But in the end I hope you only turn out better than me

But in the end I hope you only turn out better than me by ssaarah

"What?" Ben asked as I shot him a look while we walked down the street. 
"I still can't understand why you like tennis so much." I pointed out, "Isn't it a little boring? What about football instead?"
"What about thank you Ben for taking me to the game and spending a little fortune for the tickets?" he snapped back, more annoyed than sarcastic like he usually was. I hoped we could get to the botoom of it today. I laughed and shot my son a smile.
"You know I appreciated it anyway."

"I do." he smirked at me as we headed to the place where we often had lunch together, "How are you doing dad? It's been a while from the last time I saw you alone."
"I'll tell you if you tell me." I said, smirking at my too tight lipped son.
"You to huh?" He grumbled, his eyes narrowing on nothing in particular. I shook my head.
"I'm beggining to think you were switched at birth." I told him and he finally turned to look at me.
"I ask you how you are and you tell me you don't think I'm your son? Nice."
"It's just Lindsells like to talk. Alere's love to talk. You are not a talker." Ben scoffed.
"Maybe I just keep my talking in my head."
"Sounds like good company." I teased and he shot me another look. "Come on. You don't even trust your dad? I'm hurt." Ben rolled his eyes but I could see a hint of a smile.
"What do you want to know?" He asked slowly. I shrugged.
"Anything that you want to tell me." I replied, thinking that begging him would be a little overboard but god what did a man have to do to get his son to open up a little? I only raised him.
"I'm sure mom already told you about Cami..." he trailed off awkwardly and I laughed.
"Oh yes." I nodded. "She wasn't thrilled. Little hypocrite thought you should be more romantic." Ben blinked back at me.
"Hypocrite?"
"I'm like 90 percent sure you were concieved in my office at BMM Ben." I replied, giving him my best smirk and he made a face.
"Good god dad." he shook his head and I laughed.
"Go on. Tell me more."
"We're finding a place. Well we're looking for a place. Gabe will go to camp soon and hopefully we'll be able to narrow it down before he gets back.
"Wait you're moving in together? Already?" I asked, blinking back at him.
"Already?! It's been like 20 years I've loved Cami." He replied seriously and I softened, smiling as I leaned back in my seat.
"True." I agreed. "I bet Gabe is a little confused." I said as an afterthought. Ben sighed and nodded, looking exhausted and much older than his years.
"It's almost like he's mad at me...." I gave him a soft smile.
"You were the same way when you were his age. Always standing up for your mother. And your sister. Even to me." I admitted, remembering all too well Ben as a toddler telling me I should be home more.
"Yeah?" He grinned, and I knew he liked hearing how much his son was like him and hell I was glad too. Ben was almost a perfect child, we'd had it easy.
"Always. You might not have been full of words, but when you said things you meant them."
"I just want us to be a family. A real family. I want to be happy." I shot him a glance.
"Aren't you happy?" I asked, knowing I was digging further but if I wanted anything it was for my kids to be happy. Ben was still my little boy even though he'd been all grown up for a long time. Ben nodded and a more genuine smile appeared.
"How couldn't I be? I have an amazing girlfriend, a perfect son, we're finally living all together..."
"I'm confused, didn't you say you're looking for a place still?"
"We are but in the meantime we're staying at Cami's place." he explained with a shrug, "We couldn't keep going back and forth between our apartments, it wasn't good for Gabe and it wasn't good for Cami either."
"What about you instead?" I asked, knowing my son had a tendency to worry about other people more than he ever worried about himself. It was a good trait for the most part...until he wore himself out.
"I honestly don't care where we live as long as we're together." he answered and I knew he meant it. "Of course we need a bigger place since Gabe's toys alone are enough to fill two rooms, but we're fine like this for a while I think."
"Well done son." I nodded as I thought about the future. "What's next? Marriage? Another kid?" Ben laughed.
"None of those. One step at time is enough and Gabe is already shocked enough, he doesn't need a baby sister or brother now." I grinned because that meant he wasn't against the idea. I liked being a grandfather. Even though I had been one a little younger than I had thought it was like having kids again. I liked having kids.
"So no more babies for a while? Bummer." I sighed and smiled at the waitress when she approached out table to take our orders, two ceasar salads and water. I sighed at the order while my son looked at me curiously.
"Did mom put you on diet again?"
"I don't even want to talk about it." I sighed dramatically, my wife was on a mission for my health, not that it was bad...just not what it was when I was twenty. Which was to be expected. "So, how's your sister?" I asked casually, watching as Ben put his phone away and looked back at me
"I don't know, how's my sister?" he asked, his face a forced blank like it was whenever he was trying to hide something. Not hide but he clearly didn't want to talk about it. Or he did but he was thinking too much about other peoples feelings and not wanting to worry them again.
"Don't you know?" I questioned, keeping my face like his. "How come? Haven't you heard from her lately?"
"Dad." he said flatly, knowing I was bad at acting with my family no matter what I did. "Did mom tell you?" He asked slowly. I shook my head, though Ava and I had talked about it. We talked about everything and hated when our kids were upset.
"Chloe." Ben's dramatic groan and eye roll commenced and I saw his mother in him for a moment making me grin.
"I bet she went to you complaining about how bad I am and even stomped her feet like the spoiled girl she is. I swear, she'll never grow up." he shook his head and I leaned back in my chair.
"Maybe a little."  I made a face since it was true Chloe had some growing up to do. But telling the people you loved about what hurt you wasn't immature. "But Ben, you're too hard on her."
"Well, someone has to be." he muttered under his breath before shaking his head, looking upset and frustrated. "I don't want to talk about it dad. I'm tired and I've been looking forward to this lunch with you, let's not ruin it. Whatever happened between me and Chloe will be fixed between us." I could almost hear the "Maybe" in his head.
"Why are you always trying to do things without help Ben?" I asked. "There are so many people who love you and you want to do everything alone." I shook my head.
"What do you mean?" I shrugged.
"You're having a hard time with your sister. I get it. Chloe can be a handful, but I know you and the only reason you'd be so mad at her is because of how much you love her." Ben muttered something under his breath, something he'd done since he was a kid.
"That doesn't mean I need to get you invovled." I shrugged.
"It doesn't. Though I think I'd be a good choice. Your mother too, though she might get nosier than you'd like." I teased. "But I bet you won't even talk to Cami about it." Ben licked his lips.
"I don't want to bother her with silly things." He admitted.
"But it's not silly. And besides that? Being in love means you can tell them anything, everything, silly or serious, big or small. I tell Ava everything Ben, as fast as I can. She's the first person I WANT to know anything that's going on in my life. Keeping your family sheltered is just keeping a part of you from them."
"Okay okay, your starting to sound like a hallmark movie." Ben shook his head and I scoffed.
"I have two oscars!!" I exclaimed and Ben shook his head.
"And a head that won't be able to fit out the door later." He smirked and I laughed.
"Touche." I grinned. "Chloe admitted that she'd been a bit.ch." Ben raised a brow.
"She'd be stupid not to admit it." He grumbled. I nodded, a little abrasiveness ran in both side of our family.
"What have you admitted?" Ben looked back at me again, looking exhausted and annoyed and I recognized his face from my mirror whenever I was feeling the same way.
"I didn't do anything Dad. She completely over-reacted just like she always does!"
"She's young! She didn't have to grow up so fast like you did Ben."
"See and here you go sticking up for her again. Daddy's little girl." He rolled his eyes and I laughed again.
"I did the same for you with Chloe. You're my little boy you know." Ben scrunched up his face and I shrugged. "Always will be."
"Dad, I get that. Mostly now that I have a son I really understand what you mean..." he admitted. "But one thing is you seeing us like your kids, another is thinking that we actually are."
"You lost me there." I blinked, waitinf for him to continue.
"Chloe is young, true, but she's not a teen, she's 24 dad! 24! She's a grown up woman yet she keeps acting like she's still 16 and can get away with anything."
"Ben-" I started, wanting to know what exactly she was doing for him to think this, but also pretty sure I didn't want to know. But Ben interupted me.
"Don't serve me once again the she didn't have to grow up fast like you bulls.hit." he narrowed his eyes on me. He was wrong about what I was going to say, but that was a valid point too even if I wasn't saying it again.  "That's not an excuse and I can't get a worse treatment because I did the right thing."
"No one is treating you bad for that. We all knew you did your best and we're proud of how you handled a very hard situation." But he had to remember that the reason he had to grow up at all was because of a teenage mistake. Everyone made them.
"All of you?" he asked back, looking like he was getting riled."Chloe always talks about what happened to me and Cami like it was a walk in the park. That's when she doesn't think I'm an a.sshole who dumped Cami after knocking her up because it was too hard."
"That's what hurt you, uh?" I asked quietly, thinking it had taken a while before we got to the root of the problem. Ben sighed.
"Yes." he admitted, slumping his shoulders.
"You know she doesn't mean it...right?"
"But she said it. And since she's not a kid anymore she should learn how not to say things she didn't mean, mostly mean things." he retorted, and I knew he had a right to be mad. There was no excuse for saying something like that. "She can't act the way she does and do the things every grown up woman does and then act like a mean child."
"What do you mean what she does." I asked, again getting the feeling that there was more to it.
"You don't want to know." he muttered under his breath, "You have nothing to worry about." he added, knowing my brain was going to the worst possible idea. I knew Chloe had had a rough time but I didn't know if Ava and I could take it if she was going down the road she had a few years ago again. "I'm just really mad dad and I don't know when I will. I'm tired of her acting without thinking about the consequences of her actions. She needs to grow up."
"Everyone says things they don't mean Ben. Even adults." Ben groaned. "I'm not taking her side, I think she was wrong. But do you really think that's what she thinks? Hasn't she been rooting for you and Cami since the beginning?"
"Then why would she say that?!" Ben looked so frustrated I wanted to hug him. Damn it was so much easier to fix broken bones than broken feelings. I shrugged.
"I have no idea. But if that's what she really thought do you think she'd have wanted you back together with her best friend? Hell no. Chloe is a lot of things but she's very protective of the people she loves and if she really thought you were going to hurt Cami she would have tried to keep you as far away from her as she could."
"I can't just forgive her Dad. It doesn't work that way." I blinked at my son. I wasn't sure I realized just how stubborn he was. Got that from me unfortunately.
"Hey. If someone said something like that to me? I'd have a hard time getting over it too. Hell you don't even want to know how long it took me to forgive your grandmother..." I sighed, since we still didn't have that good of a relationship. She hardly ever even saw us, but at least I was trying. "In the long run? Being mad at someone is useless. Life is short and its not worth it to waste time with someone you love if you know eventually you love them and you want to be a part of their lives. I lost a lot of time with my mom that I'll never get back. Ever. Do you want that with your sister?" I knew I was taking things to the extreme, but that was a parents perrogative. Ava used to tell Ben his hand would fall off if he touched the stove while she was cooking. I was pretty sure he was still afraid of ovens. He shook his head and sighed.
"No, I never even thought about it." I smiled.
"I'm glad to hear that."
"I'm just saying it's going to take time to forgive her, but I know I will." he paused when the waitress walked over to our table with out food. "And I really hope she'll stop acting like a crazy stupid girl."
"Ben." I said it harshly but it was kind of amusing how he always had to get the last word in.
"What dad? Someone has to shake her and make her realize she's much better than that. I know I call her awful and sometimes I'm hard with her, but she needs that. She needs to see that if only she could stop calling herself a hot mess and acting like one, she'd be happier too." he retorted before starting to eat his salad. I ate my own, wishing like hell it was a steak instead. I thought about his words. I knew I had probably been to easy on Chloe growing up. We spoiled our kids and when Ben and Cami got pregnant we focused a lot on them and might have let Chloe have too much freedom. I'd always think of her as my little baby girl and that was something I needed to work on.
"I think that the problem is that she doesn't even know that you see so much good in her, instead she thinks you treat her like you do because you don't like her."
"I don't like how she pretends to be, but under that facade I know there's the sister I love instead." he explained seriously.
"Who she pretends to be?" I asked, looking back at my son, interested in his view.
"I don't know. It's one thing to be a little wild, she always was. But she hasn't changed at all since high school on the outside. I have." I nodded.
"You don't think Chloe's changed since high school?" I asked him, knowing what we both knew about what had happened to her, and also knowing that he was exaggeratting.
"Okay. So yeah, but she still acts like a kid half of the time!" I leaned in after taking a sip of my water.
"Being a father changes you Ben. And you're a great one. I've never been more proud of anything than of you." Ben scratched his neck as he tried to play off the compliment. I was serious. "I might not say it enough, but you are a better man than anyone I know and I'm damn lucky you're my son." I added before going on. "But going through what Chloe did changed her too, only for the worse instead of for the better. We didn't know why originally but she doesn't trust very many people. She runs away from the ones who get too close. You're closer to her than anyone and don't try to tell me you're not. She's going to try and push you away. Don't let her." Ben sighed and nodded.
"I know....but some of the things she does." He sighed and it looked as if there was more to the story than he was telling me but he was trying not to tell Chloe's secrets. It told me there was hope for them yet. "It's hard."
"So is being a Dad and you've got that down pretty well." I teased him. He shrugged.
"I learned from the best." I laughed at that one.
"By Gabe's age you'd already had a broken nose and stitches 3 times! You're doing far better than I did."
"I'm sure it'll only get worse once he grows up and starts rebelling." Ben cringed and I smirked.
"That will be a fun time for me." I agreed, leaning back in my chair. "Do you think since I got a salad I can also get desert?" Ben smirked at him.
"I think you could." he said, "Actually, I think you should. Don't worry I won't tell mom."
"If she finds out I'll blame it on you." I joked as I scanned the menu, "I'll take the creme brulee. What about you?"
"I'll pass." he shrugged.
"Why?" I knew for a fact my kids both had a sweet tooth no matter how well they kept in shape for their jobs. "You need to relax more son, you'll get wrinkles before time." Ben laughed.
"What?"
"I'm just saying." I paused to fake a serious face which I'm sure was more comical than serious. "You're a model, you can't frown the whole time or all you'll get is wrinkles instead of jobs."
"Dad, I won't be a model forever." he grinned. "Acutally, I could quit sooner than later."
"That's good...if that's what you want. Do you want to do instead?" I asked. I knew that Ben only became a model to make the money to raise his son without asking for help from Ava and I and I respected him for that. But it wasn't what he really wanted to do.
"I talked to mom and she suggested I could start taking over the agency..." he said slowly, as if he was waiting for my reaction.
"And what do you think about it?" I asked slowly. I knew Ben was still young and could do anything he wanted, but I think Ava and I always wanted to keep the business in the family in some way. After all it was part of what brought us together.
"I think I could do it." I scoffed.
"Of course you could do it. That's not what I was asking." Ben shifte in his chair and then gave me a real smile, the kind that killed me a little bit.
"I think it would be a nice change." He admitted. "I'd have more responsibilities but better hours, I wouldn't have to travel as much...."
"But would you like it?" He nodded.
"I think I would." I grinned wider and pulled out my tablet, quickly pulling up the internet while Ben glowered at me.
"What are you doing?"
"I'm booking a second honeymoon, I'm about to have a hell of a lot more free time with my hot wife." I grinned, flipping through options. "Do you think Ava would prefer the Carribean? Or maybe Australia?" Ben laughed.
"You're ridiculous."
"I've been working since I was 12, time for me to have some fun." I winked at my son and he rolled his eyes.
"Aren't you having fun now?" He asked, his eyes glimmering with amusement.
"Hell yeah, my son just helped me retire!" Ben laughed again and I set down my tablet to grin at him. "I'm proud of you Ben. So proud. Know that." Ben smiled though I could tell he was being his usual modest self.
"Thanks dad." he said honestly before grinning, "I'm trying."
"Oh yes, the look you pull off on some magazines is very try hard." I laughed and Ben sighed but was still grinning. "You're my son, you don't even need to try. You're like." I paused to snap my fingers, "And the shoot is perfect."
"You're the cockiest man I know, I swear." Ben replied. "I hope I'm like mom too and I'll be just as good at running the agency."
"What do you mean like mom? Are you saying I'm not good instead? Should I take offense?" I asked, though I knew Ava was the real brains of the company. And of our relationship in general. She was too damn good for me. Thank god she loved me anyways.
"You were too busy winning an Oscar to think about the agency." Ben teased.
"Good point." I nodded, "You'll learn how to run it Ben, just give it time." Ben ran his hands through his hair, something both my kids did to relieve stress even if it didn't work.
"And Chloe?" he asked.
"What about Chloe?" I raised a brow at him.
"She'll want a piece of the agancy too." he paused, pursing my lips, "And it's not like I want it all to myself anyway, it belongs to our family..."
"Sure, but you don't have to think about that too now." I shrugged, knowing Ben had no problem with sharing, even as a kid. "You two need to fix your relationship first."
"Yes but-"
"But you're already thinking about the future and worrying. I know son, but you already stress enough...one step at time." Ben sighed and I saw his shoulders slump in relaxation.
"You really know me dad." I grinned and nodded.
"Yes. I wasn't too busy for that." I winked and Ben laughed before sipping his drink.
"Lucky me."
"Yes." I agreed. "If you don't help me eat this I'm going to eat it all." Ben rolled his eyes.
"I think I'm a little too old to share a dessert with my dad." I looked up at him with wide eyes as I held my hand to my heart.
"You did not just say that to me." I watched as Ben sighed and grabbed a spoon.
"Fine. Just don't tell my agent."
"Your secret is safe with me."