Chapter Fifteen
Ben
Ben had only been able to make out a few muffled words through the bathroom door. Not that he had been listening. But the longer he’d stood there, the longer he’d wanted to leave. He needed to apologize to Tina, needed to apologize to Gavin, but his feet had felt itchy standing there.
He didn’t know if his hasty exit would be appreciated or not, but it had been necessary. He only knew he needed to get on the road, needed to feel the wind on him, needed the rumble of an engine under him. Ben jumped on his bike and headed out without a destination in mind.
The only problem? February was cold as fuck. Rain slashed at his fingers around his handlebars—he’d been in such a rush, he’d forgotten his gloves. The wind he’d looked forward to cut through his leather jacket and layers of fabric under it, and the farther north he went, the slicker the roads were. Rain turned to sleet, and the drivers out there with him got more and more erratic.
After a few more miles, Ben pulled off into a strip mall. He parked his bike in front of Fred Meyer and went inside. He didn’t exactly warm up instantly, but he did find a pair of gloves on sale that would do as a decent backup set until he got home.
He wandered aimlessly for a few minutes, stopped at the coffee bar and got an overpriced, overly sweet latte, and then pushed his unnecessary cart through the aisles. When he came to the toy section, he stopped to take a look. The holidays were over, but Anna’s kids had birthdays coming up soon enough. What caught his eye, though, was a little stuffed animal—a fluffy white lamb, the softest thing Ben had ever touched. It had a yellow satin ribbon, almost the same shade as Tina’s hair, around its neck. He tossed it into the cart without thinking.
After a few minutes, he found himself in the video department. He grabbed the first universal remote that would work with his entertainment center, and then he walked through the new movies, the boxed sets of TV series he had never watched. He found himself in the workout Blu-rays and he pulled out his phone. Anna answered on the second ring.
“You and Gavin still fighting?” she asked without saying hello.
That question would take too long to answer. “Not exactly.” He thought about how things were when he left and amended his statement. “Well, he’s not here, so we’re not fighting right now.”
Anna’s laugh sounded like a song, bright and high, clean. He needed to call his sister more often. “You just need to let Gavin be Gavin and you two would get along a lot better.”
She was probably right about that, but that wasn’t why he’d called. “Listen, what was the yoga thing you did when you were pregnant with Melissa?”
“Did Gavin knock you up?”
Ben narrowed his eyes even though she couldn’t see him. “No,” he said flatly, as if it were even possible. “But his little sister is, and I thought she could maybe use something like that…”
Anna was quiet for a beat, as if she wasn’t sure what Ben had just said. “Gavin’s sister?”
“Yup.”
“Like… bio-sister? Crazy family? Scary God-hates-fags people?”
At least he wasn’t the only one hung up on that. “Yup.”
“I’m going to need more information, I think.”
Ben detailed the events of the last forty-eight-hours for her. He might have left off the bit where he made a pregnant, homeless seventeen-year-old cry, but he covered most of the bases.
“Well, shit.” She was so helpful, his sister.
“That about sums it up, yeah.”
She laughed again, though this one was less joyful and a little more sardonic. “So you want to make amends and get Gavin to speak to you?”
“I didn’t say I need to make amends for anything,” Ben pointed out. “And I didn’t say Gavin isn’t speaking to me.”
“You don’t have to say it. I know you.” That was true enough. “You probably lost your shit, and Gavin is probably still sending you death glares from miles away.”
“My shit is right where it should be.”
“If you say so…”
She finally told him the name of the program he needed, but, Jesus, he felt like he’d been on the phone with her his entire life. He scanned the rack in front of him. “They don’t have it,” he said as he pulled another from the shelf. “Hang on.” Ben took his phone from his ear and snapped a picture of the case, sent it to Anna. “What about this one?”
He could practically hear her roll her eyes. “It’s not that complicated, Ben. If it’s for pregnant women and it increases flexibility, it’ll do.” She paused, though, and Ben figured she had checked her text. After a moment, she said, “Yeah, that’ll work. Get her one of those big exercise balls too. She’ll need it.”
“I can’t really take something like that home on my bike…”
“They don’t come inflated.” Her words were innocuous enough, but her tone clearly said, How are you such a moron?
“Like I’m supposed to know that,” he said. “When I work out, I lift weights. I use the rowing machine or the treadmill. I don’t bounce around on a big ball.”
“You should try it,” she said. “You could probably do with some more flexibility too.” After a beat, she added, “I know a guy who can suck his own dick. That could come in handy.”
Ben had moved on from the videos, but he looked around the store as if other people could hear his conversation. “Jesus,” he muttered into the phone. “Where are the kids?”
“They’re sitting right in front of me,” Anna said, sarcasm dripping from the words. “I thought it’d be fun to see what their teachers think of the new vocabulary.” Then she told him, “Derik took them out on the boat for the day to give me a break.”
That made more sense. Derik wasn’t a fisherman, not by trade at least, but he did have a small boat and the kids had been raised on it, just as Ben and Anna had grown up on their father’s fishing boat. “Lucky you, huh?”
“I’d tell you I’m not lucky and that I’d spent the day cleaning and hemming curtains, but that’d be a lie.”
Ben made his way to the fitness section and looked for the exercise balls. “What did you do?”
She let out a long, satisfied sigh. “I soaked in a hot bubble bath, exfoliated and shaved all the things, gave myself a manicure and a pedicure, and now I’m eating a pizza, trying not to crack my clay face mask.”
“Thought it was supposed to be bonbons, not pizza. You’re so unrefined.”
“I’m saving the bonbons for when the kids go to bed. I have a date with Pedro Pascal.”
“How does Derik feel about that?”
He could hear her grin into the phone. “The costar is pretty hot, so he’s fine with it.”
“Pedro Pascal is pretty hot.”
“I’m not sure how I feel about us having the same taste in men.”
Ben laughed. She wasn’t far off the mark. Derik and Gavin looked a little alike if you squinted, and when Derik was Gavin’s age, you didn’t even need to squint to see the similarities. “I promise I won’t hit on your husband if Gavin leaves me.”
“Pity,” she said. “I could probably sell the rights to that story and have my very own Lifetime movie.”
“Sorry to kill your dreams.”
“I’ll try to forgive you.”
They ended the call with a promise to talk soon, a promise for a visit sometime over the summer. Ben missed his family, missed seeing them in person, but the miles between them didn’t make them any less close. His chest cinched, thinking about Gavin and Tina. They didn’t even get that. They lived in the same state, hell, the same town, but didn’t get to grow up together, make fun of each other, support one another.
Ben still had some concerns—more than some—but that little fact anchored in him somewhere so deep it hurt.
He tossed the exercise ball Anna recommended into the cart and headed for the checkout. Ben wasn’t sure if he was ready to get back home, but he knew he should anyway. Gavin and Tina had an appointment down at the clinic, and they’d be back soon. He figured he should be there, get the rundown.
On his way to pay for everything, he saw a rack with a soft fuzzy blanket with satin trim and little ducks all over it. He dropped the blanket into the cart too.