Page 92 of Too Many Beds
“Stay.”
There is more he should ask, more he needs to know, so many questions that need answers, but Ben bites his tongue. It’s too much, too overwhelming, especially when Ben is exhausted and confused and still slightly drunk. If he asks, if he pushes, he’ll cry, or scream, or kiss Luce again, deeper and harder until he’s bending the smaller man over the arm of the couch—and none of those things will be particularly helpful.
“I’m tired,” Ben says, forcing himself to let go of Luce, to step back just enough to allow Luce to breathe. “Come to bed, we can talk in the morning.”
They don’t talk the next morning, or anytime over the next week. Ben knows he should push the issue, knows he needs answers before the anvil on his chest can fully lift. But Luce looks so fragile in the morning, his delicate fangs dimpling his bottomlip anxiously as he brews Ben’s coffee, dressed only in one of Ben’s larger t-shirts, which is stamped with the club logo.
He’s so desperate to please, so anxious, that Ben can’t bring himself to ask the questions that Luce would clearly rather avoid. So he takes his coffee with a smile even though it is already edging to afternoon, and he doesn’t ask before his shift starts at eight, and he doesn’t ask when he gets home around 4 a.m., holding his breath until he spots Luce curled up on the chair Ben keeps near the window, keeping watch over the city.
A week passes, then another. More than once, Luce deepens their kisses, his tricky fingers slipping their way under Ben’s waistband. Each time, Ben forces himself to step back, to gently refuse the timid advances of his monster.
He wants Luce like a drowning man wants air, but he has an unsettling certainty that Luce is only offering his body as a consolation prize, as a bribe to forget the last decade, to forget that Ben was ever abandoned.
And it is so, so tempting to take Luce up on his offer, to bury Ben’s doubts and misgivings in the back of his mind with each thrust of his hips, each drive into Luce’s flexible, willing body—but nothing has ever been transactional between them, and Benrefusesto allow sex to change that.
Luce isn’t like any one of the pretty men Ben has hooked up with, picked up at the club he works at, or found on dating sites. Ben wants more—needsmore—from him than an evening of pleasure, and Ben will not treat him as such. Ben wants forever with Luce, ideally with them sharing the bed rather than Luce haunting the space beneath it, appearing every once in a while to break Ben’s heart before he vanishes again.
Luce makes no indication that he wants to leave, that he wants anything else but to beBen’s, but it’s not real, it’s not stable and reliable and trustworthy until they talk, until Ben knows that Luce can stay and that Luce wants a physicalrelationship as more than a way to keep himself in Ben’s good graces. But Ben is terrified to push Luce, dreading the prospect of waking to cold sheets with no way to make contact, no way to follow should Luce leave him once again.
He can’t put it off forever, and on his night off, he can no longer avoid it.
Ben sits cross-legged on his bed, staring at the familiar shadows emanating from beneath it. The room is dimly lit, a warm glow from the bedside lamp casting soft light across the walls. It’s a quiet evening, and the world outside seems far away despite the predictable sounds of traffic, shouts, and clanging metal, barely muffled by the thin walls of his apartment. His heart races with anticipation and dread, feeling vaguely sick as he waits for Luce to emerge.
After a long moment, he hears the gentle rustling sound, like fabric brushing against wood. Suddenly, Luce appears, slipping out from beneath the bed, his shimmering skin glowing in the lamplight. His large, expressive eyes catch Ben’s gaze, and a smile spreads across Ben’s face despite the weight of the looming conversation.
“Hey,” Ben says, the words barely audible but filled with warmth and longing.
“Hey,” Luce replies, his voice soft yet carrying a weight that hints at the conversation they both know is coming. He settles gracefully beside Ben, their knees brushing against each other.
For a few moments, they sit in silence, letting the tension of the past ten years hang in the air. Ben takes a deep breath, knowing they have to talk about what happened, about why Luce left.
“I missed you for ten years,” Ben finally says, breaking the silence. “You didn’t say goodbye.”
“I missed you too,” Luce replies, his gaze dropping to the floor. “More than I can say.” He doesn’t answer Ben’s unaskedquestion, merely wiggling closer to Ben’s body. Ben should insist on distance, should keep a professional amount of space between them, but he can already taste the hint of brimstone on the back of his tongue, and he has never been strong enough to push Luce away.
Ben watches him closely, the emptiness in Luce’s eyes striking him, even when his gaze is directed at the carpet. “You left without a word. I thought … I thought something happened to you. I called for you for months; I waited for even longer. I’ve been angry at you. I’ve been heartbroken. I was so sure that you died that I grieved for years. I need to know why you left me, Luce. I deserve that much, at least.” He can’t bring himself to voice the rest of it, the painful truth that has been haunting him since the moment Luce came back: Ben won’t survive it Luce leaves him again, not if Luce allows Ben to believe he cankeep him.
“I had to leave you,” Luce says, his voice trembling slightly. “It was the only way to keep you safe.”
Ben’s heart sinks with confusion, “Safe? From what?” Ben had been in juvie, sure, but no one had bothered him, not since Luce killed his abuser. As for Luce himself—“I swear to god if you were pulling some Edward Cullen bullshit—” Ben’s hands clench into fists with anger. He has never been afraid of Luce, not really, and if the stupid monster had decided to make that decision for them both?—
Luce’s dark eyes leap to Ben’s like he’s been electrocuted. “No!” he yelps, sounding almost insulted. “Not fromme.You could break me like a twig if you wanted to! But I never told you about my father, did I? He was dangerous and mean and controlling and when he noticed that I was … not as bloodthirsty as he was, he sent me away, and I wound up under your bed.”
There is so much Ben doesn’t know about his strange friend, so much he doesn’t know about a world that he barely believes in.
“This world, Ben—yourworld—was supposed to make me stronger, make me crueler, and my father was always going to come back for me. I should never have followed you around; I should never have become your friend. It was selfish and weak of me, and it put you in danger. When my father called me home, I had to leave immediately. I couldn’t risk him coming after me and finding you.”
Ben swallows, wishing he had thought to refill the water glass on his bedside table before starting this conversation. “He would have hurt me,” he fills in the blank, and Luce flinches, looking up at Ben with guilt-stricken eyes.
“Worse,” Luce says, his sharp, pearly claws cutting into his palms. Ben forces himself to relax, wedging his own hands into Luce’s fists to prevent any more harm to that soft skin. “My father wanted to control me and my sisters. He thought that if I had someone to love, someone who could give me strength, he could lose his grip on me. He couldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t have hurt you. He would have made me do it.”
Ben processes this, trying to wrap his mind around what Luce isn’t saying, the awful truth he is speaking around. Ben thinks of his own trauma as relatively mild, all things considered, and he dealt with most of it in therapy. But he knows better than to push for more details, his mind shying away from the abuse Luce suffered before he was sent away, and the abuse he likely suffered after, all in the name of keeping Ben safe.
“You could have run,” Ben realizes. “But if you did, and your father came looking, he would have found me before he found you.”
“It was for the best,” Luce says firmly, gripping Ben’s hands. “I wasn’t going to let you get caught in the crossfire. I knew ifI stayed away, he’d leave you alone. I was terrified of what he might do.”
Ben’s heart aches for Luce, but more than that, inside he is raging at his own helplessness, his own role as clueless anchor, trapping Luce in his father’s grip.