by Lucy Lennox
The sound of Bear barking ripped me from my thoughts and I realized I’d reached the top of the small rock face and had just been hanging there, lost in the memory. The pain was as raw now as it had been then, as I’d waited for Bennett to show up at the hospital that day.
He never did.
Chapter 10
Bennett
After spending the entire afternoon watching Xander’s arm muscles flex as he worked the climbing ropes, I was about ready to come out of my skin. He’d avoided me like the plague on the morning’s hike, which was nothing new, but then he’d seemed even weirder after the afternoon’s climbing lesson.
Every time he spoke to me, he spat the words. And god forbid Xander needed to speak to Aiden. Then he’d just ignore the guy like Aiden didn’t even exist. For some reason, it just made Aiden laugh. It had taken me a while to realize what was happening between Xander and Aiden, but it had finally dawned on me that Aiden was deliberately baiting Xander, and as soon as Aiden reached camp after leaving Xander to clean up the remnants of the rock climbing, I pulled him aside.
“What the hell are you doing?” I asked.
“What do you mean?” Aiden asked with mock innocence.
“You’re egging him on. Every time Xander says anything, you’ve got some smartass response that’s meant to get a rise out of him. I want to know what the hell you’re up to.”
Aiden’s blue eyes studied me as his smirk faded. “Bennett, just trust me, okay?”
“No, not okay. What does that even mean?” I was so tired of feeling like I was a kid stuck between two schoolyard bullies.
“The man clearly still has a thing for you. I’m just helping him figure it out.”
I stared at him. “Are you fucking crazy?” I hissed. “First of all, no he doesn’t. He hates me. Secondly, I need your help patching things up with Xander like I need a hole in the head. Stop helping.” I ran my hands through my hair before muttering, “Jesus.”
Aiden laughed. “This actually reminds me of how we got together.”
The remark had something inside of me suddenly releasing and my breath came out in a whoosh of laughter so loud, several of the kids looked over to see what was going on.
“Oh my god. Please don’t remind me,” I said with a grin. It was too late, of course. I was already running the memories of that night through my head.
Aiden snorted. “Joey and… what was that guy’s name? The one you roomed with freshman year.”
“Gus,” I said.
He chuckled. “Right, Gus. Why can’t I ever remember that guy’s name? You roomed with him that whole year. I always want to call him Mouse for some reason.”
“Maybe you’re thinking of the mouse from Cinderella,” I suggested. “Gus Gus.”
“I’m not going to ask how you know that. Anyway, Gus was sobbing on your shoulder and Joey was in tears on mine, and you and I spent two hours trying to broker the peace deal of the century to help our roommates patch things up.”
I laughed again. “It didn’t work.”
“That’s an understatement. But something good came out of it anyway,” he said with a sweet smile.
“Yeah. I guess. Not like you and I lasted any longer than Joey and Gus did, though. You dumped my ass.”
Aiden’s hand came out to tip my chin up. “I’m still here, aren’t I?” he asked quietly.
For some reason, his touch was exactly what I needed, and I stepped into his embrace and put my arms around his waist. Aiden was still there for me, just like he had been for the past ten years. Even though the dating portion of our relationship had been one-sided, we’d still managed to stay friends somehow.
He gave me a tight squeeze before releasing me and pointing to a fallen log for us to sit on.
“Do you know why I really broke things off with you, Bennett?” he asked in a low voice— his serious voice. Serious Aiden was always a sight to behold, but I didn’t necessarily like when it was directed at me. Maybe because I knew he only saved that voice for when he was going to tell me something we both knew I wouldn’t want to hear.
“Because you’re a commitment-phobe who’s terrified of letting anyone get close enough to tear down the steel walls around your wounded heart?” I asked, hoping to keep that lightness between us for another few seconds.
Aiden blinked at me before shaking his head. “Ah, no… but thanks for that.”
“No prob,” I said. “Continue.”
“I always felt like I was a placeholder for you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, trying not to feel a pinch of hurt from his words.
Aiden blew out a breath and stretched his legs before crossing them at the ankles. “Bennett, you’ve been in love with that guy over there since the dawn of time. Your first wet dream was probably Xander walking across the playground with his light-up Sketchers.”
I felt my face heat up. “He couldn’t afford Sketchers,” I mumbled. I didn’t add in the fact that I’d given Xander my new Sketchers for his birthday that year and told my father I’d lost them at school. Luckily, he’d been too preoccupied to notice how my best friend’s new, expensive sneakers had looked so very familiar.
Aiden’s warm hand landed on my shoulder and I turned to look at him. “He’s the reason you do all of this, isn’t he?”
“Do all of what?” I asked.
“Your dad is desperate for you to take the helm of The Crawford Group, but you insist on running the foundation instead.”
I bristled at his words and opened my mouth to respond. Aiden held up a hand before I had a chance.
“I know, I know. You love working with the kids. You’d rather help people in need than help rich assholes get richer. Save it. You’ve told me all that before. I was just wondering why. Is it because of Xander?”
My eyes snuck a glance back toward the campfire where the man in question was busy demonstrating some climbing knots the kids had asked about earlier in the day. I hadn’t even noticed his return or that darkness had started to fall.
“No,” I said softly. “I never saw him like that, you know? I actually envied his life in a lot of ways… what he had with his dad.” My thoughts drifted to all the fun Xander, Mr. Reed and I had always had when I’d gone to their house for dinner or they’d taken me on one of their excursions to the beach or hiking. Yes, I’d had more money, but Xander had seemed rich in so many other ways.
“I don’t want to be like them,” I whispered. It was a truth I’d never even admitted to myself.
“The kids?” Aiden asked in confusion.
I shook my head. “My parents. It’s always been about money and status and privilege. I keep thinking there’ll be a point where something inside of me will switch and I’ll look at a guy like Xander and see someone… lesser. Like how my dad saw Xander’s dad.” I glanced at Aiden and said, “They were friends once, did you know that?”
“Xander’s dad and yours?”
I nodded. “Well, friends might have been a stretch, but when Xander’s mom was around, their whole family would come over and Mr. Reed and my dad would sneak off to the study for a drink. He only ever did that with his friends. But when Mr. Reed started working for him…” My heart clenched and my throat felt tight. “He had to use the employee entrance if he wanted to come into the house.”
“The employee entrance?”
I nodded. “All the people who worked at the house could only enter through this side door in the laundry room. If they wanted to talk to my parents, they actually had to use this phone on the wall… they weren’t even allowed to come all the way into the house. Only the maid had free roam of the house, but even she had rules. They just became… non-people to my parents.”
“You’re nothing like that, Bennett,” Aiden said firmly. “You couldn’t be like that if you tried.”
I wasn’t so sure, so I didn’t respond. I let my eyes settle on the kids who were all completely engrossed in what Xander was saying to them. I dropped my eyes as soon as Xander glance
d my way, because I was too messed up to deal with yet another look of hatred or disgust.
“I don’t want those kids to ever feel like that… like they don’t matter. Like they have to use a certain door. I know that doesn’t make any sense—”
“It does,” Aiden interjected and I felt his fingers brush the back of my hands where I had them clasped between my legs. “It makes perfect sense, B. But I think there’s more there, too.”
There was, but I was too wrung out to try to explain it. Fortunately, Aiden didn’t press me on it.
“So if running the foundation is what you want to do with your life, when are you going to tell your dad?” Aiden asked.
I felt a familiar bolt of nerves shoot through my gut. “I’ve already tried. He refuses to accept it. When he offered me the position with the foundation, he made me agree that it was temporary. He’s already talking about having me shadow the VP when I get back because the guy’s retiring next year. My dad wants to retire early too, which means I’ll only have a couple of years as VP before I take over as CEO.” Even saying the words out loud had weight pressing down on my chest and I couldn’t stop my breathing from ticking up.
Aiden put a reassuring hand on my knee and my eyes automatically sought out Xander. Predictably, he was glaring at me, and I quickly pulled my knee out from under Aiden’s hand.
After watching Xander turn away to continue speaking to the kids, I heard Aiden chuckle softly. I turned and narrowed my eyes at him. “What?”
He stood up and brushed off the seat of his pants. “The pair of you are so blind. It actually hurts to watch.”
Aiden wandered back toward the campfire, deliberately stepping in Xander’s line of sight as he walked past. I noticed Xander’s jaw tighten by the shadows from the firelight and wondered if Aiden realized how close Xander was to losing his self-control. I could tell it wouldn’t take much to set my old friend off.
As I got up to make my own way back, I remembered a time in middle school when some kids at a nearby lunch table had made fun of Xander after they’d seen his dad pick us up in his old pickup truck from school one day.
“Hey Bennett,” one kid had called out. “You getting rides from your parents’ gardener these days or is Xander’s dad doing double-duty as your chauffeur?” The rest of the kids at the table had cracked up and slapped the first guy on the back for his comment.
I’d looked over at Xander to see his reaction and had seen the familiar tight set of his jaw that had usually meant the timer on the bomb had been set and detonation was imminent.
“Don’t do it,” I’d warned my best friend under my breath. “They’re not worth it.”
“Benny,” he’d growled softly.
“I know. Just wait, okay? We’ll eat outside and then I’ll let you beat the shit out of me on the basketball court.”
“You’re not the one I want to beat up,” he’d muttered with clenched fists. He’d never actually gotten into any physical altercations with the kids who’d considered it their duty to endlessly needle him about his place on the socio-economic totem pole, but I’d known it was just a matter of time, since the kids’ taunts had become bolder and bolder.
“Hey, Norwood,” I’d called to the instigator in a voice that had reached all corners of the lunchroom. “Mrs. Franklin wanted me to tell you she finally got her period, so you don’t have anything to worry about.”
There’d been a beat of complete silence before the entire cafeteria had erupted in laughter and Simon Norwood’s face had turned the color of the school’s cardinal mascot.
Once Xander and I had slipped safely outside to a picnic table, Xander had looked at me with wide eyes and a huge grin. Bingo. The reason I’d done almost everything in those days. That fucking smile.
“Mrs. Franklin?” he’d giggled. “She’s like a thousand years old. Why’d you pick her of all the teachers?”
I’d shrugged. “I figured she was the least likely to hear about it since she always forgets to put in her hearing aids,” I’d said, finally allowing myself to laugh too.
I hid the smile the memory evoked as I approached the campfire and sat down next to Lucky and snuck one last glance at my old friend on the other side of the flickering orange flames. His jaw had loosened, but his face remained unsmiling.
Goddammit. Why did that cut me so deeply?
I began to wonder if there would ever be a time I could once again put that smile back on his face.
Chapter 11
Xander
The following day was a long hike, but it was one of my favorites. We spent the morning traveling past Elk Lake and across Fractured Pass. The plan was to continue down from Fractured Pass to Woodland Basin and camp at Basin Lake. Once settled there, we’d have time to teach the boys how to fish before dinner.
When we stopped for the kids to take photos at the top of the pass, they took advantage of some late-thawing snow and threw snowballs at each other. Once the excitement of the pure white snow died down, I explained what a hydrological divide was and how the Continental Divide ran through the Rocky Mountains.
“If you poured a bucket of water over the top of the Continental Divide,” I explained, “the water running down one side would eventually drain into the Atlantic Ocean and the water on the other side would end up in the Pacific.”
“No shit?” one kid asked.
“No kidding,” I said. “And in the Canadian Rockies, there’s the world’s only confirmed triple hydrological divide. Can anyone guess what the third body of water involved in that triple divide is? Remember, we’re talking about water draining in Canada.”
The most popular guess was the Bering Sea and I realized several of our guessers were fans of a certain crabbing program on television.
“Nope. The third ocean reached by the triple divide on Snow Dome mountain in Canada is the Arctic Ocean,” I said.
I saw Lucky staring north across the tops of several snow-covered peaks in the distance. “Wow, that’s so cool,” he murmured to himself.
“It is very cool,” I said, walking up and standing next to him. “How’d you know which way to look for the Canadian Rockies?” I asked.
“Simple geography. They’re north of us in Alberta, and that way’s north… right?” he asked, turning to look at me with a raised brow.
I smiled. “Yep. That way’s north. Good job. Seems like someone I know was paying attention to the map skills I taught on the first day,” I suggested with a wink. I loved how Lucky straightened a little more at the compliment.
“Well, if you don’t know which way’s which out here, you’re kinda screwed, right?”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “You are, indeed. Now, which direction is tonight’s camp at Basin Lake? Can you find it from here?”
He turned around in a slow three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle before narrowing his eyes on a nearby landmark that stood out. “Do you have the map?” he asked.
I handed him the folded paper map without speaking and watched as he oriented it with the marks of the compass.
“Basin Lake is that way,” he said, reaching out an arm to point in the correct direction. “Right?”
“Right you are,” I said with a pat on his shoulder. “Lead on, navigator. You’re in charge of getting us there.”
“No way,” he said, shoving the map back at me. I didn’t take it.
“No take-backs,” I said, indicating the folded paper. “That damned thing is too heavy for me anyway. I’m already carrying all the climbing equipment, and I’m an old man.”
He rolled his eyes at me, but I could see a hint of pride in his step as he walked to the front of the group.
“Okay, everyone. Apparently, I’m leading the hike this afternoon. The quicker we find Basin Lake, the sooner Bennett will have to prove those stellar fishing skills he keeps bragging about,” Lucky announced.
I followed him up to lead the pack, laughing under my breath at the idea of Bennett as an expert fisherman.
“What
?” Lucky asked as we began hiking down the far side of the pass. “Is B bullshitting us or something?”
I shrugged and said, “For all I know, he’s an expert now.”
“But when you were kids?” he asked with a grin.
“When we were kids, it was a whole different story. One time we watched a movie where a guy caught fish with his bare hands. So, Bennett and I decided to try it out in his parent’s koi pond.”
“Koi? What’s that?” Lucky asked, his brow furrowed.
“Those are those big-ass goldfish with the fancy tails, right?” Calvin asked as he sidled up next to us.
“That’s right,” I responded.
“So what happened?” Calvin prodded. He was walking next to Lucky, so I kept an eye on him just to make sure he didn’t try to mess with the younger guy.
“So we went to the pond and plonked right in there in these ridiculous rain boots we’d stolen from my dad’s work shed. Of course, as soon as the water level reached over the edges of the boots, they became swamped and came off with our next step. But we didn’t care. Just kept wading out to the middle like the guy in the movie had done.”
Lucky watched me with bright eyes and I noticed two more boys had appeared on the other side of me to listen.
“What happened next?” one of the boys asked.
“Well, your fearless leader found what he proclaimed was the perfect fish-catching spot. He made a big deal about getting in position so he wouldn’t accidentally tip over, and then he held up his hands like a surgeon waiting for gloves. ‘Watch and learn,’ he said and stupid me believed he could do it,” I continued, as a laugh bubbled up my throat. It felt foreign to me at first, but one look at the kids and I hurried on. “So, he lurched in with both arms when he saw one of the big goldfish swim past. Missed. Then tried again. Another miss.”