Chapter Twenty
Once he was away from the breakfast table and waiting for the final activity of the retreat to start, Ben opened the letter he’d been passed by Annie earlier.
The instructions were brief. They gave the address of a diner he recognized the name of in LA, a time and date—the coming Thursday, 5:30pm.
He assumed that was decided under the assumption that he finished work around 5pm and left on time. Clearly, they really didn’t know who he actually was.
Not that it mattered. The thing that mattered was that Ben knew Sam believed him, that he wasn’t going to lose him when he exposed all of this.
The most damning thing was the amount.$10,000, underlined twice.
That seemed like a strange number. It wasn’t enough money to risk going to jail over when you ran a successful business, but it was a lot of money to someone like Ben. He wasn’t sure where he’d get it if he needed it.
Well, no, he knew where he’d get it. He’d ask Eliot for a loan. But that wasn’t the point.
Obviously, they thought he had money. The kind of money where he could come up with ten thousand dollars and not have it seem suspicious to his partner. Or maybe they didn’t care whether or not it looked suspicious, and they figured he’d be desperate enough to come up with it anyway.
Under other circumstances, Ben might have been. There had been times in his life where, if he’d been told he could have Sam back for ten thousand dollars, he would have gotten it somehow.
Now he had Sam back, he didn’t intend to lose him. If nothing else, being confronted with the idea that he might had taught him that.
He took a photo of the letter, still trying to puzzle through what it all meant.
Eliot would have a better chance of coming up with some ideas. Ben attached the photo to an email to send to him. This way, they’d have a copy even if this one was destroyed.
This is the note. I’ve never been blackmailed before, it’s actually kind of exciting, he wrote.Check into these two for me, see if they have history.
Ben listed the names and business details he had, though he realized as he typed them out that Annie and Robert might not have actually existed, legally. If you were going to go into this kind of thing, it was smart not to use your own name.
He looked up just in time to see Sam come into the room, and couldn’t help smiling at him.
Not that he wanted to stop himself. If Ben had his way, he’d smile at Sam every day from now until one of them died.
That was such a huge thought to have, but it washed over him like it was nothing. Sam was it. Sam was his end-game, his one-and-only.
His soulmate.
He’d known all that for years, but he’d been afraid to admit it—even to himself—before now.
“Hey,” Sam said. “You look like you’re working.”
“I just finished,” Ben responded, hittingsendas he said it. Eliot could handle things, and he could take the rest of the day off. “I’m all yours.”
“I like the sound of that.” Sam walked over to the bed, sitting down beside Ben. “How much did they want?”
“Ten thousand,” Ben said. “You’re worth a lot more,” he added.
“Thanks.” Sam looked down at his lap, resting his hands in it. “I was just coming to tell you that it’s time for the next thing. Another mystery, although this one sounds like it’s indoors.”
“Indoors is good.”
Ben stood, stretching his arms high over his head and trying not to wince as his joints cracked. They’d been cracking since he was in his twenties, so he couldn’t even blame it on age.
“Yeah. I’m looking forward to a really long nap after all this. Not that it hasn’t been fun.”
“Fun, but exhausting. Just like old times.” Ben smiled to himself.
This was better than old times by a long way, and he was hoping it was going to stay like that. He didn’t have the words to express how good it felt to have Sam around again, how right it felt to be near him.
Hopefully, Sam would understand anyway.
