The Five Stages of Falling in Love (25 page)

Ben pushed inside of me and I felt bursts of pleasure dance through me. We moved together, learning each other, knowing each other in a way that I had never thought to know another man.

He took his time, both desperate and relaxed, both lost and found. I let him carry me away. I let him erase all of my doubts and fears and grief and anything else that stood between us. I let him help me realize exactly how I felt for him, without anything else clouding my thoughts.

When it was over, he rolled next to me and gathered me in his arms. He held me there with a sweetness that moved me. For three minutes, I simply lay there, completely absorbed and abandoned to him.

His fingers rubbed a lazy path along my spine and the scruff of his chin tickled my forehead. Neither of us spoke. I couldn’t find adequate words to describe my feelings and I had no idea what Ben was thinking.

But then that started me thinking. And the more I thought the faster my mind spun. The haze of lust and fulfillment fell away and I was left only with the reality of what I had done.

I had just slept with another man.

I had sex with another man.

A man that was not
Grady
.

The sob hiccupped in my chest before I could stop it. The grief crashed around me again as I reeled from the consequences of my actions. I grasped for sanity and stable ground but I could not find any.

“Liz?” Ben sounded concerned and I couldn’t blame him.

I launched myself from the bed and raced for his
en
suite bathroom. I barely made it to the toilet before I heaved up all of my dinner and my regret.

I stayed there for endless minutes, crying hysterically as my body physically reacted to what I had just done and the commitment we had made.

Ben followed right after me and stayed there with me. His gentle fingers held back my hair and his soothing words helped ease the crippling pain of my betrayal.

After a long time, I collapsed onto the floor. He did not hesitate to pull me into his arms again and hold me against his chest.

I didn’t deserve his kindness or his understanding, but without it I was positive I would have broken into a thousand jagged pieces. I would have been truly broken,
permanently shattered
.

We sat there for so long that my arm fell asleep and I ran out of tears. Ben had put on his briefs before he came in after me and covered me with his robe that hung next to his shower.

His thoughtfulness opened up new wounds inside of me and when I finally spoke, my voice was filled with raw honesty.

I had come to terms with who I was now tonight. And I had also admitted the reality that Grady was gone forever. That he would never come back.
And that in some ways, I had moved on.

But that I was not healed.

I had ruined something beautiful between Ben and me, something that should have been sacred and protected. I couldn’t help how I reacted or how I had behaved since then, but there was one simple thing I could do to salvage this night.

I could tell Ben the truth.

With my head against his chest and my fingers curled over his heart, I whispered, “Ben, I love you too.”

He held me tighter, crushing me against his warm body. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to say anything. I knew how he felt and now he knew, good or bad, how I felt.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Eventually Ben and I left the bathroom floor. I grabbed my overnight bag so I could brush my teeth and wash my face. Then I pulled on some new underwear and a
cami
. I brought pajama pants, but they seemed a little pointless. Ben stood in the doorframe, leaning against the door, watching me.

“Is this interesting?” I asked around a mouthful of toothpaste.

“I like this, Liz. I like being domesticated with you.”

I dropped my gaze to his sink and focused on finishing the job I started.

I crawled beneath his comforter and snuggled into one of his pillows. His bed was better than mine, and not just because it was absent of Grady’s ghost.

Ben curled behind me and wrapped his arms around my waist, holding me impossibly tight to his warm chest. I expected my mind to race with the events of the night, of sleeping with Ben, of betraying Grady, of saying I love you to a man that was not nor would ever be my husband.

But Ben’s even breathing and protective touch lulled me into a cozy place that was absent of haunting husbands and sweet regrets.

“I would apologize for puking after sex,” I teased, “but I bet that happens to you a lot.”

I felt his body still, surprised by my joke. “You think you’re clever.”

I looked at him over my shoulder and through mussed strands of hair, “I know I’m clever.”

I squealed when he started tickling me. How was that a fair response! I jerked and struggled to get away from his torturing, but it was no use. I flopped to my back and he pinned me down by straddling my waist. I was laughing so hard I wasn’t making any sound.

“Stop!”
I gasped, bucking against him.
Stop!”
I tried to pinch his nipple in retaliation, but he caught my hand and pinned it to the pillow beneath my head.

His nose ran a slow trail over mine. He stopped tickling me in favor of running his free hand over my side, across my stomach and along the curve of my breast.

“That was mean,” I panted. He was still driving me crazy, but now his touch had turned sensual and my breathing panted for a different reason.

“
Mmm
,” he murmured as he nipped at my bottom lip. “But so worth it.” His thigh slipped between my legs, parting them until he could slide between them.

This time, I did not puke. This time, when it was over, he pulled me into the curve of his body again and we fell asleep, tangled in each other.

And when I woke, I knew that I was with Ben and not Grady.

I had been afraid that I would forget, that my memories would collide with my reality and I would truly wound Ben by not remembering that I was in his bed.

But I came awake with Ben’s familiar scent filling my nostrils, not Grady’s. And it was Ben’s leaner, longer legs that overlapped with mine, not Grady’s.

I woke with a clear sense of
who
I was with and what we had done.

And I was okay.

Mostly.

Ben made us a big breakfast of eggs and hash browns over toast. It turned out Pop-Tarts weren’t the only thing he knew how to make. We laughed and talked over a shared pot of coffee and deliciously tingling feelings from what had transpired last night.

When he walked me to my door, he kissed me with the knowledge of a man that knew my body intimately.

“I’ll stop by later,” he said.

“Okay.
For dinner?”

“Yeah.”

With one hand on the door handle, I turned back to him and blinked in the light of day. I didn’t have the courage this morning. I couldn’t say the words again. They churned in my stomach, filling my chest with acid.

I wanted to say them. I wanted to believe that they were true… But I couldn’t. The day was too bright, the morning too raw.

“I-I-I’ll see you later,” I told him instead.

“Okay, Liz.”

I escaped to my house and shut the door behind me, locking out Ben and the feelings and sensations he brought with him.

My children attacked me with cries of “Mommy!” I brought them all into a hug and held them tightly to me.

Emma stood over us with a hopeful expression on her face, “How did it go?”

I looked up at her and blinked away tears that I refused to cry. “Good,” I admitted.
“Really, really good.”
She grinned, blinding me with her brilliance. “And bad,” I continued to confess.
“Really, really bad.”

Her eyebrows drew down in confusion. “What happened?”

“He, uh, he told me he loved me.” I mouthed the last part to her so the kids didn’t hear. Her eyes grew huge and her mouth dropped open. “And I… um, told him the same thing.”

If possible Emma’s expression grew even more surprised. “Oh, Lizzy,” she whispered. She stepped close to me and wrapped me in a tight hug.

I didn’t cry this time. I wouldn’t let myself have an emotional release. I deserved this pain. I deserved this heartache.

Unlike Grady’s sickness and death, I had done this to myself.

My heart felt ripped in two. One part would forever stay with Grady, loyal to my first love and my husband. The other part ran to Ben, to this new love.

Emma asked me if I was okay probably forty times before she left me for the day. I told her each time that I would be. I didn’t believe my lie and I knew she didn’t either.

By the time Ben came over for dinner that night, I was wound tight.

He walked in the house without knocking. He had been doing this for a while, but this time it caused my anxiety to spike. The front door happened to be open this time, but if it hadn’t been, he had a key. He had access to my house, my family and now my heart. And I’d just given it to him.

I’d given it all to him.

So now how did I get it back?

“Ben, when are you going to move in with us?” Abby asked over tacos.

I dropped my fork. “What?”

“I asked Ben when he was going to move in with us,” she repeated, as if it wasn’t the most absurd question in the entire world.

Ben chuckled, clearly more level-headed than me, “Why do you ask that, Abs?”

Blake kicked her from under the table. “That’s such a stupid question. Why would he move in with us? He has his own house. And it has a pool.”

Abby’s expression flashed with fury, my little hot head that couldn’t keep her temper under control. “It’s not a stupid question!” she shouted at her brother. “Ben loves mom! I heard her tell Aunt Emma. He loves her! So why wouldn’t he move in with us? People that love each other are supposed to live together!”

“It’s different!” I rushed to tell her. “Some people that love each other live together, but other times they just live… next door.” I wanted to face plant into my refried beans.

“Why?” Abby asked innocently.

“Well,” I cleared my throat and struggled to regain some of my composure. “Sometimes people that love each other live together. Like us. I love you so much that I don’t ever want you to move out. You can live here forever and ever and ever.” She giggled at me and Blake groaned. The two littles cheered for that idea. “But sometimes,” I went on, “people that love each other have to live apart. Like your Nana. You love Nana Katherine, don’t you?” The four of them nodded enthusiastically. “But she lives in her house and we live in ours. It doesn’t mean we love her less, it just means we live in different places.”

“But when you loved daddy, he lived with us,” Abby put in oh, so helpfully.

My heart plummeted into my stomach, “I still love daddy. I still love him very much, Abby.”

Her nose wrinkled with confusion. “I thought you loved Ben.”

I made a frustrated sound that rattled my chest. “Abby, you were not supposed to hear that. You can’t just-”

“Liz,” Ben interrupted with his deep, rolling voice. He gave me a pleading look to let him try this. I slammed back in my seat and raised my eyebrows at him. I blamed him for this. This was his fault. “Abby, do you love your mom?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“And do you love your dad?
Even though he isn’t here anymore?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Don’t you think you’ll always love your dad?”

“Yes.
Forever and ever.”

Ben smiled affectionately at her. “That’s how your mom feels about him too. She loves him so much that she’ll never stop loving him. And we don’t want her to, do we? We always want her to love him.”

The kids all nodded.

Ben continued, after taking a deep breath, “Is it easy for you to love both your mom and your dad? Even though one is here and one isn’t, you can still love both of them, right?”

The kids nodded again. “Yes,” Abby said.

“That’s how your mom feels. She loves your dad very, very much. But she also loves me. And even though your dad is gone now, she will never stop loving him. She just also loves me now. We don’t have to limit how many people we love. Our hearts make room for as many people as we want to let in.”

My chest fluttered with his words. He had explained that perfectly to my kids. They all understood what he meant and accepted his explanation easily.

Even I found it easy to agree when he put it like that. I didn’t want to accept that it could be so simple; my heart protested that he was wrong, but I couldn’t come up with an argument to prove it.

“So are you going to move in with us or not?” Abby looked seriously at Ben, apparently back to business.

Ben looked to me. He watched my frightened expression and measured my obvious panic. Then he ignored all of the hot mess that I was and turned back to my daughter and said, “One day.”

“Soon?” she said.

“If I get my way,” he told her.

It was a miracle that I got through the rest of dinner. I simmered with frustration and anger. I wanted to kick him out of my house and deal with him later. But for the sake of my kids, I struggled through the rest of the night.

Ben stuck around after dinner and helped put the kids to bed. He had to know I was pissed at him, but he didn’t seem to care.
At least not enough to leave without me telling him he needed to.

I gave the kids extra-long hugs and kisses, escaping to their bedrooms so I could avoid Ben for as long as possible. He’d moved back downstairs after they brushed their teeth, so I had a few minutes before I needed to face him.

I went to Blake’s room last because it was closest to the stairs. I found him lying on his back with both hands tucked beneath his head. He was staring up at the ceiling deep in thought. It wasn’t until I sat down next to him, that he looked over at me.

“Do you really still love dad?” he asked quietly. His green eyes held tears that hadn’t fallen yet.

“Yes,” I promised him immediately.
“More than anything else.”

“Is Ben really going to move in with us?”

“No!” I rushed to assure him. “No, he’s not. Ben is going to stay in his house and we are going to stay in ours.”

He tilted his head to look at me. Somehow he’d gone through third grade, turned nine, been an all-star on his soccer team and become the man of the house all over the last year. He wasn’t my little baby boy anymore. He had matured. He had become a kid that made me so very proud. He’d become a kid that would have made his dad proud.

“It would be okay with me, Mom.
If he moved in.”

Blake’s words shook me to my very core. “He’s not, Blake. Please don’t worry about it. It’s not happening. He’s not going to move in.”

“Okay.” His gaze moved back to his ceiling and I could see the disappointment written all over his body.

Great.

I kissed his forehead and turned off his lamp. I stopped feeling angry with Ben. Instead, I felt something incredibly more difficult. The truth of what I needed to do.

The weight of my relationship with Ben pressed down on me and threatened to crush me. I missed Grady with a fierce ache that fractured my heart and soul. I couldn’t have both of these men.

I couldn’t have either of them.

I walked downstairs and found Ben lounging on the sectional. He was stretched out, flipping through the channels with one hand propped behind his head.

The image of him reminded me so strongly of Grady that my knees nearly buckled.

His eyes lifted to mine as soon as he saw me. A playful smile danced on his lips and his fingers twirled the remote casually.

This man should never have fallen in love with me. I was only going to destroy him.

“Hey, are you okay?” He sat up as I walked over. Tension seeped back into his shoulders and straightened his spine.

“No,” I told him honestly.

He jumped to his feet and closed the distance between us. “What’s wrong?”

I swallowed thickly and told him the truth, “I can’t do this anymore, Ben.”

“Do what anymore?”

“Us.”

“Liz…”

“I can’t,” I sobbed. “I can’t be with you. I can’t love you. We have to stop.”

“No, you have to stop.” His voice had turned to rough gravel, dragging across my heart. “How can you say that?
After last night?
After everything we’ve been through?”

“After everything I’ve been through, you mean!” I struggled to keep my voice low enough so I wouldn’t wake the kids. “I didn’t want this, Ben. I didn’t ask for you to come into my life and make me feel for you. I didn’t ask you to become a part of our lives and take over where my husband left off.”

“Liz, you know that I have never tried to take over Grady’s place or be what he was to you guys. I have never once asked you to ignore or forget him. That isn’t fair.”

I went on like he had never spoken, “And now my kids are asking you to move in with us! You can’t replace their daddy! You can’t just move in and fill this void that he left behind!”

“I have never once tried to do any of that!” he growled at me. “Stop making this into something that it’s not.”

“Then what is it?” I shouted at him. I shook my head and lowered my voice again, “What is it? What is this?”

“This is us, Liz,” he pleaded with me. “This is you and me. We’re figuring it out as we go. Neither of us expected this, but it happened. We need each other. We… We love each other.”