Page 16 of Falling for Him (Honey Leaf Lodge #3)
Ben
By the time I reached the stairs, I’d already asked myself the same question five different ways.
What was wrong with me?
Why was I like this?
Why did I keep turning into a human brick wall every time she gets close?
The front door of the lodge creaked shut behind me as I stepped into the hallway, footsteps muffled by the old runner rug that stretched toward the stairs. My boots felt heavy. Everything did.
Why were you such a jerk, Jensen?
I didn’t have a good answer.
Fifi had been trying again. She always was. She came at things sideways, with jokes and chaos and hands that flailed when she talked too fast. But under all that brightness, she had a soft center. The kind you don’t see unless you’re really paying attention.
And she’d let me see it.
For half a second out by the goats, she’d looked at me like I was more than just a guest passing through. Like I was something she was curious about. Maybe even something she wanted to understand.
And what had I done?
Shrugged. Deflected. Said something borderline sarcastic and made her laugh in that way people do when they’re covering the sting.
I climbed the stairs slowly, dragging my hand along the railing like I needed the contact to ground me.
She didn’t deserve that.
She didn’t deserve me shutting down every time she asked a question that required more than a monosyllabic grunt.
But the problem was that nothing could happen here.
Not really .
She lived in this idyllic, odd little town in Wisconsin where goats had names and coffee came with matchmaking agendas.
I lived in Florida.
In a condo that overlooked a marina that I hadn’t set foot in for weeks. A condo filled with carefully chosen furniture, cold floors, and an espresso machine that could probably launch satellites but couldn’t stop me from waking up with dread every Monday morning.
This— she —wasn’t real.
Not in the way I needed her to be.
This was a temporary lapse. A break from the real world, and a chapter, not the whole book, and it was a bad idea to think otherwise.
I reached the top of the stairs and walked down the hall toward room four. My key card slid into the lock with a quiet beep, the door swinging open into the room that had started to feel less like a lodge and more like purgatory.
Soft afternoon light filtered in through the curtains. The bed was neatly made. My bag sat in the corner, half-unpacked.
I stepped inside and let the door fall shut behind me, and it was quiet, too quiet.
I toed off my boots and sat heavily on the edge of the bed, elbows on my knees, rubbing the back of my neck.
Fifi had laughed when I said I didn’t smile on command. But the truth was, I didn’t smile much at all anymore.
Not since the accident.
Not since everything that came after.
I swallowed, throat tightening. The one I never talked about. The one people whispered about like it had been worse than it was, and in some ways, it had been.
Because it wasn’t only about the crash.
It was what came after.
First, it had defined me and created a future I didn’t want, but when I harnessed it, what came next was worse.
The realization that nothing was guaranteed. That all the planning and climbing and earning didn’t mean anything if you walked away from a twisted guardrail or couldn’t even remember where you were going in the first place.
Because my father…he did it to himself, and we were just lucky he didn’t take anyone else with him.
But that ruined me as a kid, and it finished off my mom.
My worry was that it wouldn’t be long before it grabbed my brother, too.
And now here she was, Fifi, this person full of sunlight and chaos and homemade granola bars—dragging me back to life without even realizing it.
She made me feel like it was safe to care, and that scared the hell out of me because caring meant consequences.
Caring meant leaving behind the safe, lonely shell I’d built for myself. It meant opening doors I’d long since locked, and maybe finding there was nothing worth saving behind them.
And more than that, it meant disappointing her.
Because eventually I’d leave.
I had to.
That was always the plan.
Two weeks. In. Out. Minimal damage. Back to my job, my life, my perfectly color-coded calendar full of things that made sense.
Except... now I wasn’t sure they did.
I looked toward the window. From here, I could see the edge of the lake trail in the distance. A few people walked by, couples, families, a guy jogging with a golden retriever.
It looked easy.
Normal.
Like a life I’d forgotten how to want.
I leaned back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling, the fan spinning in a slow, lazy circle overhead.
Nothing can happen.
That was the mantra. That was the safety net I kept repeating every time her smile made my chest ache.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her.
Hell, I did.
More than I’d let myself admit, but wanting her and being with her were two different things.
And people like Fifi didn’t get tied to people like me. People whose idea of intimacy was dodging phone calls and leaving thank-you notes instead of conversations.
Besides, what would that even look like?
Me, trying to make things work long-distance? Monthly flights from Florida to Wisconsin like some kind of half-baked romantic comedy montage?
She deserved someone present. Someone rooted.
Not someone who treated connection like a ticking bomb.
I closed my eyes and let out a long breath.
I wasn’t built for this.
Not anymore.
I’d tried it once.
Still, her voice echoed in my head.
You keep showing up, so either you’re a masochist or you secretly find me adorable.
I smiled.
Just a little.
Because of course I did.
I stared at the ceiling fan spinning in lazy, pointless circles and thought, What the hell am I doing here?
Not just here in Wisconsin. Not just here in this room.
But here , this version of me, marooned somewhere between regret and emotional upheaval, quietly unraveling because a small-town innkeeper with big eyes and too much kindness decided I was worth talking to.
I pulled out my phone.
There was one person who’d get it. Or at least tell me I was being a dumbass.
I scrolled through my contacts, past coworkers I hadn’t spoken to in months, past the realtor who kept sending me just checking in texts, past numbers I couldn't bring myself to delete, and stopped at one name.
Dustin .
I hadn't called him in months. We weren’t exactly the chat-on-the-weekends kind of brothers. Never had been. He left home at eighteen, and I stayed behind to hold the crumbling house together like a damn emotional janitor until my mom passed.
I hit call before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang three times.
Then his voice, familiar and somehow still full of smug older-brother energy even through the static: “Well, well, well. If it isn’t Ben I-handle-everything-myself Jensen finally remembering he owns a phone.”
I snorted. “Nice to hear your voice, too.”
“You okay?” he asked, humor softening. “You never call unless something’s on fire.”
“It’s not on fire,” I muttered. “Just… smoldering.”
“Where are you again? Didn’t you vanish to some small town?”
“Wisconsin.”
He let out a low whistle. “Damn. That’s a whole scene for you. Cheese curds and polite people. No wonder your sarcasm’s rusting.”
“Thanks,” I said dryly. “I missed this.”
There was a pause. Then Dustin’s tone shifted, still light, but more grounded. “Alright. Talk to me. What’s going on?”
I exhaled and sat up straighter on the bed. “There’s a woman.”
“Oh boy.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Does she know that?”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Dustin.”
“Okay, okay.” He waited, giving me space.
“She runs the place I’m staying at. A lodge. Small, cozy, charming as hell. She’s…” I trailed off, trying to explain the impossible.
“She’s what?”
“Loud,” I said finally. “Bright. She talks a mile a minute, laughs like nobody’s listening, and she looks at you like she sees straight through every defense you’ve ever built.”
Dustin let out a low hum. “Ah. A sunshine girl.”
“Yeah.”
“Let me guess. She makes you want to risk everything and also hide in a closet.”
“That’s alarmingly accurate.”
He chuckled. “You always were a sucker for the ones who made you feel things.”
“Except I’m not supposed to feel anything,” I snapped.
“Who says?”
I ran a hand through my hair. “It’s not realistic, Dustin. I live in Florida. She lives here. We’ve talked, what—three, maybe four times? And every time I open my mouth, I either dodge her questions or sound like a socially constipated scarecrow.”
“Sounds like a love story.”
“Shut up.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “You’re overthinking again.”
“That’s kind of my thing.”
“Your thing is guilt,” he corrected. “Always has been. Not me. I don’t have a lick of it.”
I went quiet.
He didn’t fill the silence.
“You left,” I said finally. “You got out.”
“And you stayed.”
“Someone had to.”
“Would the outcome have changed?” he asked.
His words were something I had refused to ask myself, but I finally answered him. “No, probably not.”
“You’re holding it against yourself, Ben.”
I looked away from the window, jaw tight. “They needed someone.”
“They needed help. They needed to change themselves . But you, you turned yourself into a crutch because you thought that was your role. That doesn’t mean it was the right one. There is no right one in a situation like that. We were just kids. We did our best. They did not.”
“They were our parents.”
“They were drunk so often I’m not sure they remembered that most of the time , ” he said.
“And broken long before either of us knew what to do with it. You sacrificed years for them. I know that. I admire that. But that doesn’t mean you don’t deserve joy now.
That doesn’t mean you owe the world your misery. ”
My throat burned because I wasn’t sure if my brother saw the same pattern in himself.
“You’ve got to stop using geography and guilt as excuses,” he continued. “You’ve built a whole personality around obligation. And now, something good shows up in a hotel with a coffee mug and a sharp tongue, and you run for the hills because you think happiness is something other people get.”
I stared at the floor.
“You still there?” Dustin asked.
“Yeah.”
“Then hear this. You’re allowed to want something more. You’re allowed to smile. You’re allowed to let someone in without needing a PowerPoint presentation on how it’ll all fall apart later.”
I rubbed my temples and wondered how my brother got this sudden clarity. “Why do you sound like you’ve done hours of therapy?”
“Because I have,” he answered with a laugh. “I’ve been sober ninety-six days, but not before I spent three weeks in nonstop therapy, bawling my eyes out, and asking myself for forgiveness. It’s a disease, you know. It’s not my fault. It’s not theirs.”
His words shocked me into reality, and I slipped my fingers along my eyes to wipe away the unexpected tears. “Man, I’m so proud of you.”
“I figured it wouldn’t be fair if I started to need your services once I hit my forties, so…”
We both laughed nervously because that was precisely my father’s dream.
“So this girl, she’s got you all rattled and is quite the disruption to your stay.”
“She’s not just a distraction.” I cleared my throat.
“I didn’t say she was.”
“She makes me feel like maybe I could be… more. ”
“Then don’t screw it up.”
I exhaled. “It’s not that simple.”
“It never is. But it also doesn’t have to be as complicated as you’re making it.”
Silence stretched between us for a moment, but it wasn’t heavy anymore.
It was understanding.
“You think she’d give me another shot?” I asked quietly.
Dustin snorted. “She sounds like the kind of woman who’s already five steps ahead of you. I’d bet she’s still thinking about you.”
I smiled a small one, but it was real.
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what?”
“For reminding me I’m not the only one who knows what it felt like to grow up in that house.”
Dustin’s voice gentled. “We survived, Ben. Now it’s time to live.”
We hung up a few minutes later, the way brothers do, abrupt, no goodbyes, just a grunt and a click.
But I sat there for a long time afterward, staring at my phone and wondering if it was possible to rewrite the script I’d been living.
Maybe I couldn’t promise forever.
But maybe I could start with showing up, e ven if I was terrified.
Especially if I was.