Chapter 20
Stephanie left early Monday morning, and while Hannah had enjoyed her visit, she wasn't sad to see her go.
Stephanie had given her a hard time about not being more ambitious, but otherwise, they'd had a nice visit. The problem was, Hannah missed Ben. It hadn’t been long since she had seen him, and she couldn't wait until he came to pick up Mason so she could at least get a glimpse of him.
She couldn't remember ever being this head over heels for someone, and she laughed a little at herself for being such a schoolgirl. She was in her mid-thirties. She shouldn't be so silly.
But as she flipped the sign over on the door and turned the lights out in the waiting room, she couldn't keep from glancing out the window up and down the street, checking to see if he was on his way.
Usually, he was there five or ten minutes before they closed so Mason didn't end up waiting on him.
"Dad's not here yet?" Mason said, sticking his head out of the number two exam room where he was wiping everything down with a disinfectant wipe.
"No, not yet," she said. Before the words were out of her mouth, headlights splashed across the window.
"Never mind. There he is," she said, smiling as his truck pulled into the lot.
Trying to think of an excuse to see him more, she wracked her brain as to whether or not there was anything she needed to talk to him about regarding the festival. Everything had pretty much been hammered out, and they were ready for it to start next week.
She almost missed the giggling that came from the exam room where Cassie had now joined Mason.
Ben had almost made it to the door, but she turned, suspicious.
"What's going on with you two?" she asked, trying to look into the exam room to see if something had happened.
"Hey there, I've missed you," Ben said as he walked in.
"I missed you too. It's only been a day, which is crazy."
"I almost stopped in last night after we were done at the river, but you had company, and I didn't want to intrude."
"You would've been welcome," she said, stepping over and wondering if it would be too much to greet him with a hug.
She had done that the last time when he'd followed her home, but it just seemed a little bit more public here, and she wasn't sure what the protocols were or even where their relationship was.
Although she'd been spending a good bit of time thinking about their kiss.
"You guys are under the mistletoe!" Mason jumped out of the room, his hand pointing toward the ceiling.
There was mistletoe? Her eyes met Ben's before they both looked at the ceiling. Sure enough, taped to the ceiling was a little sprig of plastic mistletoe.
"I guess you know what that means," Cassie said, laughter in her voice.
"You two planned this, didn't you?" Hannah said, realizing now what the giggling was for.
"Dad asked me yesterday if it would be okay if he dated you. I figured I should give him a little nudge, because Dad can be pretty slow sometimes."
"Oh, he can?" Hannah asked, wondering if Mason knew that his dad might be a little quicker than what he thought, considering that he'd already kissed Hannah quite thoroughly on Friday night.
"Yeah. I figured it'd be next year this time before he got around to kissing you. So I got the school counselor to let me borrow the mistletoe she had sitting on her desk. I told her it was for a good cause."
"I guess that means I need to kiss you. I just can't see any way out of it, can you?" Ben said, acting like a martyr, but there was a gleam in his eye that told her that he was not the slightest bit upset.
"I take it that your talk with Mason went really well," she murmured as he lowered his head to hers.
"Better than I thought," he said, pausing before his lips touched hers. “I love you.”
She blinked. She was not expecting that, but her answer was easy. “I love you, too.”
They shared a small smile before his lips pressed into hers.
They had an audience, so it wasn't a long kiss and wasn't nearly as good as the one on Friday night, but it was Ben, and she was just happy to be with him.
This would be the rest of her life. She was looking forward to it.