𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘐 𝘭𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘳 • 𝘣𝘦𝘯 𝘣𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘴 [✔]

chapter forty one.

Ben walked with Edward to his car. Their last minute meeting had ended and Edward offered to pay for lunch for the both of them. Right when he unlocked his phone, he noticed a missed call from Claudia. He immediately called her back.

"Hey," he said into the phone. "are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just wanted to call and apologize for leaving you alone last night. You could've woken me up." Claudia said.

"You needed sleep, Claudia. I wasn't going to take that from you," he chuckled. "What are you doing?"

"I'm driving back to my house. The meeting ended and I have some interesting news-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but did you say you're driving? And you're talking on the phone with me? I'll call you when you're at your house." He replied.

"I'm at least a minute away, Ben, I'll make it. But I was wondering if you'd like to go on an adventure?"

Truth was Claudia was eager to find Lara and reunite her mom with her longtime best friend. She, of course, had to do some more digging around her mom's old yearbook and other things she could find that had a clue on where Lara could be. She had to admit, it was going to be a challenge, but she was determined to reunite the two women once again.

"Does this involve running away from someone?" Ben questioned.

"What? No, why would I need to run away from someone?"

"No reason, but if you do need to run away from someone, I know . . . people."

Claudia didn't know if he was joking or not. "Well, no running away from someone. Come over, I need some help."

"Okay," he said rather quickly. After hitting the end call button on his phone screen, he turned his attention to Edward, who was busy playing some game on his phone. "I'm going to have to cancel lunch. Claudia needs me."

Edward looked up from his phone. "Yeah, go ahead. I'm not going to get in the way of you and your new girlfriend, who happens to be the daughter of my girlfriend. Damn, I'll stop talking because you're giving me that face you make when you're irritated."

"What face?" Ben said, definitely giving Edward an irritating look. He just wanted to meet up with Claudia.

"Nevermind, go!"

So Ben got into his car and drove to Claudia's house wondering what she needed him for.

(:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅[̲̅:♡:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅)

Ben knocked on the front door, waiting patiently for Claudia to open the door. When she did, Ben noticed she had a Tinkerbell bandaid above her eyebrow.

"Okay, great, get in here!" Claudia grabbed his hand and forced him inside the house. "My mom is going to be home in three hours so this has to be fast."

"Oh?" Ben gulped.

"You got here fast. But whatever, I need you and only you. I didn't want anyone else here besides you." Claudia explained as they went upstairs to her room.

"I'm flattered, Claudia, really."

"Well, yeah, you're the only one I trust to do this with me." Claudia opened her bedroom door to reveal a stack of yearbooks and papers scattered around her bed.

Ben stood confused. "Wait what?"

Claudia grabbed one of Janis' yearbook. "I'm going to find my mom's best friend from school. What did you think I needed you for?"

"Not this . . . but I'll help in anyway I can." He sighed.

"Thank you so much. You don't know how much it means to me. Holy shit, I'm so happy right now I could kiss you." Claudia smiled brightly. She started looking through the papers her mom kept in the attic that were related to Lara.

But Ben couldn't focus. He kept replaying her words in his head. She was so happy she could kiss him. Either way, he loved how happy she was at the moment. She was so excited to find Lara because she knew how much she meant to Janis. All Ben cared about was helping Claudia. By helping her, he got to see his favorite thing about her. Her smile.

An: here's a new update because y'all deserve it <3 thank you again for the support!!! I LOVE YOU ALL GUYS GALS AND NONBINARY PALS