“It doesn’t, it’s just another example of them being shitty. As for my issues, Kim and I didn’t see eye to eye on your story.” He couldn’t look at me as he spoke, focusing instead on turning a cupcake wrapper into origami. “She wanted to do an old-school interview. Ask uncomfortable questions, get you a little unbalanced, andboom, your pain is nothing more than content for the world to consume. I kept pushing my vision for the piece and she eventually agreed, but I think she assumed she could wear me down, or edit my footage to craft the story she wanted to see.” He half grinned. “Little did they know I made sure that couldn’t happen. They weren’t happy with my angle, so they obviously edited the show to be closer to whatthey wanted to see. It could’ve been so much worse for you, though. Consider me your bulletproof glass.”
I felt the blood draining from my body as I tried to piece together the subtext of what he was saying.
“But... why did they bring you to Italy if they didn’t like the show?” I asked.
“Contract.” He shrugged. “They had to. And Kim pushed for me to ‘fill in some plot holes’ while we were here. I think she assumed that her presence could bully me into getting the full backstory from you, but I wouldn’t agree to it. That’s why I wasn’t in your press conference. She didn’t trust me to ask the right questions.”
The generosity of what he’d done left me hollowed out. Tackling my story while knowing every gory detail, but refusing to cash in on it. Standing up to his boss. If he’d been a little more cutthroat he would’ve gotten the storyandthe job.
But not me.
“Oh my god.” My eyes brimmed. “It’s my fault you didn’t get it.”
“No, absolutely not.” He pushed the cupcake remains aside and slid closer to me and pulled me into his arms. I almost felt too guilty to hug him back. “It was my choice. I agreed with your boundaries. Hell, I wish I’d been more rigid with mine back in the day. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice your peace for my ratings. No way.”
The pressure in my chest felt like a stone crushing me. The fact that he could mask his pain to share my joy was terrifying, because how could I help him if I didn’t know he was hurting?
I scooted away so that I could study Ben. I’d seen the bleak version, and shockingly the man sitting across from me wasn’t him.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my stomach weighted with worry.
He cleared his throat and fiddled with the blanket. “No and yes. I spiraled when they told me. Punched a wall, that sort of bullshit.But then I took some time to think about the reality of working for them long term. Do I really want to produce pieces that aren’t truly my own? And profit from another athlete’s pain, knowing what I know? I got so caught up in my drive to win this shiny new prize that I never stopped to question what I was chasing.”
“Ben, I’m sorry. I feel like it’s my fault—”
Ben grabbed my wrist and dragged me back into his arms. “Stop.”
I nestled against him, making myself as small as possible so I could fit on his lap. We breathed in synch while I came to terms with everything he’d done for me.
“Is the dog back?” I asked tentatively.
I felt him shake his head above me. “Not yet.”
But we both knew that darkness could seep in from nowhere, especially without something concrete to focus on.
“What are you going to do now?”
He sighed so hard that it ruffled my hair. “Well, I guess we both have some stuff to figure out, huh? But you know what’s amazing about that?”
I shook my head silently.
“We’ll be doing it together.”
I tried to take a deep breath but it stuttered in my lungs, and the tears I’d been trying to suppress broke free, crying for him, for me, and the indecipherable feelings that kept washing over me when all I should’ve been feeling was joy.
“Quinn, I’ve got you,” Ben whispered as he wrapped me in his arms yet again. I rested my cheek on his chest and hoped my nose wasn’t draining onto his shirt. “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”
He rubbed my back until I downshifted to shuddery sighs. All the confusing sad-about-my-life-but-overjoyed-with-Ben feelings congealed into a single thought that I could no longer ignore.
“I love you.”
The three words came out in a rush, like I wasn’t sure I wanted to say it even though I felt so much love for him that it was practically boiling over inside of me.
His hand froze on my back, and I immediately regretted opening my mouth.
Ben pulled away from me in slow motion, and I tried to come up with a way to play it off, because it was too early to say it out loud even though I’d been feeling it for longer than I wanted to admit, to myself or him.
“Damnit,” he said softly, his dark eyes glinting at me.
