Ben didn't know I was coming to see him and so when I was shown into the reading room, as they call it, he was standing in front of a shelf trying to choose a book. I walked up behind him and stood there peeking out around his right side as he picked up Hemingway and then Brown and then finally pulled out a Lee Child book, a Jack Reacher novel to be exact and I waited until he was a page or two in and just starting to turn on his heel to take the book with him when I said,
I hear Mr. Reacher is only an inch or two taller than you are.
He spun around far too quickly for someone so large and dropped the book on the floor.
My first thought is What the fuck, beard?
My second was He is fat. I love it.
My third I forgot because he pulled me right off the floor and up into his arms and CRUSHED me like a little fucking bug but it was fine because that hug lasted something like twenty-five minutes and only when they came and got us did he finally let go.
As far as I know the book is still on the floor.
So Ben is sober, fifteen pounds heavier and seriously unshaven. His hair is still short though and freshly trimmed. I guess they have a barber but he said it's cold outside and he's doing a lot of walking so he grew a beard. There is snow here, I might grow a beard too.
He told me not to grow a beard.
The more he talked to me in that sweet only-for-Bridget way he has of addressing me the more my resolve dissolved and the less stoic I became. It was hard to remain angry. It was hard to keep my distance and hard to talk about things like how our plans are coming along at home when all I really wanted to do was stay in his arms and let the world disappear.
I'm still here. I can't leave. I don't want to go home without Ben so I'm trying to move heaven and earth to have him moved closer to home or something. I need a little luck now. All these resources at my disposal, I'm finally going to utilize a few of them to get what I want, which is a little help in keeping the promises Ben made to me because he had a hard time keeping them himself. I can manage it. I promise.
I might be tougher than I look after all.
