Point Pleasant (50 page)

The door to the office burst open, and Nicholas appeared, flanked by two security guards. The sheriff’s face was red with a combination of rage and embarrassment.

“Ahoy there, Sheriff,” Ben said with mock enthusiasm. “The mayor and I were just having a little chat.”

“Sir, I’m so sorry,” Nicholas said and grabbed a set of handcuffs from his duty belt. “He got away from me. I’ll escort him out immediately.”

Ben rolled his eyes to the mayor, who held up a hand to Nicholas.

“It’s fine, Sheriff. Wait outside.”

Nicholas hesitated. “Sir—”

“Outside, Nolan.”

Nicholas straightened and stalked out of the office without another word. The guards followed.

Stewart faced the window behind his desk. “I’m not a coward,” he said finally.

“Then prove it,” Ben said. “Help us. We need you. Your town needs you. They don’t need a mayor or a sheriff who sits behind a desk and signs their John Hancocks to stack after stack of red tape. They need the people in charge to
take charge.
To keep them safe, to consider their best interests like you swore to do when you took the damn job.”

Stewart kept his back to Ben, but he seemed to be listening. Ben felt a ripple of hope and continued.

“You’ve all been pretending everything’s fine, but there’s something hugely wrong, sir. It’s big, and it’s scary, and I don’t blame you for not wanting to get involved, but you have an obligation. You have a duty. And you won’t be alone. We can deal with this, all of this. By tomorrow morning, Point Pleasant will be better for it. You’ll be a better mayor for it.”

“Your daddy was a good man,” Stewart said, sinking into his chair. “I was mighty sorry to hear he passed. He was my favorite hunting partner.”

“Thank you,” Ben replied stiffly, and anxiety bubbled through him as he regarded Stewart, whose dark forehead crinkled from the contemplative frown that tugged down the corners of his lips as if they were weighted with sandbags.

“What do you need me to do?” Stewart asked at last.

“We just need you to meet us in the square at five o’clock,” Ben said, offering a smile of genuine relief. “Tucker has the shotguns ready at his place. We’ll go to the factory and do whatever comes next.”

“You make it sound like a stroll through the square,” Stewart said with a scoff.

“It might be. It might not. But at least we’ll be doing something.”

Stewart laced his fingers together and a deep, resigned sigh escaped his lips. “I’ll see you at five, Wisehart.”

Ben shot up out of his seat and grinned. He put his hand over the desk, and Stewart eyed it with bemusement before he stood and shook it with a firm grasp.

“See you at five, sir,” Ben said and stepped back. “Sorry for bursting in like that.”

“No you’re not,” Stewart said. His demeanor was grim, but his lips quirked slightly.

“You’re right,” Ben said with a shrug. He headed toward the door. “I’ll just leave this open,” he said over his shoulder before he walked out.

Nicholas and the two security guards were waiting for Ben in the corridor. One of them moved to Ben’s right side and grabbed him by the arm, and the other guard seized his left elbow.

“Hey, guys, it’s fine,” Ben said. “The mayor and me, we’re buddies.”

The guards said nothing as they dragged Ben down the corridor. Ben felt a fresh swell of delirium when they steered him down the stairs and threw him out the front door.

“Oh, come on. It wasn’t that bad,” Ben said as he stumbled. “He was cool with it.”

Fury was etched into the lines of Nicholas’ face as he skipped the last two steps, seized Ben’s left arm, and pulled him along toward the station.

“Jesus, Nic. I got him on our side! He’s going to show up at five and ride out with us.”

“In all the years I wanted to talk to you, I never thought it would be to tell you to just shut the fuck up.”

“Are you arresting me again?” Ben asked, losing his victorious smile.

“I fucking should.”

“Go on, then.”

Nicholas released Ben’s arm and recoiled as if he had grabbed the barrel of a freshly fired gun and seared his hand on the metal. “Are you actually trying to get me sacked? Or are you just content to completely humiliate me?”

“Nothing personal, Sheriff,” Ben said, scratching the nape of his neck as he glanced at his feet. He gathered himself and faced Nicholas again. “It had to be done.”

“You’re unbelievable.”

“Yeah, well, I got him to agree. We have our seventh. That’s all that matters.”

Several emotions flashed through Nicholas’ eyes all at once. Ben tried to catch each one, but Nicholas withdrew several paces to place even more distance between them.

“Good for you, Ben,” he said and turned to head toward the Sheriff’s Department.

“I was so fucking stupid,” Ben called out. “It’s always you turning your back on me, isn’t it? I was wrong when I said we’re both different people now. You’re exactly the same, Nolan.”

Nicholas paused and clenched his right hand into a fist.

Ben refused to watch Nicholas walk away. He followed one of the pathways that led to the center of the square and sank down on a bench that overlooked the recently drained fountain.

He
had
been stupid. He had been a complete fucking idiot to let himself think this would have ended any other way. Ben would always be the one who had been left standing in the dark, overexposed like a roll of ruined film, while Nicholas walked off to better things. If everyone had a set of shoes to fill as Marietta had claimed, then Ben imagined his were a size too small and knew he could never hope to fit into them.

The leather cord around Ben’s neck rubbed like a noose, and he dropped his face in his hands to still the urge to rip the arrowhead from his neck and heave it into the dry fountain.

Oh fucking well.

After a moment, the bench shifted under the added weight of another body. Nicholas perched on the edge and fumbled with his hands as if he wanted to reach out and put one on Ben’s shoulder but would not allow himself the contact. Ben stared off at the fountain and found that he had nothing more to say.

“I don’t want to end it like this,” Nicholas said. “I don’t want it to end at all,” he added, though there was caution in his voice.

“And I don’t want to hear this, Nicholas,” Ben replied, trying to ignore the pained expression Nicholas adopted when Ben used his full name.

“I thought—I thought we were good after the other night. I don’t know how this happened, Ben.”

“It was a mistake, you said it before. It shouldn’t have happened.”

“I didn’t mean that.”

“It’s hard to un-say.”

“Ben, I really didn’t mean it. I don’t even know why I said it. Can we talk about this? We can go to the house.”

“I’m good right here,” Ben said.

“Please,” Nicholas whispered. “I don’t want this to be how it ends.”

“It ended hours ago in your entry hall,” Ben said, the words ringing like the faulty chime of a broken bell. “That can be your memory of how this ended because it sure as hell will always be mine.”

Nicholas bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.

“Pull yourself together, Sheriff,” Ben said, though his use of the title was strictly professional. “You probably have work to do.”

Nicholas remained in his position. Ben pursed his lips and fixed his focus on the fountain. When Nicholas finally moved, it was to wipe at his red-rimmed eyes.

“Fuck,” Nicholas said. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. We can pretend it never happened. We’ll finish off this thing in the forest tonight, and I’ll go back to Boston just like you said I would. I can go back to being me without you, and you can be you without me, and then everything’s back to its regular fucking schedule.”

“Ben, stop it,” Nicholas said, his tone sharp and pleading. “I don’t want any of that. Christ, I want you to stay! How many ways can I tell you that?”

“Maybe you should lock me up again to hammer in the point. Show me what life with you would be like.
I want you in my house, Ben. I want you in my bed, Ben. Don’t run away, or I’ll lock you up in my jail, Ben
.”

“Is that what you think?”

“Yeah, it is.” Ben gave a bitter laugh and stood to pace in front of the bench. “And you know the thing that makes me angry? I
liked
being in your house. I fucking
loved
being in your bed. I liked having you be there and wanting me there. I loved it, all of it, but what the hell am I even supposed to think after last night?”

“You’re right,” Nicholas said. “I’ve been trying to keep you close because I’m terrified you will leave again. You left before, and you never came back.
You never came back, Ben!
”

Ben shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” Nicholas said when he realized Ben did not intend to respond. “I have no intention to keep you under lock and key. All I wanted was for you to know how much I
want
you here. And with everything else, I need you to be
safe
. If something happens to you in all this while you’re doing what I should have done a long time ago, then that’s on me! That’s something I have to live with for the rest of my life, and I don’t know that I can do that.”

“I’ll be fine,” Ben replied. “And if I’m not, it was my decision to put myself in the situation.
Mine.
Not yours. And you have to respect that. I’m not one of your officers you can order around. I’m not one of the townspeople you can glare into silence. This was never going to work because you don’t
get
that.”

“Fair enough,” Nicholas said, his throat straining visibly as he swallowed. “But you’re just as at fault. You keep doing the exact opposite of everything I ask. I’m not trying to order you around, but you haven’t given me much choice. I mean,
Christ,
that stunt with the mayor!”

“I got him on our side, didn’t I?”

“And yesterday,” Nicholas continued. “You just drove away like some asshole. If I hadn’t been there to bring you back, I don’t even want to think about what would have happened to you.”

“Once again, I’m fine.”

“You might not have been. That’s the
point
. I get that you don’t like someone telling you what to do, and I can work on that. I get that you have a problem with authority, but that’s your problem, not mine. I get that you need your own space, and I can give you that. But I won’t apologize for trying to keep you safe because I fucking love you. I
love
you, all right?”

“You said you didn’t know what you thought.”

“I don’t even know why I said that.” Nicholas clutched his right hand over his forehead like he was trying to stifle some monstrous headache. “Fuck, I’ve ruined this completely.”

“We both did,” Ben said. “We both wanted this to be something it never could.”

Nicholas bolted to his feet and braced both of his hands on Ben’s shoulders. “We can fix this.”

“How?”

“I don’t know,” Nicholas admitted with blunt candor. “We take it as it comes.”

“Nicholas,” Ben said, stepping out of the sheriff’s reach. “Let me bottom-line this for you: I can’t take you breaking my heart again.”

For a moment, it was like Ben had finally punched Nicholas in his face. The sheriff looked at the sidewalk as if he could no longer stand to meet Ben’s gaze.

“I don’t want to do that either, Ben,” he said, and his voice wavered. “I’m gonna go. I’ll be at the house. I’m not walking away. I’m just gonna give you some space. I would very much like to continue this conversation. Because I do love you, and I will do whatever you need me to do. Even if it’s let you leave.”

Ben managed to nod in response.

“If you would like to talk more, which I hope you do, then you know where I’ll be. Otherwise, I’ll see you here at five.”

Nicholas waited for Ben to nod again before he turned and walked toward the other side of the square.

Ben sank down onto the bench like a heavy bucket dropped down a well. His head ached, and he reached into his coat pocket for the bottle of Advil from earlier, tapped out two tablets, and swallowed them dry. He scrubbed his hands across his face and struggled to process Nicholas’ words.

Time ticked by at what felt like an unnaturally slow speed. When Ben finally checked his watch, he saw that it was after four o’clock. They would need to gather soon.

Uniformed officers milled around in front of the Sheriff’s Department. Ben knew they were probably preparing to enforce the business curfew to any straggling citizens who lingered in their shops.

Ben continued to cradle the bottle of Advil in his hands. The clatter of the tablets against the plastic interior of the container was a suitable distraction each time he shifted on the bench. He finally pocketed the bottle, and his fingertips grazed something cold and flat. Ben pulled Andrew’s Zippo free and stared down at his reflection in its shiny surface.

His resolve clicked into place like the flame that would appear from a roll of the flint wheel. He stood, slid the lighter into one of the back pockets of his jeans, and trod toward Dunmore. Outside the gate in front of Nicholas’ house, Ben paused. Once more, he was struck by how much Andrew would have appreciated the sheriff’s carefully manicured front lawn.

Ben ascended the steps to the porch. He knocked and regarded the blue paint of the front door. Stray speckles of azure marred the white frame of the entrance.

A rustle of movement from the other side of the wood preceded Nicholas’ smile of tentative relief when he opened the door.

“Ben.”

“Hey,” Ben said, shifting from one foot to the next.

“Come in. Please.”

Ben raised an eyebrow at the ‘please’ and crossed the threshold. Nicholas closed the door, and the catch of the latch resounded.

“Am I interrupting?” Ben asked.

“No, not at all,” Nicholas replied. “Do you wanna sit down? I could make you a coffee.”

“I’m good, thanks.” Ben followed Nicholas into the living room and took a seat when Nicholas gestured toward the sofa.

Nicholas perched on the coffee table, but he seemed to reconsider his position and moved to sit at Ben’s right side. It felt less formal than the previous afternoon when Ben had looked over at Nicholas from across his desk in the office at the station, and a modicum of the tension between them broke.