by S. Layne
“It’s Ben. He’s not home and his bed isn’t slept in.”
My eyes widen with fear and Donovan’s eyes pierce mine as he tugs up a pair of pajama pants. When he sees that I’m covered, he quickly unlocks the door and throws it open.
“What do you mean?”
Jeremiah’s eyes roam the room, and for a brief moment I’m completely embarrassed to be only half-dressed in front of him. If my heart wasn’t pounding with fear, I’d probably be more so.
Jeremiah snaps his head to Donovan, runs a hand through his hair that is so similar to his uncle’s, and shakes it quickly—maybe brushing off his own embarrassment.
“I…uh…I just woke up and Ben’s door was open, so I looked in it and his bed is still made. I went downstairs and his truck isn’t here.”
“Shit.” Donovan scrubs a hand through his hair. “We’ll figure it out. Why don’t you get dressed and we’ll meet you in the kitchen.”
Jeremiah nods, turns to leave when Donovan stops him.
“Jeremiah?”
“Yeah?” he asks, looking back over his shoulder.
“Thanks for letting us know.”
Jeremiah shrugs as if it’s nothing, but I can see the worry in his own eyes. It’s not like it’s any secret to him what Ben’s gone through, although he hasn’t been around for most of the conversations. “I like him. And his life is shittier than mine was.”
With that, he turns and walks away. Donovan closes the door behind him and then rests his body against the closed door.
His head falls forward and he scrubs his hand over his face. “Did you hear what he just said?”
“That his life isn’t so shitty anymore?” I smile lightly. “Yeah, I heard it.”
“I have you to thank for that. For helping us…reminding me who I was, what I’d lost. Being there for Jeremiah.”
I shake my head and rest my palm against his scruffy cheek. “I can’t take the credit for all of that.”
He nods disbelieving but doesn’t say anything. He pushes off the door, presses his lips to mine, and heads to the bathroom. I follow him, and we quickly get dressed and ready for the day before heading downstairs.
My mind is spinning with a thousand possibilities of what could have happened to Ben and where he could be.
Unfortunately, none of them are good.
And since we don’t know anything about his friends or his life, outside the abuse suffered at his stepdad’s hands, I have no idea how to begin trying to find him.
My fingers strum the countertop. Next to me there’s a plate of forgotten eggs and bacon. My coffee is cold and there’s a heavy silence in the room as the three of us are lost in our own thoughts and worries about Ben.
It’s been two hours since Jeremiah alerted us about Ben’s absence..
Donovan quickly called Jensen, who immediately said he’d sic his own team of private investigators to the task of finding him.
Two hours since we’ve called our lawyer, who is somehow becoming a friend, or a guardian, or…I don’t know what he is, but he’s helping us so that’s all that matters.
If Ben wants to be found. A shudder rolls through me at the thought.
“We’ll find him,” Donovan whispers to me from the other side of the counter.
I chew the inside of my cheek. “I know.”
His serious gaze stares straight into mine. It’s as if he can see my every fear, my every thought, my every concern. He can read my mind, and as I stare back at him, I silently wish for his confident statement to be truth.
I don’t want Ben to have run away—not when he’s so close to being free.
As far as we know, the last time anyone saw Ben was when he left school.
“He probably just went partying with some friends.”
I shrug at Donovan’s idea. It would be a typical teenager thing to do, especially for someone who’s used to staying away from home. I can’t imagine Ben’s ever had someone worrying about where he is before. Or someone who cares about him enough to want to know where he is.
The thought is even more depressing.
“You’re probably right,” I mutter, and push off the kitchen stool, snagging my cold coffee mug on my way.
I walk around the counter and am immediately pulled into Donovan’s arms, his hand at the back of my head, his other arm wraps around my waist. My forehead falls to his chest and a shaky exhale falls from my lips.
“You guys like him,” Jeremiah says when he sees tears fall down my cheeks. “I thought you just felt bad.”
“I like both of you,” I reply, stressing that to him. There’s no way in the world I want Jeremiah to think I care about him less, or that I only put up with him because of Donovan.
He seems to get my unvoiced thoughts, because he nods once and his lips show the slightest hint of a smile.
“Why don’t you go shower and get ready for the day, J?” Donovan says.
I slide out of his arms toward the coffee pot, suddenly needing the caffeine.
Once Jeremiah is gone, I turn to Donovan, holding my coffee mug in both hands. “Why’d you kick him out?”
“Maybe because even with all this shit going on, I’m still a bit annoyed that he interrupted us.”
He flashes me an arrogant grin and walks toward me.
I step back, shaking my head. “Now is not the time.”
“Now is always the right time,” he murmurs, nuzzling his face into the crook of my neck. His hands wrap around the edges of the counter, caging me in his arms, my coffee mug the only thing keeping distance between us. “Mostly I just wanted to see how you’re really doing.”
“Scared. Worried. And I’ll be really freaking pissed if he just decided to stay out all night with buddies or some stupid shit.”
Donovan laughs quietly, and I feel his lips spread into a smile against my skin. “You sound like some protective mama bear. I like it.”
I feel like one. And a part of me worries that I’m beginning to care too much about Ben. He’s not my child. He might never become my responsibility, and a small part of me wonders if I’m getting too close to him. But the other part—the bigger and louder part—doesn’t care.
He might not be mine, but as long as he’s around, I swear to take care of him, do anything he needs, be there for him in any way I can.
I swallow down the emotion in my throat that’s also burning my nose. “I just want to know where he is, even if he’s not coming back.”
“Hey.” He pulls back, cups the back of my neck with his hand, and tilts my head to his. Two soft green pools stare down at me. “He’ll come back, I know it—or we’ll find him and bring him back.”
I sniff, blinking rapidly. “Okay.”
He takes a step back and I bring my coffee mug to my lips. I’m just taking the first sip when the front door opens and slams shut. Loud footsteps echo on the marble floor and I jump, choking on my coffee.
My eyes flash to Donovan’s, but he’s already moving.
I take off after him, quickly setting down my mug. Coffee splashes over the rim onto the counter and floor, but I don’t stop to clean it up.
“What the hell happened to you?” I hear Donovan shout as I hit the entryway just steps behind him.
I gasp, my fingers flying to cover the sound leaving my mouth, and my eyes jump out of my head. “Are you okay?” I ask, and quickly rush to Ben.
His clothes are torn, his cheek is covered with dried blood, and one of his eyes is almost swollen shut. He stumbles into me as I pull him into my arms and I have to choke down a gag.
He reeks of alcohol.
“Have you been out drinking? Got in a fight?” I squeeze him tighter, but he puts his hands to my arms.
“I’m fine,” he says and pushes away from me. “Mind your own business.”
“Ben—” I take a step toward him.
“Do you have any idea how worried we’ve been?” Donovan asks, stepping in front of me. “You scared us.”
His eyes are on the
stairs, not looking at us, and I take the brief moment to look him over. He looks like he was run over by a truck. Or slammed into some heavy fists. Fury boils inside of me like I’ve never felt before.
“Yeah, well…” He stops to scrub his hand down his face, flinching when he hits his eye. “It was a tough fucking day. Can I go to bed?”
Relief floods me even with my worry. Because he’s here. And he came on his own.
“Let me clean you up first. Please?” I ask when he shakes his head.
He shrugs lamely. “Fine. Whatever.”
I reach out and brush my hand over his shoulder, not caring at all that he moves out of my way. Letting my hand fall to my side, I fight the tears that want to fall. “Go upstairs and I’ll be up in a minute.”
I watch his back as he walks away, feel Donovan move closer to me, and when Ben has disappeared at the top of the stairway, I allow just a few tears to fall, biting my lip to stop them. “He’s here.”
Donovan presses his lips to the top of my head and squeezes my shoulders. “I told you he’d come back. Go see to him, see if he’ll tell you what happened. I’ll call Jensen.”
Ben hisses as the hydrogen peroxide I place on his knuckles stings his skin.
He’s quiet and in pain. I can see it in his eyes and I know it’s not just physical.
I’ve been quietly taking care of him, only speaking when needed, while a thousand questions burn the tip of my tongue.
Setting down the cotton ball tinged with his blood…or someone else’s…I unwrap a bandage for his cheek.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He shakes his head once and swallows.
“We were really scared this morning,” I whisper. I don’t want him to feel bad. I just want him to know we genuinely care.
“Sorry,” he mutters, and looks down at his bloody knuckles while I put another bandage over his eyebrow.
The edge of his bed, which we’re sitting on, bounces as his foot begins tapping.
I close up the medical kit and push it to the side. There’s nothing else I can do for his physical wounds, and nothing appears to be broken, although he does have a nasty bruise on his ribs. It looks like tread-marks from a boot, but I’m trusting him that he says it doesn’t hurt much. I’ve given him some pain meds with the promise that he’ll tell me if it gets worse.
“Can we talk about it anyway?” I ask hesitantly.
For a moment I don’t think he’s going to speak, but then he sniffs, balls his hand into a fist, and says, “Dick found me.”
I grind my teeth together to keep from lashing out a string of curse words. Not that this isn’t an appropriate time to use them. “Where?”
He shrugs. “Leaving school, I guess. I don’t know, but he stopped me at the gas station. I was on my way here, I swear.” He looks at me suddenly, eyes wide as if he’s begging me to believe him.
I nod, letting him know I do.
“He’s pissed it took him so long to find me. Punched me right in the fucking face and no one said a word.”
“What gas station?” I ask, immediately wondering if they have surveillance tapes. If we can get him charged with irrefutable evidence, it makes Ben’s case better.
He exhales harshly, and I can tell he doesn’t want to tell me when his shoulders finally collapse. “Holiday by Sixth in Centerville.”
I place my hand on his thigh. “Thank you for telling me that. Care to explain the rest? Like the beer and the rest of your cuts?”
“Stupid shit,” he mutters, and then laughs once. It’s cold and empty and I hate that this kid, who genuinely seems to want more than what he’s been given, feels so alone. “Showed up at a party, got in a fight.”
He shrugs as if it’s no big deal—nothing new in his world. I suppose it’s not, and my guess is he took out his anger on some unsuspecting teenage prick because he couldn’t do it to his stepdad.
“It’s okay,” I say, and rub his leg before standing up. “I don’t really care about the fight. I’m just glad you’re okay.”
He looks away, another sniff as he focuses out the window. “You’re the only one who would.”
If hearts could physically break in two, the pain in my chest tells me mine just did. “Not true.” I smile sadly and nod toward the door to his room. “There’s two other guys downstairs who care, too.”
“Yeah…maybe.”
I let myself out, heart breaking in my chest and rage boiling in my veins.
I hate adults like this. Men who think they can use their power of authority to abuse it, or who take out their own insecurities on people younger and weaker than they are. It doesn’t make them men.
It makes them assholes.
Once I’m downstairs, I find Donovan in the living room, sitting on the couch and talking quietly to Jeremiah, who’s now showered and cleaned up. Both of their eyes snap to me as soon as they see me.
“He’ll be okay, I think. Just needs some time.”
“Did he tell you what happened?” Donovan asks, rising to his feet. Jeremiah does the same, and if I weren’t so upset, so relieved, or so overwhelmed, I might smile at their similar stances and appearances.
“Dick found him. Didn’t do all the damage, but enough that he went and got drunk and picked a fight somewhere else.”
“Damn,” Jeremiah mutters. “What a prick.”
I shrug in agreement. “He said Dick found him at a gas station in Centerville, where he hit him. I think he might have kicked him, too.”
Donovan grabs his phone and presses a button. “He say which one?” His eyes spark, and I know he’s thinking the same thought I had upstairs.
“Holiday on Sixth in Centerville,” I tell him.
He nods, presses his lips to my cheek as he leaves the room, and as he’s walking away I hear him say, “Jensen? Yeah…we got something…get in front of a fucking judge as soon as you can…”
Then his voice trails off and I look at Jeremiah, shuffling on his feet, uncertainty filling his features.
“He really okay?”
I walk to him and wrap my arms around him. “I think he will be. Someday.”
“Do we have to do this?” Jeremiah moans pitifully, shuffling his feet behind me down the hallway.
I ignore him. He’s been like this all afternoon—ever since Ben came back. I thought maybe the best thing for him to do after his nap would be to pretend the night before never happened. Plus, I don’t want him replaying the night in his mind.
He’ll have to relive it once Jensen gets ahold of the security tape at the gas station, if there is one.
And since there’s no way I’m letting either of them out of my sight, I’ve made them come with me to see my dad.
“Shut up, squirt,” Ben mutters. He hasn’t smiled all day and has talked very little. The familiar ribbing makes me smile.
“I can’t help it. Old people make me feel weird.”
I shoot him a look. “My dad isn’t old. He’s just sick.”
“Same difference,” he mutters, and shoves his hands deep into his pockets.
I shake my head and when we reach the door to my dad’s room, I turn to face both boys.
I almost have to look up to meet both of their eyes. If I were wearing flats instead of heeled boots, I probably would. The boys’ looks are completely opposite one another, and I can’t help but take in their differences: Where Jeremiah is built, Ben is taller but lean. Jeremiah’s sandy brown hair to Ben’s dark hair and tanned complexion. Yet it’s their sullen faces, which look like I’m taking them straight to a firing squad, that make me grin.
“Chill,” I remind them. “We’ll only stay a few minutes. I just want to say hi to him today.”
Both boys shrug, almost synchronized.
“Maybe I just want him to meet you two, okay? I’ve told him all about both of you.”
How much he hears and comprehends is a whole other story, but I don’t let that sadness or doubt creep into my mind.
Slowly opening t
he door, I smile when I see my dad in what is his new favorite spot. His nurse, Amanda, is standing off to the side of him, checking his vitals, and her grin matches mine when she sees me.
“He’s having a good day today,” she says, and pats him on the shoulder.
His lips twist into a semblance of a smile…bigger than it used to be.
“Baby girl,” he says. His voice is still hoarse, but I love that he can speak at all, even if it’s gravelly and slow.
“Hey, Dad.” I move quickly to the side of the chair once Amanda walks away, and place a kiss on his lips. “I brought some friends with me today that I want you to meet.”
Looking over my shoulder, I see Jeremiah and Ben hovering in the doorway, hands shoved into their pockets, uncomfortable looks on their faces.
“Dad…meet Jeremiah, Donovan’s nephew, and our friend, Ben.”
With hesitant steps both boys nod and slowly enter the room when their name is called. Amanda shuffles out behind them, closing the door, and Jeremiah’s head whips over his shoulder as it shuts.
I fight back a snicker.
“They’re happy to see you,” I tell my dad, running my hand over his.
He turns his hand so our palms are together and squeezes. It’s faint but it’s stronger than before.
“Good…to…m…m…meet…you,” he stutters. I can see the strain it takes him to form the words.
“Hey.” Jeremiah nods and lifts his hand in greeting.
“You, too,” Ben says, his shoulders relaxing a bit as he takes in the room.
“Fight?” my dad asks and nods toward Ben.
He brushes his cheek, cringing a bit. “Yeah.”
“You…win?”
Ben laughs softly, but it’s sad, and I instantly see that my dad notices. His eyes flicker to mine but back to Ben when he replies, “One of them.”
“Can’t…win…them all.”
He squeezes my hand again, and I watch as Ben further relaxes. It seems to mean something to Jeremiah, too, because he walks further into the room and takes a place on the couch.
“No, sir, you can’t,” Ben finally says, and then follows Jeremiah’s cue. I smile at his manners and give him a thankful smile.