Point Pleasant (14 page)

“Do I need to get you another beer?”

“No, I’m good,” Ben said. He knew that another beer would make him want to lean even closer and inhale another hint of the other man’s scent. “I should grab dinner soon, actually.”

Nicholas took on a sheepish expression. Ben had missed dinner because Nicholas had him locked up. For the first time that night, he looked apologetic for the experience. “Let’s go back to my place. I’ll order pizza from Roderick’s. It’s on me. For earlier.”

Ben was sober enough to know he should be careful. “Tempting,” he said despite the little voice in the corner of his mind that screamed for him to decline and return to Cardinal Lane.

Nicholas gave a smile that lit up his entire face, and Ben knew he would be having dinner with the sheriff, little voice be damned.

Yes, very careful, indeed.

A warm buzz radiated out from Ben’s core and down to his toes after he finished his beer. He was unsure if it was the result of the alcohol or Nicholas. “Let’s go.”

They pulled on their coats and headed out of the bar in companionable silence.

“What were we talking about?” Nicholas asked as they approached the square. “Oh yes, your books.”

“Subtle,” Ben chided.

“I want to know!” Nicholas insisted. “You always told the best stories when we were kids. I want to read you.”

“You’ll have to get me drunker than this to find out,” Ben said and shot the other man a coy smirk.

“I have tequila.”

“Sheriff, that’s shocking.”

“I can be shocking,” Nicholas replied.

“Apparently.”

“Try to say it like you mean it,” Nicholas said.

“No, I do,” Ben said. “I was shocked to see you last night. In uniform, no less. I was shocked to find out you’re Sheriff of Mason fucking County. Hell, I’m still shocked you’re not married.”

Nicholas tilted his head and seemed to consider Ben’s words.

Ben started to say something more, but he stopped himself.

“No, what?” Nicholas pressed. “Say it.”

“Why aren’t you?” Ben asked. “Married, I mean.”

Nicholas slowed to a halt in front of the fountain. “This is almost exactly where I asked her. Got down on my knee, held up my mom’s ring—it was perfect.”

Ben shifted from one foot to the other as Nicholas recounted the event.

“But you know, after, it was the damnedest thing…”

“What was?” Ben asked when he noticed that Nicholas appeared to wrestle with finishing the thought.

“You. I kept thinking about you.”

Ben shuffled through possible responses just as he would scan through songs on his overloaded iPod when none of them seemed appropriate for his particular mood. Nicholas spoke again before Ben could gather his thoughts.

“You were right. I wasn’t happy, not really. It was just… the mold.”

Ben blinked at the odd phrasing. “What mold?”

“The mold you fit yourself into because you think that’s what you’re supposed to do. After you said what you said, all I could think about was that Lily was someone I could be content with, to exist with. I could love her, she could love me, and we could file our taxes together.” Nicholas laughed at this, and Ben wondered if that third beer had been a mistake; he was not sure Nicholas would have been so candid if sober. Nicholas resumed walking, and Ben watched with concern as he trailed after him.

“But then you were gone, and I couldn’t even fucking talk to my best friend about it,” Nicholas continued.

“I thought that wouldn’t have been
appropriate
.”

“I should never have said that,” Nicholas said, facing Ben. “I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did. You knew me better than I knew myself. And you were right. You were so fucking right.”

“Let’s get you home,” Ben said and tilted his chin toward Dunmore.

Nicholas shook his head and did not move toward the street. “I
hated
you for leaving,” he whispered. “But then I hated me because it was my fault you left.”

“No, Nic, it was—” Ben started, but Nicholas cut him off.

“You don’t have to spare my feelings. I got it. I wouldn’t have come back either. I should have handled it better. I tried asking your dad where you were. But he was so hard to talk to after you left. He wouldn’t talk to anyone in town sometimes. He’d just come and go between the hospital, and nobody would really see much of him. My dad would go see him sometimes just to make sure he was okay.”

“Nic, I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“It’s not your place to say anything. I threw away the best friendship I ever had because you said something that scared me,” Nicholas said, and despondency clouded his eyes the way early morning mist skews the landscape. “I let it go even before that. I was a shit friend to you back then. I had my head up my own ass after your mom died. And I should have reacted better when you told me what you told me. I’ve spent so long wanting to find some way to make this right, but I never knew where you were. I asked Kate a few years ago, the last time she was in town to visit Andy—”

“She’s a partner at her firm now,” Ben interjected, registering the numbness in his tone as he struggled to process everything Nicholas had said so far.

Nicholas gave a dismissive nod as if this was not important. “I asked her, and she just said you were ‘around’ like you were hanging out at the diner.”

“Kate never mentioned it,” Ben said, frowning as he wondered why his sister would have kept this to herself. He could take a guess, though.

Kate had been his rock when he first moved from Point Pleasant. He had spent an unreasonable number of nights crashing on her sofa in Boston. She had listened with sisterly sympathy as Ben—a few beers to the wind—confessed his idiocy and cowardice regarding the situation with Nicholas. Kate had seemed unsurprised by his revelation. “You can’t be sorry for who you love, Benji,” she had said. “Nic might not return the sentiment, but that’s his fucking loss, isn’t it?”

“I just—I
miss
you,” Nicholas admitted, drawing Ben from his thoughts.

“I missed you too, Nic.” The words were out before Ben even realized he was going to say them, but they spilled forth in earnest.

“I just kept waiting for you to show up in town someday,” Nicholas said, and a mournful smile flickered across his lips. “Even after I realized you weren’t coming home.”

“I’m sorry for that,” Ben said, bolstered by the warmth of the alcohol that tingled through his system. “I would have liked to talk to you. But I meant what I said that night. I meant it with everything, and I don’t think I could have seen you after that. It would have hurt more.”

Ben stared at the pavement and felt like he had just exposed a nerve to the cold wind. He fidgeted to keep himself from going stiff in the frosty air.

“I just want you to know I’m sorry, Ben,” Nicholas said, his voice a broken whisper. “I’m sorry for all of it.”

Ben digested the apology and gave a faint nod. “It’s in the past.”

“I have so much I need to say to you,” Nicholas said.

Ben bounced up and down on his heels and shivered from the cold. “Can you say it indoors? It’s fucking freezing out here, Nolan.”

“Come on,” Nicholas said with a faint laugh. His breath was visible on the night air like smoke from a cigarette. Once they were inside the house on Dunmore, Nicholas took Ben’s coat and hung it up next to his own.

“Do you want another beer?”

“Sure.” Ben licked his lips, and he noticed that Nicholas’ eyes were locked on the action.

Nicholas seemed to hesitate before he wrested himself from whatever thought had overtaken him and led them to the kitchen. He pulled two Coronas out of the fridge and popped them open using a cabinet door handle. He offered a bottle to Ben, who might have been a little drunk but could not ignore the deliberate brush of the other man’s fingers against his own.

Nicholas took a long drink from his bottle and stepped forward.

“Nic—” Ben started, and he shifted to the side. “Pizza?”

Nicholas did not respond, but he stole closer. Ben could make out the dark blue flecks in his irises. A rush of emotions flooded his chest with something far warmer than the soft haze of alcohol as he breathed in the scent of Nicholas’ cologne once more.

Ben wanted to close the gap between them. He wanted to stand pressed to Nicholas’ torso and seal their lips together with finality. He wanted to be the one to make Nicholas feel all the things he had not found with Lily.

But Ben could not, no, he
would
not; he refused to open up
that
old wound and feel
that
rejection again. He glanced away and took a nervous sip of his beer as he kept his vision locked on the kitchen table even though he could still feel Nicholas’ eyes on him. The warmth spread lower, and Ben felt cornered as he tried to think of a decent distraction or possibly an escape.

He entertained the idea of leaving—of just walking right back to the front door, grabbing his coat, and striding out the front door—when Nicholas’ right hand gripped hold of Ben’s left shoulder and urged him to turn.

“Ben,” Nicholas said. “Look at me.”

Ben’s defenses tumbled when he met Nicholas’ gaze. The other man leaned in and pressed their lips together in a soft though firm slide that transformed the steady warmth into an inferno.

Ben exhaled the lungful of breath he had been holding unawares and let his eyes flutter shut. When he did not move away, Nicholas cupped Ben’s cheeks in his hands and pulled him closer to deepen the kiss with intent.

Nicholas tasted like beer; sweet and bitter all at once. Ben whimpered and pushed himself forward. He grabbed at Nicholas’ shirtfront as their mouths moved together in a slow, tentative dance.

Nicholas pressed Ben against the wall beside the refrigerator. His tongue swept across the opening of Ben’s lips and urged them open with a gentle flick. Ben did not relent wholly, and Nicholas’ tongue slid over Ben’s teeth and teased the tender gums underneath his top lip.

“Ben,” Nicholas said, threading the fingers of his right hand through Ben’s hair. “I wanted to do this for so long.”

“Since when?” Ben asked, pulling away.

“Since the day I knew you weren’t coming back.”

“Fuck,” Ben said and paced to the other end of the kitchen. He ran a hand through his hair where Nicholas had just gripped him through the end of the kiss. He looked back in time to see Nicholas lick his lower lip as if to savor the lingering taste of Ben’s mouth.

“This is crazy,” Ben said. “You don’t mean that.”

“There you go presuming what I feel again.” Nicholas smiled, but he shoved his hands into the front pockets of his jeans as if to keep himself from fidgeting.

Ben huffed out a laugh to fill the silence and drown out the steady
thump-thump-thump
of his heart.

“I called you,” Nicholas said. “I called your old cell number. Every day at first because I was sure you were ignoring me. I was so mad at you for leaving.”

“I didn’t take my phone,” Ben said, frowning.

“I figured that out after a while. I kept calling anyway. I left you voicemails. I was worried about you. I stopped for a few months. I was trying to sort everything out in my head. I couldn’t understand why I’d sometimes call just to hear your voice on the answering message.”

Ben furrowed his brow, but he could not speak. It felt like his heart had attempted to climb out of his chest but got stuck in his throat during its escape.

“I called you on our birthday,” Nicholas said. “We should have been having our first legal drink together at The Point. It wasn’t the same without you. I started calling you every Sunday after that. After
The X-Files
, usually. I’d talk about the episode. Sometimes I’d call a couple times because the service would cut me off. I called you until the inbox was full, and I couldn’t leave anymore messages.”

Ben sagged against the wall behind him.

“I should order that pizza,” Nicholas said, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right.

Dumbfounded by the idea that his old Nokia had sat filled with messages from the boy he had loved, Ben could only nod in response.

Nicholas offered a nervous smile and disappeared into the next room, presumably for the telephone, and left Ben—
thankfully
—alone to collect himself. Ben ran a hand through his hair again while he stared at the empty spot where Nicholas just stood.

“You don’t still eat pineapple on pizza, do you? Or are you good with just pepperoni?” Nicholas called out, stirring Ben from his thoughts.

He followed Nicholas’ voice to the living room. “I’m good with it,” he said. “I’m totally good with it.”

The grin that spread across Nicholas’ lips was like the waft of heat from a cup of coffee on a cold morning. He seemed lighter somehow, perhaps even relieved. “Good,” he said, his tone gentle. “Me too.”

He grabbed the landline from its cradle and punched a number on the keypad. The sheriff had takeaway on speed dial, apparently. He held the phone to his right ear to wait for it to connect, but the other end of the line emitted a sudden, keening screech so loud that Ben could hear it from across the room.

The phone clattered to the floor, and Nicholas clutched at the side of his head as if someone had discharged a revolver next to his ear. “Fuck!”

Ben strode forward, grabbed the phone, and turned it off to silence the high-pitched frequency that still rose from its speaker. “Are you okay??” he asked, turning to Nicholas, who nodded, though the motion caused him to wince. “Let me see.”

Nicholas withdrew his hand, and Ben tilted Nicholas’ head to the side slightly to catch the light. He leaned up on his toes and peered into the other man’s ear canal.

“Well, it’s not bleeding,” Ben said. “That’s good. Can you hear me okay?”

“It’s still ringing, but I can hear you,” Nicholas said.

“We should get you to the hospital.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m fine,” Nicholas said, rolling his eyes.

“It could be perforated. That won’t help you much on the job.”

“Ford’s on duty at the station,” Nicholas said with a sigh. “He started off as an EMT. I’ll head over, but there’s probably not much to be done.”