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“Uh, yeah,” Ben answered slowly. “She’s been asleep for a while. Jodie was here earlier, and… well, we tucked her in together. And we talked.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. My heart rate started to creep up to unhealthy speeds. Nothing good could come of Bennett talking to my mom. Of any of the guys talking to Jodie Sanders, really. I saw Ben exchange a look with his brothers, and something like dread caused a pit in my stomach as Nate and Logan left my side to stand across from me, united with Ben. I narrowed my eyes.
“Is… something going on?” I asked, trying not to betray my panic. How had everything started to become so tense? When did I start to feel anxious around the guys instead of… whatever delusional feeling I’d been basking in before our date to the fair? It was too good to be true, my panicked brain started to say, even though there was nothing happening yet.
Yet.
“We’ve been thinking,” Nate started, and since he was generally opposed to serious talks, it was weird to hear him sound so stoic now. Taking a page out of Logan’s book, since he’d always looked up to him.
“Sounds dangerous,” I joked, but it didn’t land.
“It’s about us, Carly,” Logan said with an overtired sigh. “Our relationship.”
“It’s time to come out.” Bennett finally landed his punch. “We think your mom needs to know what’s going on, since this thing between us isn’t going away.”
“Ella, too,” Nate agreed.
Shit. Shit, shit, shit. Some part of me knew this was always coming, but now just felt like the wrong time. I hadn’t adjusted to any of it, had hardly allowed myself to really feel anything but lust for these guys without shoving the mushy thoughts away into a tiny box I couldn’t reach. Suddenly, all I could feel was fear.
I didn’t want to share this with my mom. Even beyond the weirdness of telling my mother I was in a relationship with three men at once, they were my fucking stepbrothers, and the whole arrangement was so unlike me, maybe I worried she’d say something like I told you so. Worse, what if she was happy about this, and then it all turned to shit? I’d spent such a long time trying not to turn into my mother, and maybe some part of me was still stuck in teen rebellion, determined not to do anything she’d approve of. We were too different. I didn’t want the things that she did—not for her, not for me, and certainly never for Ella.
My head was spinning. I wasn’t even sure I was making sense. I just knew fear was controlling me. “I… now’s not the time,” I finally said lamely. “Maybe when I’ve settled into this new job.” Stability. Sure, that was what I needed.
Logan frowned, which was surprising. Shouldn’t he be happy I was thinking about this job that he’d offered me in the first place?
Ben looked so hurt, like a kicked puppy. I winced.
Nate, on the other hand, wore an expression I hadn’t ever seen on his handsome face. He was angry. No, he was straight up pissed.
“That sounds like bullshit to me,” he half-growled, his volume raising.
“Are you ashamed of us?” Logan asked, accusing. So loud.
“Shush,” I said futilely. “Ella’s asleep.”
“And she still doesn’t even know that I’m her father,” Bennett gritted out, between yelling and tears. “Fuck, I should have known just from that. You’re… you’re just jerking us around, aren’t you?”
“Of course not!” I whisper-yelled to keep from shrieking loud enough to wake my daughter. “I–I’m going to tell her. This is all coming out of nowhere. What’s going on?”
“What’s going on,” Nate ground out from between his teeth, his voice unfamiliarly low and almost deadly, “is that we want to be with you. Really. Not in secret. And you know what? If you can’t be open about us, I don’t fucking want any of it. You’re with us or you’re not, Carl. We’re grown ass adults, not teenagers who get a thrill out of sneaking around. We shouldn’t have to hide.”
He grabbed his jacket and stormed out into the night, leaving me with the other two men in my life and a serious sense of whiplash. Logan and Bennett’s faces were conflicted, less certain about this ultimatum Nate had just laid at my feet. But they didn’t shut him down, either. Everything was going wrong. It all felt completely unresolved, and yet I had no idea whether I should even try to resolve it.
“I need to head out.” Logan’s clipped tone broke the tension. He walked past me without looking at me, and I was too stunned to even ask him to stay. It felt like my sand castle was crumbling around me, and I was too frightened to do anything to stop it. When it came to fight, flight, or freeze, I was apparently the latter.
“Yeah,” Bennett agreed. He’d lost all power behind his voice. “I’m gonna go to bed. Goodnight,” he said. And the devastation settled in when he did exactly that, turning away and heading down the hall without giving me a kiss, a hug, or another glance.
Which left me. Bereft, adrift, and utterly alone for the first time in so long.
30
BENNETT
The glow of the streetlights cast long shadows across the empty parking lot as I trudged toward my car, exhaustion weighing heavily on my shoulders. A shift at the hospital had left me drained, both physically and emotionally, and all I wanted was to go home, to hold Carly and Ella close and forget about the world outside.
But as I climbed behind the wheel and started the engine, my thoughts turned to the events of the previous day, the argument with Carly still fresh in my mind. I couldn't shake the feeling of guilt that gnawed at my insides, the knowledge that the impatience Nate, Logan, and I had shared, wanting to claim Carly openly before she was ready, might have been too much. I didn’t like the idea that I was pushing Carly further away when all I wanted was to pull her closer. At least I hadn’t given her an ultimatum like Nate had, but that was a small consolation when I was worried I was going to lose her, this incredible and electric connection we had, either way.
I drove to Dwight’s house and parked in the driveway, turning off the engine but not getting out of the car just yet. Somehow, it felt safer in here, and it was easier to tell myself I was going home to Carly and Ella if I didn’t have to get out of the car and go see my foster father instead. With a heavy sigh, I leaned back against the headrest, my mind drifting back to the conversation I’d had with Jodie the night before as she and I put Ella to bed. The memory was a vivid one, each word etched into my mind like a scar.
