Chapter Twenty-Three
As he parked in the garage under Ben’s apartment building, Sam’s stomach began to sink. He’d been with Ben for three days straight, and now it was all coming to an end.
He believed Ben when he said he wanted to give them a real shot. It was just the physical separation he was dreading.
“So you’re still living here, huh?” Sam asked as he switched the engine off. He hadn’t recognized the directions straight away, but hedidrecognize this parking garage. He’d been here hundreds of times.
“Yeah, I never really needed to move.” Ben shrugged. “Cocky is actually closer to here than my last job was, so…”
“I guess it saves moving all your books. How many are you up to, now?”
“Uh.” Ben looked down at his lap, clearing his throat. “I’m not game to count. Just assume it’s about twice as many as I should have.”
Sam chuckled. That sounded like Ben.
“Did you, uh… want to come in? There’s coffee, I could probably make a late lunch, show you how the place has changed. I bought a new couch.”
“Was that before or after one of the springs actually burst through the upholstery?” Sam asked, remembering the old one. He’d never been sure when he sat on it if this was the time it was going to collapse.
“After,” Ben said wryly. “I dunno if you noticed the little scar on my thigh…”
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 forSam, 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.”
