Ben’s eyes shifted nervously over my shoulder, likely at my mom, and he probably didn’t notice the nervous look I gave him.
“We’re sorry to bother you at work,” Scarlett said, giving me a small smile. “But we have something important to tell you.”
“I won’t be able to pick up Fern today,” Ben told me. “We got some news, and I’m afraid I’m going to have to be out of town for a while.”
My heart skipped a beat in a moment of terror. Almost immediately, I was making excuses in my head, because Ben hadn’t specifically said he was moving out of town. He wouldn’t just disappear on me for another four years. But despite that very real fear, seeing as he’d come with his sister and they both looked uncomfortable, I could tell it was something serious.
“What happened?” I asked, speaking quietly while moving them to the side so Mom and the client wouldn’t overhear the conversation.
“It’s about my dad,” Ben admitted, his expression grave. “He’s sick. Scarlett’s seen him a few times, and he needs some serious help. We were thinking of heading out to see him. We’ll have to stick around there to make sure he accepts the treatment.”
I bit down on my lip. On the one hand, he at least had a good reason to leave this time, and I was getting notice before he made the trip. But on the other hand, there was still that fear from before, that if I let him leave, I would never see him again.
Scarlett, as intuitive as ever, glanced between the two of us before backing away with a smile.
“I’ll leave the two of you to talk. Ben, I’ll be waiting in the car.”
He nodded at her and watched her go, but I kept my eyes on him until he turned to meet my gaze.
“I’m sorry about this, Ginger,” he said, taking a tentative step closer and holding onto me by the tops of my arms. “I promise I won’t be gone long. I’ll stick it out for at least a week and no more. Just apologize to Fern for me and let her know I won’t be around?”
“She’ll be sad to see you’re gone,” I murmured. “She’ll miss you.”
He gave me a shaky smile, and I knew he’d read between the lines. Fern wouldn’t be the only one that was sad, the only one that missed him.
“I’ll be back soon. And when I get back, we’re going to talk. I don’t like that I only get to pick Fern up for two days out of the week from the nursery. I’d like to raise that number up. There’s a lot of time I want to make up for, and we’re going to start when I come back from dealing with my dad, no more holding back.”
I nodded, sniffling a little and blinking back the sting in my eyes. In the past couple weeks, the only time we’d met up, was when he dropped Fern off with me after spending some time with her after he picked her up from the nursery. It was barely enough time for me, and it was nice to know that he felt the same way I did.
“We can do that,” I agreed. “And you don’t have to worry about proving yourself to me anymore; I can tell you’re sincere.” I smiled sadly up at him. “I don’t like that you’re going away, but I understand why you have to.”
A part of me couldn’t help but be proud of him, even. Before, he would probably have reacted to the situation by running away. He’d distanced himself from his dad even before he left, and I knew it had to do with his mom’s death and his dad going off the rails because of it.
But the Ben in front of me wasn’t running or hiding, or trying to escape responsibility. It was enough to prove to me that he was a changed man, whether he realized it or not.
“Go now,” I said, waving him off with my hand. “I can tell you’ve changed, and I don’t want to be what holds you back. You say you’ll be back in a week and… I trust you.”
I ignored the fearful beat in my heart, repeating the words to myself several times in my mind to hammer it in. I trusted Ben not to lie to me about this that he wouldn’t leave me and his daughter again.
Before he left, he leaned toward me with his arms opened wide, and I stepped into them willingly, holding him tight for a moment. Then he turned his back to me, and he was gone.
Chapter Fifteen
Ben
I sat beside my dad’s bed in the hospital, watching him sleep. I was feeling exhausted because getting him to sleep hadn't exactly been easy.
Dad was the same as always, if a little more unhinged than before we lost Mom. Being in the hospital was making him even worse, and if he wasn’t trying to escape, he was complaining about everything and bothering the other patients. Most of the nurses were sick of him already, and it was only the second day since Scarlett and I managed to get him admitted.
“Is he finally out?” came a whisper from behind me.
I turned to find Scarlett peeking her head into the room.
“He’s out,” I confirmed.
She let out a sigh and walked inside, and I gave her the stink eye.
“You could have come in here and help, you know,” I grumbled. “You’re still Daddy’s little girl, after all. He’d be more inclined to listen to you than me.”
“But I thought the two of you needed some downtime,” she scoffed. “You have been gone for four years, after all. How much did he eat?”
I gestured to the tray of food left in a small desk drawer on the other side of the bed, and we both sighed.
“It’s less than yesterday,” Scarlett whispered. “He left so much…”
She’d moved, so she was standing beside me, and I reached out to take her hand for both our sakes, giving a gentle squeeze.
“I know, but we just have to be strong and hope he’ll make it through this.”
Scarlett didn’t reply, and I guessed she just didn’t have anything to say.
While I didn’t quite understand what had my dad down, I’d caught from the doctor that it was because he was growing old. He got tired easily, and he did plenty to tire himself out already. His heart wasn’t as strong as it used to be, either. Dad wasn’t in a good way at all, and besides being there for him, neither Scarlett nor I knew what we could do for him when he was so insistent on pushing us both away.
“Do you think he's going to be okay?” Scarlett asked, her voice quiet.
It made me think back to the time after Mom was gone and we could both see Dad about to blow before it even happened.
“Sure,” I blustered. “We made through some tough shit before, why can't we do it again?”
I didn’t believe that, but for my sister’s sake, I would have to force myself to.
“We should go for the day,” she sighed. “Visiting hours are almost up, anyway. And you’ll want to call home before it gets too late.”
I perked up a little at the thought of talking to Ginger and Fern. I’d called them every day since I left, as I would do for the whole week. No matter what happened at the end of the week, even for only a little bit, I wanted to head back to see them and make sure they were okay. Ginger had told me she trusted me, but I knew that didn’t necessarily mean that she wasn’t worried. The phone calls were part for my sake as they were for her.
“You need to talk to Dan, too, you know,” I told her as we left Dad’s shared hospital room. “I’m sure the guy’s pretty worried about you. You were gone for a week, only to come back and disappear again not long after. Did you even see him before you came for me at the hotel?”
“Of course,” she scoffed. “I do love you, bro, but I have a kid to look after now, you know? And, of course, I wanted to look in on Dan, too.”
“Do you guys have a date set for the wedding?”
She shook her head. “Nope. We’ve kinda been putting it off for a while, but I guess it’ll have to happen at some point.”
We made it out of the hospital, and to my car. I drove us to the hotel we were staying at, a single suite with two bedrooms. As Scarlett ordered food for us, I picked up my phone and dialed Ginger’s number. She answered the call on the third ring, and I grinned when I heard her voice.
“Hey, Ben,” she chirped, seeming just as happy to be talking to me as I was to
her. “I almost thought I’d missed you for today.”
“Never,” I declared. “You know I’d just keep badgering you with calls until you took it, right?”
“Well, that’s good. Also, you’re just in time to talk to Fern before she goes to bed.”
“Is she nearby? You can put her on.”
“Give me a minute,” she said.
There was a moment where I didn’t hear anything, and I waited anxiously to hear my daughter’s voice. Scarlett came into view, and when I looked at her, she waved her phone at me to show me she was making her call, then walked into the bedroom that was hers. I was distracted when Fern finally came on the phone.
“Hey, there, mister!”
I chuckled at her voice, sounding just as bright as her mom. “I told you already you don’t have to call me mister, right?”
“I can't just call you by your name, though!” she gasped. “That would be rude.”
I sighed, wishing I could just tell her to call me Dad, but I knew it would bring a lot of questions, and I’d already agreed to let Ginger deal with it.
“So, what did you do today, Fern?”
The question, as it always did, sparked a lot of chatter from the little girl, who was suddenly so excited to tell me every little thing that happened to her today. I’d gotten the same thing the past couple days when I called, and I couldn’t help grinning at how my daughter was. I’d never given much thought to being a dad, even when Ginger told me she was pregnant, but Fern was just amazing.
After she’d tired herself out, I had a quick talk with Ginger before she hung up so she could put Fern to bed. When I looked up, Scarlett was coming back into the room.
“Did you talk to Dan?” I asked, but seeing her lighter expression, I could guess she had.
“I did,” she said readily. “I’ve been keeping it under wraps, but I finally told him about Dad, and why my mood’s been so terrible, why I’m suddenly too busy to be home.”
“What did he say?”
“He offered to come here and stay with us so he could support me.”
“Did you tell him to come?”
I knew having Dan around would be good for Scarlett. I knew my sister, though, and she would never have allowed it when she was already letting him look after their son.
“I told him not to,” she said, just as I’d expected. “Because I have my brother here, so everything is fine, right?”
I just shook my head as she answered the knock that came to the door right then. It was our meal coming in. We sat side by side, enjoying a quiet family meal, even if it was just the two of us. I was hoping that, pretty soon, the size of our family would grow and we would have more moments just like this.
When Scarlett ended up with her head on my shoulder as we sipped some juice afterward, I just wrapped an arm around her and rested my head against hers, willing my dream to become a reality.
Chapter Sixteen
Ben
Later that night, while I was laying down on my bed, all I could think of was Ginger and how much I missed her. It had been way too long already since the last time we slept together, and I missed it. There was no way I could just sleep over at her place again. Not unless she moved out of her mom’s place, and I couldn’t just drag her to my place, either, because it would mean spending time away from Fern and explanations to her mom that I wasn’t ready for just yet.
I rolled over onto my back, folding an arm under my head, the other going across my stomach as I stared up at the ceiling, trying to convince myself just to fall asleep already. It was starting to become annoying, since it seemed like my old insomnia was coming back to haunt me, and I hadn't carried any of my meds with me. I tried closing my eyes and emptying my mind.
After a long moment and still no sleep in sight, I sighed and opened my eyes, sitting up. Maybe a quick, warm shower would be enough to leave me feeling a little drowsy. Before I could got out of bed, though, there was a noise from my phone. I picked it up to see the text I’d just received, lighting up when I saw it was from Ginger.
Video call. 5 minutes.
I pursed my lips at the small size of my phone’s screen. If I’d had a laptop nearby, I would have just used that, but I didn’t own one because I didn’t have much use for computers anyway.
Still, I was excited at the thought of seeing Ginger, even if it was only through a video call.
I sat up in bed, leaning my back against the headboard, rearranging the pillows behind me to find a comfortable position. When the ring on my phone came, my heart gave one hard thump, and I answered the call. It took a second, but then there she was.
Ginger.
“Hey, Ben,” she said, waving her hand at me.
I could see more of her on my tiny little screen than she could probably see of me.
“Hey,” I murmured. “Are you using a laptop?”
She grinned and nodded. “I am. I had a surprise for you, and I couldn’t wait for you to see it.”
The screen blurred for a moment as she shifted, and when I could see properly again, I felt my jaw drop.
“Shit!”
Ginger was seated back on her bed, against the headboard like I was. She must have set the laptop down in front of her and angled for the perfect view because I could see all of her now. She was dressed in a skimpy pair of lingerie, with panties that barely covered her crotch and a bra that I was pretty sure would have been see-through if I was there with her. Hell, I would have been fine with a bigger screen. She had a black silk robe on, but it was parted, so she wasn’t hiding anything.
She giggled, probably at my gobsmacked expression.
“I was hoping you’d react like that,” she said. “And I’m hoping this means you’d like to see it when you come back?”
“Definitely,” I growled.
“Are you hard?” she asked a smirk on her lips, an eyebrow arched.
“Ginger!” I gasped, scandalized, but in the next moment had to hold back laughter. I ran a hand down my chest, over my abdomen, to my crotch, where my erection was trying to poke out of my boxers. I pressed my hand down on it and moaned a little. “But, to answer your question, of course, I’m hard. How could I not when you show me something so sexy?”
“Good,” she chirped.
“Are you trying to torture me?”
“Why is it torture, though?”
Her expression was nonchalant as we spoke, but her hands were moving all over her body, and I couldn’t reply as I watched them. She ran her hands over her waist and stomach, down to her hips. Before she could touch the panties, though, she ran her hands back up, and I practically held my breath as those hands raised slowly up to cup her breasts.
“Seriously, Ginger, what are you trying to do?”
I could guess without her saying anything, but we’d never done anything like this. Still, I couldn’t deny it was turning me on, and I pressed down on my erection again, rubbing just a little as I focused my eyes on the way she was massaging her breasts. I wanted to be there so that I could push her down and play with her body, but I still had several more days to go back.
“I wanted you to miss me,” she admitted with a careless shrug, her hands still working her breasts. “And this is me giving you more incentive to come back.”
“Oh, I’m coming back,” I said, voice husky. “You’re just making it a little harder for me to stay here.”
“Good,” she repeated.
“You’re doing this to torture me, aren’t you,” I muttered.
I didn’t exactly mind, though. I snuck my hand into my boxers, shoving them down to my thighs, then wrapped my fingers around my cock, stroking slowly as I imagined all the ways I could have Ginger writhing underneath me in bed.
“Are you ready to see more?” she murmured.
Before I could give a reply, she’d hooked a finger into the top of her bra and tugged down, so her breasts were pushed up and out. She pinched both nipples between thumb and pointer finger, and I let out a low groan.
Grinning at me, she widened her legs; feet pressed flat on the bed with her knees raised. I licked my lips, waiting for her to pull her panties off. Instead, she just tugged them to the side, exposing her sex.
“I always wanted to do this,” she admitted.
I arched an eyebrow. “Explain to me what you mean by ‘this.’”
She pouted. “Well, I technically mean having you fuck me in lingerie, but this is good enough for me, for now. I have a few more sets, too, so there’ll still be a surprise.”
“Where did this side of you come from,” I groaned, the hand on my cock tightening just a little and stroking faster.
“You’re jacking off, aren’t you,” she guessed. I let out a grunt that was as much confirmation as I was going to give her. “Don’t come before I do, okay?”
I watched, transfixed, as she ran her fingers all over her sex, rubbing her clit, playing with her entrance, all the things I wanted to do. Then she was using both hands, easing two fingers inside of her, as she rubbed her clit with her other hand.
“Fuck, Ginger,” I growled.
“I want to see you, too,” she gasped, her hand working furiously.
I could feel my face heat up, even as my cock grew a little harder in my hand, and a drop of precum appeared at the tip. But I didn’t want to refuse her. I wanted her to see what she did to me. Feeling awkward about it, but determined to do it, I held the phone out and tried to find an angle that let her see everything she needed to see. Next time we spent time apart, I’d need a laptop in case she had this idea again.
“I see you,” she breathed out. “You’re so hard, Ben. When you come home, and we get some time alone, I’m going to ride you.”
I let out a groan as I fastened the strokes on my cock. I watched as Ginger added a third finger, thrusting them in and out of her body as her other fingers circled furiously around her clit.
It didn’t take long for either of us, Ginger crying out as she climaxed first. Seeing her head thrown back, mouth slack as her whole body shuddered, I let go. I let out a grunt as thick ropes of cum hit my chest and abdomen, my hips jerking up into my hand.
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