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“I’ll be good,” we both said in unison.
Inside the car, I finally called Benjamin.
“Hey.” His voice rumbled from the other end. “Are you at school yet?”
“On my way. Tell me about last night.”
“She was a beauty. All green-blue eyes and deer-like.”
“And fate brought her to you, is it?”
Good old-fashioned Benjamin. He was someone you read about in a Charles Dickens novel. He had his little quirks, and all of them pointed to findingThe One.
I did get where it came from, though. With June, I’d never felt any sparks.
Later, I realized this was because I’d seen her in a different light—and it was one of comfort. There were no butterflies in my stomach because those butterflies to me were synonymous with anxiety.
June was like butter on toast, jam on a PBJ. In other words, she completed me in the most ordinary of ways, and that was why I loved her so damn much.
Benjamin was the astronomy professor at East Harbor, and true to his profession, he believed fate was responsible for everything.
We were a very unconventional trio.
The third being Noah, East Harbor’s one and only psychology heartthrob.
The man could win over his students like it was nothing more than a game of Snakes and Ladders, and he’d mastered it.
After I lost June, these men helped me keep my head above water.
I was a young father, and I did not know how to survive. All I knew was that I had to make it because of Sally. She needed me, and I’d be there for her.
No matter how my heart split open.
It took me a whole year to find stable ground, and a lot of tearful conversations too.
There were days when things felt better, and then, the tiniest of things—a rubber band, for Christ’s sake, or a bottle of shampoo that smelled of her—would send me rolling into a pit of depression.
They were more than makeshift fathers to Sally at that time. They came over every day, cooked for us, read her stories, and gave her hope.
It was like we’d become one family, and all we wanted was the best for my little girl.
We also had our own little indiscretions. One of them was calling me right now.
“Benji, I’ll call you back.”
“Oh, I knew you wouldn’t listen to me,” he replied, sounding injured. “But I’m telling you, fate—”
“Yes, fate brought you a gorgeous girl who’ll show you the moon and the stars, Benji!” I rolled my eyes. “But it’s Naughty Lessons calling.”
“Ha!” Benjamin laughed. “I can’t believe we let Noah put us up to this. It still feels unreal.”
“It sure does,” I replied, grinning.
See, we were still men. And the one thing June told me, again and again, was to never stop living.
I couldn’t find a love like hers once again. That... it felt like a world I could not walk into yet.
But every so often, the boys and I did resort to other pleasures. Naughty Lessons had been a whole other plane, though.
