You have a killer of a story here. Alas, you’ve chosen not to tell it, opting instead for a non story about a nice guy who manages to put together a decent life for himself. He marries his high school sweetheart, takes over his dad’s business, sells it when his father dies, then opens a restaurant with his wife, which catches on and becomes a success.

You know, I love it when people’s lives work out for them, when hard work and an optimistic outlook are rewarded with success and happiness. I wish nothing less for my friends, associates and loved ones. All those people in the real world. But in fiction, it’s death.

You instinctively know this. That’s why you tried to channel some energy from from Laurie’s life. It never works. From the perspective of the reader, after the first-rate opening scene in the bus station, all you offer is two people talking.

Assume your readers are smart enough not to be fooled by such a slight of hand. They have an unerring sense of the moving point of the present in a story. It makes no difference how dramatic the content of their conversation might be, that’s not what is happening. They have no direct access to Laurie’s life, separated as it is by an impenetrable narrative buffer. There are two directions you can take when you rewrite this, which I hope you will do.You have good prose chops; your opening scene proves that.

One approach would be to simply tell Laurie’s story. Right now, you settle for telling us about her story, not at all the same thing. Another direction, and what I would recommend, would be to actually give Ben a story of his own, which would mean throwing a bunch of rocks onto the placid surface of his predictable life and disrupting the status quo. That’s what makes stories compelling, a character motivated to get off his butt and either run from something, or fight for something. Either way, forcing them to make decisions and take actions will be the building blocks of your plot, as they encounter problems that must be solved.

Problems. They are the coin of the realm for a storyteller. No problems, no story. And I can’t think of anyone more qualified to introduce unexpected problems into Ben’s happy life than having Laurie come back into it.

Of course, to make her interesting, you’ll want to avoid her angelic evolution into the sweet thing you’ve cast her as here. It’s warts and scars and anger, jealousy, revenge and venal intent that creates an interesting character. And if Ben hadn’t really put her out of his mind all those years, had instead found the aura of danger and threat that she brought with her endlessly compelling, you’d have a perfect formula for trouble.

Where to take it? Couldn’t say. It’s not my story. But, like Elmore Leonard always said, give your characters problems, and sufficient desire to do something about them, then get out of the way. When they start bumping up against each other and getting in each other’s way, they’ll tell you what their story is.