CHAPTERSEVENTEEN
Becca
Ben returns as I’m dishing out the food.
It was good that he had to go to the bathroom right then, giving me a chance to compose myself and quiet the raging fire inside me.
When he was talking about taking me to a restaurant, he told me everybody would know I was his girl.
He was probably talking about the date and the date alone, but I couldn’t help but think about the rest of our lives. I couldn’t stop imagining him extending that feeling to every aspect of us, so people would always know I belonged to him.
He sits opposite me, his shirt sleeves rolled up, his silver hair messy from all the heat we shared. My sex rubs against my panties as I sit, my core screaming at me to do more.
But I can’t, not now, not with how freaking huge he is.
And what…waiting is going to make him less big?
He forks a chicken piece, smiling at me. “Are you sure you’re a photographer and not a chef? These are cooked to perfection.”
I giggle, shaking my head. “You’re such a tease, Ben. We both know it’s impossible to mess up frozen chicken pieces.”
“Maybe,” he chuckles. “But you’ve done something better than just cook them. You’ve elevated them.”
I laugh at his phrasing. He chuckles along with me; all the tension and the unspoken heat are forgotten for a moment. It was like in the car, when I told him a half-truth, that I was thinking about a garden.
But it wasn’t just a garden. It was our garden.
I let my thoughts drift away, my fantasies blooming, a garden filled with light, Ben there, Alex, and our children. Mom and Dad were there too, all of them laughing, no rifts or pain caused by mine and Ben’s closeness.
“You get a dreamy look sometimes, Becca bee,” he says.
I look away, catching our reflection in the glass of the window. With the dark night behind it, it’s easy to make us out, with Ben looking like a giant, his forearms resting on the table. I look small next to him, the bagginess of his shirt hiding my shape, making me look vulnerable, like I need protecting.
He’sgoing to protect me.
“Do I?” I ask.
“Are you thinking about taking photos?”
“Sometimes,” I tell him. “Sometimes I’ll drift off imagining what I could do, like maybe I could travel…but then, I don’t really want to travel. Maybe I could take portrait photos. That seems like a fun job.”
“For kids?” he says, forking another chicken piece.
Hearing the word kids in his gruff voice sends my mind back to those fantasies, to the impossible garden and the laughter and the love.
“Yeah,” I say, nodding. “That would be awesome. Imagine how fun that would be…I’m sure it would be stressful too. But it can’t be worse than a double shift at a grimy restaurant.”
“You’re a hard worker, Becca,” he says. “Alex has told me how you started working as soon as you could.”
I shrug. “Mom and Dad always instilled the need to work hard in me. They never gave me much of an allowance. I hated it at the time, but I appreciate it now. I like earning my own money.”
We pause, eating silently for a time.
“So, do you want your own kids one day?” he asks.
My core gives a near-violent shudder as though trying to drive me to my feet and around the table. I imagine sliding into his lap, grinding my hips against him, and whispering in his ear that I want babies with him. And I’m ready to do it now.
“I’d like children one day,” I say as neutrally as I can. “What about you?”