“It’s okay, Cy.”
Benji cleared his throat. “She did just fine on her own.”
Cy released me and looked to Benji. “You’ll see her home?”
Benji nodded. “Of course.”
Cy cupped my face, kissed my forehead, and then walked away.
Benji and I walked to the car in silence and didn’t speak on the way home either. When he parked in the parking lot and turned off the ignition, he opened his mouth to speak but didn’t.
I got out, and Benji walked with me to the front entrance of my dorm.
“Good night,” I said.
“I…I’m sorry I left you alone.”
“It’s not your fault. I had no problem taking care of him.”
“It just sucks that he touched you, that he even had the opportunity.”
“Men like that…they spend their lives waiting for opportunity and not the good kind.”
Benji’s expression crumbled, and his head fell. “I’m just so sorry. I know you’ve been through something awful and—”
“Benji, don’t.”
“No, I know you don’t want to talk about that. My point is, I’m sorry that it happened, and I’m sorry that all I can think about right now is the image of you in his arms and how relaxed you looked.”
It took me a minute for my brain to catch up. “Cy?”
“Yeah,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets and still looking at the ground. His eyebrows pulled together.
“You don’t have to talk about this. It’s really okay,” I said, trying to save us both from his awkward admission.
“No, I do. Maybe not just for you. Maybe I need to say it out loud. I know how you feel about Cy.”
“That’s impossible. I don’t even know how I feel about Cy.”
He looked up, and his eyes met mine. “If you’d let me, I could make you feel like that. Safe, I mean. I’m here, you know. I’m not going anywhere. But he’s…Cyrus is temporary.”
I tried really hard to think of another reason to say no besides the truth, but I didn’t have a single one other than my own fears. I was afraid about what might happen if I invested in a real relationship with someone again. There were far worse things than giving Benji a chance, and telling him my fears and why they existed was one of them. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
I pushed my hands and arms through the space between his arms and his sides and then held my palms flat against his back. After the shock wore off, Benji pulled his hands out of his pockets and pulled me closer to him, resting his cheek on my hair. He moved a fraction of an inch to kiss my temple.
“This isn’t so bad, right?” he said.
He was right. I felt just as safe and warm in his arms. It was different but in a good way. He held me tighter. This was the way a man held a woman when he loved her. Salty tears burned my cheeks. I didn’t even know why, but I just wanted to stay there—in a pair of arms that belonged to a man who would never let me go if I didn’t want him to.
One of the main lobby doors swung open, and Ellie sauntered out. “My, my…you’re just making the rounds, aren’t you, Rory?”
I pushed away from Benji and wiped my eyes quickly. “Fuck off, Ellie.”
Benji glared at her.
“Who’s the new man?” Ellie joked, tapping her chin with her index finger. “I just know that I know him from somewhere.”
“If we’ve met, it must not have been a memorable moment for me,” Benji said.
I couldn’t help but smile.
“Oh no, darlin’, you’d remember, I promise,” she said, trying to retain her smug grin.
Benji turned his back to her, and she continued out to the parking lot. “Wonder where she’s headed at this hour?”
“Probably to a rendezvous in a professor’s office.”
Benji chuckled. “I’ve never liked her. You’d better get some sleep, especially after the night you’ve had.” He hesitated to say his next words. “I can stay, you know. I can sleep on the floor if you don’t want to be alone.”
“Thanks, but I’m really okay.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. After being threatened twice, I don’t think he’s going to break into my dorm room just to get his ass kicked again.”
“Okay. See you tomorrow.”
I nodded, and knowing he wouldn’t leave until I was safely inside, I turned and left him standing alone on the stairs.
As I walked to my room, I could still feel Benji on my skin. For whatever reason though, I couldn’t shake that Cy was supposed to be in my life, and no matter how much Benji wanted to believe it, Cy didn’t feel temporary.
Chapter Eight
BENJI WAS SITTING NEXT TO ME in Dr. Z’s class, but all I could do was focus on Cy—every time he raised his hand or spoke, his green plaid flannel shirt, his staple khaki cargo pants, and how fast he wrote down whatever he thought was important.
I wondered why he thought that particular thing was noteworthy or why he shifted in his chair. I wondered if he thought about the night before and if he would mention it at work that night.
Benji reached for my hand, turned it over, and wrote LUNCH? in black Sharpie on my palm. After another glance down at Cy, I peered over at Benji and nodded quickly.
Benji seemed uncharacteristically uptight. He was tapping his pen against his desk one second and bouncing his knee the next.
“You okay?” I whispered.
Benji frowned and tucked his chin. “Yeah,” he said, waving dismissively and trying far too hard to be his normal happy self. “Why?”
I shrugged. “Just checking. Last night was weird.”
His face relaxed. “Are you okay? I worried about you from the moment I left your dorm room until I saw you this morning.”
I shook my head and looked back at my laptop. “Don’t worry about me.”
“I know I don’t have to. You can take care of yourself. But it wasn’t just that. It’s that…well, I’ve known you for almost two years, and I didn’t know you had taken a self-defense class. Does that have to do with whatever happened to—”
“Benji?”
“Yeah?”
“Seriously. Don’t.”
“Oh, okay,” he said, slinking back into his seat. Halfway through class, Benji leaned over again. “We’re out the rest of the week for Thanksgiving break. You going home?”