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"I can hear how much that’s worrying you, and this might be an opportunity to practice some self-compassion.” He unfolds his legs, leaning over his own knees casually. “You've heard of 'flight or fight' as a nervous system's response? Well, you used to go into a kind of flight mode to protect yourself and that, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing. When people start to feel more confident and, perhaps more importantly, safe, needs can change and so can instincts. As for whether you'll fall back into the same patterns when things start to get a little bumpy? It’s possible, because that’s a very normal, veryhumanresponse. And that’s where established therapy, and communication, come in handy.”

"I know that, but what if—"

"Benji, we can definitely talk through all the possible ways things might go wrong. I’m wondering how you’d feel about talking through some of the potential positives as well?"

My instinct is to tell him that I can't possibly know whether any positive things might happen, but that's just proving hispoint, isn't it? Yeah, it's possible that I'll fuck things up with Kris, but it's equally possible that we'll live happily ever after.

Roberto must read this on my face, because he grins, "Things won't always be perfect —real life never is— but you know that. You’ve put a lot of effort into working on yourself, even though that’s not easy. The progress you’ve made so far is genuinely impressive, and I can see how determined you are to keep going.”

Once again, my thoughts drift off to Kris, and to the relationship I am ninety-nine percent certain we both want.

“I am determined,” I tell Roberto with a decisive nod.

I’m determined about a lot of things now.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Benji and I talk on the phone every day until his scheduled days off work. We discuss his fears that he will push me away as a defense mechanism, and I assure him that we will work through those situations if they happen. It’s a bit daunting, because I still fully believe in respecting his boundaries, but how am I to know if he is only setting them because he’s afraid I’m going to leave first, or if he really isn’t happy being with me?

But that’s putting the cart before the horse, or whatever metaphor you prefer to go with.

We need to go on a proper first date first. We need to see if our chemistry at the camp and at The Grove wasn’t just excitement and lust.

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t. I mean, we’ve spoken about anything and everything over the past few months, and we still haven’t run out of conversation, and that’s without throwing romance or sex into the mix. Surely if we didn’t have a real connection, things would have tapered off into stilted chatter by now, right?

Right.

But Benji still deserves to be properly wooed. If he’s never had a real boyfriend —or a real Daddy, for that matter— I want togive him every single experience he hasn’t had before. Dates, gifts, attention, respect. He deserves it all and more.

Plus, I’ve never been as intensely drawn to a Little as I am to him, and I don’t want to give him any reason to regret giving me a chance. I want to earn his affection, and then cherish it, just like I hope he will cherish mine.

See, while he’s been working hard at therapy these past few months, I’ve also been looking long and hard at myself. When I left my old life behind for my promotion, I’ll admit that I was kind of lost. At the time, I denied it —even to myself— but my insistence that I didn’t want a relationship, that I didn’t want to be someone’s Daddy, came from a very similar place to Benji’s fear. I had just abandoned my friends, after all. I didn’t want to risk getting attached to someone and then letting them down, too, if the job didn’t work out. But meeting Benji at the camp was enough to pull at the parts of me that do want to be a Daddy, and to be in a relationship.

And I owe it to him to face my own issues if we’re going to make this work, so I’ve been talking through my own stuff with a therapist these past few months, too, not to mention Chance and his ragtag circle of friends as well. And while I still miss Connor and Sophie, we chat online almost constantly, so the distance doesn’t feel as monumental as it originally did.

“So today’s the day, huh?” I glance up from my computer screen to find Chance leaning against the doorframe to my office. His lips quirk up under his scruffy red beard, and he jerks his chin in the direction of my monitor. “Have you managed to get anything done this afternoon, or are you clock watching?”

Frowning, I look back at the spreadsheet I have open on my screen and I honestly can’t tell you why I opened it in the first place. “Uh…”

Chance chuckles. “That’s what I thought. It’s date night, right?” He steps into my office properly now, closing the door behind him, then plops down into the chair on the other side of my desk, leaning forward with his elbows braced on the glass surface between us. “You nervous?”

“Yeah,” I answer, not bothering to pretend otherwise.

My friend smiles knowingly. “It’s all new to him, and you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself to make everything perfect, right?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm, well, you know as well as I do that perfection isn’t real. Like, tonight might be perfect, but life isn’t, so a relationship won’t be.”

“This coming from the dude who is engaged to his childhood best friend.”

Chance snorts. “You know there was like twenty years there where he and I didn’t talk, right? And even after we reconnected, it took us…okay, me…a while to learn how to communicate with each other. Even now we still piss each other off occasionally.” He shrugs. “That’s life. Anyone who tells you things never go wrong is a lying liar who lies.”

Scrubbing at my eyes, I groan. “I know. But I really like him. I mean, setting aside the fact that he’s kind of perfect for me, I really like him as a person. If I fuck this up, it might put our friendship at risk.”

“Not to be too blunt, but if he’s going to end your friendship over a relationship not working out, was the friendship that strong to begin with?”

The bluntness does make me wince a little, but he makes a valid point. “You’re right. At this point, our friendship should be strong enough to withstand a bit of awkwardness if we’ve just had a missed connection or whatever.” After all, it has withstood a lot more than that already, and we’ve only gotten to know each other better because of it.