“I didn’t text you.”
His eyebrow quirked.“Liz, I was in a meeting. I raced over here. I was rude to a client.”
“Ben, I’m so sorry. I… It wasn’t me.”
“It was me,” the small voice came from the kitchen doorway. Blake looked ashen. “I didn’t know you were busy. I’m sorry.”
Ben looked from me to Blake and then back again. “Why did you text me, Blake? What did you need?”
“I need help with my homework and mom is busy. She’s really busy and she keeps cussing. I just wanted to make it easy for her.”
Ben’s gaze swung back to mine, “You keep cussing?”
I felt betrayed by my oldest child.“PG-13 words!Nothing worse than that.”
Ben and Blake both gave me disbelieving looks.
“Did I ruin your job?” Blake asked with a slight tremble in his voice.
Ben’s expression broke and a grin finally made an appearance on his face. “No, no you didn’t ruin it. I was only rude to my client because he was a jerk to me. I’ll make it up to him tomorrow. He’ll get over it. If you need help with your homework, I can help you. Then we’ll both help make dinner so your mom stops cussing.”
“I wasn’t really cussing!”
“That’s awesome! Thanks, Ben!”
Blake disappeared into the kitchen while I swooped down to gather the scattered pictures. “You don’t have to stay, Ben. I have this handled.”
“I’m sure that you do, Liz, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to stay.”
I steeled my nerves and met his hopeful gaze. “You would?”
“I’ve missed these kids,” he admitted on a long sigh.“A lot.I’ve thought about coming over here at least a hundred times to see them, but I didn’t want to make things worse.”
“Oh.”
“Ben!” Lucy squealed from the staircase. She jumped down four steps so she could run into his arms. “Ben! Ben! Ben!”
Abby followed andJaceraced over too. They attacked him with hugs, screaming his name and jumping up and down.
“Are you going to eat supper with us?” Abby asked excitedly.
“I’m going to make it for you,” he told her which brought on a whole new level of screaming.
“Okay, settle down! Get off Ben or he isn’t going to come back!” I tried to pry my kids off of him, but they wouldn’t have it.
“You mean,he gets to come back?” Lucy wrapped her arms around me as a thank you hug for lifting Ben’s exile.
Oh, gosh. What had I done?
“If he wants to,” I told her.
She looked up at me with bright green eyes and said, “He does! I know he does!”
I patted her head and smiled down at her. I didn’t think he did, but I couldn’t tell her that. “Go help Abby find the crayons.”Jacegalloped after her.
When it was just Ben and me and miles and miles of distance between us, I said, “You didn’t have to come over.”
“I know,” he said back.
