by Maisey Yates
But not now.
Her best friend had just found out that he was a father. A father to a fifteen-year-old, and that child was sitting in his house.
The very fact was like a slap.
Bennett had just found out he was a father.
He was her friend. She needed to get over herself for just a few minutes and deal with the reality of that.
“Where is he now?” she asked, feeling numb.
“He’s in his room. Asleep I think. Or maybe plotting my death, I don’t know. It’s tough to say.”
“Are you okay?” It was a stupid question. She wasn’t okay, how could he be okay?
“I’m not okay,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know what to do. I feel like I would be hard-pressed to find a paternal bone in my body if you handed off a baby to me. Much less handing me a fifteen-year-old and telling me he’s my kid.” He let out a long, heavy breath. “I don’t know what to feel. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I don’t know what to do with the kid. Much less a kid that’s half a man and all trouble. I don’t know... I don’t know what to do.”
“You don’t have to know right this second,” she said.
She knew he felt like he did. Like he needed to regroup and come up with a plan of attack in five minutes flat without taking more than a second to panic.
It hit her then that his version of that had been calling her.
That she was the one person he’d been able to call when he’d been mired in the feeling of not knowing what the hell was happening in his life.
That mattered to her. That she could be that person for him.
That she was important.
“I kind of do,” he said. “He’s in there. And I have to...parent.”
What would Bennett’s son look like? Her heart stuck then, a dull ache spreading out through her throat. She would know the answer to that question soon.
But Bennett had said that the kid was asleep. Still, suddenly, she was overwhelmed by curiosity. Kind of a morbid curiosity because the idea of seeing a child that Bennett had made with somebody else walking around felt like it would be painful in many ways. But also...amazing in others.
Her throat tightened, emotion expanding in her chest. “I doubt he expects you to just...magically be perfect. He doesn’t know how to be your son any more than you know how to be his father. You’re going to have to...feel it out together.”
“I told him he was staying,” Bennett said. “He’s staying. I don’t know much of anything except that. I know that I want to...fix things somehow. But I don’t know how. I’ve never felt more like I needed to do something and less certain of what that something was ever in my whole life.”
She had no idea what to say to that. “Well, I don’t know what the hell to do with a kid either. But I know that we can figure this out together. I’ll help you with your family. I’ll help you with him.” She didn’t know the kid’s name. He hadn’t said. “What’s his name?”
“Dallas,” Bennett said.
The name was very not Bennett. Not traditional enough. And Bennett had never been to Texas so there was no personal connection to it at all. “I guess it’s too late to change it now.”
He laughed. “Just a little bit.”
Kaylee wanted to be what he needed. But she didn’t know how to be. So she would just be there with him. That she could do. “Can I...can I come in for a little while?”
“For a little while.” Bennett turned away from her and she went after him, following him toward the house on unsteady legs, her heart throbbing at the base of her neck.
Bennett pushed the door open and she followed him in, looking around the clean, well-organized home, which didn’t look at all as if it had been disturbed today, much less like it had taken on a new occupant. Everything was in order, everything in its place, just as Bennett always kept it. Bennett liked to be in control of his world, and she’d always understood the compulsion. Her own home life had been chaotic, and her method of coping had been to close the door on it and pretend it wasn’t happening. Bennett had lost his mother when he was a little boy, and she imagined his carefully ordered life was designed to give him control after feeling so powerless then.
They’d both gotten into veterinary medicine because they wanted to fix. To heal. To help. A small bit of control in a world that offered very little, in reality.
A teenager showing up and moving in was...anything but controlled and orderly.
“I’ll take a drink.”
“Well, I want about ten. Can you drink when there’s a minor in the house?” he asked.
“Pretty sure you can. If not, my parents would have lost custody of me at some point.” She hadn’t meant to make that comment. She purposefully avoided mentions of her parents. Bennett had asked a few times why she didn’t go visit them at holidays, after they’d moved out of town. She’d always been vague. That they drank too much. That they just didn’t get along.
He’d pushed a few times, but she’d always shut down the conversation, and he’d backed off.
“Bring on the alcohol, then,” Bennett said, jerking the fridge open and getting a bottle. He handed one to Kaylee, then took one for himself. Then he frowned. “I’m probably going to have to hide this,” he said.
“You think?”
“Trust me,” Bennett said, “he seems like the type to steal beer out of the fridge.”
“Oh, really?”
“He’s here because he’s been in trouble with the law. Because nobody can handle him. I think underage drinking is probably in his repertoire.”
“So is eavesdropping,” came a rather sullen-sounding voice from the hallway.
Kaylee looked up, and her heart choked before tumbling down into her stomach. He looked just like Bennett. His build was more slight, his hair a bit lighter, but he had the same eyes. And, having known Bennett since he was about that age, it was just like looking at him. Like a carbon copy. She didn’t see any of Marnie in him, and she really didn’t want to, so that felt like a strange and selfish blessing. But he was Bennett’s son. She would be more shocked to find out he wasn’t. If she had passed him on the street she would have thought the same thing.
“Dallas,” Bennett said, keeping his tone even. “This is my friend, Kaylee.”
“Friend?” He looked her up and down. “Just so you know, I’m not in the market for a new mommy.”
Kaylee felt the sting of those words like the crack of an open palm across her face. “Well, no danger of that,” she said, her tone stiff. “I’m just his friend.”
“She friend-zoned you?” the kid asked, directing the question at Bennett.
Kaylee wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it. Of course, in spite of her feelings, she kind of had. The only scenario where she could imagine her and Bennett becoming more than friends involved him confessing undying love for her and a desire to get married immediately. The alternative was way too risky.
Well, the real gut punch was that even that insane fantasy felt too risky.
“She’s someone you’ll see around,” Bennett said, choosing to ignore the dig. “Kaylee and I run a veterinary practice together.”
“Okay,” Dallas said, feigning disinterest.
“Nice to meet you too,” Kaylee said.
“Did he really not know about me?” Dallas asked, leveling that angry brown stare at her.
“Well, I didn’t know about you until five minutes ago,” Kaylee said. “And he told me he didn’t either. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a terrible liar. On that you can trust me. He’s actually kind of a goody-goody. If he tells you something, I would be inclined to believe it.”
“Well, you’re his friend, so you’re biased.”
“It’s true,” Kaylee said, nodding. “But if I thought he was being a dumbass I wouldn’t protect him. Count on that. That’s re
al friends. Weak-ass friends just tell you what you want to hear. Real friends call you out when you need it. I’m a real friend.”
There was something about the vulnerability that flashed through Dallas’s eyes just then that hit Kaylee in a place she would rather not acknowledge. She didn’t want to relate to this kid, but suddenly she did. Yeah, she had both parents at home, but she knew all about uncertainty. She knew all about what it was like to spend your life walking on eggshells and hoping that you didn’t land on someone’s bad side.
She knew what it was like to live on a system of earning affection. Earning your place. Earning the right to get through the day without getting slapped upside the head.
Not even Bennett knew that about her. But she wondered in that moment if his son might have guessed just by looking at her. Like she had found common ground with him the moment their eyes had met. And suddenly, all that hurt she had felt a moment before over Marnie seemed ridiculous. The kid wasn’t a hypothetical anymore. He was real, and he was standing right in front of her.
A teenager who needed assurance. Who needed to know that he deserved to feel safe. That he deserved to have someone take care of him.
“He’s a good guy,” she said, tilting her head toward Bennett. “You can trust him.”
“Well, this random woman that I don’t know says I can trust you,” Dallas said, his eyes going flat as he looked up at Bennett.
But Kaylee didn’t care. Because he needed to hear it. She didn’t know anything about kids. But she knew about the kid she had been. She knew what she would have wanted to hear. Even if she wouldn’t have been able to believe it or receive it. But it would have sat there. If just one person would have told her that she deserved some kind of stability, it could have helped. Bennett had shown her that. As a friend, he had been constant and steady. And even though she had talked about the tumultuous nature of her home life, he had somehow seemed to know exactly what she needed.
He had given her focus. He had made her feel like she deserved to go for her dream of being a veterinarian. He and his father, Quinn, had helped her figure out how to get scholarship so that she could go to school.
Yes, having someone be interested, having someone be adamant that you could do something, that you could have something, mattered.
“If it’s all the same to you,” Dallas said, “I think I’ll head to bed.”
“I thought you already had,” Bennett said.
“Which is why you were talking about me.”
“Yeah,” Bennett said. “I’m going to talk about you sometimes.”
“Is this more of that honesty that you promised me?”
“Yes,” Bennett said. “I plan on being relentless with that until you start believing me when I tell you things.”
“Good luck. I have about fifteen years of people proving they’re useless liars. I would say that in about fifteen more you could maybe undo that. But I doubt we’ll be speaking by then.”
“If we aren’t,” Bennett said, “then it won’t be because of me. It won’t be because I stop talking. Guarantee it.”
Dallas reeled back, a deep crease between his brows. “Why?”
“Because you’re my son. And that’s how that works.”
The fire and intensity in Bennett’s eyes caught Kaylee by the heart and held her fast. She was useless and hopeless. Hopeless for him, and this only introduced a new way for her to be that.
Bennett was gorgeous to her, always. That was part of the problem. Maybe, if she had some kind of quiet, sweet love for him based only on feelings she could have redirected it. But it was more than that. It was a violent, intense visceral attraction that was physical on a deep and very sexual level.
So sexual it was impossible to pretend it was anything else. Feelings she might have been able to squish into another box. That deep, intense ache between her thighs was very difficult to pass off as anything but sexual attraction.
She’d tried.
And she would have never guessed that watching the man deal with fatherhood would have ratcheted that up a notch. She would have said that nothing could. But Lord Almighty, this did. Bennett full of righteous fury staring down his son. Fury at the world for what it had put him through. Uncompromising with a kind of deep intensity, a commitment that no one had ever offered to Kaylee.
It was more than her poor ovaries could bear.
Every little biological thing inside of her was screaming about the suitability of Bennett as a partner. A protector of offspring.
It was ingrained on a hormonal level. She was powerless against it.
That still didn’t make it less disconcerting.
Somewhere in the back of her brain she felt a little itch.
Michael.
Michael was the itch. She had a date with him next week. She had a date with him next week and she was standing here getting hot and bothered over Bennett.
But then, that was kind of the normal state of things. Exacerbated in the moment, but relatively normal nonetheless.
And again, she was mired in her own stuff and she felt like a tool.
Dallas shrugged, as if he was fully unaffected by the proclamation that Bennett had just made. But Kaylee knew otherwise. She just did. Because whether it hit him today or in five years, he was going to realize eventually what Bennett was saying to him. What Bennett was offering.
It would matter then. When he needed it to matter, it would. Someday when a little bit of that anger had subsided, or when he was feeling particularly angry and his body needed a break from it.
She was certain because sometimes having the friend that she’d had in Bennett, having the support she’d had in his family, had been the only thing keeping her grounded, rooted to the possibilities of the future, rather than those old, ugly feelings of inadequacy. Of not deserving.
And that—she knew—was what all that bluff and bluster was.
Feeling undeserving. Unwanted.
“I’m really scoring points all over the place,” Bennett said, when the bedroom door slammed shut.
“You are, actually,” Kaylee said softly. “You just might be saving them up for later. Want to go back outside?”
“Yes,” Bennett said.
They wandered out to the front porch, and Bennett leaned over the railing, lifting the beer bottle to his lips. “He’s real,” Bennett said. “You saw that too.”
“Yeah,” she said. “Sorry I can’t tell you it’s some kind of hallucination.”
“I was actually almost afraid it might be,” Bennett said, his voice rough. “That I was going to take you in there and he was going to be gone.”
She didn’t say anything. She had the feeling that he didn’t want her to.
“I didn’t want him to be,” Bennett said. “As little sense as that makes... Now that he’s here...”
“It makes as much sense as any of this does,” Kaylee said. “If you felt like you wanted him gone in the next five minutes, that would be okay too, because nothing about this is normal. There’s not exactly a guidebook for what to do when the son you didn’t know you had shows up out of nowhere.”
“I guess not,” he said.
“I just can’t believe it,” Kaylee said, shaking her head. “I mean, now that I’ve seen him I can. He looks just like you, Bennett. And I mean in an uncanny way. It’s like looking at you when we were in high school.”
“He doesn’t look that much like me,” Bennett said, kicking against the edge of the porch rail with the toe of his cowboy boot.
“He does,” Kaylee said. “And it’s everything. The way that he stands, the set of his shoulders. He’s just...you through and through, and he’d never even met you before today.” She sighed. “He’s not as happy as you were.”
“Of course not,” Bennett said. “Because he’s had an awful life, and I’m partly to blame for that.”
“You couldn’t force her to tell you. She lied to you, and you had no reason to think that she would do that.”
“My whole...everything since then...this is why I plan like I do. Why I make sure I have everything mapped out in my head, because I know what happens when you don’t do that. When you just...think of the moment and not the future.”
“I thought... I thought it was because of your mom.” She reached out and touched his arm.
“Partly,” he said. “You know things were hard after she died. We missed her, and Dad didn’t do a great job organizing. Not that I blame him. I had to keep my part of the world organized or it would all fall apart.”
Her heart twisted. “I know. I get that.”
“I know you do,” he said. “And then Marnie got pregnant. I knew that I had let us both down. I just wanted... I didn’t ever want anything like that again. I was young, and sex was new, and I didn’t think. I didn’t think, and I put her through loss and pain. I blamed myself for everything that went wrong in her life. And maybe I still own part of that blame. Because I was dumb. Because I didn’t keep control. I thought of my own physical pleasure over anything else.”
Kaylee didn’t like the way this conversation was going. Didn’t like the way it made her feel like there was heat crackling beneath her skin. Didn’t like how off-kilter she felt. Didn’t like imagining Bennett, her steady, staid Bennett, losing control with a woman.
It made her feel hot all over, imagining Bennett making love with intensity.
Hell, she was about to have a hot flash.
“I’ve never felt anything like that,” she said, the words sticking in her throat on the way out.
Bennett whipped his head sharply to the side, his beer bottle frozen midway between the porch rail and his lips. “You... Never...”
“I’ve never felt out of control. In that...situation. That’s all I’m saying.”
Something caught between them in that moment, and it was electric, intense enough that it was undeniable. It rolled over her like a wave, an ultrasonic wave, sharp and shocky and quite unlike anything she had ever felt coming from him before. Yes, there had been some small moments. Little pops of awareness, of both of them suddenly remembering that they were male and female, and not simply two genderless people sharing a friendship.