“Hi, honey,” she said, sounding even more tired than I was.
He bent down to put the coffee bag away, and I caught a glimpse of her over his shoulder. She was as beautiful as the pictures. In her mid-fifties, she had dark hair, light golden skin with pink undertones, and pale green eyes that she had passed on to her son. Seeing them in another person’s face had taken me aback the first time we spoke.
“What are you doing up?” Ben asked. “It’s like three in the morning, your time.”
“I’ve been awake most of the night thinking about that asshole Commissioner, and I just wanted you to know that our lawyers are working together to –” Her eyes cut left. Our gazes met. I waved. The sleep cleared from her eyes as her expression morphed into surprise. “Is that Ella behind you?”
Realization dawned on me. It wasn’t even seven in the morning and I was at his house. We both looked like we’d just woken up. Because we had.
Ben turned toward me in slow motion, his eyes wide, as if just now coming to the same conclusion that I had: this situation could be easily misconstrued.
“Fuck,” he mouthed.
Yes, that’s probably what she thinks, Ben.
“Why is Ella at your house at,” she checked her watch, “six fifty-five in the morning?”
“She came over to drop off my Christmas present,” he answered, much better under pressure than I would be.
“Hani, come say hi to Ella,” his mother called.
Ben groaned. “Of course Dad’s up too,” he said beneath his breath.
“She still over there?” I heard his father say.
“Sorry,”Ben mouthed at me.
“It’s fine,”I mouthed back.
I hobbled over to him and leaned against the cabinet so we were both in the camera frame. Looking back at us on the screen were his parents. It was easy to pick out the features he had inherited from them. His skin color was a mixture of both, several shades lighter than his father’s and darker than his mother’s. The shape of his eyes and their hue came from his mom. He got his wide nose and square jaw from his father. Eyebrows from Mom. Hair from Dad.
Hani’s eyes crinkled up at the corners when he smiled, just like Ben’s did. “He’s not holding you there against your will, is he?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha,” I didn’t laugh, but said. I leaned closer to the phone and dropped my voice. “Send help.”
As I hoped, they lost it. God, these two were easy.
Ben assumed an exasperated expression. “Please don’t encourage her.”
His parents laughed even harder.
I looked up at him. Our eyes met, and we grinned like co-conspirators.
His mother caught it. “I will gladly encourage anyone that can make you smile like that, Benny.”
“Benny?” I asked him.
“Don’t even think about it,” he told me.
In the small insert on his phone screen, my grin transformed into an expression of pure evil. It looked vaguely familiar. Right. Willow made this same face when something diabolical popped into her head. Now the troubling question: had I taught it to her, or had she taught it to me? I was a little worried it was the latter.
One day she would rule us all.
“Don’t tease him too much, Ella,” Ben’s mother said.
I raised my hand in an approximation of a salute. “Scouts honor.” The look on my face was a dead giveaway for how full of shit I was. I really needed to get better at mastering my expressions.
“We can talk about the lawyers later,” Hani said. “You two have fun with each other.” Just in case we missed the innuendo, he winked.
