And he wouldn’t have left his back door open if he wasn’t home.
“Ben!”
Silence.
Fuck it. He can afford to fix the door.
I throw my entire body against the hard wood. Once, twice, three times.
I rub the ache springing up in my shoulder as I lift my right foot in the air, ready to try to kick the door down, but—
It opens instead.
There stands Ben, looking luscious in jeans, a white T-shirt, and nothing else. Even his feet are bare. But something is definitely wrong. His dark eyes are sunken and…tormented.
“Tessa, what are you doing?”
I collapse into his chest. “I thought they’d gotten you!”
Ben rubs his eyes. “Who?”
I sob. “The cops.”
“Why would the cops…” His face darkens. “Oh.”
We stand there in silence for a moment. Then he grabs me by the shoulders. “Tessa, we need to talk.”
I lift my head from his chest. “I brought the dinner I made. We can talk after we eat.”
“No, we can’t.”
“Ben, we’ve been through too much together to—”
He quiets me with two fingers to my lips. I pucker and kiss the tips.
“Fuck, Tessa.”
“Fine.” I whip my hands to my hips. “Tell me what happened with that escaped con. Tell me if you’re going to go to prison. Tell me if you want to end things between us.”
“I love you,” he says.
“And I love—”
His hand goes over my mouth again, and I bite his finger.
“Hey!”
“I love you, Ben! Why on earth don’t you want to hear that?”
“Because…” He rakes his fingers through his hair. “Because it just makes this harder.”
