Page 149 of Waiting For A Girl Like You
Begging. He was begging.
And he wasn’t at all ashamed.
“I’ll stay,” he whispered. “I’ll give them a good life. I’ll make sure everyone is taken care of, but in the end, I want to find you waiting. I want to find my girl waiting for me so we can watch eternity go by together.”
She kissed him again, clinging to him as much as he was to her, both desperate for a second more together. “Deal.”
Pain flared through his body. With a groan, Ben jerked awake. The dream was always the same, coming to him night after night sincethe nighthe made the stupidest mistake of his life.
Suicide?
What the fuck?
Shifting slightly, he fought against the sheets. Josie had tucked him into his old suite at Parkland Grounds, the room acting as a time capsule of the years he’d spent living a lie here.
Josie and the boys had brought him home from the hospital days ago, keeping vigil in shifts as though he were going to break again. The pills had fucked him up pretty good, but he was finally regaining some semblance of strength.
He absolutely hated this. The inability to care for himself was one thing, but seeing those haunted looks in Selah and Samuel’s eyes had thepower to make his heart stop all over again. What he’d done wasn’t fair, and while he might not be much of a father anymore, he loved them with every ounce of his being.
Blinking against the afternoon light, the room came into focus. He’d nearly slept the day away, and another wave of self-loathing surged. This had to stop. He had to get his shit together. Josie was mumbling about him returning to that family shrink she’d forced him to, but he didn’t want that. He wanted to find someone else. Someone who specialized in grief. He needed out of his head because he’d made a deal.
And dream or not, he would honor it.
Movement in the corner caught his attention, and he rolled to his side to see who was there. That section of the room had a small bookcase and chair for reading, which was never used except by Samuel whenever it was his turn to watch over him.
But it wasn’t Samuel sitting in the chair. Not today. Today it was someone else entirely, and he knew without a doubt he was about to pay for his sins tenfold.
“Benjamin.”
“Simone.”
The lump in his throat refused to go down. SiSi looked about as rough as he felt. Not on the outside, of course. On the outside, SiSi Howard would remain an immaculately beautiful woman, the construct of a curated image she used to her advantage. She wore one of her sheath dresses that showcased her figure. Her hair was longer than he’d last noticed, and her makeup subtle, yet still with her signature red lipstick.
But he knew her as well as he knew himself.
The ghosts of their past hung heavily in her gaze, and he hated himself a little more. Laura Jean was the other half of his soul, but SiSi would forever hold a small chunk of it. She was his family. His real family. Not the Fairweathers, but her. From the first moment Ms. Maudie brought her little niece into the Parkland’s playroom, and SiSi had proceeded to boss him and his brothers around in that high-handed way of hers, she had become his.
And she would forever be his, no matter what she thought. No matter how much she hated him. No matter how much of that hate he deserved. She was his responsibility to care for in life.
Even if she didn’t want him near herself or the children.
“What are you doing here?” The boys had sworn never to breathe a word of what happened. He had listened as they worked it out. Two fully grown men, hashing out their plan to stay away from Haven House and her prying ears.
Two men.
His boys were men.
The realization had hit hard while he listened to them talk quietly at the foot of his bed. His boys were gone, and responsible men stood in their place. Selah’s goofy grin and easy way had begun to disappear years ago, as had Samuel’s awkwardness, but to see the transformation so vividly when he was at his lowest had really driven the fact home.
It broke his already damaged heart.
“You look good,” he lied. A stupid thing to do when SiSi was involved. “I wasn’t expecting you.”
“I would imagine not.” She remained perfectly still, glaring daggers at him. “Josie sent the boys to the grocery store, and since neither of them has any inclination as to what that involves, I would imagine we have time to talk.”
He refused to do this lying in a damn bed. Shucking the one too many blankets and sheets aside, he tried to swing his legs over the edge to sit up. Big mistake. The whole room spun as he let out a curse.
And damn it, he was in pajamas. Striped, navy blue pajamas. Selah. This had to be Selah’s doing.
