“He did it. It was a kind of...commitment, I guess you could say. It had something to do with a legend of his tribe—Native American.”
Ben almost choked on his omelet. That was a huge commitment. But then....he’d kept his California license for Tristan and he’d risked his own ass to confess to a murder he didn’t commit. It wasn’t like Ben hadn’t done crazy things of his own.
“It fits you.” Ben shrugged. “You made a good call.” It was a ridiculous reply but it was the only one Ben had.
“What about the heart on your arm. Did he do that too?” Ben asked.
Dante shook his head. “No, that came afterward.”
There was a lot Ben could read into that. The meaning—the stabbed heart with thorns, was pretty obvious.
And then he realized Dante had just given him something. Each and every little piece of him was so well guarded. Really, what did he know about Dante? And yet, he’d given Ben that piece of himself. He’d been honest. Ben understood how hard that was for Dante.
It was Ben’s turn to give. “We met in college, then went to law school together as well. I fell in love with him right away, and it never stopped. Even though he never felt the same, it didn’t stop.”
Dante slipped his omelet onto a plate and then made his way to the table, sitting across from Ben. “Has it gone away now?”
Had it? He didn’t know. He’d loved Tristan for so long, it was a part of him now. Automatic. It didn’t matter that Tristan had Josiah and Mateo. It didn’t matter that he lived on the other side of the United States. None of it had ever mattered, and yet, his chest didn’t ache as he thought about Tristan right now. The anger was still there, anger at Tristan or himself, he didn’t know but it didn’t burn through him with the same intensity as it had. Whether that was because Ben was really over him or if it only had to do with his head being so fucked up right now, he wasn’t sure. “I don’t know. I’m not sure if I know how to not love him.” Because he had for so long. Because Tristan was the only person besides Bonnie that Ben had ever loved, who didn’t hate him.
His father hated him.
Dante closed his eyes. His elbows rested on the table and he shook his head as though, like Ben, he still couldn’t believe that they were here.
He opened his eyes and then sat back in the chair. “Love isn’t something you can force. I’ve learned that. You can’t force yourself to love someone, or someone to love you. And you can’t force yourself not to love someone either. All you can do is hope like hell it doesn’t break you.”
Dante’s words swam around inside him. Made a home there. That was maybe the biggest truth Ben had ever heard, yet it pissed him off at the same time. “Fuck that. We’re in control of ourselves and how we feel.”
“Control. You misuse that word a lot. That’s something you think you should feel or have. It’s why you were in the clubs those nights, trying to control other people and thinking it would give you the same thing over your own life. Is that really what you want, Ben? I think we’ve already discovered it’s not.”
Ben’s body went rigid. His fist tightened around the fork in his hand. God damn Dante for reading him. For seeing something in Ben that he didn’t want to be there. He didn’t let people see inside. Not to the real Ben yet, this man got him and that made Ben’s insides incinerate in anger.
“You’re not eating,” Dante added.
“You think you know me so well but I see you, too. You try to force me to eat and sleep. Fuck me when I need it. You took care of him, didn’t you? He needed you and you needed that, and now you’re trying to do the same thing to me. Did you tell him when to eat and sleep, too? Make him beg you to fuck? I don’t need you. I don’t need someone to take care of me.”
Ben waited for Dante to lash back at him. For the man to curse him or throw him out or hit him...but none of it came. He sat frozen in his chair, his eyes firmly planted on Ben.
“Yes, he depended on me. I took care of him, and that gave me something. Am I supposed to be surprised that you see that in me?”
No, no he wasn’t. It had been like that from the beginning for them, hadn’t it? Dante saw things in Ben that no one did and Ben saw them in Dante. It’s why they were here in the first place. Why neither of them wanted to be here, at the same time. Why they talked when they didn’t want to talk. Why Ben let Dante fuck him when he’d only ever let Tristan. Dante had said it before, the hate he felt for himself mirrored each other, showed them parts of the other that couldn’t be seen by the naked eye.