“It’s not just a fire.” I look back at the table. At the chocolate specifically. “That’s my chocolate.”
“I know your favorite chocolate.”
“You went and got myspecificchocolate.”
“The hardware store has a decent selection.” He puts his hands over mine where they’re resting on his chest. “Come sit down. The corn’s going to be ready in twenty minutes.”
The thing about Bennett planning something for you is that it feels different from when other people plan things. Other people plan for a version of you—the version they’ve paid attention to, which is usually the surface version. Bennett plans for the actual you. The you that has strong opinions about hot dog char levels and a secret chocolate preference and said one thing about string lights three years ago at Brogan’s barbecue that you forgot you said and apparently he did not.
That’s the part that gets me. Not the effort. The attention behind it.
We eat by the fire for two hours. The hot dogs are perfect—I have a system, specific char, specific mustard ratio, and he observes this without comment, which is its own form of respect. The corn takes longer than expected and we eat it anyway, imperfectly cooked and completely worth it. The s’mores are a disaster the way s’mores always are, sticky and too sweet, and I get marshmallow on my chin and he doesn’t tell me right away and I only know because I catch him looking at me with an expression like he’s filing something away, which he absolutely is.
“You have—” He touches his own chin.
“I know.” I wipe it off. “You let me sit here.”
“I was enjoying it.”
“You’re a menace.”
“I’m a patient man.” He hands me my wine. “There’s a difference.”
The fire burns lower. The night gets colder. I lean into his side and feel the accumulated weight of the day—the Luxe emails, the scheduling calls, the specific exhaustion of running a business that’s growing faster than she planned—just release. Not gone. Just set down for a few hours.
“This was exactly what I needed,” I say.
“I know.” He presses a kiss to the top of my head. “Come inside.”
I follow him in through the back door, through the kitchen, into the hallway. I’m not sure what I’m looking for but I still glance through the open bathroom door as I pass it.
I stop.
I take one step closer.
On the shelf, next to his things—neat, minimal, entirely Bennett—is a row of products I recognize because they’re mine. My shampoo. My conditioner, which is a different brand from the shampoo because that matters and apparently he knows thatit matters. My face wash. The lotion I put on before bed that I’ve never mentioned to anyone because who mentions their lotion.
He arranged them on his shelf. Moved his things to the right to make room.
I stand there for a moment reading the labels like I need to confirm what I’m seeing, even though I already know exactly what I’m seeing. He didn’t just plan an evening. He planned for me to be here past the evening. He thought about me waking up in his space and wanting my things and went and got them and put them on his shelf next to his.
When I turn around my eyes are doing something I’d rather they didn’t do in a hallway.
“Bennett.”
“Guest supplies,” he says. “In case you needed them.”
He is looking at me with the careful steadiness of a man who did something vulnerable and is waiting to find out how it lands, which is so different from the man who sat in the middle of Main Street unable to process a single difficult feeling that I need a moment to put them together into the same person.
They are the same person. That’s the thing. That’s what six weeks of Post-it notes and bingo squares and breathing exercises and one very consequential equipment room actually produced. Not a different man. The same man, finally willing to show what was already there.
I look at him for a long moment with an expression I’m not trying to control.
Then I take his hand and lead him toward the bedroom.
The sheets are crisp and clean and smell like they were just changed, which they absolutely were, and I notice this and say nothing because some things don’t need to be said out loud to be understood completely.
He planned for me to stay.
