And now, here she was again, sitting outside with Ben. Only she was no longerwithBen. Their time together wouldn’t be spent holding hands, and when they said goodbye, there would be no gentle kisses like they’d once shared.
“I think we’re going out on the lake tomorrow,” Ben said, as if reading her mind. “Would you like to join us?”
Her immediate response was to say no. And it was more than just not feeling comfortable at a gathering where they might expect her to wear a swimsuit. Back in the day, they’d spent many a warm summer afternoon at the lake. Sometimes on a boat. Sometimes just hanging out on the shore.
Did she want to be so pointedly reminded of that time?
“I’m not sure,” she said, carefully folding the paper from the cupcake.
She half expected him to press her. But instead, he just nodded. “Well, I think it would be a lot of fun. If you decide to go and need a ride, give me a call, and I’ll swing by and pick you up.”
“I won’t need a ride,” Amelia said. “Plus, I don’t have your number.”
Ben grinned at her. “That’s easy enough to remedy.”
When he rattled off a number, she just stared at him. She looked pointedly at her phone where it sat on the table, then back at him with her eyebrows lifted.
“Too fast?” His grin widened. “I’ll wait.”
With a sigh, Amelia picked up her phone and unlocked it to open her contacts, then handed it to him. He set his cupcake down and took it from her. Bending his head, he tapped out more than just his number.
As she waited for him to finish, Amelia marveled at how it seemed that he could still cajole her into doing things. Never things she didn’t want to do, but things that he sensed she was on the fence about.
And as she sat there, she realized that he hadn’t looked at her with any sort of pity, like so many people close to her seemed to.
Of course, he had no vested interest in her life. He was offering friendship and nothing more. At the end of the summer, or whenever the clinics ended, he’d be gone from Serenity.
The question was, would he once again be taking her heart with him when he left?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Ben handed Amelia’s phone back to her, waiting for her to look down at it.
Her head popped back up, and she narrowed her eyes at him. “Ben the Man?”
“Yep,” he said.
“As opposed to what?”
“Well, in case you still have me in your phone from years ago, I wanted to make sure you knew this was Ben the man as opposed to Benji the teen.”
“You’re not in my phone anymore,” she said. “And when you were, you were Benji, so there would be no chance of me mixing you up.”
“Well, if you decide you want me to have your number, just send me a text.”
He was trying his best not to steamroll her into anything, but it was hard. When they’d been friends—and later, in their relationship—he’d often coaxed her into doing things.
However, he’d never tried to get her to do anything she really hadn’t wanted to. Nor had he pressured her to be physically intimate. That went against everything he’d been taught, both by his father and the Bible.
There had been times, however, when she’d been reluctant or apprehensive about going places or hanging out with people, so he’d tried to encourage her to go with him just to give her a bit of a break from her training. And he’d always done it with Lexi’s approval.
Even though Amelia might have seen him as a distraction, all he’d ever wanted was for her to succeed and to achieve herdreams. Which was why, when she made it clear that she felt his presence took her focus away from that, he’d taken his broken heart and stepped away.
Now, more than ever, it seemed that she needed encouragement to spend time out and about with people. But it was more than that. From things Annie had said, Amelia needed to find her zest for life again.
He understood that her health held her back, but it was hard to see the spark she’d once exhibited now being absent.
“Are you going to come on the boat tomorrow, Amelia?” Annie asked as she sat down beside Ben, slipping her hand through his arm.
