It didn’t feel right, though...thinking Dante only fucked him. They spoke on the phone hours a night with no sex. They went to the gym together, ate together. Dante read him and there were times Ben could read Dante as well.

“Have a good night.” Ben hung up before Tristan could reply. His phone rang three times afterward but Ben ignored it. Tristan wouldn’t call again. He didn’t push, not the way Ben did. Tristan would go about his business and live his new life and Ben couldn’t blame him for that.

He left his cell on the table before going into his bedroom. Ben didn’t take the time to take off his clothes before falling into the bed. He needed sleep, and he needed it badly.

That was the last thing he remembered before...

“I love you, Benny. So much.”

He looked at his sister. She was beautiful—strong looking like their father, but with their mother’s features—a small nose and big, happy smile. But she wasn’t happy and she wasn’t strong.

“I love you, too. You’re my best friend,” he told her. She sat cross-legged in the middle of her bed, and looked down, away from Ben.

“Do you? Do you really love me?”

“Yeah. You know I do.” How could she not know? She was all he had. Their parents didn’t care, not if it wasn’t publicly, at least. He wouldn’t know what it felt like to be loved, if it wasn’t for her. He wouldn’t know how to love either.

Bonnie lay down, curled in a ball. “It’s so hard, Benny. It’s like I’m cold all the time. I’m living in darkness and I don’t know how to find my way out of it. You’re my only light, and as much as I love you, that’s not always enough. I don’t want to be so alone.”

Ben trembled. He hated it when Bonnie got like this. It scared him. He’d told his parents before, but Mom acted like it was nothing. Dad yelled.

Getting off the floor, Ben crawled into bed with his sister. She wrapped her arms around him, and he let her.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not. You have me.”

“I don’t have anyone. I just want to be loved.”

“You have me,” he added again.

He felt the wetness of Bonnie’s tears on his face. He hated it when she cried. When she felt so alone. Ben just wanted to make it better. He wanted his sister to be happy.

The more she cried, he started to cry too. It wasn’t fair. None of it was fair.

He looked down at the scar on her thigh. She wore short-shorts today, which meant she really didn’t care. She wasn’t trying to hide the cuts she had engraved into her own skin.

“Help me, Benny,” she whispered, pulling him closer, hugging him tighter. “Help me make it go away. You’re the only one who can make me feel better. Hurting makes it go away. If you love me, you’ll do it. Don’t you love me? I just want to make these feelings go away. I just want to feel loved.”

Ben’s eyes jerked open. He shoved out of the bed and grabbed his cramping stomach.

He stumbled as he rushed from his room and toward the kitchen. He knocked the phone off the table when he tried to grab it. Bending, he snatched his cell, his hands shaking the way his whole body had in the dream.

Ben needed to forget. He didn’t want to remember. Dante was the only person who could help him with that.

He slid his finger across the screen, ready to dial, when a knock came from his door.

No one should have been allowed up without the doorman calling. That meant it could only be one person. His father.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

Fire singed the edges of Ben’s painful dream, engulfing it into anger. He jerked the front door open, ready to take his anger out on the man who deserved it when... “Tristan?”

It was then that Ben realized it was light out, very light. It had to be at least late morning if not early afternoon. He’d slept for hours and hadn’t even realized it. Still, that didn’t explain seeing the man who stood at his door right now.

“Are you going to invite me in?” Tristan asked. He looked good, wearing a dark suit that fit him just right. He needed a shave, though Ben didn’t really think he needed one at all. He loved the feel of a rough face against his own. Not that he and Tristan would get that close.

“If it were me, I would have just pushed my way in.”

“I’m not you,” Tristan replied.

No, he wasn’t. Yet he was here. Tristan had never done something like this before. Ben stood aside and signaled for his friend to come in.

“Where are they?” Ben asked, closing the door. He tried to focus on the man in front of him and not the remaining memories that still fought to possess his brain.