Eternal Flame

Chapter 18

Ezra's POV
Ben waves when he sees me waiting by the gate and starts walking towards me after saying goodbye to his friends.

Knowing that moving in with us was enough of a change, Aria and I decided to keep him in this school. After all, this is where he has his friends, where he feel comfortable, and while making friends at his age is relatively easy, we want this process to be easy for him.

"Hi Ezra."

"Hey, Ben." I say to the little one, as I ruffle his hair, "Where's your coat?"

"It's inside. I'll go get it." He says and runs towards the building before I can say anything else. Knowing that his stature won't allow him to reach it, I follow him and quickly find the little guy struggling to get his coat.

"Do you want my help?" I ask, laughing.

"Yes, please." He replies.

With his coat on and after saying goodbye to everyone, we head to the car and leave once we have our seatbelts on.

"What do you want to do when we get home?"

"I don't know..." he replies, looking out the window, "Can we play basketball?"

"Sure. But we won't have a lot of time. The game starts at 6pm."

"Oh, right! I'd forgotten about it." He giggles and I smile at him through the rearview mirror.

When we arrive, Ben asks me to help him put his Golden State Warriors jersey on, "go ahead. I'll text Aria and join you in a bit. Be careful." I say and he runs to the backyard after getting the ball.

After texting Aria telling her we're home and are going to play basketball in the backyard for a while, I go to our bedroom to get my snickers. She quickly replies saying she'll be working a bit later than usual and would leave in about an hour. I tell her not to worry that I'd take care of everything and then go downstairs to play with Ben.

(...)

After a while playing outside, it starts getting dark so we go inside. "The game is about to start." I say as I look at the clock on the living room wall, "Do you want to eat or drink anything?"

"Can you get me a cup of water, please?"

"Of course." I reply and go to the kitchen to get it.

After watching the first half of the game with him, I get up and say "I'm going to get dinner started, ok? But you can stay here and watch the rest of the game."

"Where's Aria?

"She's a little bit late but she'll be here soon."

"Ok." He replies and returns his attention to the tv.

"Call me if you need me." I tell him and go to the kitchen.

It hasn't been a week since Ben moved in with us and I think we're all adapting very well to this new life. He's an amazing child. He hasn't given us a reason to complain and even though we know he isn't 100% comfortable with us, he's getting there. After everything he went through, we don't expect him to trust us right away but I hope that day comes.

We've spent a lot of time together lately and Aria and I have been trying to bond with him as much as possible. We haven't introduced him to anyone yet because he's shy and we know that bombarding him with new people wouldn't help the process so we decided to give him a little time. However, Ella is growing more and more excited every day and I wonder if she'll just stop by one of these days to meet him.