“Wait, you mean your dad? I thought he was selling stolen cars in Miami!”
“Missouri,” Benji corrected, and frowned. “Maybe it was Miami. Anyway, he’s here now, and suddenly he has moral qualms about ‘exposing Max to my lifestyle.’”
“Exposing—?” Daphne spluttered a laugh. “Didn’t he make you guys pretend to be dying of cancer so he could go around businesses asking for donations?”
“Oh yeah,” Benji said. “I forgot about that. Anyway,andDillion tried to sabotage my painting!”
“Wait, Dillion actually tried something out in the open? When did this happen? Was this after Noah proposed?”
“No,” Benji said. “So, Dillion tried to sabotage my painting. We’re pretty sure Michael put him up to it. Then Noah saw the painting, and?—”
He stammered to a stop. Even the memory of the soft amazement in Noah’s eyes made Benji’s heart twist. He’d spent so many weeks worried about Noah’s reaction, but he never could’ve imagined it could make Noah want…that.
“And thenheaskedmetomarryhim,” he said in a low, rushed mumble. “And before I could say anything, Chet showed up yelling about taking Max away from me.”
“Ew! Good luck, asshat.” Daphne let out a disgusted noise. “So… what happened after that?”
“Nothing,” Benji said hastily. “We went home.”
Daphne waited. Benji dropped his head onto his knees, cringing against the bathmat. Hehadneeded to vent. But now he suddenly wanted off the call. Daphne was going to ask questions he didn’t want to answer. He could feel it in the silence.
“Sooo,” Daphne said finally. “The marriage proposal just got dropped?”
“Basically.” Benji swallowed, thinking back to the momentary hurt in Noah’s face, back in the car. He’d covered it well, but he had been upset that Benji hadn’t answered.
“He said I didn’t need to give him an answer now,” he said. “Which, like, that’s the only thing he could’ve said, right? Itwould be crazy if he wanted me to say right now, yes or no, will you marry me? We’ve known each other sixmonths.”
Daphne made a dubious noise.
“Moving in with each other is commitment enough,” Benji reminded her. “Do you know what it took for me to come around to it? I had to get him totellme to move in. I was too chickenshit otherwise.”
He grimaced. He’d never said that out loud. He’d left that part out when he told her he was moving in.
“Okay,” Daphne said slowly. “And do you regret it?”
“Ijustmoved in, Daph! It’s too soon to tell!” Benji rubbed the soft bathmat, looking around the bathroom where Noah had taken him while he was coming down. It was a room for warmth and safety and a deep trust that Benji still didn’t quite know what to do with. How many times had Noah washed him so gently after a scene, or helped him out of the bath and dried him before placing him in bed?
It was a room where he’d felt so many wonderful things. Things he thought nobody would ever make him feel, things Benji didn’t think he wascapableof feeling. So why did it make him so panicked now?
“I don’t know, I just—” Benji dropped his head back against the lip of the giant tub. “I… kind of miss when life was normal? Is that weird?”
“A little? You were pretty miserable.”
“I wasn’tmiserable,” Benji protested.
Daphne said nothing. He heard something clink on her end and imagined her playing with the jar of marbles that she kept next to her bed.
“I wasn’t,” Benji insisted. “I just— I don’t know. Maybe I was a little miserable back then. Because I’m happy now, and it’s…”
“New,” Daphne said quietly.
“Weird,” Benji corrected. “Like, I keep waiting for things to go back to normal. Even though I know it won’t. I have all this money now, I won’t go back to living paycheck to paycheck, worrying if I should pay for groceries or rent.”
“Rent,” Daphne said.
“I know, always rent. Thank fuck for food stamps.” Benji rubbed his thighs together, feeling the twinge of the bruises Noah sucked into him last night and so many nights before. “I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel like this is my life. I don’t get tokeepthis.”
“Mmm.” Daphne paused. “Ben, haven’t we talked about this?”
