Whatever Happens

Chapter 13

"What is this?" I asked, glancing between Ben and the car radio. I'd just turned the radio on and some awful song started playing. It didn't even sound like a song. Just a lot of disjointed sounds, attempting to pass as music.

Ben smirked and didn't look away from the road.

"It's Hailey's," he said.

Unable to take it anymore, I turned it off. "You let her play that in your car?" I said in disbelief. "You wouldn't even let me play actual music."

Ben laughed. "Your actual music puts me to sleep."

I frowned. One of our only musical disagreements was about classical music. I loved it. Ben hated it.

"At least it has a musical sound, and won't give you a headache," I said. "What is that even?"

"No idea," he said. "But she loves it."

I shook my head and smirked at him.

He glanced between me and the road a few times and sighed. "Occasionally, you have to give a little," he said. "She hates football, so we compromised."

"Where's the decent music?" I wondered. Ben's car didn't have bluetooth, so we were still relying on CDs.

"In the back," he said.

Reaching back, I found the black case and started flipping through. When I spotted an old burned CD, I laughed and quickly switched it with Hailey's awful one.

"Oh no." Ben laughed when the first song started playing.

In middle school, I was completely obsessed with Justin Beiber's music. Now I thought it was a little stupid, but I still kind of loved playing it once in a while. Mostly just to irritate Ben.

Grinning, I started singing along, and Ben glanced at me, looking like a martyr.

We'd only been able to get through half of the CD by the time Ben pulled the car to a stop in front of his house and shut the engine off.

"Well, that was a long ride," he said as we got out of the car.

"You know you always loved Justin," I teased.

Ben just gave me one of his looks as our moms came over to meet us, having heard the car pull up.

"New girlfriend, Sweetie?" his mom said, hugging him.

I laughed and hugged my mom.

"My girlfriend is actually a girl," Ben said as we switched and hugged each other's moms.

"But Justin's music is so much better than Hailey's," I said.

Ben frowned and our moms looked confused.

"How long do you have?" Mom asked.

"Just until Sunday," I said with a sigh.

We were home for Thanksgiving. Unfortunately, I'd had to work earlier today, so we hadn't been able to leave very early. Thanksgiving wasn't until tomorrow, but it was already late afternoon.

"Well, I for one do not want to wait a minute longer to hear about Dean," Ben's mom said making me blush.

I hadn't mentioned actually having a boyfriend to either one of our moms. I looked at Ben and he shrugged.

"Come on." Mom laughed, pulling me toward the house. "Ben can take care of your bag. We're in the middle of cooking for tomorrow."

They pulled me onward and I threw a semi-irritated look at Ben. I'd gotten used to Dean being my boyfriend, but I wasn't necessarily ready to talk about him with our moms. They were undoubtedly going to ask a million embarrassing questions that I didn't want to answer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"And he waited all that time to even kiss you?" Mom asked as she and Ben's mom admired my bracelet.

My face was pretty red from the constant line of questions about Dean and what we had and had not done yet. I nodded and hoped they were getting bored with the topic.

"Our little Becca bear's all grown up," Ben's mom said making my mom laugh.

Ben came into the kitchen just then, apparently looking for food.

"You haven't asked Ben about Hailey yet!" I pounced on the possibility of a subject change.

Ben just looked at me, seeming amused.

"I'm sure I've gotten all the information out of Ben that I'm going to," his mom said, sounding disapproving.

Ben grinned, as if to say 'nice try' and I frowned at him.

Our moms continued the embarrassing questions and for a few minutes, Ben leaned against the counter, enjoying my humiliation.

"So do you see a real future with this boy?" Mom asked.

"I don't know," I said. "I mean, it's still really early, but... maybe." I thought about what Jackson said about Dean honestly enjoying my company and not rushing the physical stuff because he had future plans, and I smiled a little. "Yeah," I said. "I think so."

They seemed so happy and continued on with their quest to embarrass me to death. At some point, I glanced at Ben again. He no longer looked amused. If I wasn't mistaken, he seemed a little sad.

I couldn't help but wonder if he was beginning to feel it too - us pulling apart. Was it only a matter of time before we weren't very close at all?

The closer I got with Dean, the more I would automatically distance myself from Ben. And it was the same with him and Hailey. It didn't matter how hard we tried not to, eventually, we would get very serious with other people, and it would only be natural for us to be more distant with each other.

"I know we haven't talked about this much before," Mom said, making me suspicious with her tone. "But now that you're thinking of getting serious, we really should talk about you being safe."

My face must have turned scarlet. I heard Ben laugh before he, mercifully, left the kitchen.

"Mom, really!" I tried. "It's okay. You don't need to-"

"Just listen, Sweetie," she said, clearly not planning to let me get out of this humiliation.

And so, red-faced and wishing the floor would open up, I endured a fairly unnecessary sex talk with mine and Ben's mom. I guess they never felt the need before, since I never even hinted at having a boyfriend before now. It was sort of sweet, but it was just so incredibly embarrassing.

I was absolutely going to kill Ben for telling them about Dean.