But for Bex, it was mortifying. The lowest moment of her life, the biggest mistake. She’d never planned on talking about it. Not like this.
Maybe it was the anger loosening her tongue. Maybe it was Henny, big and strong and impossible, demanding answers she’d been holding back for months.
Or maybe she was just too tired of carrying around this shame.
“He destroyed me, Hen,” she said, not mentioning her ex’s name. That name would never pass her lips again.
“You think I don’t know that? That I could ever forget walking into your place in San Francisco, finding you like that? Not eating, barely moving, not…” His voice cracked, shocking her with its raw pain. “Your heart was shattered, Bex. I know what that looks like. And I’d never—”
“I’m not just talking about a broken heart, Henny.” She moved away from the wall, sitting on the desk next to him, her leg brushing against the cool fabric of his jeans. For the first time, she felt the full weight of the responsibility he’d always carried for her. The pain. The love. No matter what else happened between them, she loved him for it. Fiercely.
And she owed him the whole truth.
“He took everything from me,” she said. “Money. My business. My credit. Literally all of it.”
Henny’s brow creased with confusion.
“We were supposed to get engaged,” she continued, hanging her head. “We’d already picked out the ring, the wedding date, all of it. We were just waiting until he found a good job.”
Henny cleared his throat, his hands clenching into fists on his lap. “You never said anything.”
“I wanted to wait until it was official. Never got the chance.” She found a loose thread in her skirt, wrapped it around her finger until the tip turned red. “He had a lot of student loan debt. I knew that going in. But my catering business had taken off, I was debt-free, so when we moved in together, I paid all our bills. I even opened a credit card for him on my account, just to hold him over.” She unwound the thread, watching the color drain from her fingertip. “I was an idiot.”
“You’re not the idiot in this scenario, Bex. You loved the guy.”
“You won’t think so highly of me when you hear the rest.” She wound the thread around her finger again, tighter this time. “Even with me taking care of things, he couldn’t seem to get ahead. Couldn’t hold a job, always had an excuse for why he was short that month. Things came to a head one night and he finally broke down, confessing that his loans weren’t from school. He’d never even gone to college. It was all gambling debt.”
“Holy shit.” Henny shifted on the desk beside her, his voice low in the small space of the office. “So you left?”
“A smart girl would’ve. But no, I actually felt bad for him. I actually believed we’d had some kind of breakthrough. Like, no more secrets! We can get through this together!” Bex yanked the thread from her skirt, forcing back tears. She would not cry over that asshole. “Two weeks later, I came home after a twelve-hour catering stint, totally fried. All I wanted to do was take a hot bath and go to sleep. He was supposed to be out of town on a roofing job with his brother, but there he was in our kitchen, playing cards and drinking with five of his buddies, big pile of money on the table. He freaked out, said I’d lied about my hours. He turned the whole thing around on me. And you know what? Still I didn’t bail. I felt sorry for him, Hen. I actually thought I could save him. That I could fix his money problems and get him back on track. Get us back on track.”
“Still doesn’t make you an idiot,” Henny said.
“There’s more.” Bex closed her eyes. “I’d built up equity in my business, so I used part of it as collateral for a consolidation loan to pay off his debts. The loan had to be in my name because his credit was shot, but he’d found steady work with his brother, and he was making the monthly payments. I trusted him, even after everything.”
She blew out a breath, her stomach twisting with shame. In so many ways, the story still didn’t feel like hers. Maybe she’d seen it in a movie, or maybe one of the patrons at Big Laurie’s had told it to her, crying into a vodka cranberry while Don Henley extolled the virtues of forgiveness on the jukebox.
“Things got better for a while,” she said. “He took me out for dinner, made all the usual promises. I thought we’d finally moved past it. Then one afternoon I answered a knock on the door—a messenger service with important information from the bank. They were foreclosing on my business assets. That asshole had stopped making payments after just one month. He’d been hiding the bank statements from me, shredding their notices.”
Blood simmered in her veins, but Bex forced herself to keep going. “That was the breaking point. I threw his ass out that night, but the damage was done. My business was on the chopping block, and there was no way I could afford a lawyer to help me fight for it. I was out of cash, maxing out my credit cards, still paying off the card I’d opened for him. Thanks to that and the loan default, my credit was ruined.”
The worst part wasn’t even the financial loss. Things like that happened all the time to people. No, the worst part was that she’d let herself believe he actually loved her. Even at the very end, after she’d tossed his ass out, she still kept waiting for him to call and explain. To talk her into giving him one more chance.
“He robbed me blind, Hen. One drop at a time. I should’ve seen the signs, but I didn’t. I went from a successful business owner with money in the bank and impeccable credit to a woman who wouldn’t even qualify for a used car loan. The only reason I got the lease on my house in Buffalo was that the landlady thought I was dating a famous hockey player. Thanks to you, she let me skip the credit check.”
Henny was silent for so long, Bex worried he’d tuned out. She lifted her head, surprised to find him watching her. His eyes were full of rage, dark as night.
Through clenched teeth, he finally said, “You realize the only reason that motherfucker’s still walking on both legs is that I don’t know where he lives?”
“I don’t know where he lives, either,” she said. It was probably for the best. Last thing she needed was Henny getting arrested for maiming her dirtbag ex.
“Why didn’t you take his ass to court?”
Bex shrugged. “Why didn’t I do a lot of things? By the time the shock wore off and the shame set in, I didn’t have anything left. He took everything from me—my money, my self-confidence, my faith in myself as a smart, independent woman. Now I’m dealing with the fallout.” She looked up at him again, finally managing a weak smile. “So when I tell you I need to handle this bar on my own, it’s not about being proud and stubborn. It’s about finding my way back to myself. It’s about making sure I still know how to find it.”
Henny cupped her face, tracing her cheek with his thumb. When he spoke again, his voice was pained. “I should’ve been there.”
“There was nothing you could’ve done. And you have your own life, Hen. You can’t drop it every time I fall apart.”
“Yeah. I can. You want me to stop meddling in the bar business? Fine. But sit back and watch you fall, knowing there’s something I can do to stop it? Knowing I can protect you? Take care of you?” He shook his head. “Draw that line in the sand all you want. That’s one I’m always gonna cross, every fucking time.” He looked at her with so much compassion, so much love it made her ache. “You’re everything to me, Rebecca Canfield. Maybe I made a mess of things between us, but I won’t sit on the sidelines while you’re in pain.”
She leaned into his touch, taking comfort in his strong embrace as he stroked her hair, kissing the top of her head, whispering that everything would somehow be okay, as long as they stuck together.
It would’ve been so easy to fall back into it. To wrap herself up in all those promises, fasten them across her chest like armor. But for all his words, all his kisses, all the ways his touch had made her scream out in ecstasy, Henny could not fix this for her any more than she could fix his messes for him.
“What can I do?” he asked. “What do you need? Anything. Just name it.”
“I need… I…” Bex lost her words, heart hammering in her chest as she realized the truth. Right now, what she needed most from Henny wasn’t passionate kisses and runaway road trips. It wasn’t the man who’d rage against the storm to save her from crashing onto the shore, but the one who’d shine a light for her to follow on her own. It was the man who’d always stood by her as a friend. A best friend.
Pulling out of his embrace, she reached for his hands, holding them tight, hoping this wouldn’t be the last time she got the chance.
“I thought I could handle this,” she admitted. “Go along for this crazy ride with you, see where we ended up. But I was wrong. I need stable. I need predictable. And you—no matter how incredible these past few weeks have been—are anything but those things.”
“Because those things are boring as fuck.” Henny squeezed her hands, his eyes wild again. “Come away with me. Tonight. We’ll just… we’ll wing it.”
Bex lowered her eyes.
Maybe there was a time when she would’ve gone along on his whirlwind adventure. Packed up a suitcase and followed him right out that door.
But the Bex who would’ve done that was gone.
“I’m sorry, Henny. I just want… I want my friend back.”
“You’ve got me. I’m not going anywhere without you.” He tried to kiss her again, but she pulled back.
“I can’t,” she said, watching the hope drain from his eyes.
“Can’t?” he asked. “Or won’t?”
“I want our friendship back,” she said firmly. “Back the way it was.”
“Not happening.” Henny released her hands and stood up from the desk, pacing the room once again. “I can’t go back. I want you in my life. In my bed. In here.” He pressed a fist to his heart. “It’s all or nothing for me.”
“So that’s it? I run away with you tonight, or you walk away from me? From us?”
“Something like that.”
“Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? Not to mention childish?”
“You don’t do anything in your life halfway, Bex. I’m not letting you start with me.”
Bex gasped, her heart constricting, the walls closing in on her. “You don’t even want to be my friend anymore? After all this?”
Henny glared at her, the coldness in his eyes all the answer Bex needed.
All she could manage was a whisper, the words nearly tearing her in two. “I really hope you change your mind about that someday.”
“And if I can’t?”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Henny didn’t respond. His eyes were shuttered, his stance rigid. That was it. He’d finally shut down completely, kicking Bex out of his heart and changing all the locks.
Anger and sadness wrapped around her chest, squeezing tight, and she knew in that moment it was truly over. Not because they didn’t care about each other. But because they’d never be able to find a way to do it on each other’s terms.
Bex rose from the desk and opened her office door, the familiar sounds of the bar rushing in: the clack of the new pool balls, a group of girls laughing, Fee’s voice floating above the opening chords to “Stairway to Heaven.”
Stepping aside to let Henny pass, she squared her shoulders, sucked in a deep breath, and called upon the last of her reserves to whisper the words that sealed their fate.
“Then I guess this is goodbye, Kyle Henderson.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
Bex was in a tailspin.
It’d been nearly two weeks since she’d told Henny goodbye, and he hadn’t tried to contact her. No texts, no calls, no showing up at the bar after his games. She didn’t know whether to appreciate that he’d finally decided to respect her boundaries, or to call him up and tear him a new one for letting her push him away so easily. But despite all the confrontations she played out in her mind, re-imagining all the right things to do and say, ultimately she’d done nothing. Nothing but let him walk out that door, right out of her life.
And now, in the smallest, stickiest booth in the darkest corner of the bar, Bex sat nursing a glass of whiskey, trying not to notice the mahogany pool table that gleamed at the center of the room. Trying not to notice the fact that everything good in her life had evaporated.
Henny was gone. Her mom would be back from Florida soon, ready to put the pub on the market. She’d be out a job, out everything she’d come to love and cherish here in Buffalo.
Where do I go from here?
She reached into her pocket, pulled out the folded paper where so many weeks ago she’d sketched out her logo ideas—the powerful phoenix reborn in the fires of an old life, rising out of the ashes of tragedy. What better imagery to symbolize all she’d endured, right? She’d survived a horrible breakup. She’d seen her life savings, her business, all of her plans burn to ash, forcing her to move back home to Buffalo, yet somehow she’d found the strength to rise up and start over. Stronger. Better.
Before now, the days following her breakup had been the most painful of her life. She’d thought that if she could survive them, she could survive anything.
But now she knew that was bullshit.
Her ex? Hell, that guy had simply messed up her plans. Losing Henny, though… that was a broken heart. Now that he was gone, how could anything ever be okay again?
Bex sipped her whiskey, blinking back tears. She could hear the voices of her friends echoing, Eva and Fee encouraging her to give this thing with Henny a shot, give it time, give him space, give herself space. She thought about all those romance novels and movies where she’d wanted to scream at the couple to just sit down and talk things through—how it was so obvious they were meant for each other, that they could have a beautiful life together if only they’d wake up and get over themselves.
How many times had she rolled her eyes at that stuff?
Now, she was living it. She got it. Maybe this rift between her and Henny could’ve been repaired with a heartfelt conversation, but when she’d looked in his eyes that night in her office, when she saw the coldness there, all of her words vanished. She didn’t know how to make him understand how deeply she cared for him, and how simultaneously scared shitless she was to admit it. How embarrassed she was about all of the mistakes she’d made in the past.
For as strong as Henny thought she was, most days she was terrified she’d fall apart again. How could she admit that? How could she tell him that she didn’t want him to be there when it happened?
That she really did want him to be there, just like he’d been there in California?
That she really was falling for him?
That she was beginning to suspect it’d started years ago, maybe decades. A spark working its way into the foundations of their friendship, slowly igniting into the flames of something so much more.
I am in love with my best friend.
The loss hit her all over again, fresh as the night he’d walked out. The emptiness inside her was so vast, so endless, she didn’t know if she could ever crawl out of it.
How did it come to this?
Bex tucked the sketches back into her pocket. She was no phoenix, and what’d happened with Henny wasn’t some mystery, some great, unsolved vanishing in the night. The simple fact was she’d lost him because their relationship had changed, and she’d refused to change along with it. She’d wanted all the benefits of something new while keeping everything else exactly the same, especially the easy parts—the good times, the shared history, the jokes.
Maybe that was enough for a friendship—even a friendship with benefits. But when it came to someone you loved, someone you wanted to make a life with, there was so much more to it.
You had to be willing to fight the hard battles, to show your ugly parts and help him feel safe enough to show his. You had to strip yourself bare, to take the kind of big, impossible risks that shook you up and wrung you out. No matter the outcome, with a true partner by
your side, all those difficulties would only be half as painful. And the joys? They’d be doubly beautiful. Always.
That’s what Bex could’ve had with Henny, but instead she’d let it slip right through her fingers. Why? Because she was afraid of showing him her soft underbelly? Of letting him see all those scary, insecure parts? Because she was too wrapped up in her own fears to truly see and understand his?
Oh, Hen…
No, it couldn’t end like this. They’d been friends for too many years to let this all fade away. Maybe she’d blown her chance at love—something she’d live to regret for the rest of her days. But there was still one thing she could do for him, one thing to show him that she’d truly heard him. That she appreciated everything he’d tried to do for her, even though she’d been too damn scared to take the risk.
Bex downed the last of her whiskey, shaking off the desolation. She could take that risk now. For Henny. For herself. And maybe someday—a month from now, a year, a decade—someday when that anonymous stranger bumped into her at Wegmans while she was picking out tomatoes, instead of looking into the pleasant eyes of a man she used to know but didn’t quite remember, she’d smile at him warmly, grab his hands, kiss his cheek, and ask if maybe, just maybe, they could find their way back to being friends.
Bex fished the phone from her pocket, checking her calendar for next week. Then, steeling herself for the biggest leap of her life, she pulled up the contact details and hit the call button.
Chapter Twenty-Six
“Someone here to see you, one-nine.” Dunn sat down on the locker room bench next to Henny and mussed his hair, an all-too-fatherly gesture that told Henny everything he needed to know about who was waiting for him on the other side of the doors.
Bex.
“We got time?” Henny asked.
Dunn nodded. “Ten minutes. Get it done.”
Henny pulled off his skates and rose from the bench, half-dressed for the last game of the regular season, heart in his fucking throat. He hadn’t seen her in weeks. Drove by the pub and her house without going inside. Picked up the phone a hundred times, only to chicken out before he hit the call button. Looked for her in the stands at all of his games, but her absence carved a fresh gash in his heart every time.
Down to Puck (Buffalo Tempest Hockey Book 2) Page 18