Better with Ben (How to Tame a Heartbreaker Book 3) (15 page)

More nodding.

"I'm not saying to stop looking out for the other three, because you're an amazing big brother and they need you to do that, but you have to set goals for yourself, Jack."

"I know."

"It starts with keeping your grades up, okay?"

"Okay."

"Why are you getting onto Jack?" Abby asked, only hearing the last part of the conversation since she'd been off hiding the chocolate chips. "We just got report cards Friday. He got all A's and only one B."

"You did?" Taylor asked, looking at Jack. He nodded and she reached out to rough up his hair. "Why didn't you just say so? Good job, baby brother. How'd you do?" she asked, turning to Abby.

"Three C's and the rest B's. One A in P.E."

"What about you Lexie?"

"I'm not saying."

"Alexis got two D's," Jack said.

"I did not."

"Yes you did. Don't lie." Jack looked at Taylor.

"Ask mom, she'll tell you."

"Ask mom what?" Jennifer said from the doorway of the kitchen.

"If Alexis made two D's on her report card." Jennifer smiled. "Yeah, that's
my
daughter," she said. "I never did like school either."

Taylor wanted to say Lexie might like it if she had a little encouragement, but she kept her mouth closed. It was something she'd said a hundred times before, and it never changed anything. Ben kept his mouth closed as well. In fact, he hadn't said two words since they'd been inside. He was probably mortified, but there was nothing Taylor could do. At least she'd tried to warn him.

Chapter 17

Taylor spent the next hour washing dishes, scrubbing the bathroom and picking up around the trailer. Ben took the kids outside to play when she first started, and she'd been so busy that she hadn't even really peeked outside to see what they were up to.

Usually when she came to visit, she'd spend a few hours or even half a day, that way she'd have time to clean
and
play with her brothers and sisters. With Ben there, however, she didn't want to stay that long. She was relieved that he took them outside so she could get the cleaning done quickly.

The smell of ammonia from urine was the most predominant scent when they first came in, but by the time Taylor was done cleaning the bathroom and letting the trailer air out a little it was better. It still smelled like a daycare in there, but it was certainly a lot less offensive than when they arrived. Taylor hoped it wasn't as bad as she thought. She told herself she was just being overly sensitive to it since Ben was with her.

Taylor took a good, long look at herself in the bathroom mirror before she went outside to find Ben and the kids. During the last hour, she'd worked herself up and was harboring resentment toward Ben for making her let him come there.
He should not have seen any of this.
The life Taylor grew up in didn't have
anything
to do with the person she was now, and she was pissed at him for seeing it.

"Mom you have to do something about those little cockroaches. That's gross," she said, as she went back into the main area of the trailer where Jennifer and Charles were still sitting watching TV.

"Charles got some spray, he just hattent used it yet," her mom said.

"You can't leave food out," Taylor said. "That's why they keep coming back."

She glanced at the television screen and realized they were watching some sort of murder mystery. There was a bloody, dead body surrounded by police tape. Taylor instantly started to feel lightheaded but reminded herself that it was all in her head and her body was, in fact, functioning properly.

"And you shouldn't be watching this shit around the kids," she said. It may have come out a little more harshly than she intended, but she was already pissed and embarrassed about Ben being there and now she was having to look at dead bodies on the television screen.

"Well, thanks for the advice Miss High and Mighty."

Taylor wanted to say, "You're welcome, and you better start following it if you ever want to get your life together," but she bit her tongue.

Just then, the door swung open and Abby ran in with a huge smile plastered on her face. "Ben has a big tattoo like The Rock, and muscles too. Henry asked him and he showed us it! He's so cool. He knows how to make a fire by rubbing two sticks together," she said. "He's gonna show us, but we have to find some special kind of grass or something. He told me to come in and get a piece of string."

For crying out loud, this was out of hand already. Taylor gave her a regretful smile. "Oh no, Abbs, we're leaving, baby. I was just coming out there to tell y'all bye."

Abby threw her arms up and slumped over dramatically. "Noooo," she moaned. "He said he could stay as long as you said."

"Well I'm saying it's time to go now."

Abby looked up at her sister with an expression of utter abandonment and hurt.

"Ben's got stuff to do this afternoon," Taylor lied. "I would stay if it was just me, but he's got to be back."

"Nh-uuh," Abby said. "He said he'd bring us to get some Sonic for lunch if we wanted."

Taylor was overwhelmed. The
last
thing she needed was for Ben to be out there making friends with her brothers and sisters. She shook her head. "Abbs, he's trying to be nice because he's a nice guy, but he has to get back to his house."

"Taylor he's our friend too."

She knew this would happen. She knew this would fucking happen. This is
exactly
what she was trying to avoid.

"I could use some Sonic," Charles said lazily from the couch.

If Taylor had been an animal, she would be a bull with steam coming out of her nose and ears. She took a deep breath and reminded herself that compared to Charles, Ben must have been like a superhero to those kids.

Taylor made herself take a second and then a third deep breath. She was tempted to take Ben and run for the hills before any further damage could be caused, but she knew it wasn't very often that they could spend time with a guy who wasn't a total loser. She put a hand on Abby's shoulder. "I'll talk to him," she said. The two of them walked out together leaving Jennifer and Charles to their crime show.

She ended up deciding to let him take the kids to grab lunch. Ben could see that she was a little uncomfortable, but he liked the kids and wanted to treat them. Jack called shotgun on their way to the truck, and since Taylor didn’t have the heart to refuse him, she let him sit in the front with Ben. Abby and Alexis got in the very back, and Taylor sat in the middle row with Henry.

Ben talked with Jack the whole way to Sonic. They talked about school mostly, but during the course of the conversation they started talking about Jack learning how to drive and getting his driver's license. Ben told Jack he'd take him out sometime and let him drive the truck a little bit, which made Taylor laugh nervously and make a comment about just doing driver's ed.

Ben paid for lunch even though Taylor protested. He said it was him who offered to bring them in the first place and it wouldn't be the gentlemanly thing to do to let her pay. She consented, knowing it was a reasonable argument and Jack needed to learn the same type of manners. They brought the food back to the trailer. Henry begged to start eating in the truck but Taylor absolutely wouldn't hear of it.

She reluctantly ordered a couple of hamburgers for her mom and Charles. It wasn't out of the goodness of her heart—she only did it so they wouldn't try to mooch off the kids' food. She thought of their burgers as hushpuppies…

Back in the olden days, kitchens were built separate from the house in case of fire. They were connected by a covered walkway, but built as a separate structure so that if the kitchen caught on fire, they wouldn't lose the house too. Anyway, the cooks would fry little balls of cornbread to throw at the hungry dogs when they brought dinner to the main house. The handy little tools of distraction were key in getting the dogs to leave them alone on their journey, and became known as hushpuppies
.

Taylor brought the bags of food inside and started handing it out to the kids, who all sat around the table. Her mom and Charles were still sitting on the couch no doubt waiting for her to serve them their food. Instead of bringing it into the living room, she set their hushpuppy-hamburgers on the kitchen counter and told them they could come get it. Jennifer came in there and took the bag of burgers from the counter without so much as a thank you.

"Okay, we have to go now kiddos," Taylor said. She'd had all she could stand. They protested, but it was around mouthfuls of food, so it didn't have the same affect.

"Wait, hang on," Henry said. He used a ketchupy hand to dig into the pocket of the athletic shorts he was wearing and pulled out a toy motorcycle. He handed it to Ben.

"What's this?" Ben asked.

"You said you liked it," Henry said.

"I couldn’t take your motorcycle."

"Just borrow it and bring it back next time you come," Henry said. He added a blink that he meant as a wink, letting Ben know he was trying to make a way for him to come back.

Did six-year-olds really think like that?

Ben winked back and put it into his jacket pocket. "I'll play with it and bring it back next time, then."

That whole visit was basically a nightmare for Taylor. She sat in the passenger seat of the truck and stared ahead silently has he backed out and got on the road. Obviously, he picked up on her mood.

"Did I say something wrong?" he asked.

"No, it just puts me in a bad mood that you were there at all."

"What do you mean? I had fun. I thought we all had fun."

"You don't have to act like you enjoyed it. It's disgusting and embarrassing and I'm sorry you had to see it."

He huffed a disbelieving laugh. "Taylor, do you think I
care
what your mama's house looks like?"

"Of course you care. You might say you don't care or even feel like you don't care right now, but somewhere deep inside, it changed the way you see me. It's not your fault. I would feel differently about a guy if he would bring me to a shit hole like that and say he grew up there."

"You don't know what you're talking about Taylor. I loved your little brothers and sisters. They're really cool kids."

She huffed sarcastically. "Who knows how they're turning out halfway normal. I have no idea. It's certainly not Jennifer. And it's not me. I'm not around enough to offer them any help at all."

Ben could see that she was pissed and he should tread lightly. "I'm sorry if my being there made you uncomfortable," he said. "But I really am glad I went. I enjoyed meeting them—all of them, even your mom and Charles."

Taylor gave him a sweet smile even though she didn't feel like it. He was trying to be nice and she couldn't punish him for that. She stared out the window of his truck with a hopeless feeling like whatever chance she had with him was gone now.

"I figured we'd go back to my place," he said a few minutes later. It was Sunday, and Taylor didn't have anything else to do, so going back to his place sounded like a good option even though she was still moody about him meeting her mom. She thought about it for a few long seconds before she decided she wanted to spend some more time with him bad enough to get over whatever reservations she was having.

"I'm okay with that," she said. "What's Molly got going on?"

"I think she and Nick spent the night at the apartment. Her door was closed when I left, and his car was in the parking lot."

"Do you like him?"

"Who? Nick? Of course. He's a nice guy and he's good to Molly."

"Does it help that his dad's Leroy Logan?"

Ben smiled and shrugged. "It's cool saying my sister's dating Leroy Logan's son," he said. "But if he wasn't good to Molly, I'd still beat his ass no matter who his dad was."

"Have you met him?"

"Nick's dad? Yeah, that was a trip. I took a picture with him even though Molly told me to act like I didn't care who he was when we met."

"Oh, I totally cared when I met him," Taylor said. "Even meeting Cam wasn't that big of a deal compared to how I felt when I met Leroy Logan. I think it's because I grew up with his music."

"When did you meet him?" Ben asked.

"At Jason's one night, but he and Nick's mom are actually trying to hire me to plan a party."

"I thought they were divorced."

"They are."

"What's the party for?"

"Their anniversary."

"Are you serious?"

"No," she said laughing.

"It's something about his career. I think it's like a ka-zillion records sold or something. I haven't worked out the details with her yet, or I would know for sure."

"It's cool that they're hiring you."

"Well not yet, officially. Mostly we've been playing phone tag, but I think I have the job."

"What'd your mom think about you rubbing elbows with all these famous people?" 

"Oh, she has no idea."

"Really?"

"No," she said. "They're not ready for that kind of information."

Ben hated that she felt like she couldn't tell her family what she was doing, but didn't press the subject. They were quiet during the last few minutes of the drive. Neither of them ate lunch at Sonic. Both of them were still full from Waffle House, and decided to skip it. Ben figured he had enough food around the apartment for them to whip up something if they got hungry.

Molly was sitting at the dining room table when Ben and Taylor got to the apartment. She explained that she and Nick had just gotten back from a hike and that he was on the patio talking on the phone.

Ben went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of water. He leaned against cabinets as he drank half the glass in one gulp. After a second, he held the glass of water out to Taylor as if to ask if she wanted a sip.

She laughed. "No thank you."

"You want your own?"

"I'm good."

He leaned back and drank what was left. "Come on," he said, still looking at Taylor. He used a cock of the head to indicate that she should follow him. She looked at Molly with a confused expression as she followed him into the bedroom. He stopped at the door and motioned with an arm for her to walk in ahead of him. Taylor went into his bedroom and he closed the door behind them. She turned to face him with a curious expression.

"Can I please kiss you?" he asked. She didn't expect him to say that. He hadn't kissed her the night before at Jason's even though he had ample opportunity, and she certainly didn't feel too kissable now that he'd met her mom and Charles. Her expression reflected her confusion. "You're thinking about it too much," he said, moving closer. He cupped her jaw in his hand. "Just let me do it."