FH: Just Found Heaven Ch. 01: SAM

My throat constricted, and I felt that sting of heat behind my eyes again, but I kept the tears back this time because I didn't want my vision to blur and keep me from seeing the widening of Ben's eyes when I reached into the pocket of my jeans to pull out the simple black velvet box that had been burning a hole in my thoughts for the past month since I'd picked up the ring I'd had custom designed for Ben.

His lips parted slightly when I opened the box so he could see the ring. Two rows of brushed silver ran parallel in the middle of the tungsten band. I'd almost gone with white gold, but the jeweler had told me that tungsten was a hard, almost bulletproof material, and Ben's silly sense of romance had apparently rubbed off on me after hours of being forced to watch Spanish soap operas. The idea that the ring was pretty permanent because it couldn't be resized due to the nature of the metal, had appealed to me. Ben probably wouldn't get the context, but he couldn't miss the tiny print of the inscription engraved on the inside of the band when I held the ring out to him so he could take it from me. An inscription that I knew would mean more to him than it might to most people, because he'd fought so damn hard to get me to this point where I could finally believe the words myself.

JFH.

"Just found heaven," I murmured quietly, clarifying the meaning of the letters.

It was Ben's eyes that shimmered with unshed tears now, but his smile was enough of an answer that although I knew I didn't have to ask the actual question, I'd never wanted to do anything more.

"I had to tell you about Max tonight because even though we've already made a life together, I want a true new beginning with you. I've known so many dark times in my life Ben, but you light up the shadows of a love that isn't complicated, broken or codependent. It's the purest, most humbling emotion I've ever felt from, and for anyone, so deep in my soul that I'm never going to be able to remove it without tearing my heart out. So," I murmured, "will you marry me?"

Ben's smile was like the first break of sunrise, but instead of answering, he laid the white rose down on the table. He kept hold of the ring as he knelt down in front of me, mirroring my position on the hardwood floor.

When his hand brushed along the side of my face, I leaned into the touch immediately like I had earlier. This time, instead of trying to convey forgiveness, the loving touch steadied me when our lips touched.

My lips parted immediately for the kiss that was gentle, but not unsure or timid. Ben kissed me the way he was supposed to; like the only man who'd ever have the right to from this moment forward.

Ben's fingers brushed my jaw again as he pulled back. He handed me the ring so I could slide it onto his left hand. It fit perfectly and gleamed against his caramel skin.

"Yes."

One word, but it was all I needed. Ben's grin was just a bonus before he kissed me again and toppled me onto the floor on my back so he could straddle my hips. His eyes gleamed just as brightly as the ring with loving mischief as he said, "Now back to what I was saying about some red rosing..."

***

I blinked out of my reverie when I heard the alarm on my phone beep. I'd set the timer to go off an hour before the wedding started so I could have enough time to get myself ready to start this new chapter of my life.

I'd asked Ben if he'd wanted to pick out a band for me together, but he'd shut me down with an empathic, "hell no." I'd only ever heard him swear one other time, and that occasion had stemmed from the same level of vehement impulsive emotion, so I'd just grinned and mollified him by agreeing that he could choose our wedding bands for the actual ceremony since he wanted them to match. My assumption had been that he'd put the ring I'd given him away in a drawer, or maybe on a chain around his neck close to his heart, but out of the way. Instead, he'd just moved it to his right ring finger last night at the rehearsal dinner so that he could leave his left bare just like mine currently was in anticipation for today.

It was romantic and so Ben, that Sofia and Tara had teased him endlessly about it. He just rolled with the good-natured torment, taking almost as much amusement as they did in the fact that I got more embarrassed by the ribbing than he did.

My lips twitched as I looked into the mirror over the dresser to meet my own eyes. A little over a year ago, I'd stood just like this in front of the bathroom mirror in Sofia's guest room the first night that I'd spent in her home when I'd come back to Florida for Connor's funeral after being honorably discharged from the military. I'd looked at my reflection that night and hadn't recognized myself as the man I'd tried to be for years before I'd stopped fighting back against the world and just let it wreck me. That man had been tagged up like a commemorative wall of graffiti from numerous dangerous military deployments, and so much emotional baggage even before that. In the hotel mirror, the basic structure of my face was still the same, but my blue eyes were clear and focused without any booze in my system to muddy them, and the curve of my jaw was hard due purely to genetics now, and not because I was clenching it in anger all the time like I used to. There were a few new wrinkles at the corners of my eyes when I smiled, which happened easily these days, and they'd replaced the deep bags and harsh circles that had once been permanent squatters beneath my navy blues. The laugh lines bracketing my lips were subtle signs of age I could accept because they meant I'd managed to keep my shit together and survived past those long nights when I'd considered eating my gun because my past had weighed on me too heavily. Thankfully those feelings had faded months ago, and when my PTSD did occasionally flare up, all I had to do was go to Ben and he could talk me down with an ease and speed no one else had ever been able to manage, not even Max.

That thought made me glance over at my best friend who'd come back into the room without me noticing, which meant that I'd really checked out earlier while remembering the proposal. That, and the fact that Max could be ridiculously stealthy when he wanted to, partly from learning how to climb in and out of the bedroom windows of the girls and guys he'd slept with in high school.

Max's attention was focused on his cell phone, fingers flying over the keys as he responded to what was probably a text from someone in my family because I knew that they'd started a group text earlier that day to keep in contact and on schedule with the wedding plans. I felt my expression soften in familiar affection as I watched Max muttering to himself while he read a response after the incoming text chimed. This time his muttering sounded like an exasperated, "bossy she-beast."

I grinned because it had to be Tara he was talking to. Over the past year, they'd become each other's number ones, close enough that Max had rented her basement apartment. He spent so much time over there that sharing living expenses as much as gossip and adventures made sense. They loved each other as platonically as yellow roses, but with the devoted loyalty of the more passionate colors. As they put it, they were each other's 'best bitches' and snipped at each with affectionate exasperation other like an old married couple.

While Max was distracted, I let my gaze sweep over him. He was wearing the same slim cut gray suit Ben, and I were, but Emma had given him a pale blue pocket square to match the snowflake tie she'd picked out for all of us to go with the winter theme she'd also chosen. Ben and I hadn't had any say in those kinds of details because neither of us cared as much as the women in my family did about the party aspects. It made Emma happy to orchestrate her personal big gay Barbie doll wedding and as long as the end result of the day was being able to call Ben my husband, she, Sofia and Adelyn had carte blanche as far as I was concerned.

My visual inspection paused when I saw the rose in Max's boutonniere. Unlike the white ones that had been ordered for mine and Ben's, his was a deep shade of blue that popped against the silvery gray fabric of his suit. I knew that Emma couldn't possibly know the meaning of that color rose. She'd probably been drawn to it for the theme, but my heart tugged anyway with a mild pang of guilt when Max looked up and our eyes met. Blue roses weren't found in nature, so the color symbolized the unattainable, mysterious and impossible.

I'd been the one to choose impossibility for us because I'd chosen a life with Ben, but that had apparently made Max temporarily unattainable to everyone else except for the flash in the pan flings Tara had said he'd been indulging in lately. Granted, Max always been casual about sex. He was adventurous and passionate and had always preferred to live every experience in his life to its fullest capacity without much hesitation. He'd always told me about his cheerful philandering even when he and I were on and off again. But ever since Ben and I had gotten engaged, Max had stopped telling me about his sexual hijinks. I hadn't known about any of his recent hookups until Tara had spilled the beans because she was worried about him.

Max had never been monogamous with anyone except me for a brief period, but he'd also never been a heavy drinker and according to Tara, boozing and banging had become his new favorite past times when he wasn't working at the hospital, or spending time with us. Since he worked insanely long hours and hung around Tara and my family all the time, casual sex with occasional feelings seemed to have become meaningless throwaway sex. I knew Max was always careful because he was a doctor and understood the health risks of intense fooling around, but I still worried about him because I knew what was motivating the sexcapades, and there was nothing I could do about it...

***

Max propped up on one arm on the full-sized hotel room bed so he could see my face while I lay spread eagled on my back, too drunk to think clearly. That had been my goal after I'd walked out of the hospital room I'd been responsible for putting Ben in after I'd unintentionally flipped out on him when I'd woken up disoriented from one of my PTSD triggered nightmares.

Ben hadn't blamed me, had begged me to stay with him, but I couldn't. Hurting him had broken me and Max as always, had been the one to try and pick up the pieces.

"I think you should talk to Ben."

"Your suggestion's been noted and overruled."

"Sam, you're in love with him."

"Yeah, I am," I agreed. "But like you said that night on the porch, our relationship makes more sense than the one between Ben and me."

"It does, but logic isn't the same as love."

"Since when does your moral compass point so northward?"

"Since you fell in love with a guy who I can't compete with..."

***

Max quirked a brow at me in obvious curiosity, probably ready to bust out a penny for my thoughts but I just shook my head as I smiled as a deflection.

"Talking to Tara?"

He snorted. "More like getting bossed around like her personal sexy bitch. She's been schooling me on best man protocol all day though I think I've done pretty well so far. You're here in one piece, ready to marry the hottest priest I know, and your bachelor party was on point despite the deliberate and somewhat tragic absence of any strippers."

I grinned. "Ben would've killed you."

"Probably and between his strong ties to the local police department and his connection to the angels on high he'd get away with it. But it's still tragic."

My grin matched Max's because I knew he'd never really been serious about hiring strippers. It wasn't my thing, never had been.

"You're doing great. There isn't anybody else that I'd want standing up there beside me today. I trust you to keep me upright if I get lightheaded from all these layers in this damn heat. I love the girls, but a three-piece suit in Florida? I know it's almost Christmas, but Jesus."

"Passing out would just give Ben's hot minister friend a reason to skip to the end of the ceremony so that Ben could plant one on you, killing two birds with one stone by resuscitating you, and binding your lives together for ever and ever. Can I get an, AMEN?!"

I laughed when he winked at me, feeling my emotions settle down a little more. This almost felt normal and even if we were just pretending for now, moving forward was the only option that would eventually get us to achieving the goal of just friends without any lingering angst. We'd figure it because we always had. At the end of the day, Max and I always had been, and always would be family.

I focused on that mantra and ignored Max's serenaded rendition of Sam and Ben sitting in a tree as I texted Ben back with emojis of both a red and a white rose followed by a short text.

- Amber also said that red and white roses together symbolize unity. -

Ben's text back was immediate.

- I love you too, but I had room service sprinkle only red rose petals on the bed for tonight. -

Smartass.