I was so proud of how successful Ben had become in such a short time. He landed a job at the LA Times right out of college and proved his extreme confidence and ability in only a few short years with his focus and dedication to his job. Even though the commute from Laguna was tedious at most, he didn’t mind doing it, especially since he wasn’t required to go into the office every day. My fiancé was going to be receiving California’s Journalist of the Year award at a prestigious dinner in LA for his brilliant work in underground crime investigation. I knew I wasn’t the only one full of excitement, even if I was the only one who showed it.

Ben’s lack of enthusiasm toward the honor he was receiving wasn’t like him. In fact, he hadn’t been acting like himself all week. He wasn’t acting different in a good way or a bad way—just different, and I had been trying to figure out what was driving his mood. I wasn’t sure if I should be concerned or touched by his actions. They were definitely a little strange to tell the truth. He had been sweeter than he usually was; he sent me flowers, he bought me candy, he spent every night at home with me. He had even shown up at my office every day to take me to lunch.

Ben was never the type of boyfriend to dote; he wasn’t a flowers and chocolates romantic kind of guy, and I wasn’t the kind of girl who needed that. I liked my independence and so did he. He had always taken care of me and loved me in his own way, but never in all our years together had he done the types of things he’d done that week.

Once before, he came close to acting like a doting boyfriend, but technically he wasn’t my boyfriend at the time. I’d broken up with him and because of his borderline doting then, I was always wary of this behavior from him at any time.

The event leading up to our breakup and its cause will forever be ingrained in my mind. I remember clearly the day I popped into Ben’s room at his frat house. It was the end of the first semester of our senior year at USC. I stopped by to tell him I’d finally gotten the internship I really wanted at Sound Music. I was so happy that I wasn’t going to have to intern for Drake anymore, and I knew Ben would be thrilled. He wasn’t in his room when I got there, so I sat down at his desk to send his sister, Serena, a quick email to share my news with her. I knew she’d be excited for me.

I pressed the space bar on his computer and his email account was already opened, so I figured I’d just type my quick note from there. Instead of hitting compose I accidentally clicked on the trash folder. I noticed the date October 31st, 2006 right away. As my eyes scanned the screen, the words Reply to: S’belle, later tonight, green eyes, touch, copper, and your apartment were all that registered before he came over and quickly right clicked, hitting the delete button. His presence startled me as I hadn’t heard him walk into the room. I gaped at him in astonishment that he just deleted that email so quickly in front of my eyes. I hadn’t had a chance to read the whole thing, but I knew he must have been hiding something. Was he really making plans with another girl? Plans that were not in the least bit platonic?

He admitted to emailing this girl and socializing with her but assured me nothing sexual had actually happened. In the end, he confessed that their relationship was inappropriate. He swore he would end it, and I’m sure he did; but I couldn’t trust him, so I broke up with him.

Everyday from that day forward he called me. Over the next three months, little ‘remember me’ items turned up almost daily. He was trying so hard to convince me to forgive him. He left notes on my car, flowers at my door, voice messages with profuse apologies, text messages confessing his love, he showed up anywhere he knew I would be, and he even bought me a silver-plated coffee cup with a note saying ‘To brighten up your mornings’.

It was a long, hard three-month separation. I never realized just how much I would actually miss him, but I did—a lot. So I decided to trust him and move past the dishonesty. I really did love him, and I knew he loved me. Perhaps I also felt a little guilty about my own encounter with a certain singer of a band that wasn’t exactly innocent.

So yes, the doting alarmed me, not that I didn’t appreciate his kind gestures, but it just made me think something was wrong. Was there something not right in our relationship, a relationship that already had its share of ups and downs? Maybe this behavior was just one of the ups, or maybe Ben’s sudden emergence into romance had something to do with wanting to get married since we had never talked about setting a wedding date.

The one thing I was sure about was our love and commitment to each other. We grew up together. We had been boyfriend and girlfriend since we were sixteen, and we had been engaged for two years. We may have disagreed on many things and argued more than I preferred, but we always fell back on our longevity; especially since the root of most of our disagreements stemmed from something I could not fix. Our arguments were usually the result of Ben’s jealousy or self-concern. Ben would be jealous if another man so much as looked at me, which was ironic because Ben himself was always very flirtatious. He was also self-centered. This trait was more a function of who he was; a man with drive and determined to get ahead, although sometimes I wondered at what cost.

Shaking my head, I had no idea what was going on with Ben. However, I made an effort to push aside the disconcerting thoughts and just embrace the moment.

“Today is your big day,” I said while looking into his eyes. I gave him a large happy smile full of pride for his accomplishments. I diverted my eyes from his when I said, “And your party or not, it would be rude for the main speaker to be late.” I kissed him on the lips to help soften my words. “Now zip my dress back up, and tell me what you think.”

Ben gave me his dangerous smile but didn’t move. “You can be very bitch . . . y, oh I mean boss . . . y. I think you look f**king gorgeous,” he snickered, finally turning me back around to zip my dress.

I looked at him in the mirror again as he was still grinning at me. “No, the pearls silly! Should I wear them or not?” I asked while holding them up to my neck again.

Ben’s smile faded a little as he took the pearls from my hands. “No pearls. They remind me of your grandma. Not that I didn’t love your Grammy, but I love you in a totally different way. I don’t want Grammy images popping up in my head while I’m f**king you.” He turned me back around and kissed me right on the chest where the pearl necklace would have sat, while he ran his hand up under my dress. I shivered from his contact, and his bright smile returned.

I laughed lightly and said, “Stop it Ben Covington! You can’t do that after talking about Grammy, it just seems wrong.” I moved aside and started to leave the bathroom to go put on my shoes. I tripped over a towel on my way out and said, “Maybe you could try cleaning up after yourself a little,” but he knew I was kidding since I was much messier than he was.

“I love you, you know,” Ben said while he followed me out of the bathroom.

As I sat on the bed, still unmade from our afternoon romp, I slipped on one of my shoes before pulling my leg up onto the bed. “I know, and I love you too.” Once again, I wondered: why the onslaught of affection?

Ben stood over me to help me fasten the ankle strap of my left shoe. I noticed his facial expression change again, taking on a more serious tone. “No Dahlia, I really, really love you. Never forget it, no matter what.”

“Dahlia? You never call me that,” I said as I wriggled my foot and ran it up his stomach trying to lighten the mood.

Ben smirked at my gesture, set my foot down, and walked over to his dresser. I was at a loss for words as he reached into one of the drawers and pulled out a Cartier box. Walking back to the bed, he handed me the box and said, “I bought this for you because it says what I never seem to be able to say to you.”

Surprised at the lavish name on the box, I looked at it for a few seconds before opening it. Inside was a stunning white gold and diamond bracelet. It had four hearts engraved around the edge. I knew it well because I had written a paper about that piece of jewelry in college for one of my style classes. The bracelet was created by Cartier in the 1970s and is meant to be a symbol of genuine loving attachment; a discreet token of passionate love. It is to be locked firmly onto the loved one’s wrist by the giver with the aid of an included golden screwdriver of which the giver remains the guardian. Looking up at him, my eyes started to fill with tears, and without words I put my hand out for him to fasten the bracelet around my wrist.

Staring at the beautiful piece of jewelry, overcome by emotion, I tried not to cry. “I love it,” I said while swallowing hard. He leaned down and kissed me softly on the lips. I gazed at him and noticed his eyes were slightly weepy, and his forehead was creased.

I kept watching him as he turned around and walked toward what used to be my mother’s hope chest. It was old, and the creamy-white paint was almost completely peeled off. Ben’s strides were slow and deliberate. His display of emotion was unusual. I had never seen him that overcome, not even when he asked me to marry him. He just wasn’t very emotional; it wasn’t his nature.

Turning the key that I always left in the keyhole, he opened the lid to the chest and said, “I don’t see why you’d ever have to take off the bracelet, but just in case I’ll put this,” he held the screwdriver up in the air, “In here so you know where to find it, okay?” He winked at me while pointing to the chest. I knew he never liked how unorganized I could be, but he knew I could always find anything of importance in that chest that had belonged to my mother.

I watched as Ben looked for a place to put the screwdriver. His search seemed to be done with care and concern. He decided on a small square located in the red-velvet covered tray that was hinged to the lid. From the bed I could see all of the material items I held true to my heart stored in that chest. I smiled when I saw all my dolls, along with yearbooks, diplomas, and various pictures. I finished putting on my other shoe, stood up, and walked behind him. I wrapped my arms around his waist and squeezed. He grabbed my arms and squeezed back for a few seconds before placing his hands on the lid. As he closed the lid to the hope chest, I saw Malibu Ken lying on top of all the other items, and my mind wandered back to the first time we had sex.

We were out surfing at our favorite spot, miles away from people and cars. The swells were small so the surf was unburdened. It started to lightly rain, but we remained with our arms stretched in the air riding the most perfect waves. When the rain fell harder we swam to shore, boards attached to our legs. It was almost pouring as we made a run for the car. Ben carried both of our boards while I carried all the other gear. The crackle of the thunder was loud and the jolt made him fall with the two boards toppling down. I stopped to help him, throwing all the gear I was carrying to the ground. He just looked at me and laughed, “Fuck it.” Then he put both boards together in the sand to make a teepee of sorts.

We were sitting under the teepee watching the rain hit the waves like sheets of glass shattering on the ground when Ben leaned in and kissed me. We had kissed so many times before, but never like that. I pulled away at first, not sure where we were headed. I’d gone on the pill a couple months before in anticipation that Ben and I would finally have sex for the first time. And as the tide washed up onto the shore I knew the time was upon us—I knew the time was right.

Ben brought my lips back to his and thrust his tongue to meet mine. I closed my eyes, craving his touch. I could smell the salt from the ocean on his warm skin and taste it on his tongue. He pulled me as close as he could and when we stopped kissing, I opened my eyes.

We were both breathing heavily, almost panting as the drumming of the rain continued. He gazed at me with his lips slightly parted, and I pressed my fingers against his lips and he kissed them. Then in a gesture of returning his kiss, I kissed my own fingers before running them down his bare chest and across his well-defined abdominal muscles. I heard a slight intake of breath and with hooded eyes he kissed my lips again, this time a little harder. As his tongue entwined with mine, he slipped his hand inside my bikini top rubbing circles around my nipple with his thumb.

The wind picked up, blowing my hair across our connected faces. Moaning in his mouth and straddling his lap, I felt his erection as I ground my h*ps into his. I ran my hands through his wet hair and down his bare back, hard enough that I could feel the grit of the sand rubbing against his skin.

Kissing his way down my throat, Ben whispered, “I love you, Dahl,” before moving his hand behind my neck and tugging the string that held my bikini top in place.

My head fell back as he lightly kissed each of my now fully exposed ni**les in turn. I arched my back as his kisses turned into sucks and licks, sending a jolt of pleasure through my core and a shiver down my spine. I could feel his smile against my skin as I whimpered, “I love you too.”

Flashes of lightning lit the sky off in the distance, but the real spark was right here on the beach. As I reached down pressing my hands against the outside of Ben’s board shorts, he moved his hands to the inside of my knees and spread my legs open wider as I continued to straddle his lap.

After outlining his erection with my fingers, I hooked my hands in the elastic of his shorts wanting to do the same without the wet barrier between us. As my hands descended, Ben pulled away. “I want you, now.”

“I want you too,” I responded as I leaned back from him so I could see his face, leaving my hands where they were.

As the ominous storm assaulted the beach we continued to explore each other’s bodies. When we were both panting uncontrollably, he stood up and reached for my hand, pulling me up, out of our shelter, and into the pouring rain.

“Come on let’s go, I’ll come back and get our shit later,” he managed to say while pulling me close enough so that I could feel the rain drops from his body mix with mine. We stood there touching and kissing as he pulled me into his hardness, running his fingers inside the back of my bikini bottom.