Sweet as a Strawberry

21 ~ Sweet as a Pie

A/N: in case of any confusion: garage=gas station, okay? they live in England, so...yeah. and dedicated to InLoveWithANorweigan because of the darling cover that she made me!

Chapter 21: Sweet as a Pie

I bit my lip and turned my head to look at Ben. My brow furrowed worriedly. For the past half an hour, he'd been silent, his hands slowly growing whiter and whiter from how hard he was holding the steering wheel.

I was about to stretch out my hand towards him, but then I remembered how he'd snapped at me before. I breathed out and cracked my knuckles.

Do it, Lottie. When have I ever bothered about his snappiness anyways?

"Ben?" I said softly.

He didn't acknowledge me in the slightest. Did he not hear me?

"What's the matter?" I said, raising my voice. I gently touched his shoulder.

Ben jumped. He glanced at me, and his hands relaxed on the wheel. "Nothing," he said tightly.

"Then why do you look constipated?" I asked.

Ben relaxed some more. "Just, can you just keep talking to me?" he said in a low voice.

"Stupid stuff or deep stuff?"

"Anything. Just...talk."

I hummed under my breath and stroked my chin. Anything, he said. "I like to write," I told him.

"Is that so, Miss English Major?"

I laughed and shoved his shoulder. He barely even moved because of how little my force affected him, which made me laugh harder. "No," I said. "I mean, I really like to write. I like to create characters and give them a personality. I like to see what they would do in any given situation and then write it down because I want to get to know my own creation. They're like little people thriving off of me and I like it when they develop and then I become so proud of them, like I'm their mother or something. It's really cool to me that when you step back and look at a piece of writing, and you realise that you wrote that, and you see how your babies have lived their lives, and you cry for them, and laugh at them, and when their story is over, it's really sad because it's almost as if you haven't been making them up, but they're actual people."

I paused for a breath, and looked at Ben, who wasn't speaking at all. I thought back to what I said and realised that maybe I just painted myself as a total lunatic. Plus, my smile was as large as my face, and I think it creeped him out a bit.

"I'm sorry, I'm just really weird about this kinda stuff," I said. "I'm not crazy, I don't think my characters are actually real, I just-"

"Hey," Ben interrupted. "Don't apologise."

And he didn't even have to say anything else, because that was enough to get me blushing like a tomato. It made my insides twist up whenever he spoke to me, because even though he didn't say anything particularly sweet, it still made me happy. I could catch his underlying meaning despite him not saying anything.

He was driving one-handed, his left hand resting casually on the mini-table between our seats. I glanced down at it and flexed my own hands. Should I do it? What if he just pulled away and made me feel super awkward?

Brush it off if he does that, you wuss. No risk, no reward.

I took a deep breath, calming myself. I looked at Ben, and was once again floored by his good looks. My goodness, he was such a good looking guy. Stop it, Lottie. Focus. No, not on his pretty eyes.