Exes With Benefits

by Nicole Williams

  “Canaan . . .” I whispered, leaning into him.

  His arm tucked around me, and he looked perfectly at ease sitting on a pew in a church for the first time. Save for maybe that tiny bit of sweat forming at his temples. “After. Whatever it is you want to say, tell me after.” His hand formed around the outside of my arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Don’t make me lock you in a closet to get you to talk, because you know I’m not above that.” Rachel slid in front of me as I was about to head back into the kitchen to get the next tray of food for the reception.

  I’d been dodging her looks and probing questions ever since filing out of the sanctuary a couple of hours ago, but I knew I couldn’t avoid them forever. “I’m trying to get food out for four hundred people. Your questions are going to have to wait.”

  When I tried to skirt around her, Rachel’s arm whipped in front of my path. “Half the senior female population of this town is stuffed in that kitchen and bringing out food, Maggie Church. I think they can manage without you.”

  A check in the kitchen confirmed there were a few dozen older women buzzing about. Their fearless leader was Mrs. Camp, one of Grandma’s oldest friends, who’d offered to hold the reception at her place after the funeral.

  “It’s the day of my grandma’s funeral. If ever there was a time you should cut me a break, it would be today.”

  Rachel’s eyes lifted. “Please. Your grandma would want me checking up on you. Especially if I’d thought you’d lost your mind . . .” she said, steering me into a quieter corner of the living room.

  I went with pretending I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. “Lost my mind?”

  “I, along with everyone in that church today, saw you and Canaan Ford holding hands, making eyes at each other, and snuggled up together all day long.” Rachel’s gaze drifted to where I knew Canaan was propped on the arm of a couch, hanging with his dad and a couple of other older men. “What’s going on?”

  My shoulders moved. “I don’t know.” My gaze drifted across the room toward him too. That warm feeling washed through me again, just from looking at him. From being in the same room with him.

  “Yeah, that answer isn’t going to fly with me.” Rachel leaned in closer. “What is going on between you and Canaan Ford?”

  Like he’d heard his name, Canaan’s head lifted, his eyes finding me without searching. He didn’t say anything or get up and come over—he barely smiled—but a silent message passed between us. One I understood as clearly as I guessed he understood mine. Canaan and I had developed our own kind of silent language in the years we’d known each other—the only two people in existence who spoke it.

  “Maggie—” Rachel heaved a sigh.

  “Something,” I answered at last, letting my attention drift back to her.

  “Something’s going on between you two?” she said slowly, steering me aside as the line formed at the food table now that everything must have been laid out. “Care to expand upon that? Because ‘something’ takes up a whole lot of real estate between nothing and everything.”

  My feet shifted. “If I could explain what that something was, it would make my life a whole lot easier.” I took a breath as I searched for an answer that wasn’t ready to materialize. “But I can’t. All I know is that there’s something between us again.” My voice was quiet as I finished.

  Confessing that to Rachel was strange; it made it more real. It was the first time I’d admitted openly that whatever bond that had connected Canaan and me had been raised from the dead. In some capacity. How tight that bond wove or how long it would hold were blanks I needed to fill in soon. Our time would be up in just over two weeks.

  “And when you say ‘something,’ is this something a supportive friend would celebrate with you or approach hesitantly with you? Just so I know what my job duties are with this latest development.” Rachel’s hands formed around the outside of my arms like we were dealing in life and death here.

  It took a moment of consideration, but only one. “Celebrate,” I said, my face relaxing. “Celebrate cautiously, and privately, but yeah, something to celebrate.”

  Rachel blinked at me. “Care to add on any more conditions to that? Just to add a little more confusion to the pile?”

  My head tipped. “You know I could. So don’t tempt me.”

  Rachel’s lips zipped tight, her eyes roaming from Canaan to me a few times. Then a huge smile broke on her face. “It’s about fucking time!” she gushed, bouncing in place. “I’m so happy for you two.”

  When a few at the end of the food line glanced over their shoulders, I made a shushing sound, steering her farther from the crowd. “How is this celebrating cautiously and privately?”

  “I can’t do it. I’m incapable of it, not when it comes to the two of you being back together again.”

  “We’re not back together again.” My gaze wandered toward Canaan, to make sure he hadn’t picked up on our conversation.

  “But you’re not not back together either, right?”

  My forehead creased. “I don’t even know how to answer that question. You’ll turn it around on me no matter what anyway.”

  Rachel patted my face, giving me a look like she had my number.

  My phone chimed in my purse right as I was looking for any distraction I could get. I didn’t bother to check the number—I didn’t care if it was Satan calling; I was answering.

  “Hello?” I shot Rachel a victorious smile, waving as I backed away from her and the conversation that was going nowhere fast.

  There was a moment of silence. Then, “Maggie?”

  My feet stopped moving; my face froze with them. It really was Satan on the other end. “I’m hanging up now.”

  “Maggie, wait—”

  “I don’t think so,” I snapped, my thumb moving toward the end call button.

  “I’m sorry.”

  His apology came as suddenly as it was unexpected. Those words were not ones I was used to hearing from Reed McAllister. Admitting fault, confessing he’d made an error, was not in his genetic code. Or so I’d thought.

  “I’m at my grandma’s funeral. I can’t talk.”

  “But you’re talking to me right now.” His voice sounded strained, worn. Tired.

  Rachel was giving me a funny look, mouthing, “Who is it?”

  I pretended not to understand what she was saying.

  “Maggie, are you there?” Reed sighed. “I miss you.”

  His words were gentle, sweet almost, but my body’s response was to recoil from them.

  “You should have thought about that before you decided to move to a different city and take a different job before talking it over with me first.” I couldn’t control the tone or volume of my voice, so I made my way toward the door. I wasn’t eager to spew the disaster that was my personal life to a house filled with the population of Farmington.

  “I know, I know. I was an asshole for doing that. I know that now.”

  “You are an asshole. I think that’s what you mean.”

  “Yeah”—a heavy exhale—“I am.”

  Wandering across the porch, I couldn’t figure out why I was still on the phone. Why I hadn’t hit End and blocked his number from the start. Why was I acting like such a fool when it came to the men in my life?

  “I want you to leave me alone, Reed. It’s over between us.”

  “I want you back,” he replied instantly.

  A warm rush of emotion rolled over me—anger. “And I don’t want to be your back-up plan anymore. I’m not going to settle for coming in second ever again.”

  “You won’t. God, I swear you won’t.”

  “Reed, I’m hanging up now.”

  “I won’t stop calling. Not until I convince you how sorry I am.”

  “I won’t answer.”

  “I’m not giving up, Maggie.”

  I didn’t realize I’d started pacing, but I was so consumed by the call, I barely acknowledged the front door opening
behind me. “Leave me alone. I mean it.”

  “Come on, baby. If you really wanted me to leave you alone, you would have hung up on me by now. Why are you still here if you’re so past the thought of you and me fixing this?”

  My fingers tightened around my phone, hating the reason he had a point. Also hating the reason he didn’t. Both reasons had to do with one man. My confusion circling him had transferred to all the other spaces of my life, it seemed, until nothing felt certain anymore.

  My jaw ground. “Leave me alone—”

  Before Reed could fire anything back, the phone was pulled out of my hand. As I spun around, I found Canaan lifting it to his ear. Whatever he heard he didn’t like. At all.

  “She told you to leave her alone.” His voice practically made my bones liquefy. I couldn’t imagine how Reed felt. “So leave her the fuck alone.”

  Saying nothing else, Canaan’s thumb punched End Call like mine should have the instant I’d figured out who was on the other end.

  However, thankful he’d done what I couldn’t was not the first thing I felt right then.

  “What the hell was that?” I snapped, snatching my phone out of his hand.

  The corners of his eyes creased as he unbuttoned his suit jacket. “That was having your back, that’s what that was.”

  “No, that was marking your territory.” My arm whipped in his direction. “That was treating me like I’m something to own all over again. I’m not some object you can possess or buy or do with as you please.”

  He was looking at me like he almost didn’t recognize me. “I know that. I’ve always known that.”

  “Your actions proved differently.”

  His jaw worked as he rolled his neck. “I’ve changed.”

  “Yet you just yanked my phone out of my hands and ended a conversation for me I was more than capable of handling.”

  “I never said you couldn’t handle it.”

  “Then what was that whole brute-ish moment just now?”

  Canaan shifted. “That was me wanting to piss that assclown off.”

  I’d been so engrossed in my idea of Canaan having this ownership issue that I wasn’t expecting his answer. “You didn’t even know who I was talking to when you yanked my phone away.”

  “Of course I did.” When my mouth opened, he cut me off. “Maggie, it was really damn obvious.”

  My pacing stopped as I attempted to process an illogical situation logically. It wasn’t working out so great. “You had no right to do that.”

  Canaan nodded. “I know.”

  Again, I hadn’t been expecting him to be so compliant. I’d expected defiance and an escalating argument. “Don’t ever do it again.”

  His throat cleared. “I’ll try.”

  “Canaan . . .”

  “Fine!” He forced his eyes to mine and held them there. “I won’t,” he continued, more a vow than a promise. “I won’t come between the two of you again.”

  I watched his eyes cloud before they could feint away, his body doing the same as he moved down the stairs. His name rose in my throat and slid down my tongue, but it wouldn’t escape. It stayed trapped inside as he walked away, sliding out of his jacket and hanging it over one shoulder. I watched him leave, my stomach in knots, my mind under the same kind of affliction.

  I was starting to understand what the problem was. And it wasn’t him. At least not this time around.

  It was me.

  It had been a long day. I’d been awake for close to eighteen hours. I’d buried my grandma. I’d chatted, hugged, and cried with dozens of her friends.

  I should have been exhausted.

  I should have gone to bed.

  But I couldn’t stop staring at the dark windows of that garage apartment. The lights in them had snuffed out an hour ago, but I knew that didn’t mean he was asleep. Canaan did his best brooding in the dark, and after what had happened earlier, I guessed he had no lack of brooding to attend to.

  The whole phone incident might have been uncalled for, but how I’d responded wasn’t any better. We hadn’t seen each other since he left the reception this afternoon, and while I knew eight hours wasn’t a long time to go without seeing a person, it could feel like a lifetime under the right circumstances.

  Done with staring out the window and getting nowhere, I padded to the back door, glided through it, and stepped out into the night. I was wearing my “hot summer night” standard pajamas of underwear and a tank—which might not have been the most ideal outfit for sneaking around outside. Thankfully, the streets were quiet and the yard was dark, so I didn’t have too much to worry about some random someone getting an eyeful of me prancing around the yard in my undies.

  The locket bounced against my chest as I jogged up the stairs to the apartment. My heart was pounding hard—not from the jog but from climbing the same stairs I’d fled down five years ago for the very first time. As much time as Canaan and I had spent together lately, I hadn’t once come within twenty feet of this building. There were good memories, of course, but the bad ones had found a way to overcome them.

  Once I was standing outside the door, I couldn’t seem to do what I needed to next. Knock. Just knock. I repeated those instructions again, but my brain wasn’t communicating with my body.

  The worst he could do was not answer. It wasn’t like he could play not home—his truck was parked below and I’d watched him climb these stairs a couple of hours ago.

  Actually, the worst that could happen was he could open the door, see who was standing on the other side, and slam it closed again.

  The thought of knocking was becoming less and less appealing.

  A moment later, the door opened and a figure stepped out of the dark. “It looked like you might have been out here for a while, so I thought I’d help you out.” Canaan gave a tired smile, stepping aside so I could come in. He was still in the dress slacks he’d worn to the funeral, but he’d lost the rest.

  As I moved inside, I found myself holding my breath. I’d spent countless hours thinking about this place, sure I’d never set foot in it again—and here I was, stepping both feet inside.

  The door whispered closed behind me. Even though I couldn’t see him behind me, I felt Canaan looking me over. His stare was never subtle, even when my back was to him.

  “How was the rest of the reception?” he asked, moving up beside where I’d stopped a couple feet inside.

  He was trying to make small talk, attempting to distract me from the panicky feeling rising inside me from being back in this apartment. I didn’t know how he knew this would be difficult for me, but somehow, he did.

  When his question went unanswered while I concentrated on keeping my heart out of my throat, he backed toward the kitchen. “I think I’ve got some tea lying around somewhere. The calming kind. You know, if that sounds good.”

  I heard cupboards being opened, boxes and cans sliding around as he searched. I just stood there, staring into the apartment. So little had changed. Other than the items I’d packed and taken with me that night, he’d left most of it unchanged. From the corner our old bed had been shoved into, to the bell jar filled with pretty rocks we’d found on walks and brought back with us, to the photographs hanging on the walls, he’d left the apartment exactly how I’d left it. There were several large spaces on the walls where bare hooks rested empty, but I couldn’t remember what had hung from them, if anything, when I’d lived here.

  “Maggie?” His voice came softly from the kitchen.

  “It’s the same.” My voice returned, the panic draining out of me as though a plug had been pulled.

  “Of course it is.” His footsteps creaked across the floor toward me.

  “Why?”

  His shoulders moved. “Because when I’m here, I feel like I’m with you too.” Canaan stopped beside me, studying the apartment as I was. “I could pretend you were about to come home any minute. I could imagine you asleep in the bed. I could hear your laugh when I’d try something stupid to impre
ss you.” His hand skimmed mine, knuckles touching knuckles. “You were here. Even when I knew you were gone.”

  My pinkie wound around his as my eyes continued to take in the space. Every moment I stood here, I felt more comfortable. At peace. At home.

  “I’m sorry for what I said earlier,” I said, another weight falling away from me.

  “I deserved it.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I know I shouldn’t have done that. But I’ve always had a hard time aligning what I should do and what I actually do when it comes to you, Maggie Church.”

  My breath stopped short when I heard him call me by my maiden name. It might have been the name I went by in Chicago, the name I referred to myself as, but hearing it come from him for the first time since exchanging hurried vows five years ago made something inside me crumble.

  Did he know now?

  Had he figured it out?

  This, us, wasn’t possible anymore?

  Even if we were able to put everything in the past behind us, our present lives were so different from each other’s. I was an artist in Chicago. He was an auto repair shop owner in Farmington. And that was only the beginning of the obstacles we had to overcome.

  I could almost see the hourglass in front of us, sand falling through it, our time together coming to an end. I couldn’t stop the advance of time, but I could stop wasting what we had left.

  Winding the rest of my fingers through his, I led him through the room toward the same corner I’d guided him to countless times before. He didn’t hesitate, didn’t ask for clarification. Nothing but the uptick in his breathing indicated that he knew what was happening.

  When we reached the bed, I turned to face him. Looking at a person and wanting so much, but knowing there was only so little you could have, was an odd thing. Because life wasn’t always fair. Life had already given me one chance I’d wasted, and it wasn’t about to give me a second to mess up.

  I didn’t say anything as my hands dropped to his slacks, taking my time as I worked him free of them. I wanted to take my time with him. I wanted to remember every dilation of his pupils, every rush of air that came from his parted lips. I wanted to feel every shudder, hear every rumble of pleasure echo in his chest. I wanted to remember, because when our thirty days was up, I’d be able to take the memories with me when I had to leave everything else behind.