Love to Hate You

by Jo Watson

  A small chuckle escaped his mouth and I hated how playfully adorable he was right now.

  “But seriously, do you need some help?” He gestured to the stuck scarf again.

  “No, no. I’m fine.”

  Now that the one side was free I wiggled out of the scarf easily. I tried to pull it loose from the thorns, but it was stuck, so I abandoned it and slid back out against the wall until I arrived in the garden.

  “You’re just going to leave that there?”

  “It’s not going anywhere.”

  We stood in silence and regarded each other for a moment.

  “Li and I were just going to go up and have breakfast, would you like to join us.”

  “Oh no! No, no, no, thanks.” I quickly dismissed the idea. It was insane that he would be asking me such a thing, after everything that had transpired between us.

  “But we’re having waffles,” Ben said, picking Li up so she was at eye level.

  “Thanks for the offer, but …”

  “Please come.” Li’s little voice rang out.

  I looked at her and she looked back at me with those sweet little eyes. “Sorry, sweetie, I have some things to do so I can’t, but maybe next time.”

  She looked suddenly disappointed and my guilt-o-meter sky-rocketed.

  “Please. I’ll share mine with you if there aren’t enough.” Jeez, dagger of guilt through my beating heart. She looked at me with a sad face and slumped shoulders. How the hell was it humanly possible to say no to that? It was not even an option, and Ben knew it, judging by his smile.

  “You can’t say no to that face,” he half mouthed to me.

  “Manipulative,” I mouthed back.

  “Please,” she asked again.

  “On one condition,” I said. “We go out for breakfast. Not up there.” I pointed at the apartments. The idea of being in his apartment again was just so intimate and so wrong.

  “Deal!” he said looking pleased with himself and raising a gleeful Li up over his head and onto his shoulders.

  “Let me just go and change first.” I walked ahead.

  “You look great.” Ben’s words stopped me and I turned slowly. I was wearing one of the worst Sunday morning outfits that I had ever managed to rustle up.

  “Doubtful.” I started walking back towards the building.

  “Factual,” he shouted after me.

  “Hmmph.” I wasn’t convinced. But as I approached the lift Ben’s hand shot out and caught me on the back of my jumper. I turned.

  “Come.” He pulled me slightly. “You look …” His eyes moved up and down my body. “Great.” His voice was soft and silky again, like liquid gold and I could feel myself falling for it again, until I became aware of the small person looking down at me.

  “You’re very pretty,” she said. “Not as pretty as my mommy, though. She’s the prettiest.”

  Li was right about that, and in that moment of terrible hair, undress and mess, I didn’t really feel like being reminded of how effing gorgeous his ex-wife was. Ben gestured with his head in the direction of the garage.

  “Fine,” I said. Why should I even care what I was wearing? It’s not like I was trying to impress him after all. In fact, maybe the worse I looked, the better.

  49. Virgin Catholic Priest …

  I sat at the table with Ben in the restaurant that was right around the corner from us. I’d never seen it before though. It was set amongst the most beautiful trees, leading out onto a lawn with a huge kids’ play area.

  “You know about these kinds of places when you’re on the parent circuit,” Ben said.

  It was such a weird-sounding statement. Ben on the parent circuit! I still hadn’t really gotten used to the idea of him being a dad. It still hadn’t sunk in. Especially since he looked like the furthest thing from a father. Fathers aren’t supposed to be so sexy, and tattooed and they definitely aren’t supposed to have sex with people in the back seat of their cars.

  Li had run off before the waffles had even been ordered and was currently playing on the trampoline, leaving Ben and I to sit in a strained, awkward silence.

  “So you’re a father,” I finally said, breaking the silence.

  “Yes. I’m a dad.”

  “You know, if you’d asked me forty-eight hours ago what the most unbelievable thing about you could possibly ever be, father would have been at the top of the list. Along with virgin Catholic Priest maybe.”

  Ben let out a small chuckle.

  “I’m being serious.” I quickly turned to him.

  “I know you are,” he said. “Some days it’s still hard for me to believe. But I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Ben turned and looked at me. Our eyes connected and that same, totally involuntary, bolt of something shot through me once more. That magnetic thing that was currently making me want to reach out and touch him against all logic.

  I sighed loudly and shook my head at the total absurdity of this moment. “What are we doing?” I was feeling exasperated. “What am I doing sitting here with you, once again? Why am I with you when I should be angrily avoiding you? Why am I here ordering waffles on a Sunday morning with your adorable daughter bouncing up and down on a trampoline like we are some kind of …” I stopped. I didn’t want to say family, even if it was exactly what I was thinking. “After everything you’ve done, everything that’s happened … I’m meant to dislike you immensely.”

  “But you don’t.” Ben’s hand inched across the table.

  “No! Stop it there, Ben.” I pointed at his hand and it stopped its sneaky approach. “I’m being serious, why are we here again, together? Why? It’s infuriating.”

  “I told you, Sera. There’s something between us. It was there from the first moment I saw you and it’s pulling us together.”

  “That sounds ridiculous,” I mumbled.

  “How else do you explain it all then? You working in the same office as me, being my next-door neighbor, the fact we can’t keep our hands off each other, that we can’t stop thinking about each other and talking and …”

  “Who says I’m thinking about you?”

  He shrugged. “Anyway, we wouldn’t be here together if you hadn’t been spying on me. Sneaking around in the basement and the roses. You’re the reason you’re with me. You can’t keep away.” His hand crept again and I flicked it.

  “But wait …” I pulled my hands into my lap lest I tempt him any further. “But what you did at the party yesterday, it was—”

  “Terrible.” He cut me off. “And I’m so sorry. I never wanted to hurt you.” He looked at me with such sincerity that I believed him.

  “Do you think I’m a total asshole?” His voice was soft and filled with emotion. Regret. Hurt.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what to think about you anymore. I have so many questions.”

  “Well, ask them.”

  “You were married?” I said. It was more of a statement than a question.

  “I know.”

  “You cheated on your wife?”

  “I know.”

  “You asked me to date you while keeping your entire life a secret from me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you beat people up and break their ribs?”

  “I know. I know. I sound terrible.”

  “You do.” I shook my head at him.

  “And yet here we are,” he said.

  I nodded and echoed his words. “Yup. Here we are.”

  “Anything else you want to know, Sera? I promise I’m going to be completely honest with you from now on.”

  Something bubbled up inside me. A question that I had been wanting to ask so badly, but hadn’t had the courage to yet. What the hell. There was no time like the present “You kind of avoided the question last time, so I’ll ask it again. Did you really sleep with all the women in your previous office?”

  “Mmm.” He looked cautious for a while. “It’s an exaggeration, but yes, I did sort of sleep with a few.”

  “Sort of? You
can’t really sort of have sex, can you? Unless I’m missing something here? Maybe I didn’t learn about this sort of sex thing in biology.” I leaned in and whispered that, what with all the kids running around.

  He ran his hands through his hair. “I definitely used sex as a way of …” he looked like he was thinking carefully for the next words, “… forgetting. I was in a pretty bad way for a while after Li went, and I wasn’t that well behaved.”

  “Well behaved? That’s an interesting choice of words.” I felt sick to my stomach thinking about this. I wasn’t sure that I wanted this level of candid honesty, even if I’d asked for it.

  “And when we … that night in the car,” I asked, “how long had it been since you—”

  Ben suddenly reached across the table and took my hands, but I pulled them away quickly. “I’m not going to lie to you,” he said. He looked me in the eye … and he looked serious.

  Shit, here it comes. He was going to tell me something like he’d had sex with someone the night before, or a few hours before or—

  “Eight months,” he said in a deadpan tone.

  “Eight months?”

  “Eight months,” he repeated, and it still sounded like he was being serious.

  “You hadn’t had sex in eight months?”

  He nodded. “I kind of realized that if I was ever going to get Li back, I needed to start being more responsible, so I started making some changes in my life and eight months ago I stopped sleeping aro—” He cut himself off.

  “Around!” I finished his sentence. “Sleeping around.” I studied his face for any telltale signs of deceit, but there were none.

  “You’re being serious.”

  He nodded. “Please don’t hate me, Sera. That’s all in the past. I’m not like that anymore.”

  I laughed. “God, I actually wish I could. I wish I could hate you and never want to see you again. It would make this all so much simpler.” I snapped my head up and looked at him again. “And don’t come with your ‘life ain’t simple’ thing or ‘the best things in life are complicated’ or—”

  “You took the words right out of my mouth.” He cut me off with a smile. Our eyes met again and I started to feel the pull once more. The dangerous pull that was so hard to resist. Luckily, loud children’s laughter made us both turn. Li was climbing up a tree now and laughing with her new friends. I turned back and looked at Ben, his eyes were glowing.

  “She’s adorable,” I said.

  “I’d do anything for her.”

  I nodded. “I know.” You could see he would throw himself in front of a bus for her without a second thought.

  “You don’t know what love feels like until you have a child.” He suddenly looked at me—his look was packed with meaning and subtext and it scared the hell out of me. I shuffled nervously in my seat. “And you? Do you want kids one day?” His meaningful look continued and it was making me very uncomfortable. I fiddled with my hands in my lap.

  “Like you said, life isn’t simple. And mine is just too complicated,” I replied.

  “So you won’t be falling pregnant with my illegitimate child any time soon?”

  “Arg.” I hung my head. “Please don’t remind me about it ever again. And …” I looked back up at him and waggled a finger. “And just for the record, so there is no confusion, it wasn’t true. It was a joke, just like you wanting a son called Max.”

  “No. That was true,” Ben said.

  “Huh?” My voice caught in my throat.

  “I want at least two sons and three more daughters.”

  “You want six kids! Don’t you think that’s a bit much?”

  Ben laughed. “Twelve would be pushing it, six though would be good. Besides …” His face changed again. Gone were the playful smiles, and back was that meaningful look. Damn that look. “Six seems to be my lucky number.”

  “How’s that?” I asked.

  “Well, we met at club six and I moved into apartment two zero six.” He met my eyes.

  “I see.” I broke eye contact and looked down at my lap again.

  “Sera.” Ben’s hand came slinking back and this time I let him slide it onto my lap and intertwine his fingers with mine. “I’d really, really like to—”

  He looked like he was just about to launch into a whole speech when Li ran up to us and threw herself onto Ben’s lap. He let go of my hand and wrapped his arms around her. Just then the waiter arrived with the waffles and they both started eating them. I tried to focus on eating too, but Ben kept looking back up at me. Minutes later Li was gone again and Ben and I were once more alone.

  “What I was trying to say earlier,” he turned to me the second Li had left, “I would really love to talk to you later, when we don’t have so many distractions, there are still some things I want to tell you and …”

  “Oh God. I don’t think I can handle any more surprises, Ben. Not for another lifetime. At least.”

  “Just come round tonight and let’s talk about everything?”

  I glanced up to see Li already running up to the table again. I nodded. “Fine. I’ll see you later.”

  50. Once Upon A Time …

  His door was unlocked—as usual—and the passage outside was full of boxes, furniture, tins of paint, brushes and sheets of plastic—he was obviously playing Home Improvement again. I just hoped he was wearing slightly more than before.

  “Ben?” I called as I walked inside.

  No one answered. I walked to his room and peered in. I walked back into the lounge and called out again. Where the hell was he? Not safe to leave your door open at night like this. I glanced in the direction of his kitchen and his computer was there on the counter. The screen was lit up still, so he must have been on it recently, otherwise the screen saver would have kicked in. Maybe he’d gotten an important email and had to rush off to the office? I walked over to the computer and inhaled sharply when I saw what was filling the screen.

  Me. A photo of me from the shoot the other day. I’d almost forgotten about that little embarrassing moment, in amongst all the other ones I was currently having.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I jumped when I heard Ben’s voice.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snoop on your computer,” I said defensively, moving away from it.

  “No problem.” He smiled and put a can of paint down on the floor. “I just went down to my car to get this.” He walked over to the computer and leaned in, looking at the photo. “You really do look beautiful in this.” He stood up straight and looked at me. He had smudges of pink paint on his hands and one across his forehead.

  “You have some paint on your …” I pointed at his forehead.

  He ran a hand over it and smiled. “Come see.” Without asking, he took me by the hand and led me down the passage and into the second bedroom. I glanced around the room; it had been completely transformed. The walls were a shade of baby pink and looked like the pages of a fairy tale book. Someone had painted castles, princesses and rainbows all over them. The mural wrapped around the entire room, boxes were piled up, and all the furniture had been pushed to one side of the room.

  “She’ll love it,” I said, looking up at the mezzanine level that had been turned into a little girl’s dress-up corner.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Truthfully it’s more important that Mei and the social worker like it.” He rolled his eyes and gave his head a slight shake, as if exhausted.

  “Is she going to like the fact I came to breakfast with you?”

  “Li invited you. Besides, we’re not even dating, since you still haven’t agreed to go on a date with me.”

  “Well, I did actually. But when I came over you were harboring ex-wives in your apartment and sent me away.”

  “Yes. That,” he said sheepishly.

  “So …” I folded my arms in a businesslike fashion. “You asked me here to talk. What is it you still have to say?”

  Ben smiled, “Talk. Yes. Just give me a moment to get out of my clothes, they’re
covered in paint and I’m all sweaty.” He rushed off to the room at the end of the passage and disappeared. I walked back out to the lounge and sat down, taking the opportunity to glance around. I’ve always thought you can tell a lot about a person’s personality by looking at the environment they live in. On closer examination. There was a lot of pink. The bookshelf was packed with rows of books for Li and on a nearby shelf stood a picture of her and Ben that melted my heart a little. I got up and walked over to it. He was wearing hospital scrubs and holding her in his arms; she was clearly a newborn despite the wild crazy mop of black hair she already had. The look on Ben’s face as he gazed at her was indescribable. Another photo showed a shirtless, tattooed Ben cradling a naked, sleeping, pudgy Li in his arms. And then a photo album caught my eye. It was labeled, “The story of us.” I opened it and immediately recognized Ben’s distinctive handwriting.

  Once upon a time there was a man who didn’t know what real love was, until the day he met the most beautiful Princess in the entire world—

  There was another picture of Li and Ben in hospital scrubs, but this time he was looking directly into the camera. His smile was massive and it lit up his eyes. He looked a lot younger than he did now, but equally gorgeous—dammit.

  I slammed the book closed quickly, feeling a stab of something deep inside. I was so touched by the love he had for this little girl that it forced me to wonder what it would have felt like to be so cherished. A tear left my eye and rolled down my cheek.

  “Hey, are you okay?”

  I turned and Ben was standing right behind me.

  I shook my head. “Not really,” I finally managed to mutter.

  Ben reached out and wiped the tear across my cheek with his thumb. His touch felt good.

  “I really am sorry, Sera. I never meant to hurt you.” His other hand came up and touched the other side of my face.

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “Is it too much to ask you to forgive me?” His other hand cradled the side of my face and he stepped closer, holding my face between his hands. “Or do I need to beg and grovel?” A tiny smile darted across his face.

  “How would you do that?”

  “Like this.” Suddenly Ben started slipping down. He got closer and closer to the floor until he was on his knees and then suddenly he reached down into his pocket and started pulling something out. I gasped in absolute shock!