Page 9 of When Ben Loved Jace (He Loved Him #2)

“He forgot to mention that I also have the better singing voice,” she teases when accepting Jace’s hand.

“It’s true,” I assure him, feeling emotional. “I owe her so much.”

“Oh stop,” she says. “You’ve rescued me a few times too.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Jace says warmly. “Thank you for keeping Ben happy and safe for so long. He’s a treasure.”

Swoon! Is he for real? I guess that mystery has already been solved. Now that we’re together again, it’s difficult to justify my doubts.

Greg saunters past while loaded up like a pack mule. “I’ll get all this put away and fire up the grill. Follow me!”

We do so. Jace insists that we make ourselves comfortable in the living room after asking what we’d like to drink.

“He’s gorgeous!” Allison says quietly when we’re alone. “And so nice!”

“Yeah.” I exhale and relax. “He really is.”

I glance toward the kitchen and notice him standing close to Michelle while she explains something to him. He looks over at me, his expression difficult to read. Please tell me my paranoia didn’t screw this up!

Jace returns with the others, carrying drinks, and settles down next to me. Allison plops into one of the plush chairs, Michelle doing the same soon after. After placing a bowl of chips on the coffee table, Greg splays himself out on the adjacent couch.

“What’s everyone up to today?” he asks.

“Wondering how you got so rich,” Allison replies while glancing around, “so I can copy your every move.”

“I’m an agent,” Greg replies easily. “But not the secret kind. I work in real estate. The house isn’t paid off or anything. I’m just starting out, but if I blow it and can’t pay the mortgage, I figure I can always get one of my clients to buy this place.”

“You’ll do fine,” Michelle tells him before turning to us. “He’s always been a good salesman. Like the summer when we wanted to run our own lemonade stand, but all we had were two-liter bottles of Sprite. He opened them up the night before so they’d go flat and added yellow food coloring.”

“We didn’t know how to make lemonade,” Greg says with a shrug. “I thought it tasted close enough.”

“It wasn’t very good,” Jace murmurs.

“Dimples over there sure sold the hell of it though,” Michelle says. “Then he biked to the grocery store with the money to buy actual lemonade to sell.”

Greg grins at her. “Hey, you’ve gotta put your profits to work.”

Allison and I dredge up a few stories from our childhood, conversation coming easy as we move on to other subjects. When the topic of dinner is raised again, I offer to help in the kitchen.

“Actually, do you have a second?” Jace asks. “I’d like to talk to you alone.”

“Sure,” I say after Allison nods that it’s okay.

He leads me out to the Airstream trailer. I assume we’re going to check on Samson.

“Is Greg allergic to cats?” I ask, still struggling to understand why Jace lives back here.

“Not at all. Samson goes inside the house when he wants. He just considers the trailer his territory and guards it proudly.”

I’m happy to see the little guy. I squat to pet him and am smiling when I stand again. Jace’s demeanor is much more reserved.

“I get the impression that this wasn’t just a casual visit,” he says.

I sigh and nod. “I was getting a little jumpy.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and leans against the kitchenette counter. “Any reason why?”

“I’ve had a lot of bad experiences with the guys I’ve dated before. There’s always some secret or lie that I find out about later.” I chew my bottom lip while searching his gaze. “Do you know what I mean?”

Jace thinks for a moment. “If anything, the guys I’ve dated have been a little too honest. Just wait until you meet Adrien.”

“Who?”

He shakes his head, like it’s not important.

“I’m sorry you’ve had bad experiences. I know we talked about cheating the last time you were here, which probably didn’t help.

Trust has to be built, and while you can’t simply take my word for this, I am exactly who I seem to be.

If you have any questions, ask me, and I’ll always be truthful with you. ”

“Okay,” I say, licking my lips. “Who was that guy at the party? When I went to get champagne.”

He looks skyward and sighs. “You saw that?”

“Yeah. Who was he?”

“A stranger.” Jace pushes away from the counter. “But I’ll show you who I thought he was.”

He opens a drawer and takes out a stack of photos before shuffling through them.

Then he hands one to me. The image is of two teenagers.

Jace is a younger gangly version of himself, his blond hair shoulder-length.

The guy next to him has olive skin and the same flopped-over mohawk that I saw the other night.

He’s wearing a green army surplus jacket and a crooked grin.

“The night I tried to kill myself,” Jace explains, “I had a letter with in my pocket, sealed in a baggy, explaining why. The man who rescued me, Bernie, read it while I was warming up in his shower. He had a trailer like this parked next to the river. I didn’t want him to out me to my parents.

Or tell them that I’d tried to kill myself.

I begged him not to. And for reasons I wouldn’t learn until later, he agreed.

Bernie insisted that I come work for him at the convenience store he owned, so he could keep an eye on me.

Idle hands are the devil’s tool. That’s his philosophy.

” Jace pauses a moment, as if reliving happy memories.

Then his expression becomes somber. “Anyway, I was working a late shift one night, all on my own, when a guy walks in wearing a werewolf mask. Except it wasn’t Halloween yet.

I figured he was there to rob the place.

He just stood in front of the counter, not saying a word, while staring at me with mismatched eyes. ”

I check the photo and notice that one is brown, the other green.

“Even then I felt something, as crazy as it sounds. And when he pulled the mask off…” Jace swallows.

“Love at first sight sounds so trite. Maybe it’s biological or spiritual, but sometimes you meet someone, and you just know .

The feeling is impossible to ignore. Almost overwhelming.

I’d never experienced that before. Or since.

” Jace’s gaze meets mine. “Until the day I met you. So yeah, at the party, drunk and raw from everything you’ve stirred up inside me, I thought I saw…

” He trails off before laughing humorlessly.

“But it wasn’t Victor. How could it be?”

“Victor?” I repeat.

The emotion on his face when he nods matches that of his younger self when I check the photo again. I can all too easily imagine, while on our date, the jolt I would have experienced if I’d noticed silver eyes watching me from across the room .

“That’s all it was,” Jace says. “A case of mistaken identity. The guy at the party took it in stride, because as he admitted, not many people have that hairstyle.”

“No, they don’t,” I say, handing back the photo. “So I take it Victor was your first…”

“Everything,” Jace confirms with a nod before straightening himself up. “Are we okay now?”

“Of course!” I step forward and cling to his torso.

Jace sets aside the photos and embraces me.

“Do you have any questions for me?” I ask after releasing him. I’m not eager to delve into my past right now, but it would only be fair.

“Just one,” Jace answers. “What I was talking about earlier—how you sometimes know you could love someone, if given the chance. Do you feel that way about me?”

“Yeah,” I say around a constricting throat. “I do.”

“Good. Because I want you to be my boyfriend. If that’s what you want too.”

“Of course!” I croak, my smiling eyes wet with tears, which he notices and wipes away. Then I throw myself into his arms again, happy beyond belief, because for the first time since my heart got tangled up back in high school, I finally feel like there’s a real chance of moving on.

— — —

The neighborhood is dark and quiet when I pull up to a house not far from the one where I grew up.

This is something of an annual tradition.

I’ve never told anyone about it. Not even Allison.

I park across the street, like I always do, and lose myself in the past, so intently reimagining the events that took place here that I can almost see them play out again.

My younger self hobbles down the sidewalk and up the driveway, burdened by a handsome guy with an injured ankle.

I watch myself leave and return again that same day, and many times after.

Sometimes in his sleek black sports car.

Often on foot in the dead of night, so I can sneak inside and be with him.

On one occasion, we step outside together, and he kisses me right there where the whole world can see.

I had just met his parents. We were both convinced it was a turning point.

And it was, for the worse, because they didn’t want their son to be friends with a gay guy.

He wasn’t though. We were so much more to each other than that .

In my imagination, blooms form on the trees and unfurl, ushering in spring.

The sun and moon chase each other across the sky.

My previous self returns again and again, always as a secret, until suddenly it stops.

I no longer trace a familiar path across his yard.

The trees sway in a summer storm. The sky clears and fills with stars.

And then, at long last, a skinny young man with a bob of brown hair approaches the house again, but his demeanor has changed.

He seems more determined than hopeful. Sometimes, at this point in the strange ritual, I’m tempted to get out of my car while waving my arms, like a maddened time traveler from the future, here to warn my younger self away.

“Don’t give back the key! You can’t stop loving him. Believe me, I’ve tried. He’s worth the pain!”

I don’t feel that way now. Not this time. I watch myself enter the house and leave soon after. My heart breaks for him. And for what I gave up. But I know what happens next—how I walked down the sidewalk, wiped the tears from my eyes, and felt stronger instead of weaker. Whole instead of broken.

That’s how it’s been ever since. I don’t really regret my decision.

I’m not always hounded by doubt. But I did love him.

With the entirety of my being. I’m not sure if it’s possible to completely recover from something like that.

Or if I really want to. All the guys who came after were merely salt in the wound.

With one exception. I think of Jace, the warmth that fills me coming from a different source. A newly discovered spring, gushing forth love in what I’d convinced myself was a desert. It would seem that I have more to give after all. As for the guy who got the rest…

I glance at the front door of his house just as it opens, revealing a silhouette with a strong build.

“Oh shit!” I hiss, leaning my seat all the way back so as not to be seen.

Which is ironic, considering all the times he made me do the same thing.

I’d hate for him to find me like this. Then again, I’m unlikely to be noticed.

I didn't drive this car back then. So I very carefully raise my head and watch someone walk to the mailbox to check inside, and yes, the man has silver eyes…

but he also has white hair. The holy father, not his son.

Once the front door shuts and I’m alone again, I laugh and return my seat upright. Then I place a palm against my heart, which is racing, either from the close call or those old feelings, but it doesn’t really matter. I have a new message for my younger self.

“You did the right thing.”

I start the engine, take one final look at the house where so many memories were made, and let it all go.

The love I felt for him is still inside of me and always will be.

But it’s no longer in the way. Just before I shift into drive, I speak the words I didn’t get to say to him on that fateful night.

“Goodbye, Tim.”