“What? Candles? What are you talking about, babe?”
He was confused, Jordan could see. His eyes narrowed behind his glasses as he searched Jordan’s face for some clue, some crack in the ice that would explain the venom dripping from his words. He took a half-step back.
“The candles in our bedroom,” Jordan said. “The ones I bought for the night you moved in. Cedar and vanilla. Who the fuck gave you permission to take them upstate?”
Ben’s mouth opened, then closed. A flush crept up his neck, darkening beneath the beard as realization flickered, guilt, maybe, or just the dawning sense that this was bigger than props. He scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Shit, Jord… I’m sorry.” The apology tumbled out genuine, soft around the edges, the way Ben always softened when he thought he’d stepped wrong. “I had no idea you’d mind.”
He scanned Jordan’s expression again, eyes pleading for some sign of thaw, that nervous half-smile tugging at his lips. He wasn’t stupid. He knew something was very, very wrong. “Is that why you’re so mad? Because I took the candles?”
Jordan’s chest tightened, the fury coiling hotter at the innocence in Ben’s voice, the way he still thought this could be fixed with contrition and a quick replacement. As if anything could be replaced now.
“It’s not about the candles.”
“Look,” Ben pressed on, forcing that smile wider, awkward and hopeful, “I’ll get you new ones, okay? I’ll buy a thousand new candles. Whatever scent you want.”
“It’s not about the candles, Ben.”
“I had no idea you’d mind. But I’m sorry, okay? Really. Gideon just said it’d make the scene feel warmer, more real…”
“It’s not about the fucking candles, Ben!”
Jordan erupted at last, his voice shattering the hush like thunder cracking open a storm, hoarse, frayed, laced with the scotch’s acrid burn clawing up his throat. He surged forward, invading Ben’s space with predatory intent, close enough to feel the radiating heat of that massive chest, the subtle hitch in Ben’s breath, a tremor of recoil that only fueled the blaze roaring inside him. Ben’s hands shot up, palms out in desperate defense, but his expression fractured: confusion twisting into sharp frustration, tired lines around his eyes deepening into something harder, accusatory, before softened then softening again, a flicker of restraint as he fought to hold the line, to keep the peace.
“Then what the hell is this about, Jordan?” Ben asked. “Tell me, babe. So I can fix it.”
“Do you even know why the candles were in our bedroom closet,” Jordan demanded, voice trembling with the weight of it all, “and not the living room one?”
Ben blinked, genuinely confounded, shaking his head slow. He looked at Jordan like had gone mad. Jordan’s laugh came bitter and broken.
“I took them out the other day. Wanted to surprise you. Make a romantic night, you know?” The words spilled tainted by the memory’s sting. “So I lit the fucking candles. Waxed my entire body, every inch, smooth like you like. Even bought this stupid fucking thong I hated wearing, squeezed my balls into it because hey, you like that shit, right? Thought it’d make you happy.”
The confession hung raw between them, thick and trembling in the charged air, Jordan’s voice cracking on the last words like brittle glass under too much pressure. Shame flooded his chest in a scalding rush, mingling with the resentment that had festered so long it felt like part of his bloodstream. Ben’s eyes widened behind his glasses, hazel depths flickering with a guilt that flashed brief, like a match struck in the dark. But confusion lingered heavier, etching deeper lines across his brow, his jaw working silent as he tried to piece it together, why candles, why now, why this raw unraveling over something that had seemed so small when he’d packed them. He shifted his weight, massive frame suddenly awkward in the too-bright loft, hands hovering useless at his sides as if reaching for something he couldn’t quite grasp.
“Jord…” Ben started. He shook his head faintly, genuine bafflement softening the edges of his confusion. “I… I didn’t know. About any of that. The surprise, the thong thing, all of it. When did that happened?”
“The night you signed with Gideon,” Jordan answered, voice dripping acid. “I waited for you. Hours and hours, Ben, and then you came home drunk and told me you had signed with Gideon without even consulting me. You remember that?”
Ben closed his eyes, beard twitching as the memory surfaced, reluctant, like dragging something heavy from deep water. Of course he remembered. That night: stumbling in drunk, buzzing with Gideon’s promises, words slurring as he announced the deal like it was triumph. The fight that flared brief, Jordan’s hurt flashing hot, Ben’s defensiveness sharper than it should’ve been. They’d swept it under the rug because it was late, because Ben was wasted, because morning would fix it.
It never did.
Just another wound Jordan bottled up, corked tight with love and pride and the fear that saying it aloud would shatter them sooner.
Ben’s eyes opened again, stricken deeper now, guilt pooling dark behind the lenses. “I had no idea about that, Jord. You have to know that.” His voice softened further, pleading. “And I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry I took the candles without asking. I had no…”
“Oh my god, are you even listening to me?” Jordan cut in, voice rising hysteric. “I don’t give a fuck about the candles, Ben!”
“Look,” Ben said, clinging to that calm tone like a lifeline, hands lifting again in gentle placation even as his words stumbled out faster, rushed, as if speed could outrun the doubt creeping into his own eyes. “It’s late. We’re both tired. I can smell the scotch on your breath, babe. So let’s just stop here, okay? Let’s go to bed, sleep it off. Things’ll look better in the morning. I promise.”
The promise landed hollow, desperate, words rushed out like a prayer Ben didn’t quite believe anymore. His gaze flickered with unguarded fear, the kind that bursted through his usual steady calm: eyes wide behind fogged glasses, as if he finally saw it clear, something fundamental between them was seriously broken, fractured beyond a night’s sleep or a hungover apology. Jordan’s chest tightened at the sight, a treacherous wonder surging amid the fury: Had Ben felt it too? The slow rot creeping into their foundations, the intimacy eroded night by night, the silences stretching longer, the touches growing careful and rare? Had Ben been stuffing it all down just like Jordan had, swallowing the hurt and the doubt, promising himself, like Jordan had promised himself, that time would heal it, that morning light would make it smaller, bearable?
“No, Ben,” Jordan started, voice split sharp with fresh fury, the resentment boiling over at the dismissal, the love making it ache twice as brutal. “We are not…”
But Ben had already turned, had already started making the way to their bedroom.
“Stop walking away from me!”
The words tore out of Jordan, almost painful, breaking the loft’s heavy silence like glass under a hammer.
Ben froze.
“We’re not gonna stop,” Jordan said. His vision blurred hotter, tears welling sudden and furious at the corners of his eyes, stinging, insistent, but he blinked them back hard, jaw locked tight against the burn, refusing to let them fall. Not yet. His throat worked silent, swallowing the sob that threatened to rise. “Because every time we do that, every time we push it under the rug and pretend it’ll be fine in the morning, we make it worse. We just dig deeper.
He stepped forward, closing the distance Ben had tried to put between them, chest heaving as the fury gathered tighter.
“But that’s over.” Jordan’s hands clenched at his sides, nails biting half-moons into his palms as he forced the words through the storm. “I’m done with that. I’m done being quiet. I’m done pretending we’re okay when we’re fucking dying. We are having this conversation right now.”
Ben turned slowly.
His face was carved in granite, jaw locked, mouth a flat line, hazel eyes narrowed behind fogged glasses. The anger was there now, simmering low and dangerous, but he tried to make himself smaller, shoulders hunching slightly, as if shrinking could keep the fight from swallowing them both. He looked like the giant he was trying not to be.
“You wanna do this right now, Jordan?” he asked, voice harder, colder, the conciliatory warmth of minutes ago gone completely.
“Yes.”
“Okay.” Ben exhaled through his nose, a short, controlled breath. “What is it, Jordan? What do you wanna talk about?”
“About the fact that this is killing us, Ben.”
Ben’s eyes narrowed further, confusion sharpening into something defensive.
“What is, Jordan? Use your fucking words.”
“Your job, Ben!” Jordan’s voice cracked on the name, furious. “Can’t you see it? It’s killing our intimacy. It’s driving us apart.”
Jordan’s throat closed, the rage and grief tangling so tight he could barely breathe. The words he’d rehearsed in the dark, in Ted’s penthouse, in every single awakened moment from the last days, everything he’d swallowed for months, clawed their way out at last. They landed heavy in the loft, hanging between them like smoke after a gunshot. Ben’s shoulders squared again, the attempt to shrink vanishing. His jaw flexed, a muscle ticking beneath the beard. Jordan’s chest heaved, breath coming fast and shallow, the scotch’s smoky burn still clinging to his tongue. He could feel the rage coiling tighter, fed by every memory of nights alone, every time Ben wasn’t there, every gentle moment Jordan had craved and never received.
He waited for Ben to speak.
The silence stretched, taut and dangerous.
Then Ben spoke, voice low and deliberate.
“Go on,” he said. “Say it all.”
Ben was getting angry too now, the flush rising dark beneath his beard, eyes narrowing behind his glasses with a hardness Jordan had never seen aimed at him. Jordan welcomed it with a dark, bitter triumph. Good, finally, the numbness lifting on both sides. He was tired of feeling like the only one bleeding, the only one who cared enough to hurt this much.
“We haven’t had sex in months, Ben,” he said. “First you couldn’t, and that was fine, I understood, but after you started doing porn, it’s like you don’t even want to touch me anymore.”
Ben’s expression shifted, incredulity sharpening his features.
“Is that what this is about?” he asked, tone rising with disbelief. “Sex?”
He shrugged off his jacket in one sharp motion, letting it fall to the hardwood with a heavy thud.
“Okay,” he said, fingers already on his belt. “Let’s do it right now.”
To Jordan’s horror, Ben unbuckled the belt, the metallic clink echoing too loud in the charged silence. The sight, once enough to set Jordan’s blood on fire, now turned his stomach, a cold wave of revulsion washing over him. He couldn’t believe Ben was doing that, weaponizing their sex life in that disgusting way, making it like a chore and not like something they both cherished. For the first time in his life, seeing Ben undress didn’t make him horny. It made him sick.
“Stop doing that,” Jordan hissed, disgusted.
“What, you just said you missed my cock,” Ben shot back, words edged with mockery. “Let’s fucking do it, Jord.”
“It’s not just about sex, Ben,” Jordan said, the words starting to feel like a broken record, worn thin from repetition yet still sharp enough to cut. How could Ben not see it? How could he stand there, massive and unyielding, and reduce everything to mechanics when Jordan was bleeding out in front of him? “I shouldn’t have to beg my partner to want to have sex with me!”
“Hey, I don’t remember you chasing me around either,” Ben shot back, “but I’m not bitching about it, am I?”
“Are you even listening to me?” Jordan’s voice got higher, desperation bleeding through the fury. “Of course I haven’t. I feel rejected, Ben. I feel like I’m not enough for you anymore!”
Something shifted in Ben’s face in that moment.The defensiveness broke, just for a heartbeat, something stricken flickering behind his hazel eyes, the hardness softening into guilt, regret, a flash of the old Ben who’d once held Jordan through his own doubts and whispered that he was everything. His jaw worked silent, beard twitching, shoulders sagging a fraction as if the accusation had gotten tohim in a way the other words didn’t. For a moment, he looked smaller, vulnerable beneath the bulk and bravado, the man Jordan had loved enough to build a life with peering out from behind the stranger’s mask.
But the moment passed.
Ben’s expression hardened again, eyes narrowing, the vulnerability shuttered behind frustration and something colder.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling that way,” he said. “That’s a fucking mile from the truth. But I’m no mind reader, Jord, I need you to tell me what the fuck you want from me.”
“I want you to stop, Ben,” Jordan said, without flinching. “Stop with the porn. Shut down your accounts. Just stop everything.”
Ben snorted, a sharp, incredulous sound, shaking his head slow like Jordan had suggested selling the loft and moving to a commune.
“You have to,” Jordan pressed, stepping closer, the loft’s cold hardwood biting through his foot. “It’s the only way for us to get better, Ben. You have to stop.”
“I know I’ve been away lately, okay?” Ben said, hands spreading in frustrated appeal. “I don’t deny that. I wanna work on that. But think about what you’re saying, Jordan. Stop?”
“Yes.” The word came out flat, final, Jordan’s chest tight with the weight of it. “I don’t want you to work on that. I just want you to stop.”
Ben stared at him for a long, suspended moment, the silence stretching taut and humming between them, thick with the distant murmur of the city far below, the faint, settling creak of the building’s bones, and the low thrum of the refrigerator in the kitchen like a heartbeat neither of them wanted to claim. His eyes, hazel eyes, that Jordan had once drowned in, soft and adoring in the afterglow of lazy Sundays, searched Jordan’s face now with a careful, weighing intensity, as if measuring the exact cost of the words hanging unspoken, as if speaking the next words aloud might make the fracture irreversible.
As if they both already knew it was.
“I’m not gonna stop, Jordan,” he said at last, resolute, voice edged with something almost pitying. “Are you crazy?”
Jordan felt like he had been slapped.
The words echoed in his mind, relentless and cruel, I’m not gonna stop, I’m not gonna stop, each repetition a fresh blow, senseless and shattering. He had never, not in all the weeks of gnawing fear and buried doubt, truly considered the possibility that Ben might say no. He should have. Deep down, in the quiet places he refused to look, he’d known it was possible, had felt the distance widening like a fault line, but he’d clung to the fragile hope that love would be enough, that Ben would choose him when pushed.
Now the refusal landed cold and final, stripping away the last illusion.
“With all the attention I’m getting now?” Ben said, incredulity sharpening every syllable. “With all the cash I’m making? You know how much money I pulled in just today, Jordan?”
“Who cares about the money?” Jordan shot back, the words tasting bitter, desperate. “It was never about the money.”
“I care about the money!” Ben shot back, louder now, the sound booming in the loft’s open space, laced with something Jordan had never heard about before. “Of course I care about the money. It’s so fucking easy for you, isn’t it, to say ‘who cares about the money’? Of course you don’t! You never had to! You always had your dad’s millions to cushion you.”
The accusation hit like a gut punch, stealing Jordan’s breath in a sharp, involuntary gasp that left his chest hollow. He felt suddenly, achingly stupid. It was true, he had never thought about it, not really. Not in the way Ben clearly had, carrying it like a weight for years. They’d never talked about it, not once. Money had always been a mere second thought to Jordan, a quiet imbalance he had smoothed over without blinking, assuming love made it irrelevant.
When they’d started dating, it had made sense to scale back, drop the fancy clubs with their velvet ropes and bottle service, the Michelin-starred restaurants with tasting menus that cost more than Ben’s weekly paycheck. Jordan had done it without thinking twice, happily even, trading champagne flutes for cheap beer in dive bars, caviar for late-night pizza slices on the couch. He would have traded every five-star experience in the world for hot dog carts on a street corner if Ben was beside him, mustard on his chin, laughing at some dumb joke under the sodium glow of a streetlamp. Ben’s presence had been the luxury; the rest felt like noise.
But now, hearing it laid bare, Jordan felt the ground shift. Ted’s money had always been there, a safety net Jordan had never asked for but never refused, catching him when things got tight, letting him play the provider without ever feeling the fall. Unfair to throw it in his face, yes, cruel, even, but rooted in truths Jordan couldn’t deny.
“You don’t have to care about that either,” Jordan said, voice cracking despite his effort to steady it. “I can take care of you, Ben. I did that for months.”
“Yeah,” Ben snarled, stepping closer, the anger close to unleashed now. “And you know how much I fucking hated it, Jord? Every fucking day I was without a job. Every time I went to an interview and got nothing. Every time we went out and you got the bill. I fucking hated that. It fucking killed me.”
Something collapsed behind Jordan’s ribs, a sudden, hollow give that left him breathless. The words cut deep, resentment surging hot and immediate at how Ben threw it back like a weapon, as if Jordan’s support, the quiet sacrifices, the nights he’d swallowed his own fears to keep them afloat, had been a burden instead of devotion. He’d carried them through the worst of it: the endless job applications that went nowhere, the long silences where Ben stared at nothing and Jordan held him anyway, whispering promises into the dark that everything would be okay. And now it was ammunition, warped and aimed right back at him.
The loft felt too small suddenly, the air thick with the ghosts of those dark months, the silence of Ben’s days alone while Jordan worked, the nights Jordan came home to find him curled on the couch, eyes vacant, the weight of it all pressing down until Jordan thought they might both break.
“Are you serious right now, Ben?” Jordan asked. His whole body was shaking with fury and the disbelief of his devotion being twisted into control. “We’re partners. We help each other. That’s what couples do.”
“Except it was always you helping and me being helped, right?” Ben shot back.“You started that shit the moment we met. ‘Why don’t you finish your studies, Ben? Why don’t you get a better job, Ben?’ Always fucking pushing me, never happy with who I was.”
Incredulity flooded him, cold and overwhelming. He had never, not in a million years, imagined Ben felt this way. Not once. Jordan had always believed his encouragement was love in action, gentle nudges to help Ben become the best version of himself, the man Jordan knew he could be. Ben had seemed grateful for it, quiet smiles when he enrolled in night classes, proud hugs after landing better shifts, the way he’d lean into Jordan’s support like it was a lifeline during the darkest months. Jordan had taken pride in it, in being the one to lift Ben up, to see his potential when Ben couldn’t. It had felt like partnership, like devotion. Now it was changed into something ugly, condescension or control, a quiet judgment Jordan had never intended and couldn’t believe it might have landed that way.
“Where is that even coming from?” Jordan asked, shock still ringing in his ears, his body frozen in place as if the floor had turned to ice beneath him. He searched Ben’s face, desperate for some sign this was exaggeration, heat-of-the-moment cruelty, anything but the truth. “You never said you felt anything like that!”
“Of course I haven’t,” Ben said, the words tumbling out bitter and fast, his massive frame rigid, hands clenched at his sides. “Every time I thought it, I pushed it away. Told myself, hey, show him some fucking gratitude, this is just him showing he loves you.”
“That’s exactly what…”
“I told myself, he knows better,” Ben cut in, voice rising, eyes blazing behind his glasses with years of swallowed hurt Jordan had no idea were ever there. “He’s the Ivy League graduate and you’re just fucking white trash with nothing to your name, so shut the fuck up and listen to him.”
“This is fucking ridiculous,” Jordan said. “Are you insane? I’m not gonna apologize for trying to make your life better. I did that because I love you.”
“You might have loved me, Jord,” Ben said, his words pure venom, each one deliberate as a blade, “but you sure as fuck didn’t like who I was. You didn’t like that I worked security, didn’t like that I had no fancy family, no fancy friends. You tried to change me from the second you met me.”
Jordan’s heart stuttered, the accusation landing like a fresh wound reopened, bleeding, unfair in its precision. Shame flooded him hot and immediate, mingling with the resentment already boiling in his veins: resentment at how Ben perveted the past, at how he made Jordan’s love sound like condescension, at how the truth in it stung anyway. He had pushed Ben, gently he’d thought, to finish his degree, to aim higher, because he’d seen the potential Ben couldn’t, because he’d wanted the best for him. Hearing it thrown back like this, stripped of context and laced with bitterness, felt like nothing but betrayal.
“Are you listening to yourself right now, Ben?” Jordan almost yelled, disbelief and rising fury mixed in his words. “Why the fuck are we even talking about that? What does that have to do with you doing porn?”
“Because for the first fucking time since we met,” Ben screamed, the words exploding out of him, eyes blazing behind his glasses, “we’re on equal footing!”
He stepped closer, the loft shrinking around them, voice unrelenting, like a train that wouldn’t stop.
“For the first time, I don’t need your money. Fuck, I probably make more than you do right now. And you want me to stop? Why? So you can play savior again? Live your rich-boy fantasy of fucking the help?”
Ben was shouting now, no longer pretending he didn’t want the fight, shoulders squared, chest heaving, the gentle giant Jordan loved replaced by something fierce and wounded, lashing out with every buried grievance, fair or not, he’d swallowed for years.
“I want you to stop because I hate this,” Jordan screamed, hearing the desperation edging on his voice.
“It was your idea!”
“Yeah, for you!” Jordan’s voice rose higher, desperate now. “For you to get your life back on track. Not for you to drop everything and become a porn star!”
Ben laughed then, a cold, hollow sound that held no real joy, only a cruelness Jordan had never heard from him before, sharp as broken glass scattering across the quiet loft’s hardwood floor. It cut deeper than any shout, that laugh: low and bitter, stripped of the warmth Jordan had always associated with Ben’s humor, the rumble that used to vibrate against his back during lazy Sunday mornings, the one that followed inside jokes and stupid puns and made the world feel smaller, safer. This was something else entirely, a weapon forged from resentment Jordan hadn’t realized Ben had been carrying, aimed straight at his heart. He knew that, whatever Ben said next, he would hate it.
“Oh, fuck off, Jord,” Ben said, stepping closer until Jordan could feel the heat radiating off him. “Who do you think you’re fooling? You like it.”
The accusation struck Jordan like a physical blow, hard, sudden, right to the solar plexus, knocking the air from his lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. He staggered back a half-step, the loft spinning for a heartbeat, Ben’s words ringing in his ears like a slap he hadn’t braced for. Shock flooded him cold and immediate, freezing the rage mid-boil, leaving him exposed and reeling.
You like it.
Ben knew.
The old shame crashed back in a scalding wave, thick and suffocating, dragging him under like it had in the hallway. Unworthy. The word slithered through him again, cold and insidious, whispering that he’d never deserved Ben’s tenderness anyway, that this was justice: exposure, humiliation, proof he was complicit in his own destruction.
“I was there with you in that car, remember?” Ben kept going, unyielding, despite each word being a gunshot to Jordan’s heart, or maybe because of it. “I said all that shit about fucking Ezra and made you cum like crazy.”
Jordan’s face burned, a flush rising hot and humiliating under Ben’s steady, venomous gaze, scalding from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, the kind that made his skin feel too tight, exposed raw. The shame crashed over him in uneding waves, choking and merciless, stripping away every defense until he felt small, transparent, caught in the ugliest truth Ben had ever voiced aloud.
“Th-that was only one time, okay?” Jordan stammered, the words tumbling out too fast, too thin, panic clawing at his throat as he tried to stuff it back down. Even to his own ears the defense rang hollow. His face burned hotter, shame surging fresh and suffocating, the old arousal now a poison he couldn’t spit out. Ben’s eyes narrowed behind his glasses, gaze sharpening to a blade.
“I saw you yesterday, dude. You were watching me fucking Beau and jerking off.”
The accusation knocked the air from Jordan’s lungs in a sharp, involuntary gasp. He staggered back a step, heel catching on the hardwood, the loft tilting for a heartbeat as the world narrowed to Ben’s face. He looked at him, really looked, as if seeing him for the first time. Ben towered there, massive and implacavla, a titan carved from fury and long-buried resentment, hazel eyes blazing behind lenses with something cold and unfamiliar. The gentle giant Jordan had loved, the one who’d cradle him close on bad nights, rumble soft reassurances into his hair, laugh that deep, warming laugh over nothing, was gone. Erased. This man was a stranger, broad and imposing, radiating a hardness that made Jordan’s chest cave with fresh, aching loss.
“Th-that wasn’t…” Jordan tried, pathetic, but the denial died in his throat.
The tears he’d been holding back, clenched behind burning eyes, swallowed with every ragged breath, finally broke free. Hot, unstoppable, spilling down his cheeks in silent tracks as his vision blurred, the humiliation crashing over him, tight around his chest, leaving no room to breathe. He didn’t wipe them away; just stood there, small beneath Ben’s shadow.
“I don’t like that shit, Ben,” Jordan tried again.
Ben’s surprise flickered across his face, genuine, almost gentle for a heartbeat, as if Jordan’s reaction had caught him off guard. He tilted his head, beard shifting against his collar, that old softness creeping into his eyes behind the glasses.
“What’s the big deal, Jord? You got a kink. You like watching me with other guys. It’s no big deal. Hell, I think it’s fucking hot.”
Jordan’s stomach lurched. He thought he was gonna puke. He shook his head hard, vision blurring again as fresh tears threatened.
“I’m not… I’m not gonna talk about this shit. I refuse to.”
His gaze darted frantic around the loft, searching for escape, an open path, a door, anything, but Ben’s bulk blocked the way forward, the floor-to-ceiling windows at his back trapping him like glass walls. The city glittered cold and indifferent beyond, snow-dusted rooftops mocking how small he felt.
“Oh, now you wanna bail?” Ben asked, sarcasm sharpening the words, a bitter twist to his mouth that wasn’t quite a smile.
Jordan saw it then clear and undeniable: Ben was enjoying this. Enjoying watching him squirm, cornered and unraveling. The realization landed cold and vicious in his gut, resentment crystallizing sharp and sudden into something darker, unfamiliar.
For the first time in his life, Jordan hated Ben.
The feeling terrified him as much as it burned, the love still there, stubborn and aching beneath it, making the hate feel like betrayal of himself. But it was real, undenable, flooding him with a clarity that left no room for excuses.
“Your little side gig is fucking spilling into my personal life, Ben,” he said, try to turn things around, to get back on track where he had the upper hand. “People at work know. My fucking stupid cousin wants you to help him do porn too. Do you even care about that?”
“Who gives a shit if your family knows?” Ben shot back, shoulders squaring, the sarcasm giving way to defiance. “I’m not doing anything wrong, Jordan.”
“I give a shit, Ben. I care.” Jordan’s voice rose, tears finally spilling over as the words tore free. He brushed them away with a hand. Now wasn’t the time for weakness. “I’m sorry your mom and dad fucking hate you for who you are, but I want mine to stay proud of me, okay?”
This time, it was Ben who looked struck.
In an instant the fury drained from Ben’s face, color leaching from his cheeks, shoulders sagging as if the fight had been punched out of him. His massive frame seemed to shrink, the blazing defiance behind his glasses dimming to something hollow, deflated, the fight gone as quickly as it had ignited. Jordan’s chest tightened at the sight, a vicious satisfaction flaring hot and immediate. He’d known it would hit, known it would hurt, aimed true at the oldest scar Ben carried. Ben’s parents, who’d disowned him for being gay, had always been a forbidden subject, the one no-go zone Ben guarded fiercely, the only part of his past he’d never felt comfortable sharing with Jordan, no matter how many nights they’d laid tangled together trading vulnerabilities. Jordan had thrown it anyway, deliberate and cruel, because he’d needed to wound Ben as deeply as he was wounded, to make him feel the same bleeding ache that had gnawed Jordan alive.
He hated himself for it in the same breath, the shame surging fresh and scalding, twisting in his gut alongside the stubborn love that refused to die even now. But he hated even more how much he enjoyed it: the dark, fleeting rush of seeing Ben falter, of finally landing a blow that drew blood, the resentment feeding on the momentary power like it was air after drowning too long.
The loft fell quieter, the city’s distant hum pressing in through the windows, both of them breathing hard in the wreckage of what they’d just unleashed. Ben laughed, and it was the saddest sound Jordan had ever heard, hollow, broken, stripped of any warmth, echoing off the loft’s high ceilings like a ghost of the laugh that used to shake Jordan’s ribs on better nights. It sliced straight through him, a grief so sharp it stole his breath, made him want to curl into nothing and disappear.
“What are we doing, Jord?” Ben asked, shaking his head. He reached out a hand, tentative, trembling slightly, then let it fall, glasses fogging again as his eyes searched Jordan’s face with desperation. “This… this isn’t us, baby.”
All of a sudden, the fury left Jordan too, sucked out like air from a punctured lung, leaving him hollow and reeling. His legs gave way; he slid down the cold glass of the living-room window until his back hit the sill. Exhaustion crashed over him in a wave, bone-deep and merciless, every muscle trembling from the hours of bottled rage finally spent. He looked up at Ben, the stranger’s mask cracking to reveal the one Jordan had loved so fiercely it still ached like an open wound.
“This is what we’re gonna become if you don’t stop, Ben,” Jordan said, voice barely above a whisper.
Jordan sat there on the cold hardwood, tears drying on his face, back against the window. His breath came shallow, the loft silent except after that explosion.
What had he done?
He’d wanted truth, but this felt like catastrophe, worse than anything he’d imagined in his darkest spirals. He never expected that, that ugly fight, that burning desire to wound, to make Ben feel as bad as he did. The accusations still echoed in his ears: the money, the savior complex, the kink Ben had thrown in his face like proof of hypocrisy. Jordan’s chest tightened with the weight of it, shame surging fresh alongside a regret so sharp it stole his breath. He’d unleashed everything he’d bottled and now the air between them felt poisoned, irreparable. How could they turn back from this? From words that carved out old scars and salted them fresh?
For the first time in his life, Jordan doubted they would make it. That stubborn belief, their love as some invincible force, strong enough to conquer unemployment, depression, the slow erosion of intimacy, cracked under the strain. It had always been his anchor: no matter how bad it got, they’d endure because they loved each other fierce and helpless. But staring at Ben’s deflated frame across the room, at the stranger wearing the face of the man he’d built a life with, Jordan felt the doubt settle cold and heavy in his gut. Love was still there, aching and undeniable, but it suddenly seemed fragile, too fragile to bridge the chasm they’d just torn open. What if this was the fracture that wouldn’t heal? What if, after everything, they couldn’t find their way back?
“I love you, Jordan.”, Ben’s voice was softer now, but lace with a defeat that Jordan never heard before, not even in the heights of his depression. “I wanna be with you. Spend the rest of my life with you. But I won’t stop. I can’t. We can work things out, make rules, whatever you want. But I’m not gonna stop, babe. I’m sorry. If we’re gonna be together… you’re gonna have to find a way to be fine with it.”
Jordan just looked at him.
The loft’s harsh overhead lights carved deep shadows under Ben’s eyes, turning the familiar lines of his face into something worn and unfamiliar, the beard unkempt from the long drive, glasses slightly askew. He looked exhausted, as if the fight had drained something vital from him, his massive shoulders sagged with the weight of it, the usual steady strength in his frame softened into weary defeat. He stood there, huge yet diminished all at once, waiting, pleading without words, for Jordan to fold, to make it okay again.
Even now, the love burned bright inside Jordan, fierce and undeniable, a steady flame that had everything else. It flared hotter in the silence, urging him to step forward, to take it all back, to pretend this night had never happened. He could do it, say yes, set rules, swallow the hurt one more time, one hundred times more. He wanted Ben more than anything, more than pride, more than the cold satisfaction of being right. What was the hate worth, really? The resentment, the shame, nights alone watching a screen while his bed stayed empty, what did any of it matter without the man standing three feet away, the one who’d once made the world feel good just by existing in it?
It would be so easy to just say yes, the word perched there on the back of his tongue, trembling, begging to spill out and end the agony. One syllable, and the fight could dissolve; he could cross the loft, bury his face in Ben’s chest, breathe in the familiar scent of him, pretend the fracture wasn’t already widening into a chasm. They could fall into bed, wake tomorrow with careful touches and whispered apologies, stitch the wounds closed with the stubborn love that had carried them this far.
Instead, he shook his head slow.
“No, Benny.”
The nickname slipped out, old habit, old tenderness, making the refusal ache twice as deep.
“You’re the one who needs to figure it out, if you wanna be with me… or do porn.”
He pushed up from the floor, legs trembling beneath him, the hardwood cold against his palms as he rose to face Ben fully.
“You won’t have both.”
Three chapters left. If you want more stories to come, consider becoming an paid subscriber on my Substack. $8 a month can really change my life. Thanks for staying with Ben and Jordan this long. We’re almost at the end. https://substack.com/@jackstaggwrites
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