“Can we, Mum, please?” Evie said, her head whipping around.
I’d intended to leave them to it, to try and catch up on some paperwork and just eat something quick like eggs on toast while they were out, but at the look of Ben’s grin, he knew he’d outmanoeuvred me.
“I found a nice place down near the jetty,” he told me. “Got a table for three booked.”
“Fine,” I replied with a tight smile, shooting him daggers with my eyes when Ev turned back towards him. That just seemed to make his grin widen.
Evie rodewith Ben once I’d established that his ute was child-friendly. Both of them had watched me, slightly bemused, as I fussed over the state of the back seat. It was fine. Evie was tall enough now not to need a booster seat, and she rode in the back of Sophie or Taylor or Carmen’s car all the time, so why was I stressing? I just looked at the back of what looked like a work vehicle, tools and boots and a big weatherproof jacket there and somehow struggled to see my daughter in amongst it. She had no such issues, scrambling up and into the car, then clicking on her belt.
Ben gave me the address and I drove across town, to the long road that led up to the jetty where we’d built sand castles all that time ago, and pulled up out the front of the restaurant, sitting in my car for a second.
This felt weird. When I was with Evie, she rode in my car, chattering on about her day or whatever topic was preoccupying her right now. The car felt so empty and quiet I’d been forced to flick on the radio for the drive. In some ways, it was strangely freeing. Not having to shush her as I fought my way through peak hour traffic. Not having to split my focus between what I was doing, what the world was doing and what Evie needed. I was caught up in that… stillness when a pair of knuckles rapped on my window. Ben stood there, his hand wrapped around Evie’s, gazing down at me with all kinds of warm invitation and, damn me, if I didn’t want to just jump right in.
So why don’t you?a voice in my head asked as I waved, then went to get out of the car.Why don’t you take his other hand? Why don’t you walk inside this very nice restaurant as a family?
I tried to come up with reasons not to, as we walked up the steps and then were greeted by the waitress at the door. She ushered us over to a very nice table by the window with a panoramic view of the sea. Ben pulled out my chair, then Evie’s, seeing us seated before he would do the same. The waitress flushed when she got a good look at him, seeming to stumble a little as she handed us menus and then asked what we wanted to drink.
“Do they do cake shakes here?” Evie asked, bouncing in her chair. “I want a triple chocolate mud cake one!”
“Cake shakes are no good for you, love,” Ben said, his focus on the drinks menu, not our daughter, so he didn’t catch the moment when she went still, watching him closely before settling back in her chair. “You need to grow up big and strong. How about a juice or a water?”
“Can I have an orange juice, please?” she asked.
“Orange juice and a schooner of light beer, thanks, love,” Ben said, handing back the menu, the waitress positively swooning at the ‘love’ part, but he turned to me. “What did you want, Lils?”
His hand moved across the table and took mine, like he had a right too, like we were just some family out for dinner on a school night. The tantalising possibility of this hung between us, of so many other dinners. Of having someone else to step in and help wrangle my daughter’s voracious appetite for milk shakes, someone to hand her off to when I was just too tired and too far gone to deal with Ev sensibly. I squeezed his fingers then, an almost involuntary response, his eyes flaring brighter when I did so.
“I’ll have a glass of house wine,” I said finally. “White.”
“So you havea grandma and a grandpa back in Campbelltown, too.”
I was lingering over a very nice pasta dish, watching the two of them talk. Ben was filling her in on his side of the family and Evie was listening with rapt attention. I was fighting the need to grab that hand of his, that currently was just occupying space between us on the table.
“I’ve told your grandma about you, and she’s dying to come and see you.” Ben’s eyes flicked my way for a second, trying to gauge my response. “She doesn’t have any other grandkids, so you’ll get super spoiled.”
And at that, my avaricious little girl’s eyes flared bright, imagining the loot she was about to get her hands on. But the longer she considered the idea, that light faded and was replaced by something else altogether. She looked up at her father as he took a long sip of his beer, his eyes finding hers soon enough.
“But… will she like me?”
“Why wouldn’t she like you?” His arm went around her shoulders and she tucked herself into his side.
“Alphas are supposed to be boys, right? There were no other girls in the room at the appointment.”
“Doesn’t that just make you more special?” I forced myself to watch them. To not intervene, not thrust all of my well-intentioned advice at my daughter, thinking it strong mortar to bog up all the cracks. “Your grandma would like nothing more than a little princess to spoil. Anyone who doesn’t want to spend time with you needs their head read.”
Which, of course, made me think of Reed and his hoarse declaration. I took another mouthful of my wine and then swirled more strands of pasta onto my fork.
Ben was in my house.He was down the hallway, in my daughter’s bedroom, and I could hear his deep voice reading from one of her favourite books. He was sprawled out on her bed with her wedged in tight beside him, because a king single was not made to take a man like him. I wrapped my hands tighter around the coffee mug, the bite of the overheated porcelain something I craved right now because it kept my focus here, not on the fact that my two lives were colliding and I didn’t really know what to do about it. I never, ever let alphas come to my place, not even when Evie was at her grandmother’s or Sophie’s. But, somehow, I’d let a massive apex predator in my front door and I wasn’t entirely sure what to do about that.
“You smell well used…”
The deep growl, the exultation in that statement. That for some reason being hosed down with his brother’s cum was some kind of amazingly hot thing for him, which made me think—
“She’s asleep.”
Ben grinned as I jolted back to the here and now, my hands registering the fact that my coffee had long since gone cold. He moved closer, taking the cup from me and tipping it into the sink before grabbing my hand and leading me out of the kitchen.
“Ben…”