Ruin: Part Three (Ruin 3)

I cringe at the reminder. If life offered a redo of memorable moments that you carry with you forever, that would be mine. I did love Parker back when my innocent need to have a love that lasted a lifetime clouded all my better judgment. Parker was always looking over my shoulder for the next best thing which typically came dressed in a short skirt and had blonde hair and big tits. I never measured up to his ideal. I was the plain, skinny, brunette who was always sitting in wait for him every time he decided to sow his oats. Youth may offer many things, but in my case, my teenage years offered nothing but difficult memories of poor choices.

"I fell in love with Parker the same day I got my driver's license." I pull his hands tighter around my body. "That should tell you something about how immature I was."

He laughs so loud it bounces against the walls and fills the room. It's a beautiful laugh. One I've rarely heard. "You were young. People don't think straight when they're young."

"I'm still too young to think straight." I reach back to run my palm over his hip. "I'm not too young to know Parker is bad for me."

"When I first knew you two had been together, we were struggling with the Noah stuff." He adjusts his body slightly, pushing his knee over my legs. "I was worried."

"About what?" My hand slides down to caress the skin of his thigh.

"That Noah would tell you about what happened with our mother and you'd run back to Parker if you knew he wanted you."

It fits. Ben was almost frantic at times before I learned of the circumstances surrounding his mother's death. "I didn't run away when I found out, Ben."

"That only made me want you so much more." His lips push into my shoulder. "You were so kind and good to me. You listened to me talk about her and Noah. You didn't give up on me."

"I wouldn't have given up on you." I mean it. The thought of walking away from Ben when he was trying to claw his way out of that emotional hell that was created after his mother died, wasn't something I ever could have done. I cared too much about him.

"I thought you had when I saw you in Parker's apartment." His breath hitches before he continues, "I thought you were moving back in with him."

"What?" I flip over so quickly he can't react. "You didn't really think that."

"I went to Boston to meet with some doctors for a project I'm working on." He stops to push a few hairs away from my forehead and out of my eyes. "I got a call from Parker saying he wanted to talk to you to tell you he loved you. I wasn't in New York. I felt so far away from you."

"You had no idea I was in Boston," I offer sullenly. He couldn't have known. I went there to surprise him with the news that Noah was ready to let him back into his life.

He shakes his head briefly. "I panicked. I imagined Parker calling you and everything changing that day."

"So you went to talk to him?"

He leans forward brushing his lips softly across mine. "I asked for his address. I wanted to do it in person so I could control things."

"You told him he could have me back once you got Noah back." I don’t say it with malice or anger. I say it because it's what I heard.

"Kayla." He runs his hand along my jawline. "I would never have let him have you."

"I heard you say it." It's been the one part of that day that has haunted me relentlessly. Hearing Ben essentially tell Parker that I was his to have back was unforgettable. It made me feel like a pair of old borrowed shoes that no longer serve their purpose so they're sent back to their owner, weathered and torn.

"I met Parker in the lobby of his building." His grip on me tightens. "The very first thing he said to me was that he bought a train ticket for New York. He was taking the ring he bought and coming to see you."

I hadn't thought there was anything to their conversation beyond what I heard when I was standing in the bedroom after they walked into the apartment. "I didn’t know that."

"We were down there for more than ten minutes. I tried to convince him over and over again not to leave Boston."

I wish I would have heard that exchange. It would have offered a lot more insight than the fragmented part of their conversation I heard. "It doesn’t change what I heard."

"I was grasping at straws at that point." His body stiffens. "I'd told him in the lobby that I needed more time with you. I told him it was because of Noah. I was worried that if I told him I was involved with you as more than friends that he'd beat a path straight to your door and tell you that I knew him."

"So what I heard when you two walked in was…"

"It was my desperate attempt to get Parker to stay put in Boston so I'd have time to confess everything to you and beg you not to leave me for him," he interrupts me in a rush.

I can't look in him in the eyes as I process it all. The words I heard him say to Parker that day had bitten right through me. They'd stolen all the promise I felt for a future with him away in a flash. "You didn’t seem very surprised to see me there."

He tilts his head back as his jaw clenches. "I was in shock. I thought that was it. I thought you'd made up your mind and that you were there to take him back."

I shudder physically at the thought. "You were so calm and you just left me there with him."