More than Anyone

Making out with one's former enemy was an interesting experience. Kissing Olivia, it felt so natural yet there was almost a hint of it being forbidden at the same time. Their budding relationship wasn't being kept a secret from anyone. There wasn't a need for that. But still, there was this sense of wrongdoing; that being with her in a romantic sense wasn't how things were supposed to be. It was difficult to explain and he couldn't quite place his finger on it. He loved making her smile and laugh and whenever they went out, he reveled in every touch, every look, every kiss and hug she bestowed upon him.

Perhaps there was a sense of oddity to it because this was the kind of relationship he had always wanted for himself. Olivia knew exactly who he was, what kind of life he had, the money and possibility of living a certain kind of life, and she didn't care. She had known him before she knew about the hotels and what his last name involved. He knew it sounded strange but he loved the fact that before, she had hated him for him and not for anything else. With her, it was always about the person he was and not the money he had or the hotels or the lifestyle. With her, it was always just him. And that was wonderful.

They were in that first stage of a relationship - the fun part. The getting to know you part. The whole exciting part when everything was fresh and new and you couldn't get enough of any of it.

“Tell me something about you,” Olivia said one night with them lying on the couch in her apartment.

The windows were open: cars honking, a dog barking somewhere off in the distance, the L train rumbling past. There was a gentle breeze blowing up the river from the lake and it cooled the room down to a comfortable temperature. Ben laid on his back with Olivia lying on her side, smashed between him and the back cushions. She was partially on top of him, her hand resting on his chest, directly over his heart. He was playing with her hair, twisting random locks around his finger. He had been right. Her hair was as soft as he imagined it being. Her other hand was tracing his face, her pointer finger running over the angles and curves, occasionally making him laugh when her airy touch tickled him.

“Like what?” His eyes closed briefly when she traced his eyebrows before dropping down to brush across his eyelashes.

“Like…” she paused for a moment, moving her body up slightly on top of his. “Like where you got this scar,” she said, rubbing the small scar on his right cheek bone.

Ben chuckled softly. “There’s no grand story there,” he said. “When I was learning how to shave, I cut myself really bad.”

“Oh,” she said and he laughed again. She leaned up and placed a gentle kiss on the scar making him smile and cup her head in between his hands. She smiled at him, staring down into his eyes. “Well, if anyone else asks, I’ll tell them a much manlier story.”

“Thanks,” Ben grinned, pulling her head down so their mouths were centimeters apart. Their hot breath mingled and hers smelled like peppermint from the ice cream she had had earlier that evening. It turned out that Olivia loved all flavors of ice cream. He was enjoying everything he was finding out about her. “And do you have any scars?” The question made her smile disappear and he instantly became alarmed. “Livi…”

“I have one,” she answered softly, slowly moving off of him.

“I’m sorry,” Ben apologized quickly, sitting up, trying to touch her again but she shook her head. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Oh, you haven’t,” she said, offering a weak smile followed by a shaky sigh. “I actually have been trying to think of a time to tell you since…” she trailed off and Ben slowly put an arm around her shoulders. “Since eventually, you and me will… well, you’ll see me naked.”

Ben nodded his head just because he wasn’t too sure what to say or do at the moment. He wasn’t sure what she was talking about or what she was about to tell him. So he waited.

Tears began to sting her eyes. She suddenly turned her head and planted a firm kiss on his lips. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she lifted her long sleeve tee-shirt up, slipping it off over her head. She leaned back into the couch and Ben’s eyes immediately raked over her body, pausing at her breasts covered by the yellow cotton bra before falling upon a large scar on her lower stomach.

“Jesus Christ,” he whispered and before he could stop himself, he let his fingertips touch it. Olivia didn’t stop him. He leaned down and looked at it a bit closer. It was an old scar.

“I’ve only had sex one time,” she said, her voice a bit shaky as he lifted his eyes to look at her. “It was in college and I was drunk. I had been so upset because Toby had gone off with some girl and it’s stupid but I thought that maybe he wasn’t with me because I was a some innocent little virgin so I was so upset, I just kept drinking and drinking and then I found some guy.” She put her own fingers on the scar. “I got pregnant.”

Ben stared at her, not sure how to react. He never would have guessed. The thought of her pregnant was honestly something that never would have crossed his mind.

“No one knew except my mom and Violet,” Olivia continued. “I was able to hide the weight really well. I was going to have it. I planned on that. I just didn’t know if I was going to give it up for adoption or keep it.” She fell quiet for a moment and Ben kneeled down on the floor in front of her between her knees, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I miscarried in my fifth month. And the doctor wanted to induce labor so I could push it out.” Tears formed in her eyes, blurring her vision, and she blinked quickly. “But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t push a baby out of me that I knew wasn’t alive. So I had them do a cesarean. The scar… I’m glad it hasn’t gone away. But that’s why Sophia calls me a dyke. She thinks because I’m barely in relationships, because I don’t show interest in guys, except Toby, she thinks I’m gay. So when you thought that too…”

She closed her eyes. She had never told anyone about the baby. She rarely even thought about it anymore. But this was Ben. He had become her best friend and now he was becoming something much more and something very important. She felt the need to tell him everything. There shouldn’t be any secrets between them. They couldn’t build anything together with secrets between them.

Without hesitating, Ben dropped a light kiss onto the scar that made her open her eyes. He kissed the scar again, his hands sliding up her sides to under her arms. Olivia smiled faintly, gripping his upper arms as he brushed his lips up her stomach. He lifted his head and looked at her. He pulled her forward into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around her as she circled her arms around his shoulders. He tilted his head up and kissed her. “Thank you,” he said softly. “Thank you so much for telling me that.”

She pressed her forehead against his. “I had to tell you.”

“No, you didn’t,” he argued. “So what if I finally got you naked and I saw the scar? It wouldn’t have been any of my business.”

Olivia rested her hands on his cheeks, smiling. “Well, I think it is. You’re my boyfriend and not only that, you’re my friend.” She laughed when Ben breathed heavily, burying his face in the side of her neck. “It’s so strange,” she said, scratching the back of his head. He knew he liked when she did that. “You’ve become so important to me, Ben.”

He pulled his head back to look at her, an amused smile. “And that’s strange?”

“Yes,” she smiled, almost laughing. “I mean, I really hated you.”

He nodded his head. “But you always love the ones you hate.” He paused. “Or something like that,” he said and she laughed, giving him a playful kiss still laughing against his lips.

He wrapped his arms tighter around her, one hand on the back of her head so he could kiss her a bit deeper. She moaned softly into his mouth, pulling him to her so their chests pressed together. The feel of her breasts, nothing between them and his hands but a thin cotton bra, made Ben begin to get hard in his jeans. He kissed her harder, hoping to stop the erection. After what Olivia had told him, he didn’t want to freak her out by getting a hard on and pressing it against her thigh or something like that. There was a time to get an erection and then there was not and this was definitely one of the times not to get one.

“Ben,” she whispered breathlessly, pulling her head back. She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head slightly.

Ben smiled, shaking his own head and kissing her lightly. “Hey. Don’t worry about it. I just can’t believe you called me your boyfriend.”

Her brow furrowed. “Well, aren’t you?”

He laughed loudly, happily, before burying his head once again in the side of her neck and hair. He squeezed his arms around her. “Oh, Livi,” he said softly, kissing her shoulder. Olivia smiled, her fingers digging gently into his shoulder blades, not wanting to let him go. “Part of me still can’t believe all of this.”

“I know what you mean,” she whispered, kissing the shell of his ear. “It feels a bit…”

“Strangely natural,” Ben finished for her and she smiled, her breath on the skin of his cheek as her nose grazed past. “Did you think we would ever be like this? Or that it would ever be this charged?”

“No and no,” she answered truthfully and he smirked, his teeth grazing her collarbone.

“Ben? Can I ask you something?” She asked softly. She still hadn’t raised her voice since she told him the story of the scar. It was as if the mood had suddenly changed and it was a mood that required the air to be quiet.

He looked at her. “After what you just told me, you can ask me anything.”

Olivia rested her hands on his cheeks, brushing her thumbs over his cheek bones. She stared into his blue eyes for a moment before brushing one of her thumbs across his lips. “I don’t understand why you lied to me about who you were. Why did you keep it from me? Did something happen to you?”

He sighed softly. It was the question he had been waiting for. Normally, he would have avoided it but he couldn’t possibly now. Not after she had told him something that no one except her mother and Violet knew. What kind of asshole would he be? She could show him hers but he couldn’t show her his? That wasn’t right.

Kissing her chin, he moved back until he was sitting on the coffee table, his hands sliding to rest on her thighs. Olivia watched him, her hands rubbing his arms soothingly, encouraging him to tell her everything.

“Well,” he started with a deep breath, avoiding her eyes and instead looking at the scar on her stomach. She deserved to know this. “I was twenty years old and very, very stupid.” He took another breath. “Her name was Jillian Phillips and I thought she was the greatest thing to ever happen to me. No one else seemed to think so but I wasn’t going to listen to them. I knew Jillian was the one for me. My dad tried to get me to break it off but I wouldn’t.” He paused, silently recalling the countless fights he had had with his father, the tension between the two men that had been wasted over that stupid bitch. When his father died, that was what he regretted. That for the last years of Patrick Norfolk’s life, his only son had spent them fighting with him.

“Jillian knew who I was, obviously. Well, rather, she knew who my family was. She wanted to be a model so I took care of it. I paid for studio time, portfolios, hair, makeup, clothes… everything. I never for a second fathomed that she was using me. I thought she loved me.” Ben smirked bitterly. “My parents had set up this trust fund for me. I would either get it when I turned twenty-five or if I got married before that. Jillian found out and wonders upon wonders, she suddenly wanted to get married. I was ecstatic. My father was furious.”

Olivia squeezed his arms to let him know that he could tell her.

“My dad died and Jillian showed up in this low-cut black dress, showing herself off, introducing herself as my fiancée and telling all of my father’s business associates that I was going to help her with her modeling career. She pulled this shit at my father’s funeral.” He paused, shaking his head slightly. “I just hate that my dad couldn’t see me when I realized what kind of person she was.”

“I’m sorry,” Olivia whispered.

“She wrote me while we were in Scotland. She actually had the audacity to write me and ask if I would meet for dinner. She never understood why I had gotten so upset with her, why I had ended things. She actually thought that I wanted to see her again.” He finally looked at her. “It amazes me what people would do for just a little bit of money. Jillian doesn’t have a conscious. She’s a cold-hearted bitch and I honestly and truly hate her. But I have to thank her. She made me very careful as to who I got close to in my life. She made me stop being naïve and made me realize that I can’t trust everyone.”

Olivia offered him a faint, if not sad, smile then kissed him lightly, shortly and sweetly on the lips. “I’m sorry for what she did to you.”

He shook his head. “Liv, listen to me. I’m not taking this relationship lightly. I know it’s just starting out and we’re not too sure where it’s headed but I’m so sick of bullshit. I’m twenty-seven years old. I don’t want angst or drama or stupid things like ‘You did it so I did it’. I just don’t want any part of shit like that.”

“I don’t want that either,” she said softly.

“Okay then,” he said. “I think that if you and me are going to be together, let’s just be together. There’s no point to us bullshitting each other. You’ve gotten hurt before and I’ve gotten hurt before. We used to hate each other but now look at us. We just have to be together. I mean, all of this has to mean something, don’t you think?”

She nodded her head, too dumbfounded to talk. She wasn’t sure if she had ever heard Ben speak so passionately, so openly in such a soul-baring manner. She honestly could only nod.

He nodded his head as well, staring at her. “This all means something,” he said firmly again.

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Wow. Two chapters in a week. Not too bad. Enjoy and please review! And thank you for the warm wishes. I have the best readers ever. I love you guys.