Page 20 of Broken By the Bad Boy

I flinch at his sharp tone. He eases his grip on my hand and leans in for a peck, but I hug him instead. His hand glides up the nape of my neck, pushing my head into the slope of his shoulder.

“Sorry, babe. Talking about him makes me angry. Josef is not a bad man. He is just…” He runs his hands over his face and sighs. I can’t relate to his struggle, but I want to be here for him.

“He’s just an expired coupon,” I say.

Ben’s smile is fleeting. “Or a wet sock.”

“Yeah.” I laugh. My arms are around his waist in an instant. I close my eyes. “Go on, Benny.”

“They realized our arrangement wasn’t working. I was always ruining things. Breaking stuff. Getting into trouble. When Mom walked into my room one night to ask what I wanted, I came up with this crazy idea of getting my own place,” Ben adds. The emptiness of his laughter hurts my soul. I palm his cheeks, and he inhales noisily. “Didn’t think it would work, but she agreed.”

He is telling the story like it happened to someone else, with a nonchalance that makes it hard to sympathize with him. Maybe that’s his plan, to make it seem like he’s okay when he’s not. But I see past his exterior and catch a glimpse of the little boy hurting for his mother. I embrace him.

“I guess I expected her to say no, but she didn’t.” The emotion packed in his voice is like a foot in my chest. My heart constricts. “I mean, if my son is throwing a fit and asking to move out, I would sit him down to have a heart-to-heart, not push him out but whatever. It’s done, it’s done.”

Silence falls over us, and I release a soft sigh. I want to do more, say something, but I don’t know what.

“There were conditions attached to it, though.” He wiggles his brows like he’s cracking an actual joke, and a wave of anger flickers through me. This is not funny. He’s hurting. “I wanted Asher, and she agreed on the condition Asher would spend the weekends at their house.” He never stops stroking my thigh, but his gaze fixates on the wall behind me. “That’s why Asher is never home most weekends. As for me, I have to be there for all the holiday dinners, even Thanksgiving.”

“That’s why you almost backed out of the dinner?” I mutter. “You thought it was on Thursday?”

Ben nods. “Thank you for today.”

“You are welcome, babe.” An awkward pause ensues. His fingers halt on my thighs, and I clear my throat. Every time I hear people’s stories, I’m reminded of what I have and can’t help feeling like an ungrateful brat. Lett and Ben will make great friends. “How does it feel to live alone?”

“Not so good.” In this regard, we are almost the same. Our house is lonely on most days. Ben’s lips brush my neck. He sniffs me, and my cheeks color. “I couldn’t sleep most nights Asher was away, so I started coming here. They had a son his age. I would watch him until I got tired. I snuck in here as soon as they put their house on sale. Didn’t know picking locks could be so easy. Fell asleep here one night. Started coming back regularly on most nights Asher was at her place.”

My face wrinkles. Many things could have gone wrong if the former owners had found him watching their son. It freaked me out when I thought someone was stalking me. “That’s creepy, Benny.”

“Not as creepy as living alone,” he replies.

There’s nothing I will say to make it better. I might be lonely, but it’s not the same. My parents come home late, but I know they will always be there. At least Mom will, to shower me with love.

Good thing Ben doesn’t need me to speak. He continues, “Mom is a full-time housewife, so all the money she gives us comes from him. I don’t want anything to do with that man.” I pepper kisses on his knuckles until the anger rolls off him. “Food, light, phone bills, groceries, he pays for everything. He’s rich, and Mom doesn’t want me to work, so I get a weekly stipend. Josef got me a credit card on my last birthday, but I don’t want to spend his money. I don’t want to feel more indebted to him. I want my money, and fighting in the ring is the only way to have that.”

Guilt rips my insides, and my teeth sink into my lower lip. I understand why Ben was so upset. I won the fight but unknowingly took more from him. His fingers caress my scalp absentmindedly.

“You can have the money,” I say. Ben freezes. I don’t give him a chance to talk. “I like to fight. I don’t really have a use for the spare cash except for a few donations and saving it for the future.”

If my parents are good at anything, it’s at making life easier for us. They are our safety nets and never fail to mention that. For that reason, we never lack funds, especially when it’s justified.

Ben shakes his head, pressing a finger to my lips to stop me from speaking. “No way. It’s yours. You won. It’s your money.” He caresses my cheek. My boyfriend is too stubborn. I will lose this argument before it starts. “I wanted to take you out with Benny’s money, not Josef’s. It’s cool.”

My eyes soften, and the words I should say refuse to form. We have the rest of our lives for a date. If it doesn’t happen this year, it can happen next year or the year after that. We are young.

“Who needs a date when I have you?” I manage to say, and he laughs.

Ben laughs so hard tears spill from the corners of his eyes. I kiss away the tears that drop to his cheek. Grabbing his hand between mine, I make a mental note to never mention a date with him.

We are okay.

“Lemme show you something,” he says.

We separate for Ben to find his phone from the pile of clothes on the floor. I moan at the loss of contact. Once his back is propped against the headboard, he pats his lap for me to make myself comfortable. He doesn’t have to request twice because I am already crawling onto his lap. I think he is making me clingy. My phone beeps with a text from Mom. She wants to be sure we are okay.

I reply and push the phone under the pillow while Ben fiddles with his. He taps on his phone for a while, and a file takes over the screen. I am unsure what I am looking at, but it resembles a spreadsheet with numbers and dates. A long list of items that causes my head to spin from looking at it.

“Every time Mom buys me stuff or gives me money, I write it down here so I can return it in the future,” he explains. My heart cracks into a million pieces as he zooms in on the total figure at the end. I am afraid to ask how much it is. I am afraid to peek at it, so I stare at my hands. This is not how it should be. Kids shouldn’t have to worry about repaying their parents. “I get access to my trust fund on my twenty-first birthday. Hopefully, I have some cash left for my future after that.”

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