8. Ben
BEN
I stepped back and stared at the demolished wall, held up with support beams we stuck in so the whole fucking house didn’t collapse on us. The house was coated in dust, and the plastic tarp rattled in the wind, making the most obnoxious sound.
But it was for Clara, and by God, I was not going to be the selfish prick Liam made me out to be earlier today. I’d make this the best goddamn house for her, and she’d love it.
“That’s it for me today,” Liam said, taking off his belt. “Bailey texted that dinner’s almost ready.”
I stared longingly into my kitchen, wondering when my dinner was going to be made. Clara hadn’t returned all day, and I was beginning to think she wasn’t going to.
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“See ya, Pop.”
I grunted as he walked out of the room, then sat down on the stairs, waiting for my wife to return home to make me some food.
Without her at home today, I was forced to make myself a sandwich, which wasn’t at all satisfying.
The way Clara made sandwiches, you’d think you were in a deli.
There was always some special sauce spread between the layers of meat, which I didn’t remember until after I put the mayo on the bread and it soaked through the thin layer.
And since she hadn’t made bread this week, I was forced to eat grocery store bread. I hardly ever ate that, and after today, I wouldn’t care if I never saw another slice of the inadequate bread.
Tugging out my phone, I called her number, but it went straight to voicemail. It was like she was purposely ignoring me. I went to the den, figuring I would watch some television, but forgot she’d taken all my things out and moved her own in.
So, I went back to the kitchen and I waited. Another hour slipped away before she finally pulled up in her car, and when she walked into the house with bags dangling from her hands, I nearly lost it.
“Woman, do you have any idea what time it is?”
Laughing, she smiled over her shoulder at me, but that wasn’t what caught my attention.
It was those damn shoes.
Heels, to be precise, and they were paired with a dress that showed off her perfect calves.
Fuck, I was instantly hard.
“Ben, are you gonna help me or just sit there?”
I wanted to get up and move, but my brain was short-circuiting at the sight of those gorgeous legs. Some guys were breast men. Some were ass men. I was a leg man. I could watch her walk around for days in nothing but a shirt of mine, but that hadn’t happened since…
Well, a really fucking long time.
Sighing, she huffed and walked away. “It’s fine. I’ll carry it all.”
As she stomped up the stairs, my brain finally came back online and I rushed after her. “Let me help you.”
“I’m almost there, now,” she grumbled, shoving through the doorway.
“What the hell is all this stuff?” I snapped, mostly angry because she looked so damn hot, and I was filthy, not fit to touch her like this.
“It’s my new wardrobe.”
I paused, sure I had heard her wrong. “Your new what?”
“My new wardrobe.” She turned, smiling at me. “Do you realize that I haven’t changed a thing about the way I look in nearly thirty years? If anything, I look more and more like my mother with every day that goes by,” she said as she started tugging things out of her bags.
“What exactly is wrong with what you wear now?”
At my harsh tone, she turned, her eyes narrowing. “Excuse me?”
“It’s just—what you had is fine.”
Rolling her eyes, she stomped over to her drawer and started emptying it onto the floor. “If it’s about the money, don’t worry. I didn’t spend a dime from our joint account.”
That’s what she thought this was about? “Clara—”
But I didn’t get another word out as she spun on me.
“You know, for years, I haven’t done anything for myself.
Whenever someone needed new clothes, I made sure they had them.
Do you realize that some of my clothes are things I wore when they were still toddlers?
I have underwear that’s over five years old! ”
“I didn’t—”
“Is it really too much to ask that I get to replace my wardrobe once every fifty years? Or maybe I should just wait until they shove me in a nursing home. Then I can walk around in a hospital gown all day. I’m sure it’ll be really stylish!”
Rushing over to her, I grabbed her flailing hands and tugged them to my chest, forcing her to look at me. “I didn’t say you don’t deserve a new wardrobe.”
“No, you just don’t want me to spend money.”
“Now, don’t go putting words in my mouth,” I bit out. “The reason I didn’t think you needed new clothes is not that you don’t deserve them, but because you look fucking gorgeous in anything you wear. I like the old clothes just as much as I like this new dress.”
I longed to slide my hand up her thigh, to feel the warmth of her pussy on my fingers, but the last time we did that…well, it had been a while. And I had the feeling it wouldn’t be welcome since she thought I was being such a bastard.
Sighing, she tugged out of my grasp. “Why do you have to make everything so complicated?”
“Me?”
“Yes!” she spun on me. “I walked in the door in a new dress and new shoes, which I thought you would like, but instead, you just stare at me with these eyes, and… I don’t know what to do with that!”
I choked out a laugh at her words. “These eyes.” I took a step forward, looking at her the same fucking way I did when she walked through the door. “You mean these eyes?”
“That’s—you weren’t—”
I stalked toward her, ready to devour her. It had been a long fucking time, and as much as I worried about her rejecting me, the way she looked at me…fuck, she had to want me, too.
“The way I’m looking at you is like a starving man. The way I’m looking at you is I’m memorizing every fucking inch of your body, wondering when I can get you in bed again.”
She swallowed hard, her cheeks flushing as she licked her lips. “You—you don’t usually…”
“You started turning away from me.”
“Because I was tired.”
“And I stayed away. But Clara, if you walk in the house, showing off your legs like that, you might as well be waving a red flag at me.”
The flush in her cheeks quickly vanished, and her body stiffened. “Is that the only way to get your attention? Wear a pretty dress, and you’ll finally notice I’m still here?”
“What?” When the hell had I said anything like that?
Tears filled her eyes, and she quickly turned away from me. It didn’t take a genius to see the shaking of her shoulders, or the way she tried to hide it by grabbing her things from the bags.
“Clara, I’ve always known you were here.”
“It’s fine.”
I sighed heavily. If there was one thing I knew for certain after all this time, I’m fine meant she was most certainly not fine. “I always want you, Clara.”
“Just leave it alone,” she said, swiping at her cheeks. She quickly hustled to get her things put away, while I was trying to figure out how to resuscitate what was left of our love life.
It seemed like no matter what I did, I was always in the wrong.
I let her get more sleep because she was so damn tired, but all that did was cause a rift between us.
And now that she was dressed like that, walking in front of me like a goddamn dream, it was wrong to want her.
I didn’t know which way was up or how to get back in her good graces.
So, I walked out of the room, closing the door behind me. And as I went downstairs, I realized that not only had I pissed her off, but I was also highly unlikely to get any dinner tonight.
I slammed the hammer against the nail, hitting it a lot fucking harder than I needed to. Replays of our fight were in my head all through the night, making it impossible to sleep. Not to mention, the couch wasn’t all that comfortable.
“Is there a reason you’re trying to kill the nail?” Jeff asked, eyeing me warily as he approached.
I ignored him, choosing instead to grab another nail and slam it into the frame. But I was so fucking tired, so distracted, that I missed the nail completely and smashed my thumb beneath the heavy weight of the hammer.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, throwing my hammer across the room, ignoring the way it crashed into something glass.
Cradling my thumb in my other hand, I stomped into the torn-up kitchen, grabbing an ice pack out of the freezer. Both my sons strode in, looking at me like I was crazy.
“What?” I snapped.
“Nothin’,” Liam shrugged. “It’s just not like you to do something as stupid as hitting your own damn thumb. Why aren’t you using the nail gun?”
“Well, clearly, he’s frustrated, and he needs to take his anger out on something,” Jeff grinned.
“Wipe that smile off your face,” I sneered.
“Since when do you let Ma get to you this much?”
“What are you talking about?” Liam asked his brother.
“Well, isn’t it obvious? Ma did something. Or Pop did something and now Ma’s pissed. I thought that much was pretty clear.”
“Only to you. Still not sure why it is that you can tell when our parents are fighting, but you can’t manage to keep a woman,” Liam retorted.
“I’ll have you know that I entertain plenty of women. I’m choosy.”
“Choosy is when you have women fawning over you, and you have to turn them away. You, my friend—”
I ignored their bickering and went outside for some fresh air. I had never fought with Clara so much in all my life, and now things were falling apart left and right.
I didn’t know what to say to make her so angry, but it seemed like everything out of my mouth lately set her off. All I wanted was for her to be happy, but I didn’t know what that was anymore.
After she was poisoned, I found myself hovering over her, needing to know that she was okay.
I took care of her and made sure she was comfortable, but she quickly got irritated with me, pushing me further away.
Nothing I could say or do could bring back what we once had, and the more time that passed, the more I worried that she blamed me for her poisoning.
“Pop, tell him that when a woman smiles at him, that’s not the same thing as her flirting with him,” Liam snapped as he shoved the screen door open. “He’s gonna have assault charges brought against him if he doesn’t stop hitting on every woman that looks at him.”
“When they wink at you, that’s flirting!”
“Sometimes! Not every time! Delilah had something in her eye. She told you that!”
“I still say she was flirting with me,” Jeff argued.
“She likes Remi. Everyone around town knows that they belong together!”
“If they belonged together, they would already be together, which they clearly aren’t!”
“Because they’re both stubborn! You know something about that!”
Jeff immediately backed down, which meant he was hiding something. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Oh, so that wasn’t you stumbling into Delaney’s house the other night?”
He barked out a laugh. “I was drunk and she gave me someplace to crash.”
“Uh-uh. Keep telling yourself that.”
“Delaney? That rock and gem woman?” I asked.
“She’s a friend,” Jeff argued.
“You don’t stumble into a woman’s house at night without it meaning something,” Liam snapped. “Not in this town.”
“Well, that’s what happened. I’m sorry to burst your bubble.”
I’d seen some idiotic things in my time, but never had I gone to a woman’s house and stayed there overnight. “Are you a fucking idiot?”
“Possibly,” he shrugged.
“Because I know no son of mine is stupid enough to stay at a woman’s house overnight.” My eyes shot to Liam since he was that idiot. The crap he put Bailey through disappointed me more than I could ever express, but he wouldn’t listen to anything I had to say.
“Like I said, nothing happened, Pop. We’re friends. That’s all.”
My sons were all idiots, but then again, I wasn’t exactly winning the Husband of the Year award.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll stay the hell away from her.”
“She’s just a friend,” he said slowly.
Shaking my head, I stalked away from my sons, heading toward the barn. Hell, I’d go just about anywhere right now to escape their stupidity. Maybe even my own.
Not even a throbbing thumb could erase the argument from my mind, and as I stormed into the barn and grabbed the pitchfork, I knew that no matter how hard I tried, shoveling shit wasn’t going to help either.
But I headed into the first stall and led Susie out into the pasture for a little exercise while I mucked out the stalls. Not that the damn horse would actually gallop or even trot. No, this horse strolled over to the first tree she found and plopped down underneath it to fall asleep.
Sighing, I walked over to her, sliding my hand along her withers. “So, this is what you’re gonna do all day? Lounge around without a care in the world?”
She neighed, resting her head back on the ground.
I laid my head back, tipping my hat to cover my eyes. “Yeah, must be the good life, huh? No one to tell you what to do or where to go. No one to yell at you when you try to pay them a compliment.”
Again, Susie agreed with me.
“Yeah, well, just wait until you find someone. He’ll compliment your hindquarters, and because you’re a woman, you’ll probably get mad at him, too. But let me tell you, a man can only take so much rejection before he’ll walk away.”
She didn’t have anything to say to that.
“Oh, you don’t believe me?” I sighed, tipping my hat up to look at her. “I see how you are. Just like all the other damn women, strutting around like a man won’t see your ass and want to take you. You’re a horse, so you probably don’t understand this, but men love a shapely ass.”
She snorted in what I could only imagine was disgust.
“Hey, don’t take that attitude with me. I’m just like all the other men out there.”
She pushed up on her front end, then propelled herself to her feet, taking off at a gallop.
“Yeah, you go ahead and run away from the truth! Just you wait! I’ll get a stud over here, and then we’ll see how long you last!”
The wind blew softly over my face, swaying the branches above me in the breeze. Huffing out a laugh, I shoved to my feet and brushed the grass clippings off my legs.
“I’m talking to a fucking horse. Good job, Ben.”