Love Of My Life

60

Aria

"What even is this?" I ask, holding up this bobble head of I don't even know who. 

Ben's eyes flicker over to me.

"Oh! That's a treasure," he tells me, coming over quickly to take it out of my hand. "My dad got it for me a while ago. A lot of good memories attached to it,"

Ben's accent is so thick I almost can't understand him. I know I have en English accent, but Ben's gets me sometimes, especially when he's stressed or busy. It's extra. 

"Where do you want to put it?" I ask. I have a lot of space, but I also want it to look nice and somewhat put together. 

Ben shrugs, putting it on the dresser in our room and just looking at it. I'll find a spot for it. I can tell he's debating if it's even worth it to keep, but if he likes it then of course it's worth it. 

I rummage through another box, this one filled with pictures. I pull out a couple, examining each. They all have Ben in them and he's either with his brother, parents, or grandparents. There's also one of him and Kat but I don't know if he wants that one. I decide to ask him later, because I found a picture I need to address right now. 

It's a picture of just him and his dad. It's like fate that I found it. I take it, as well as the bobble head, and walk over to one of the night stands next to the bed. I cleaned one out to give to him and I place the picture and bobblehead on it. It looks nice now, and he can see it all the time. 

"There," I say, taking a step back to look at it. I look over at Ben to see if he noticed my work. He gives me a smile. 

"Thanks, Ari," he says. 

We've been unpacking for a little while now. We were going to start last night but we got dinner with Lucy and Rami and decided to call it a night afterwards. We also decided to break our first night of officially living together, if you know what I mean. 

Today we procrastinated most of the day, but we finally got to unpacking a little while ago. It's not bad, just a little tedious especially with all of Ben's small things. I left him to take of those, and I told him I'd take care of the bigger things or the more common items like dishes. 

"This one is my favorite," Ben says when White Queen plays on the record player. I decided to take out dad's record player and play some music. We cycled through a lot of the records I have, and someone we moved to putting Queen on. It's weird because I rarely actually sit down and listen to it. I mean I lived during it. Well maybe not during it, but I lived with it. It's just weird I guess, but a good weird. 

"I thought '39 was," I comment, walking over to where I left the other pictures on the dresser.

"That's one of them too," Ben says. "I like the musicality of White Queen though. '39 is like a nice picnic song though,"

I laugh. "What does that mean, 'a nice picnic song'?"

"You know. You have a picnic outdoors with some friends, blasting that song, with a beer and crisps," 

"That's oddly specific," I tell him, but in a way I can see where he's coming from. It's a summer party song for sure.

We unpack for a couple more hours. Ben sings softly to the music playing, and I join in occasionally. By half past nine we are just about complete. I like the sight of his clothing hanging up next to mine, and his cologne next to my perfume. I just like his presence here. And of course, I adore Frankie's presence too. I make a mental note that I want to spoil her a little bit and buy her a dog bed and maybe a couple more things. 

By the end of the night, after eating almost an entire pizza ourselves, Ben and I are cuddled up in bed with Frankie while we watch a movie. I mold perfectly to his body, his arm around me on my waist and me laying on his chest. Frankie crams on Ben's other side. 

"Hows the band going?" Ben asks me softly. 

I haven't talked about it much. It's a work in progress still and I haven't felt the need to I guess. 

"It's good," I tell him. "Rufus, Luke and Jimmy have been working on it a lot more than I have,"

My heart stings because I wish I could work on it and dedicate myself more than I can. Unfortunately, I'm so tied with with the movie it's hard to get free time. I'm just grateful they're not excluding me from anything. We work on it when we can but I feel like dead weight. 

"Did you decide when you're going to go public about it?" Ben asks. 

"Definitely after the Bohemian Rhapsody premiere. We might even wait until after awards season," I answer. 

Ben pauses. "Do you think we'll be nominated for awards? 

"I sure hope so," I laugh. "I don't know though. The whole Bryan Singer thing definitely did not help but I believe that we are creating something worthy of recognition," 

"I've never been to awards shows," Ben says after a moment of silence.

"Really?"

"Well, okay I've been to a couple for EastEnders but I've never been to BAFTA or the Oscars," Ben tells me. 

I snicker. "I forgot you were in a soap,"

"I haven't," Ben mumbles. 

"I should start watching it,"

"Please don't,"

I laugh. "One day..."

I lean into Ben a little further, if it's even possible. He kisses the top of my head.

"A year ago I never would have seen my life like this," Ben comments. 

"Is that a good thing?" I ask slowly. 

Ben laughs. "Yes, Ari. I mean I made some of the best friends I've ever had, I finished an amazing movie, and I have to most beautiful girl in the world in my arms,"

My face heats up. Ben never fails to make me blush.

"Stop you're just saying that," I mutter, but a smile takes over my face. 

"Trust me, I'm not," he tells me. 

"You're not too bad yourself," I tell him cheekily. 

We resume watching the movie and I feel my eyelids getting heavy. Ben begins to play with my hair which doesn't help things at all. As I drift into sleep, my mind wanders to thoughts about Ben. I don't think about him all the time, but I would say a good majority of it. And when I do think about him, I always feel immediately happier than I was before.