by Asrai Devin
Selene accepted a present from Kent on Christmas morning. She was on the sofa beside Ben. Again. Her parents were across the room on the love seat. They were winding down the gift exchange process. She glanced at Ben while he looked through the box containing her presents. She hoped he liked what she chose for him. She flipped over the tag of the last present of the year. From Ben. “You didn’t have to buy me anything.” She already got two presents from him: his presence here, and a dream job.
“You bought me something.” He gave her a wry smile.
“Yeah, but…”
“But what? You thought I would come home and not bring you something.”
She tore off the paper. “What is it?”
“A present, you dork. You have to open it to see,” Kent lipped off.
“Thanks, jerk face. Get lost.” She sneered at her brother.
“Play nice,” Ben said. “Act like you like each other.”
Selene’s face heated. She was acting as if she were sixteen. She couldn’t help it with Kent. He loved to push her buttons. “Sorry,” she mumbled.
“You should come around more Uncle Ben. She listens to you.”
“Well, I’ll see if I can make her more agreeable to you.”
“Train her to be human?”
Selene sighed and lifted the top of her present from Ben. They were going to talk about her as if she weren’t in the room, she’d ignore them.
“I like her the way she is personally,” Ben said.
Her face warmed for a new reason. She looked in the box. There were a few things. She unraveled the protective tissue paper from a ceramic kitten. She found a nightlight she recognized it from his website, but this cover had kittens on it. And there was a necklace with a cat pendant.
“Thank-you,” she said. Her heart caught in her throat.
“You’re welcome. I’ll tell you a story about the nightlight later. I hope it’s not too childish.” He looked sheepish.
“It’s all perfect.” After removing her current necklace, something she picked up on a whim, nothing special, she pulled Ben’s chain from its velvet box and pulled it around her neck. She turned her back to him. “You want to do me up?”
His fingers brushed hers as he took the ends of the chain. He secured it around her neck, then leaned in and spoke into her ear. “There you go, kitten.”
She giggled. The sound escaped her, making her sound childish and giddy instead of sophisticated. If they were alone would he kiss the soft skin of her neck? Kent’s attention returned to her, and she clamped the lid on her box and set it aside. “What did you get Kent?” she asked.
He held up a gift card for a restaurant. “Dinner out for Maggie and me.”
“Maybe I should have gotten you a gift card for a haircut.” Ben snaked his hand behind Selene to ruffle Kent’s shaggy hair.
“I call him Shaggy,” Selene said.
“It’s better than calling him Scooby,” Ben said.
Kent growled. “Maggie likes my hair like this.”
“Well, you can take her out in style and romance her.”
“Thanks man.”
“You’re welcome.”
Selene sat back and watched everyone opening their presents. Kent moved back to sit by their Dad. Ben leaned back beside her. “Are you sure your present is okay?”
“It’s great. I want to know the story.”
“Later. I bought Kim and Dan something kinda big.” He winked at her.
“Benjamin!” Mom’s voice drew their attention.
“What did he give you?” Selene jumped up and crossed the room.
“Way too much, son,” Dad boomed.
“I’m your brother and it’s a thank-you for everything you did for me,” Ben said, from behind her.
“We are family. We take care of family.”
“Well, I still wanted to say thank-you.”
“What is it?” Selene asked. Kent crowded in beside her.
“A cruise,” her dad said, holding up a piece of paper.
“A week long cruise. Including flight. Ben, thank-you.” Mom stood and hugged him.
“I know you gave up your honeymoon for me. So I wanted you to enjoy yourself.” They gave up their honeymoon for him? She was too young to remember. She knew it wasn’t long after the wedding that Ben moved in. Later she could ask her mom for more details.
“What about me?” Kent asked.
“Don’t worry, we’ll farm you out to a nice family,” Mom said. “I’ll find you somewhere to stay. This is a romantic trip. No kids allowed.”
Kent made a face. But Selene was certain he wanted to stay home, so he was with his girlfriend as much as possible. A week was an eternity at sixteen. She couldn’t fault him for it. He was young. And she suddenly felt old. Waxing poetic about teenage love.
Dad stood and offered his hand. Ben shook his head. “This needs a hug.” They hugged and Selene’s heart warmed.
Mom wrapped her arm around Selene. “Quite a present. What did you get?”
“Yeah, you’re lucky. I got a necklace with a kitten charm. He still calls me kitten to tease me.”
Mom kissed her daughter’s head. “You sure about moving with him?”
“It’s Ben, Mom. You think he’ll attack me or something?”
“No. Of course not. It’s so far away.”
“I know. But I won’t be alone. And it’ll be good for me. It’s a great opportunity.”
“The job is great.”
Something was bothering her mom. She didn’t know what. Something about Ben. Did her mom know they kissed? Did her mom guess Selene was in love with him? She couldn’t know. Could she? She’d die if anyone knew.
“Maybe I need to go to a bigger city to find a guy worth dating,” she joked.
“I want you to be happy, Selene. No matter what that means.” Mom looked down at her.
“Ben said if I was unhappy I could come back, no problem.”
“You’ll be great out there. I’ll just miss you a little.”
“I’ll call every day. I’ll miss you too.”
Mom sniffed and Selene blinked a few times to push away the tears. “Okay. I know it’s great for many reasons. I hope you find what makes you happy.”
She glanced to the side and saw Ben watching them. Her heart stuttered in her chest and she turned into Mom for another hug.
She knew what would make her happy. She wasn’t sure she could have it. Not yet. If it was right, she wanted to make sure before she jumped in. The gamble would be for forever. If it failed, it would be a permanent end for them, if it worked, she’d stay forever. She didn’t want to ruin everything by being hasty.
“I’ll let you know when I do,” she whispered.
Mom let her go and Kent said he was going to call his girlfriend. Once the living room was cleaned up, Mom and Dad went to the computer in their room to look at cruises they could take. She expected Ben to retreat to his room to check email, as was his hourly habit, so she picked up her box and sat on the sofa.
The sofa sinking under someone’s weight drew her attention. She glanced up and found Ben peering at her. “Oh, you scared me.” She pressed a hand to heart. “I thought you were going to check email.”
He brushed a stray hair from her face and tucked it behind her ear. “I wanted to tell you the story, while we could be alone.”
Alone time was scarce over the holiday, but they found pockets of each other between family members. To keep things neutral, she asked questions about his business, or brought up ideas she had. He never said no straight out, he asked questions to deepen her idea. Sometimes leading her to discovering the idea sucked, sometimes leading her to a new idea, or changing the idea, or deciding it was a good idea. Most of what she wanted to start with was refining the blog and telling his story.
He took the box from her hands and pulled out the kitten covered nightlight. “They fought me on this light, saying it was too childish, but I argued that many grown ups love cats. Anyway, you inspir
ed this collection. This wasn’t my first design, but it’s my favorite.”
“How did I inspire this? Other than the nickname.” She was so overwhelmed by the story that she couldn’t even blush. She took the light from him and traced one of the kittens. “I need to test this.”
“I know you probably don’t need a nightlight anymore. Don’t you recall when you came into my room in the night because of the monsters? And in your room, Kim offered you a nightlight, and you refused because they were too childish.”
“I don’t recall that at all.” She reached over and took his hand, lacing their fingers together. She wasn’t supposed to be touching him, but he looked a little pained and she wanted to offer comfort.
“You said it was too babyish to have a nightlight.”
She remembered suddenly. Her eyes widened with understanding. “And you said you had one.” She squeezed his hand.
He squeezed back. “A couple of weeks after I moved in, your mom noticed how tired I looked all the time. And in a moment of weakness I said something about not being able to sleep in the dark. When I came home, there was a pack of nightlights in my room.”
“You said you weren't a baby, and you had a nightlight. I wanted to be like you so I accepted one.”
He smiled sadly at her. “But you insisted I stay in your room until I feel asleep.”
“And you did.”
Silence bounced between them as they looked at each other. If this was a romance book, this would be where they kissed. Too fast. An almost kiss. Interrupted in a comedic way. Here the only chance of interruption would be their family walking in at the wrong moment and that would be horrifying. She wanted this to be just between her and Ben. For now. Their secret. She couldn’t wait to move and be in their own little world.
She looked at their hands, his giant digits laced between her smaller ones. His size could intimidate her. But it always made her feel safe. “What happened before you moved in with us?” she asked.
“You don’t know?”
“Mom and Dad said it wasn’t their place to tell me.”
“Dan and I are half-brothers. And after Dan moved on, so did Dad, or maybe Mom left him. I don’t know. But a few years later, she met husband number three. He is rich, really rich. But he has a terrible temper.” He stared past her, lost in the past for a minute.
She squeezed his hand. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”
“Memories can’t hurt me.”
She wasn’t sure that was true, but she was curious. “Take your time then.” She wanted to wrap her arms around him. Hold him. Go back in time and protect him.
His fingers tightened on hers. “First, he hit Mom. And after a while of that, I wanted to protect her. So I told him to stop. He hit me instead. Then he’d be nice for a while to us. But as the years went on, the times he was nice got shorter. The angry periods got longer.”
Her heart hurt so badly for him. She watched the pain float through Ben burnt gold eyes. What horrors had he experienced? Could she kiss him better?
She knew her own biological father hit her mother a few times, but she was an adult and she got away from him. She made sure Selene would never see him.
His eyes cleared, and he returned to the story. “I stopped staying home as much as possible. I stayed with friends if I could, sometimes I slept outside. Some of their parents knew how bad it was at home with me.”
“And they didn’t call the police or child services?”
“It was a long time ago. Maybe some of them did, and I never knew about it. I started failing school; I got into drugs and drinking. I’d go home as often as I had to for clean clothes, to check on Mom.”
“How did Dad find out?”
“Mom decided we were going to his wedding. And husband three decided it was fine. Mom told Dan I was failing school. He confronted me, and I told him about the abuse. He tried to convince Mom to leave, but she refused. So he threatened her to let me go, and she did.”
“What a selfish bitch. How could she do that to you?”
“He had money. For the first time in her life she was financially stable. He might hit her, but she knew where her next meal was coming from. She made her choice. Dan saved me. Your mom gave up her honeymoon for me.”
“I’m glad they did.” Selene thought she was getting a playmate. She only knew it was Dan’s brother, not a grown up. She didn’t understand what ‘teenager’ meant until he showed up. He was so tall. She begged him for a tea party anyway and he agreed.
After that she wouldn’t leave him alone. He was indulgent and let her tag along when he could. She sat in his room and listened to music while he did his homework. She brought paper and pretended to do homework as well.
“Me too. It was the best thing in my life. I took an extra year to finish high school because I had failed too many classes.” He picked up her hand and kissed the back of it. “Now you’ve heard my sad tale.”
“That’s a story of triumph, of you overcoming the odds, your history. That’s a story of winning.”
She should pull her hand away but his thumb stroked her palm. All it took was that tiny action to make her fall apart.
“Maybe it is. Either way, that inspired me to start my company. And you inspired my kitten line. I wanted you to have the first one. And I couldn’t just give you a nightlight.”
“You could have. With the story, I'd be perfectly happy.”
“I couldn’t just give you a nightlight, so I found the ceramic kitten and the necklace.” His voice tightened as he wouldn’t let her win the argument. How often this would happen.? They would argue, he would push his point until he won. Her guess? Probably as often a he was right. He wasn’t the type to win an argument for the sake of winning, if she had a better idea, he would listen. He had more experience, so she’d have to acquiesce to his knowledge.
“I love them all.” She used her free hand to touch her necklace and play with the charm.
He leaned forward and kissed her cheek.
“Benny, nothing will make me think less of you. Ever.” He was her soul mate. And she’d find a way to have all of him. But first she had to convince him it was a good idea. Not just good, great, fantastic, the best idea ever.
He’d come around, eventually. She recognized the passion in his kiss four years ago. He may not have started it, but he pushed it to the maximum.
He turned on the sofa. “Come closer, kitten.”
She snuggled into his side. She held her breath waiting for the negative voice to tell her to stop, for alarm bells to go off. For him to push her away.
He wrapped his arm around her. “I have a minute before I need to check my email.”
“Shouldn’t I do that as your assistant?”
“Oh. Nope. No way. I don’t know if I can let my emails be someone else’s job.”
“I’d just filter out the junk and let you know what is urgent that you need to respond to.”
“We’ll negotiate it. I need you, but I’m also super controlling about every aspect of my work. So you’ll have to bear me while we adjust.”
“Knowing that, I’ll see if I can out stubborn you.”
“You won’t. I have very convincing arguments of why I can’t stop micromanaging. My long suffering secretary can tell you.”
“There’s another question. If you have a secretary why do you need an assistant?”
“I need someone to follow me around to meetings. Run errands on occasion. Listen to my phone calls and make notes. Handle my schedule.”
Selene nodded. “I can take these boxes so I can start packing. I’ll need to ship some stuff out on the bus or something. Is that okay?”
“Something my assistant should take care of. We’ll figure something out.”
“When do you think you’ll move?”
“I emailed my boss with my two weeks notice. So as soon as I can after that.”
“Two weeks. I’ll book you a ticket.”
“I can pay. Given what you�
��re paying me.”
He shook his head. “Don’t argue with me on this. My job, my expense.”
She couldn’t argue with his brown eyes pinning her down. She couldn’t even breathe. He needed to kiss her or let her go. She didn’t know which she wanted more.
“I’ll let you go pack.” He released her. His body moved away. “Which boxes do you want?”
“I’ll get them.” If he carried boxes, he’d enter her room, and she didn’t know what she’d do if he was in her private space again.
She didn’t know if it was her voice, or her body language, but he nodded. “I’ll go check my email.” He gave her a smile.
She busied herself looking at the boxes until he left the room. This was going to be harder than she thought, but she was in too deep now to back out. Either way the fallout was going to be nuclear. But she couldn’t stop moving toward him, no matter the cost.
Chapter 6
Ben laid on the guest bed in Kim and Dan’s. Selene had looked at him as if she wanted to kiss him. Maybe that was projection. He wanted to taste her so fucking badly he thought his body would take over and kiss her.
His promise to Dan was the only thing that stopped him.
His phone pressed into his palm as he clenched his hand. He lifted it above his face and unlocked it. He opened his email. Fortunately, there was something that needed his attention. He leaned against the headboard and typed a reply.
As he got deeper in, more things needed his attention. After four emails, he couldn’t stand his phone keyboard. He grabbed his laptop and replied. When he ran out of email, he opened his design program and tinkered with an idea he had.
A knock on the door drew his attention. “Ben, lunch is served,” Selene said.
“Okay.” Had that much time passed? He checked the time. “I’ll be down in a few minutes, I’m almost done.”
He wanted to finish the part he was working on. A few minutes later, there was another knock on the door. “I said I’d be a few minutes.”
“We ate without you. Mom sent me up with a plate for you. Can I open the door?”
“You ate in two minutes? Yes, come in.” He was irritated. This piece wasn’t working the way he wanted.