LOVE TO HATE YOU

(NEW) Once upon a time...

His door was unlocked—as usual—and the passage outside was full of boxes, furniture, tins of paint, brushes and sheets of plastic—he was obviously playing Home Improvement again. I just hoped he was wearing slightly more than before.

"Ben?" I called as I walked inside.

No one answered. I walked to his room and peered in. No one. I knocked on the other closed door and there was no answer. I walked back into the lounge and called out again. Where the hell was he? Not safe to leave your door open at night like this. I glanced in the direction of his kitchen and his computer was there on the counter. The screen was lit up still, so he must have been on it recently, otherwise the screen saver would have kicked in. Maybe he'd gotten an important email and had to rush off to the office? I walked over to the computer and inhaled sharply when I saw what was filling the screen.

Me. A photo of me from the shoot the other day. I'd almost forgotten about that little embarrassing moment, in amongst all the other ones I was currently having.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" I jumped when I heard Ben's voice.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to snoop on your computer." I said defensively moving away from it.

"No problem." He smiled and put a can of paint down on the floor, "I just went down to my car to get this." He walked over to the computer and leaned in, looking at the photo. "You really do look beautiful in this." He stood up straight and looked at me. He had smudges of pink paint on his hands and one across his forehead.

"You have some paint on your..." I pointed at his forehead.

He ran a hand over it and smiled. "Come see." Without asking, he took me by the hand and led me down the passage and into the second bedroom. I glanced around the room; it had been completely transformed. The walls were a shade of baby pink and looked like the pages of a fairy tale book. Someone had painted castles, princesses and rainbows all over them. The mural wrapped around the entire room, boxes were piled up, and all the furniture had been pushed to one side of the room.

"She'll love it," I said looking up at the mezzanine level that had been turned into a little girl's dress up corner.

"I hope so," he said. "Truthfully it's more important that Mei and the social worker likes it." He rolled his eyes and gave his head a slight shake, as if exhausted.

"Is she going to like the fact I came to breakfast with you?"

"Li invited you. Besides, we're not even dating, since you still haven't agreed to go on a date with me."

"Well, I did actually. But when I came over you were harboring ex-wives in your apartment and sent me away."

"Yes. That." He said sheepishly.

"So..." I folded my arms in a businesslike fashion. "You asked me here to talk. What is it you still have to say?"

Ben smiled, "Talk. Yes. Just give me a moment to get out of my clothes, they're covered in paint and I'm all sweaty." He rushed off to the room at the end of the passage and disappeared. I walked back out to the lounge and sat down, taking the opportunity to glance around. I've always thought you can tell a lot about a person's personality by looking at the environment they live in. On closer examination. There was a lot of pink. The bookshelf was packed with rows of books for Li—well, unless Ben enjoyed reading fairy tales in his spare time. Perched around the TV were piles of DVD's for her too, and on a nearby shelf stood a picture of her and Ben that melted my heart a little. I got up and walked over to it. He was wearing hospital scrubs and holding her in his arms; she was clearly a newborn despite the wild crazy mop of black hair she already had. The look on Ben's face as he gazed at her was indescribable. Another photo showed a shirtless, tattooed Ben cradling a naked, sleeping, pudgy Li in his arms. And then a photo album caught my eye. It was labeled, "The story of us." I opened it and immediately recognized Ben's distinctive handwriting.

Once upon a time there was a man who didn't know what real love was, until the day he met the most beautiful Princess in the entire world—

There was another picture of Ben and Li in hospital scrubs, but this time he was looking directly into the camera. His smile was massive and it lit up his eyes. He looked a lot younger than he did now, but equally gorgeous—dammit.

I slammed the book closed quickly, feeling a stab of something deep inside. I was so touched by the love he had for this little girl, that it forced me to wonder what it would have felt like to be so cherished. A tear left my eye and rolled down my cheek.

"Hey, are you okay?"

I turned and Ben was standing right behind me.

I shook my head. "Not really," I finally managed to mutter.

Ben reached out and wiped the tear across my cheek with his thumb. His touch felt good.

"I really am sorry, Sera. I never meant to hurt you." His other hand came up and touched the other side of my face.

"I know." I whispered.

"Is it too much to ask you to forgive me?" His other hand cradled the side of my face and he stepped closer, holding my face between his hands. "Or do I need to beg and grovel?" A tiny smile darted across his face.

"How would you do that?"

"Like this." Suddenly Ben started slipping down. He got closer and closer to the floor until he was on his knees. I gasped in absolute shock!

"What the hell?" I reached down and started pulling him up again. "Are you going to... uh, were you going to... you were, uh, propose?"

Ben burst out laughing and laid his hand on my shoulders. "No. But if you want me too...?"

"No! God no!" I pulled away quickly feeling like a total idiot. But Ben was so weird and unpredictable that I wouldn't have put some totally inappropriate proposal past him.

"You sure? This is the second time you've brought it up." He laughed and playfully pulled me towards him again, wrapping his arms around me and locking me into a hug.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to look him in the eye right now. God I felt like an idiot!

"Open your eyes, Sera."

I shook my head and closed them even tighter. "Mmm-uuhh." And then I felt his lips coming down onto mine. They were soft and gentle and I was reminded of the way he'd kissed me in the car that night. No one had ever kissed me like this before—except him. His hands moved down to my lower back and I began to forget myself. Forget everything that had happened between us. And when his hands moved to my lower back, my mind went completely blank. Then he pulled me closer and started walking me backwards towards his...Bedroom?