Ben glanced down at Melody's knee when she brushed it against his. After a beat, he dropped his free hand down to rest on her knee, while he continued leaning his cheek against the other hand. He looked off to the side and considered. He didn't think 'just not avoiding each other' would be enough. The pair of them had a lot of baggage to work past, and because of the way their relationship had begun they'd never set expectations for a real partnership between the pair of them. They couldn't expect to fall into it by chance. They also couldn't just sit here and pull rules for themselves out of thin air. They needed to trust each other first — well, he needed to trust her. They probably needed to get to know each other better in order to build the sort of relationship they wanted.

This was a double-edged sword, though. Ben could take her to visit his childhood home and tell her all sorts of things about his life that she'd never known before, but then if things went south again, he would only have better armed her against him.

But he had to give her something. He had to risk corrupting something in order to give her a chance to earn his trust. Otherwise, they'd still be stuck here in three months, or six.

He looked back at her and rubbed his thumb against her knee. "I think we should take a holiday."

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