When both of the guys shook their heads, Benji felt like a kid. Where the hell did his game go? He used to be smooth. Used to have all the girls chasing after him in school.
That is until Ava Donaldson moved to the little suburb in south Chicago where Benji had grown up.
She was gorgeous, long, flowing, blond hair and bright blue eyes. One look, that’s all it took, and he was in love. It was that simple. They dated all through middle school, stayed together after she developed a body that had Benji in knots, and stuck it out through senior year. And when it was time for them to graduate, Ava found out she was pregnant. Big shock. His family was worried and so was he, but then he was okay with it. He knew he wanted Ava for the rest of his life; he wanted kids, he loved her, so he married her and they were happy.
But being a young rookie in the big leagues, he soon fell to the lure of drinking when on the road with his boys. It wasn’t a big deal at first, but then it got worse. He had to drink all the time, and no matter how many times Ava tried to leave him, she never followed through. She stood beside him and loved him, even when he didn’t deserve it. She cared for their daughter and for him, and he’d wanted to do right by her, he did.
But he never got the chance.
One bad decision was all it took to take her and his beautiful Leary from him.
Swallowing hard around the lump in his throat, the ache of loss burned in his chest as he sat in the middle of the burrito place. He had hit rock bottom after he lost them, he even lost his spot on the Rangers—but somehow, he found his strength. He cleaned up. But in a way, he knew he would never be happy again. How could he? He lost his loves, his everything. And while it had been twelve years since everything had happened, nothing could ever cure the ache in his heart from the loss of them.
He truly believed he didn’t deserve to be happy and it was his fault they were gone. Yet, a part of him wanted to be happy. He wanted what Jordie had, but he wondered if maybe this was God’s punishment. Sobered up, but never able to have that happiness ever again. He took for granted what he had, fell victim to the temptation, and now he was alone.
It was sort of depressing and really deep to be thinking about at Chipotle with his buddies.
“I think you want to get laid so bad, you’re jumping the gun,” Vaughn said, stealing his attention.
“I’m fine,” Benji threw back at him. “I don’t know what happened.”
“Weirdo,” he accused, shaking his head. “Maybe you should hire an escort or something. Someone to knock your socks off and get your jitters out.”
Giving Vaughn a deadpan look, Benji shook his head. “I’m good. She just reminded me of Ava, and it fucked with my head or something.”
His go-to excuse.
Saying that caused an eerie silence to fall over the table. Benji was honest, told his buddies the truth about his late wife and daughter. It was sad and it sucked, but he owned up to his mistakes.
“You do that a lot, though, bro,” Jordie said slowly, and leave it to him to notice that. “And I get it, but, dude, you gotta stop using them as a crutch. You have to be happy.”
He was right. Problem was, Benji didn’t know how to do that.
It was scary, putting himself out there when, for so long, he had been alone. He didn’t know how to love anyone; he wasn’t even sure he could anymore. Maybe his heart had died with Ava and Leary. He wasn’t sure, but man, he wished he could try again. That he could figure out how to be normal around the opposite sex. It was easy with his buddies’ wives. Probably because the Assassins had the best wives in the league. All of them so sweet and inviting, but man, they meddled. All of them tried to hook him up with everyone they knew. He went out with whomever they fixed him up with, and every single time, he never got a call back. Even when he thought the date went great, they never called.
Maybe he was a bad date.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Benji said slowly, feeling like a loser. “Maybe it won’t ever happen, you know? Maybe I’m meant to be alone.”
Vaughn grinned, his eyes flashing with laughter. “Which is fine. I mean, I love my single life, but, dude, you gotta get laid.”
He was right. Benji craved a woman like he did the smell of the ice, but it just never worked out. He wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong, or maybe he did.
“You gotta stop telling everyone your business. No one needs to know that you’re a sober widower. I mean, it’s on your eHarmony profile,” Jordie accused and Benji shot him a confused look.
“You looked at my profile?”
What a joke that profile was anyway. He did it just to get Jordie and his wife, Kasey, off his back. Usually, the girls who contacted him on there only wanted his money. He didn’t want that, for obvious reasons. Half the time, he didn’t even go on the site. He was still paying for the subscription, though.