Chapter 6

*

"Babe I'm hungry." I rolled my eyes. He called me to say that? He couldn't just wait until I got home? It was literally a fifteen-minute drive from the school I worked at to our house.

"Lydia didn't cook?" Lydia was our housekeeper. She usually cooked before she left.

"I told her not to. I want your cooking." Ben could be so weird.

"Well, you shouldn't have done that because I'm tired." I said.

"But I have a surprise for you, and you can only get it after you cook."

"Pretty sure I can get it whenever I want." I glanced at a restaurant as I drove by it wondering if I should get us some food. I decided against it, now that he suggested it, I actually felt like cooking.

"I'm not talking about sex." I could hear the frown in his voice and I laughed.

"What surprise?" I asked. I liked surprises. Especially when they were tickets to football games. Is my birthday soon? No. What surprise... and why?

"Wouldn't you like to know. I want pasta." He said.

I grit my teeth annoyed before I sighed. "Fine."

"See you, I love you." He said.

"I love you too." I listened as the call ended in my ear.

Ben and I had been together for five years now. I was currently teaching art at a high school while selling some art in galleries as well. Ben ran a courier company that he shared with Sergio and we had moved to a town close to the ocean. We were doing well. I really didn't think this would happen.

When we began dating I figured one of us (probably me) would get bored in less than a year and we would break up. We didn't. At the time the feeling of constantly wanting to see him and stay with him felt incredibly abnormal to me, even though it was nice. I guess I had refused to believe I was in love with him, and so it had taken about a year and a half for me to stop telling myself we were temporary and actually allow myself to get close to him. I only introduced him to my family a few weeks before our 2nd year anniversary. They were shocked. More about the fact that I had managed to see only one person for two years than by the fact that I had not told any of them about this person. Yeah, even my parents thought I was incapable of having a committed relationship.

Ben, on the other hand, introduced me to Tony, his cousin and the only family he spoke to, about three weeks after we began dating. He kept on making fun of me for the car incident and Tony was left confused about my constant glaring at his cousin while Ben laughed. Unfortunately, Tony died in a car accident a few months later. Ben was crushed but being himself, he tried to hide it and pretend to be his usual cold, tough self. I'm not the type of person that lets the people I care about suffer so I convinced him he could let it out around me. He did and that's when he began trusting me, long before I trusted him.

Obviously. Since Ben isn't someone anyone could trust upon first meeting him and I have a way of getting people to trust me, probably because it's really easy for me to care about people once I've known them for more than a month.

I parked my car in the parking lot at a grocery store and began looking for the ingredients I wasn't sure we had. Between Ben and I, we could both make a decent meal, his was edible. My food was just way than his better. He usually accused me of being too good at everything. I'm not going to lie or deny it, I'm pretty perfect.

"Sergio?" I was more than surprised to see him in one of the isles.

"Jordan, hey!" I chuckled as we greeted each other with a hug.

"What are you doing here?" He lived with Alexander, literally halfway across the world. Sometimes they visited and sometimes he had work here.

"Just work. I thought I would get to have lunch with you and Ben but we've been really busy at the dock and I'm flying out tonight. I guess we'll see you around Christmas." We all usually spent Christmas with my family since Alexander was practically my brother.

"You've been at the dock all day? Did you land today?" He should be exhausted.

"No, a couple of days ago." He said, "Oh, Ben didn't tell you I was here." He nodded slowly.

Ben didn't usually talk about Sergio, I knew it was a little awkward for him to since he used to be attracted to him, but he normally told me when Sergio was around. We usually all hung out when he was in town, especially when we hadn't seen him in a while and it had been months.

"Maybe he saw no need to. Your fault, you should have called. You could have had some pasta." I laughed as his face dropped.

"What?! I want some – Damn it." We laughed.

"Maybe next time. What time's your flight?" I asked.

"A couple of hours, I'm headed to the airport right now. Needed to get a snack." He said. "I'll call you first next time I'm here." He frowned. I laughed. We greeted each other before he headed towards he tills.

I found what I needed to and paid for everything before I drove towards our house happy. Despite how sceptical I had always been about relationships, it proved to be amazing. Or maybe it was Ben. He always acted like an asshole but he was really sweet beyond that. I felt special being the one person he always let his cold persona disappear around.

When I reached home, I left my car outside beside Ben's and walked into our house.

"Ben?" I called.

He walked in pointing at the phone he held to his ear and I nodded but chuckled when he kissed me despite being on the phone. He smiled once he pulled back.

"Yes. Sounds good, just email it to me. Goodbye." he hung up. "How was work?"

"Great. You won't believe what –"

"Aaron painted? How do you manage to make me feel so jealous of the art skills of a fifteen-year-old?" He frowned. I laughed. Aaron was my top student, and a crazy passionate art enthusiast. Ben could draw something that looked like either a dog or a rat depending on how much you squinted, and he could paint blobs. I always thought he would fit well into the kindergarten class I sometimes visited.

"We have that conference coming up. You coming?" I asked.

"Sure, I'd love to mingle with your colleagues." I rolled my eyes. Only because they all thought he was good looking.

"How was the dock?" I asked.

"Lots of horns. Lots of crates." I laughed at his reply. "I'm thinking of switching jobs." he said as I followed him to the kitchen. I raised my brows putting the bags down.

"You are?"

"Could be about time, I'll just hire someone else to manage the site and I'll search for something else." He said.

"You're bored?" I asked. "Wash these." I handed him some vegetables.

"Exactly." He confirmed.

"Sounds great. I'd just prefer it if we don't move." I said.

"I'll try to get something close, can't rob those poor students of their favourite teacher." He said. I chuckled. I knew I was everyone's favourite. I was younger than most of the teachers that taught at the school and tried to understand all of my students and be as approachable as possible.

"Thanks. Hey, I ran into Sergio at the store." I said. He gave a nod.

"He had some work here. We were really busy so I figured we couldn't hang out, also he insisted on sleeping on the boat – so don't tell me about being inhospitable." He said.

I nodded watching him as he finished washing the last tomato before I smiled as he turned to me.

"Done. Now what?" He asked. I laughed.

We finished dinner, him assisting me as I instructed him to grab and stir stuff before we sat down at the kitchen island. We had a dining room that we barely used when we didn't have people over because both Ben and I thought carrying food to it and back was too much work, so we usually just ended up eating in the kitchen.

"Oh! You owe me a surprise!" I grinned putting my fork down before I could even touch my food, Ben had already dug in.

"Ah, I was hoping you would forget about that." He looked guilty and I gasped.

"You lied?!" I asked shocked.

"No." he smirked grabbing an envelope from above the refrigerator.

I rolled my eyes wondering why I was attracted to someone so good at lying as I took the envelope from him. It was a plain white envelope with no name or address on it and I tore it open slowly.

I pulled out the letter on the inside and unfolded it before I ran my eyes over the words on the page.

"No way." I whispered when I finished it. I looked up to see him smiling at me from across the table. "How?" I looked back at the letter to confirm that I had read what I had thought I read.

"Friend of a friend owns the gallery, and he loves your work so it was really easy to convince him." He said. I got up and he chuckled as I basically tackled him in a hug.

Somehow, he had managed to get me an entire display in an incredibly popular gallery.

"Don't you love me?" He smirked.

"Yes, almost as much as I love myself." I joked. I laughed as he frowned and hugged him again before planting a kiss on his lips. "I love you. Thank you, Babe." I said. He still didn't entirely understand art and the entire industry baffled him so him doing this meant so much.

"I love you too. So much." He chuckled hugging me tightly.

I sat down beside him still gleaming at the letter and he laughed as he began eating again. I pulled my plate over to me as his phone began ringing and he answered it.

"Steve?" I recognised the name. It was one of the people he worked with. "What do you mean? But we... No, don't do anything, I'll take care of it... I said I'll take care of it; don't tell anyone, I'm on my way." Ben frowned as he hung up.

"What's up?" I asked as he stood up.

"They spilt some stuff in the water, God knows how. I have to get it cleaned up before anyone notices. You don't have to wait up." He said.

"Good luck." He glared at me and I chuckled waving him off.

He left and I shook my head. If anyone noticed it they could just say it was a mistake by the crew and they were cleaning it up, I doubt they would get fined for it because all the products were in tightly sealed bags which were easy to draw from the water. They were probably going to have to refund all of the people the packages belonged to though. I didn't get why he was so nervous about it.

When I finished my food, I cleaned up and went straight to bed because I had school the next morning. Somewhere into the night, I felt Ben kiss my temple as he climbed into bed and I smiled leaning my head onto his shoulder.

*