Benson slightly cocked his head. “You let us worry about that.”
She heard the shower turn on in the bathroom. “’Cause it’s okay if you are.”
He kissed her forehead. “Right now, I want to talk about how much I love you.”
They were kissing soon enough. Exactly the way Eden liked – and had seen for herself on a moment ago.
Chapter 14
Benson
Tax season had Benson chained to his work desk more often, thanks to most of his clients wanting to come in and discuss their finances before taking it to their CPAs. Where about one third of his workday was all to himself before… well, when Benson logged into his scheduling app at the start of the day now, everything was booked solid. The introvert in him wanted to absolutelydie.
Yet he persevered. Most of the clients coming in were alone or couples, and he always did better one-on-one than trying to wrangle groups of people into understanding his points.
He was also working overtime, since all of these meetings meant he didn’t have as much time to do his daily tasks, such as updating spreadsheets and playing phone tag. Any other day, “getting out late” meant 5:30. Now he was lucky to be out by six, and it would be that way until April 15th.Right around thecorner.Not soon enough. He had stacked up a lot of billable hours, but the man had a life!
Especially now. While working all day was distracting and went by quickly, at night, he was left alone with his thoughts. Sometimes, Eden dropped by to wrangle dinner and spend the night, but Benson often slept alone during tax season. Assuming someone didn’t live with him.
I slept alone the last time we were all together, too.Liam’s bed was too small for both him and Benson to be comfortable all night, let alone with Eden between them. As soon as they were asleep, he snuck out with a spare blanket and crashed on the couch. Having room to stretch and not worry about crushing his girlfriend was worth it.They both gave me hell in the morning.Benson hadn’t minded. But he did prefer his giant king-sized bed, especially if sleepovers were on the docket.
Drew knew better than to bother him this time of year, but they still shared texts. She even asked him how Eden was doing, which surprised him.Maybe she’s already coming around to it.She then asked him how Liam was doing, as if she assumed her father would know.
“Yeah, I talked to her,” Liam confessed when Benson invited him over the following Thursday night to discuss this.If he doesn’t come here, we won’t get this done.No going out to dinner. No ambling over to Liam’s. Benson had about two hours to decompress every evening before he passed out. And even now, as he and Liam ate takeout on the couch, Benson had to fight nodding off. “She saw us at the zoo. As you can imagine, she was both unamused and confused that her dad’s girlfriend was dating another man. Let alone me.”
“The fuck did you tell her?”
Liam shrugged. “The truth, with as few words as possible. To her credit,” he continued, before Benson could rip his head off,“she already kinda knew how our relationship worked before we broke up.”
“How? She was a kid!”
“A very smart and perceptive kid. She quickly figured out that we were together, right? Despite you trying to hide me in your closet.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Yeah, yeah, you were afraid she would tell her mom, and might tell everyone else that her dad was dating a dude. Whatever. That’s not the point.” Liam kicked his feet up on the coffee table and tossed his empty Styrofoam container onto the seat between him and Benson. “I wanted to clear things up with her. So, I took her out to lunch.”
“Without tellingme?”
Liam gave him such a discordant look that Benson immediately shut up. “She’s an adult now, Ben. Nothing shady about it.”
“Don’t remind me she’s an adult.”
“Yeah, well, she really let me know her opinion of Eden without having formally met her. So, don’t worry, she still has the mind of a kid.”
“What do you mean?”
“Going on about gold-diggers and projecting things, as kids do.”
“You sound exhausted by her. So, welcome to the club.”
“I can’t believe I’m letting you and Eden suck me back into the world of being somebody’s stepfather.”
Is he sucked back into it?Even Benson remained confused by where he stood with Liam, the man who still kissed him like the past five years hadn’t happened.
He wanted to dive deeper into that, but Benson’s time and energy were scarce that week. In classic avoidant fashion, heinstead took things into the bedroom because it was more fun than discussingwhat we are to each other?
The next day, he looked at his schedule and wanted to die. Liam laughed over his shoulder as they ate oatmeal for breakfast, Benson in his suit and Liam in boxers and a T-shirt he stole from the bureau.Rude.How could Benson’s clothes be so baggy on another man?He’s wearing my best boxers.He knew it, too.
