Page 102 of Let's Call a Truce
I sucked in a shuddering breath and nodded, turning back to the door.
She grabbed my arm as I reached for the handle. “Just… please don’t fuck on my desk.”
A surprised laugh burst out of me, and she smiled like she had accomplished her ultimate goal in life.
Ben was in the same spot, like time had stopped when the door had closed. He watched me cautiously as I stood on the threshold, then forced myself to follow the path on the floor around the desk to him.
He was clutching a bouquet of multicolored tulips so tightly that their stems were bent, sagging toward the floor in each direction. But he didn’t seem to notice; his eyes never left my face. I can only assume the plan was to hand me the bouquet, but he didn’t move. His throat bobbed and his grip tightened again, the tulips drooping farther.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry for everything I’ve put us through. I didn’t even realize I didn’t say it last night, until Quinn asked and then, literally, slapped me upside the head. I don’t know what will happen with us, but whether we walk out of here together or you never talk to me again, you deserve those words.”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
Ben smiled, a tiny, relieved tilt of his lips, then swallowed thickly. “I asked you to be scared with me, and the first time I was tested I did the opposite of what I’d asked from you. When I said it, I was thinking about our relationship, and I had no fear. I was so certain about you it never crossed my mind thatI’dbe the one who got scared.
“But I forgot I’m a parent, which means I’m going to be in a perpetual state of fear for the rest of my life.”
I laughed at that, and his smile grew more genuine.
He took a half step closer to me, leaving a couple feet between us. “I want to be scared with you. To have you remind me that Paris will be fine when she drives off by herself for the first time. To wrap you in my arms after we move Clara into her first college dorm. To pace in our house together whenSophie convinces the other two to stay out past curfew for some wild adventure.”
Another laugh from me and another blinding, intoxicating smile from him.
“I want that,” I said quietly, and he stepped toward me, hope written on the lines of his face. But before he could touch me, I shuffled back, my heel tapping a vase and nearly tipping it over. “But I barely survived last time. I don’t know if I’m brave enough to be scared with you.”
He nodded, like an interviewee who’d anticipated a difficult question and had already prepared a response. “Maybe not now. I definitely wasn’t brave enough that day at the soccer field. But maybe we don’t have to always be brave. We just need to let the other’s strength get us through until we feel brave, too.
“I’ve never been part of a team, even in the beginning with Stephanie. It was like we worked at the same company but in different departments that required minimal interaction. I don’t want that with you. I want to be your partner.
“You and I haven’t had the chance to try that yet. I took it from us, and I’ve regretted it every single day. I know it’s selfish to ask you to risk it all after I broke us, but I’m here, begging for a chance to show you how good our family could be.”
He tossed the mangled bouquet on the desk, then reached over the back of Quinn’s office chair to grab a binder off the seat, the only surface not covered with vases. I eyed the spot where he held it out between us like it was a snake and moving too fast would make it strike. He chuckled and stepped closer, grasping my forearm and forcing it into my hand.
I flipped it open to find ITINERARY printed in big letters at the top.
“What’s this?” I asked, my eyes shooting to his.
“It’s called an itinerary. Like a schedule for a trip,” he said, his eyes dancing.
I shoved his chest with a laugh, and he quickly placed a handover mine to trap it there. His gaze heated, but he just gave my hand one more squeeze and let it go.
“You know what I meant,” I said with an eye roll, even as my lips curved up.
“I’d promised Paris I’d take her on a big trip this summer. But with everything with Stephanie, I didn’t get around to it. I thought it would be the perfect distraction from whatever drama’s going to come up in the next few weeks.”
I smiled as I eyed the address near the top of the itinerary. “Paris for Paris?”
“Paris for you,” he said, and my gaze snapped up to his. “Come with us.”
“What?”
“I wanted to pick something you’d love. First, I thought Austria, but I figured you’d want to plan that trip since you want to show the girls where you studied.”
The conversation I’d had with Zac at Asia’s birthday party all those months ago. The one I gave Ben a hard time for listening in on.
“Then I thought Amsterdam to see the tulips, because, well…” He gestured around him with a little shrug. “But their festival ends in April when the fields stop blooming. I’m pretty sure I bought every single tulip in Boston to even make this work.
“Then I remembered you told Paris the girl that Paris the city is your favorite place in the world, which I’m now realizing may have been something you said to make her feel good and not actually true, and maybe this was a terrible choice—”
