Sam couldn’t stop himself from laughing, though he did try for a half-second before giving it up as a lost cause.
“Is this where I say I told you so?” he asked. He’d been begging Ben to replace it, offering to buy him a new one and take it down the stairs himself, but Ben had been attached to it.
He got attached to things like that. Sam had watched him wear an old pair of boots until one of the soles came off in the street. Not because he couldn’t afford a new pair, but because he loved them.
Sam was starting to realize that Ben did that with people, too. He’d never replaced Sam. Based on what Sam could piece together from things Ben had told him, he’d never even tried.
They had some awkward things to navigate going forward, but at least Sam knew now that Ben wasn’t about to give up on him. That he was one of those things Ben was attached to, that he loved, that he’d never throw away regardless of how hard it got to live with them.
Sam wasn’t entirely unaware that he could be hard to live with. He got bored easily, he hated being still, and he couldn’t cook to save his life. The still-healing cut on his finger was proof enough of that.
“Do you want to come in, or not?” Ben asked, unbuckling his seatbelt and opening the car door, but not quite moving to get out yet.
“Well, if there’s coffee.” Sam grinned. “I think you just want someone to carry your bag for you.”
“I’m not gonna say no if you’re offering,” Ben said, finally getting out of the car.
Sam followed him, though Ben grabbed his bag before Sam had any chance to take it for him. That was okay. Sam knew he’d been joking, and it was nice to know that Ben wanted him around even if he wasn’t being useful.
The apartment was more or less the same as Sam remembered it. Still arranged the same way, though with a lot more bookshelves. All of them full, with extra piles stacked haphazardly on top.
The couch still looked fairly new, but everything else…
Everything else kind of served as a huge, neon sign that Ben really had never moved on.
In a way, that was sad, but Sam was grateful for it, too. Ben didn’t seem miserable. He just seemed like he’d been waiting.
The knowledge that he’d been waiting for Sam, all this time, hit him hard. Seeing it so clearly like this, in the way Ben’s life had barely changed, made all the difference.
They were meant to be together. They both knew it. It had just taken them a while to get to the point where they could admit it to each other.
“Coffee?” Ben asked, dropping his bag beside the couch.
“Uh, sure,” Sam said. “But only if it’s no trouble.”
“It’s no trouble,” Ben confirmed. “Make yourself at home.”
Sam didn’t need to be told twice, happy to collapse into the plush couch that had replaced the old one. This one felt a little sturdier, probably because it wasn’t on its third owner.
He could hear Ben moving around in the kitchen, the sounds of coffee being made filtering into the living room as background noise.
The couch smelled of Ben. The whole apartment did, really, in a faint, almost imperceptible way. It was nice to be surrounded by Ben’s life.
Much nicer than the hotel room Sam was going to end up staying in, but that was life. He couldn’t push Ben any further. Ben was probably sick of his face by now, too used to being alone to be ready for this much company at once.
Ben came back with two generous mugs of coffee and handed one over. Sam took it gratefully, wrapping both hands around the mug as Ben settled next to him.
He wanted to ask so, where to from here?
The timing seemed wrong, though. Ben would need space. Time. Room to breathe, and think, and decide what he really wanted from Sam.
“You got a place to stay lined up?” Ben asked, as though he’d read Sam’s mind.
“I’ve got, uh… leads on places to stay,” Sam lied, sipping his too-hot coffee.
“Bullshit,” Ben responded, seeing right through him. Ben had always been good at seeing right through people. Especially Sam.
“I was thinking, I mean, no pressure and only if you want to, but you mentioned needing a nap after the weekend, and it seems kind of cruel to send you to a hotel room or an Airbnb or something when I have a perfectly good bed here.”
Sam swallowed. Maybe he was wrong, after all.
“Are you asking me to stay?”
Even thinking of the question seemed like getting his hopes up too much, but he wanted to stay more than anything. He’d been separated from Ben for too long. He didn’t want to lose any more time with him.
“I am,” Ben said, his voice suddenly much more confident. “I don’t want you to leave.”
“Okay,” Sam said. “Then I’m staying.”
Relief washed over him as he sipped his coffee, a comfortable silence falling between them. Ben wanted him to stay, and he was going to.
Everything else… everything else they could figure out together.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Even with a plan in place and backup nearby, Ben couldn’t help being just a little nervous about meeting with Annie. He found himself fidgeting with a salt packet, his leg bouncing under the table.
He’d done this a dozen times, but he never really got used to it. He doubted things were going to get all that nasty in the middle of a busy diner at peak hour, but all the same, there was a part of him that had gotten used to dodging punches when this kind of thing went down.
Just as he was about to check to make sure his phone was recording for the thousandth time, Annie came in the door.
Ben held her gaze as she walked over and sat down opposite him.
“Can I get you a cup of coffee?” she asked, still upbeat and cheerful as she’d ever been.
“No,” Ben said, thankful that he didn’t have to be polite. She thought she had him over a barrel, it only made sense that he’d be disgruntled about it.
“How’s Sam?” she asked.
“He’s fine. Blissfully unaware. Waiting for me,” Ben said.
Sam was waiting for him, and he was fine, but he wasn’t unaware.
The thing that kept going through Ben’s mind was that they’d been singled out because when they’d gotten there, they really weren’t together. They’d looked like the most critical case, the easiest to manipulate.
It was a misstep that likely wouldn’t have happened if some asshole in marketing at Cocky hadn’t decided that what they wanted was a fluffy report about what really happens at couples’ retreats.
Maybe there was some value to those fluff stories, after all.
Ben wasn’t about to jump on the Ten Ways to Tie Your Shoelaces bandwagon, but he hated it just a little less today.
“That’s sweet,” Annie said. “You seem like a smart enough man to have the money.”
Ben nodded. “I assumed cash would be appropriate.”
He lifted the duffle bag beside him and dropped it on the table.
It was full of cut-up waste paper, but it looked realistic enough at first glance. That was all he needed.
He kept a solid grip on it as Annie eyed it off. “I’m terrified that he’s going to realize this has gone missing and trace it back to me,” Ben said. This was the critical part, the bit where he goaded her into justifying herself. “I don’t know how you can sleep at night knowing you’re ruining lives. And for the sake of ten thousand dollars. How the hell is it worth it?”
Annie looked between the duffel bag and Ben’s face. “I don’t have to explain myself to you,” she said.
“I guess you’re just evil.” Ben shoved the bag over to her, sitting back. “I don’t care about the money. I care about my relationship with Sam. I love him more than anything, and yeah, I’ve made mistakes, but… I could never do this.”
To Ben’s surprise, Annie laughed. It wasn’t happy laughter, and she wasn’t cackling, either. It was a bitter, sad sound.
“You and I aren’t so different. You’re doing
this to save your relationship, I’m doing it to save mine.”
“What, Robert’s bullying you into blackmail? No offence, but he doesn’t seem smart enough.”
Annie narrowed her eyes. “He’s a good man. He’s a better man than any of the lying, cheating, selfish assholes who come through our doors. You wouldn’t understand. You think life is all about you, you never have to worry about anything. You and your rich boyfriend who isn’t going to miss money that could-”
She stopped talking abruptly, as though she’d said too much. Ben played back the last sentence in his mind, trying to work out what to jump on.
She thought Sam wouldn’t miss the money—which showed just how wrong she’d been about the kind of people they were.
“Money that could what?” Ben growled.
Annie glared at him. “We’re broke. Do you have any idea how much it costs to start a business like ours? It was never even meant to be a couples’ retreat, but rich people… rich people like you, and their miserable relationships didn’t give us any choice. Do you know how many times disgusting men have come onto me there? How many times their wives have come onto Robert?”
Ben had wondered if that was how it all started. An idea that sprang forth from one of the guests, and grew from there. It didn’t excuse it, but it did explain it.
She leaned in closer, lowering her voice. “And yet we put up with all your crap and we smile and nod because if we don’t pay the bills then we’re ruined. So don’t you sit there and lecture me about doing whatever it takes to keep your relationship together. I’m just doing what it takes to keep mine.”
For a moment, Ben almost felt sorry for her.
If he’d had to rob a bank to save Sam, he’d do it in a heartbeat.
This was a little different, though. This was taking other people’s lives into her own hands and ruining them. Not only that, but obviously getting off on the power.
Maybe the first time, they’d desperately needed the money. Maybe it had even happened by accident, with someone trying to cheat on their partner at the retreat.
Intentionally trapping people who were already in vulnerable positions into paying up or having their lives ruined, though…
The people Annie and Robert were targeting could afford it, but at least some of them hadn’t done anything wrong and shouldn’t have had to. Using people’s marriages, ones they were trying to save, as a bargaining chip, was cruel.
Ben was starting to see why Sherlock Holmes hated blackmailers so much. It was a cowardly, awful thing to do to someone.
“People like you aren’t going to miss a few thousand dollars here and there, but people like us? We’re drowning, and it’s all your fault. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna take my money and go.”
She grabbed the bag and stood, visibly flustered.
Ben turned to the table opposite him, determined now to nail both of them to the wall. “Did you get all that?”
Eliot nodded, still focusing on his phone. “In full HD. The mic on this phone is surprisingly good.”
“You got it all horizontal, right?” Ben double-checked. He could feel his hands shaking, the rush of having caught a bad guy still as strong as ever.
Sam chose that moment to come around the corner, putting himself between Annie and the exit.
“You can run if you want. That’s a bag full of waste paper,” he said. “Cut it up myself.”
Annie looked between the three of them, suddenly going pale. “You’re a cop,” she said.
“Wow, rude,” Sam said from behind her. “Does he look like a cop to you?”
Ben actually thought that he did kind of look like a grizzled movie detective, the kind of man who’d seen one too many murders he couldn’t prevent and was tracking down a serial killer with obsessive intensity.
Not like an actual cop, though.
“We’re journalists,” Eliot said. “But we will be handing this over to the police.”
Annie looked between them again, then turned, pushed past Sam, and walked away, still carrying the duffel bag.
Sam turned to go after her.
“Leave her,” Ben said. “We’ve done the part we need to do.”
“And your project is saved?” Sam asked.
“If this doesn’t save us, nothing will,” Eliot said, shutting off his phone and tucking it back in his pocket. “So I think we can safely say that it is. You were very calm,” he added, turning to Ben.
“You would have been the same in my place,” Ben said. He was sure Eliot would. He had the makings of a great journalist, and Ben was glad he’d get a chance to be one, now.
A weight he’d forgotten he was carrying lifted off Ben’s shoulders.
They’d done it. They’d saved Ballsy, they’d caught the bad guy, and…
Most importantly, he had Sam. All of this was worth it for that alone.
The other stuff was good too, though.
“You were so brave,” Eliot said, with awe in his voice. “I don’t think I could have done that.”
Ben looked over at Eliot, surprised. He’d spent all of last weekend thinking about what a coward he was.
But then, he’d managed to go rock climbing and tell Sam he loved him. He’d managed to ask Sam to stay, and Sam had stayed. He’d corrected all the mistakes he’d made as a kid.
Maybe he’d grown up.
He laughed to himself at the thought that he’d finally made the transition from cocky to ballsy. Just in time, too.
All of it had been for Sam. Without him, he was nothing. With him, maybe he was a brave man after all.
“Guess that’s why you guys call it Ballsy,” Sam said, giving Ben the softest, fondest look he’d ever been on the receiving end of.
Yeah. He could definitely be ballsy for Sam.
Eliot chuckled, turning to look at Sam, admiration still shining on his face. “Absolutely. I was about to offer to buy you both dinner, but based on the way Ben was looking at you a moment ago…” Eliot said to Sam.
“I was about to offer to buy you both dinner, but based on the way Ben’s looking at you…” Eliot said to Sam.
Ben looked away immediately, though he was aware of the look he’d been giving Sam.
The sex was still great. It had been less than a week, but Ben hadn’t seen any evidence that the constant low-level arousal he felt around Sam was going away anytime soon.
He understood now how Eliot must have felt about Danny all the time.
“I can contain myself until after we’ve eaten,” Ben promised. “We deserve to celebrate.”
With the two most important people in his life beside him, it was impossible not to be in a good mood.
“Is it cool with you guys if I text Danny? I think he’s in town right now, he could meet us.”
Ben didn’t even have to look at Sam to know exactly how much his eyes had just lit up. He was a closet hockey fan, and he’d gotten adorably excited when he’d found out who Eliot’s husband actually was.
“I’ll behave,” Sam promised before anyone could react to the tiny, gleeful sound he’d made.
Ben chuckled. Sam had never behaved in his life, but Danny could probably handle him.
He was going to have to learn, anyway. As far as Ben was concerned, Sam wasn’t going anywhere. Not ever again.
“Danny’s a big boy, he can take care of himself,” Eliot said. “You’re both coming over for Thanksgiving, anyway.”
Sam laughed at that, and reached out to take Ben’s hand. He didn’t grab it, but left the offer open for Ben to take or refuse.
Ben took it without pausing for a single second.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Is that an actual newspaper?” Ben asked as he walked into the kitchen, nodding to what was, obviously, an actual newspaper in Sam’s hands.
“You’re in it.” Sam said, lowering the paper so he could point out the article.
“That doesn’t mean you need to travel back to the dark ages to read the article. It’ll be o
n their website.”
Sam shrugged. “I wanna take a clipping. Local Journalist Uncovers Blackmail Plot is definitely one for the scrapbook.”
“You’re not keeping a scrapbook,” Ben said. “My mom kept a scrapbook.”
At some point, while he’d been gone, Ben’s mother had died. Sam hated that he hadn’t been around to help him through it. They’d only met a couple of times, but she’d seemed like… well, she’d seemed exactly like the kind of woman who’d raise someone like Ben.
His father had been gone since before Sam had met him, so that meant he didn’t really have anyone left in the world.
Sam still wasn’t speaking to his parents after they’d disowned him, so they were both alone now.
Well, not alone. They had each other.
Sam hadn’t ever moved on after Ben had invited him to stay. It had just never seemed like something urgent, and now, he never intended to leave unless Ben kicked him out. They were happy.
Happier than Sam had ever believed he was going to be.
“I’m carrying on the tradition,” Sam insisted. “I’m proud of you. Besides, I’ve seen your magazine collection.”
Sam had been touched to discover that Ben had copies of every magazine he’d had a cover or full-spread photo in for the last ten years. They weren’t organized into a scrapbook, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d bought and kept them.
If Sam had ever doubted how Ben felt about him, the last of it had fallen away when he’d realized that Ben had been doing that all this time. Ben hadn’t forgotten him for a moment.
“I don’t have a leg to stand on here, do I?” Ben said, flicking the coffee maker on.
“Nope,” Sam said cheerfully, removing the page with the article on it and picking the paper up again to search for the crossword.
He was terrible at crosswords. Ben was amazing at them, but he wouldn’t do them unless Sam pretended he needed help. Normally, he did them on his phone and called out the clues, but there was no point in wasting the one in the paper.
“Eliot tells me he and Danny are thinking about adopting,” Ben said, keeping his attention firmly on the coffee maker.
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