Ben chuckled and nodded. “Yeah, that can be a problem. It can also be a problem if the light keeps coming on and glares toward a neighbor’s house. I’m going to try to set them so that they’re angled at our backyards only.”
Charlie looked at his backyard, then lifted his gaze toward Anna’s double-wide yard, then turned toward the neighbor. “Even though our backyards meet up together, yours is a lot wider since your grandmother has two houses put together.”
“You’re a smart little boy, Charlie. I figure if the light goes on in your backyard, it will only shine toward us and neither my babcia nor I have bedrooms on the back, so it won’t bother us. I admit that if they go off in our backyard, you might see the lights in your room since it’s on the back of the house.”
Charlie swung his head upward and scrunched his nose. “How’d you know that?”
“I was up there, remember?”
“Oh, yeah!”
He reached for the lamp and took it from Charlie’s outstretched hands, who then took the old, inefficient lamp they were replacing.
“I can see there’s no sensor on this one,” Charlie said, turning it over in his hands. “What are you going to do with it?”
“Just throw it away.”
“Can we take it apart first? I’d like to see what’s on the inside.”
Chuckling, Ben nodded. “I used to do that all the time, too. Take things apart and see how they work.”
Charlie looked up, his eyes bright and his smile wide. “I like you being over here, Ben. Sometimes, it’s hard being the only guy.”
Ben swallowed deeply, emotion rising to the surface as he thought of the meaning behind Charlie’s words. I like having a man around. I don’t remember my dad. I feel lonely sometimes with just Mom and my sister. Seeing Charlie still staring up at him, he forced a smile to his lips. “I like being here, too.”
Turning back to the task, he held the new lamp in place with one hand and screwed in the bolts to affix it to the back of the house with the other. Movement caught his eye, and he spied Violet watching from the window over the kitchen sink. Her gaze was resting on Charlie, her smile soft. As her eyes lifted and met his, her smile widened. Grinning in return, he quickly tightened the bolts, then climbed down off the ladder.
Lily bounded outside with Violet and looked up at the lamp. Before she had a chance to ask, Charlie stated, “It’s got an in-fa-red detector. It can see motion and then turn the light on.”
“Good, Charlie,” Ben said, his hand landing on the little boy’s shoulder.
Violet exclaimed, “My goodness! I was going to make sure you weren’t in Ben’s way, but it sounds like you’re learning a lot.”
“Oh, Mom, I’m not in the way,” Charlie groused. “I’m helping, right, Ben?”
“That’s right, you are.”
“Well, can I entice you two in for lunch? Lily and I made tacos.”
Charlie threw his hands into the air and shouted his approval of the menu. Laughing, Ben nodded. “I guess that means we eat tacos.” Looking down, he said, “Make sure to wash up since we’ve been working out here.”
Charlie ran inside and Violet’s brows lifted to her forehead. “Wow… you got him to wash up without pleading or bribing!”
“It’s a bro-code,” Lily said, rolling her eyes.
Ben looked at her in surprise, and from Violet’s wide eyes, he felt her surprise as well.
“Bro-code? Where on earth did you hear that?” Violet asked, her hands landing on her hips as she stared down at her daughter.
“Oh, Mom, it’s nothing bad. It just means that it’s the way men talk to each other. Kind of like they have their own secret language.” Lily giggled and followed her brother inside.
Violet’s gaze met his and she shook her head. “Sometimes Lily sounds like a miniature teenager and other times like a little girl. I never know what’s going to come out of her mouth!”
Picking up his tools and setting the ladder over to the side, he admitted, “Gotta tell you, women have always been somewhat of a mystery to me, and it doesn’t seem to matter the age.”
Violet stepped closer, her hand resting gently on his arm. “And me? Am I a mystery?”
The feel of her fingers on his bare arm sent a warm tingle over his skin. Unable to take his eyes off her face, he stepped closer. “You, beautiful lady, are a huge mystery.”
She blushed and shook her head. “Thank you… but I’m really not a mystery. Pretty much, what you see is all there is.”
Desire filled him at the thought that he liked what he saw. He leaned closer—
“Mom! Lily says I can’t have three tacos!”
She backed away, regret mixed with desire now in her eyes. “Sorry,” she whispered, then headed inside.
Ben stayed outside for another moment, willing his cock to behave. Once he was sure he could enter the house without his cock leading the way, he followed the others.
Lunch was fun and the conversation lively. Laughing freely at the antics of Charlie and Lily, he listened to their stories and paid close attention to the loving way Violet encouraged their imagination while making sure each child ate well and behaved. His grandparents had been wonderful to him, but now he realized how much he missed out on not having siblings.
“What are you going to do this afternoon, Ben?”
“Well,” he began, turning his attention to Lily. Her dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and with her blue eyes pinned on him, it hit him how much she looked like her mother. “Um… I thought I would fix the leaky faucet in the downstairs bathroom. I also bought a special cleanser just for old rust stains and a sink chip-fixer.”
“Chip-fixer?”
He nodded. “Yeah… think of it like your dentist filling a tooth that had a cavity. Same kind of idea. Then I’ll need to measure the windows that need to be replaced.”
“Can I help with that?” Lily asked.
Before he could answer, Violet said, “Kids, Ben might not need someone underfoot.”
“No,” he assured. “They’re fine.” She smiled her thanks and, gut-punched, he smiled back.
A few hours later, he and Lily had measured the windows, and she had carefully written down the dimensions on a pad of paper, labeling each window with the correct room. Standing in her room, he nodded toward the boy-band poster. “They any good?”
She scrunched her nose and shook her head. “Not really, but the one in the middle is cute, isn’t he?”
“Not sure I’m qualified to judge what’s cute.”
She stared for a moment then said, “Well, do you think my mom is cute?”
The end of the tape measure slipped from his hand, snapping back into its holder with a zip. “Uh… yeah… sure. I mean, yes, your mom is very… uh… pretty.”
“Yeah, I think so, too.”
He held his breath, wondering what else she was going to say, but she looked down at her pad of paper and continued to write. Swallowing audibly, he remeasured the window, having completely forgotten the last number. Calling it out, he watched as she wrote it down carefully.
She stood and handed the pad to him. “There, I think we got it.” She looked around, her gaze not landing on anything in particular before she finally said, “I’m going to go see if Charlie wants to go over to your grandmother’s house. I think she said she was baking today.”