Many the Miles

Part 3

Benji

Mia had been coming over the past few mornings with the boys, and we'd pick Alyssa up from school and usually come back to the hotel and make dinner, or just watch a movie while the kid went out with Ella and Katie. I was really getting to know her and how smart and kind she was. She was not like any of the girls back in L.A. and it was a nice change. Until we got too comfortable in our routine.

I woke to the sweet smell of bacon. I walked out of my room and Katie was talking to Ella at the dining table, and the boys were watching, Paw Patrol, their favorite show. Mia was in the kitchen cooking a feast. I found my arms wrapping around her waist, and she eased into my body. "Good morning," I whispered in to her hair.

"Good morning," she laughed. "You do realize it's twelve o'clock."

"Its morning somewhere," I shrugged as I grabbed the coffee pot.

"Not in these great United States," she said with sass. "And that coffee is old. I warmed it up though," she shrugged.

"You're always looking out for me," I said as I leaned against the counter next to her.

"I've seen you without your coffee and trust me it will break a heart," she said and she made me laugh with ease. "Those bags under your eyes could hold a baby elephant."

"We all can't wake up flawless like you and Beyoncé."-

"That's Mrs. Carter to you sir."

"But of course." I said bowing my head to her. "What are we doing today?"

"Pool party," Ella yelled.

"We're having our indoor barbeque that's why Mia's making bacon."

"They refuse to have burgers without bacon."-

"It's not natural?" Ella yelled.

"I think we should kick them out now," I whispered to her.

"I've tried," she laughed.

"Watch a pro," I said going to where our sisters where.

"Hey could you guys get some swim toys for the kids, maybe get Alyssa something to wear later," I said pulling out one of my credit cards.

"Say no more."

I yanked the card away. "Can you guys also pick up Alyssa from school?"

"Sure," Ella agreed.

"Of course," Katie added as she took the card out of my hand.

"See I'm a pro," I said as she came over.

"You're going to be poor by the time they get back," she laughed at me.

"I'm rich in all the ways that matter," I smiled as I took a piece of bacon off of the plate she was carrying.

"I forget you're a hipster," she laughed.

"Is that something you're into?" I asked as I pulled her chair closer to mine.

A blush covered her cheeks and she chewed on her bottom lip. All I could think about is how sweet her lips must taste. She suck and chew on them all the time. It was a prefect judge of how she was feeling. Now she was turn between her rational thoughts and whatever entity that was pulling her closer to me. She slightly changed her orientation so her knee wasn't touching mine, but my leg was now sandwiched between hers.

My phone went off and I looked down to see another call from Taj. He'd been calling me now stop for the past few days. I put the call on mute and turned my phone over. She reoriented herself away from me and I knew I did something wrong. "How are you feeling about the kids spending summer in Los Angeles?"

"I need things to settle down with John," she said mentioning her husband for the first time in a week.

"How are things with you guys?" He was usually a "don't" mention.

"I honestly don't know. He's been around more, but I just... It's not important. I honestly just feel trapped and I want my freedom."

"If you want I have a lawyer. He's a bit quirky, but he's great."

"I wish it were that easy." She let out one of her humorless laughs. "My dad is involved in something. My dad loves his job, and I'm not going to ruin that."

"You think he'd be okay with the way things are? You're miserable."

"You don't know me well enough to say so," she said going into the kitchen and dismissing what I said.

"I know you're smart," I said as I got up and followed her. "I know you're an amazing person, just as beautiful on the inside as you are outside," I said turning her. "You deserve someone that will treat you the way you need and not like they own you."

"But he does," she shrugged. "It's just the reality of it Ben."

"It's only that way because you let him."

"I don't really have a choice Ben! He's not just some guy. His family owns this town, and my dad is in debited to them. They aren't just going to let me walk away knowing what I know about them. It's not happening!" she yelled at me.

"I just want you guys to be safe and the more you tell me the more I realize you aren't."

"I can handle it," she shrugged.

"You don't have to. You could come to L.A. with me."

"And have the whole world tracking my every move."

"You'll be free."

"Do you honestly feel free having to lie about what flight you're catching so a bunch of girls don't follow you, or having to keep your head down and wear oversized sunglasses so no one knows who you are?" she asked me.

"Okay, so neither of us are where we want to be all the time."

"I just want the kids to be happy and they are. Everything else is relative."

I couldn't let her stay with him, and it was more than the fact that I wanted her for myself. She deserved to be happy. "If you change your mind, I'm here for you."

"Ben, I love that you want to help, but I need to do things on my own. He already has too much power over me."

"And I respect that, but I want you to be happy and everything else is relative," I said making her smile.

"You're relentless," she sighed as she rolled her eyes heavenward.

"Only for the things I believe in."

She jabbed me with her elbow and turned to the raw meat in the bowl. "Help me make these burgers."

Mia

The girls returned just in time to eat. We took the food up to the pool and the kids started to play. Ben had been playing with the boys and ignoring who ever that had been calling him all day. He did the same thing yesterday and it was off putting. Ella told me he had a girlfriend-some actress. I didn't know why, but that drove me crazy. He was more than flirtatious with me. The way his eyes lingered on me whenever I looked up. How he always made an excuse to be as close to me as possible had too mean he was into me. I knew it was wrong, but I'd let his hands travel my waist, and lean into his touch.

I wanted him to kiss me a few times. I felt like he would. "Why are you dry?" he asked me.

I looked up at him. His chest was covered in thousands of water drops and I longed to be one of them. I wanted to lick the water off of his chiseled chest. "Come in willingly or I'm throwing you in," he said making me return my gaze to his eyes.

"Ben if you touch me," I yelled at him. He still picked me up and carried me to the deep end. "Ben put me down," I yelled, but in all honesty I liked how his body felt against mine. He was beyond toned.

Ben stood me in front of me. The smile on his face told me I was in trouble, and I loved it. "Are you going in on your own, or do you need me to accompany you?"

"What if I can't swim?" I asked.

"Then I should hold onto you and make sure you don't drown," he said as he picked me up.

"Benji, Put me down," I yelled as he walked backwards.

"I don't think so," he said as he ran and jumped in with me cradled to his chest.

As we sunk to the bottom of the pool he let go of me and grabbed my hand. Once we breeched the surface he pulled me into his body and I wrapped my legs around his waist. "You really can't swim?" he asked.

"Maybe I can," I shrugged as I smiled at him.

"So if I leave you here you'll be okay," he said as he started to unwrap my legs from his waist.

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and smiled. "No one pulls one over on mommy," I said pushing him under.

He grabbed me when I attempted to swim to the wall. "You're going down," he yelled as he pulled me into his body. My back was pressed into his front and I tried my hardest to wiggle away from him. We struggled for a while until someone called his name.

I looked over to see a tall man walking over to us. He had a dark chocolate completion and a bright smile. He wore a grey Henley and black joggers and he held dark aviators in his hands as he stood on the edge of the pool and said, "We need to talk."

"I'll be back," Ben said as he got out of the pool.

Benji

Taj looked pissed and I knew he had every right to be, but he interrupted a perfect moment. I wanted to feel Mia's body against mine for so long. "What's up," I asked and his eyes narrowed at me.

"Benji what's going on?" he asked. His brown eyes studied me and I knew he thought he was helping, but I honestly didn't need him here.

"I'm taking care of it," I said and of course he looked unimpressed.

"Look dude, I get that this album is the real deal. I get that it's 100% all you, but I can't make the connection to Sonoma or the brunette. Lauryn isn't either and she's driving me crazy."

As my manager Taj needed to know what was going on, but he always put his duty before our friendship and that was out of respect for our friendship. I knew I was going to regret this but I had to tell him sooner or later. "The brunette is the mother of my three kids."

Taj was stone faced for a moment before he asked, "Do you have a DNA test?"

"No! If you haven't noticed they look just like me!"

"So that proves nothing. Do you remember sleeping with her?"

"We never had s*x," I said.

Taj looked me up and down, "How are they your kids than, I know pop gave you the talk."

"You remember the summer I signed with Lev?"

"Yeah we were dirt poor and on our way home."

"My grandma didn't give me money for rant. I donated my sperm for it," I confessed.

"We're getting a DNA test," he yelled.

"They're my kids, I know they are."

Taj took a deep breath as he rubbed his temples and groaned. "What are we doing about this?" he said accepting that I made my mind up about how I wanted to handle things.

"There's nothing to do," I said with a shrug. "I'm spending time with them, and that's it."

"Like it or not there is. You're dating America's sweetheart. If you two have a horrible split that could ruin your career. We can try to Justin and Brittney this thing, but that would involve her being okay with it."

"I'm not breaking up with Lauryn," I sighed.

"Are you that dumb? You think she is going to be okay with this, Benji? You have three kids. Have you seen her with a child, it's freighting?"

"She just needs practice," I said and that vein in his neck started to twitch.

"You need a helmet! How..." He did his little breathing exercise again trying to choose the right words. "Who knows about this?"

"Just us, Tim, and her husband I guess," I said.

"She's married!"

"They might be getting a divorce. So I didn't want to put too much pressure on her."

"Benji you are pressure, high blood pressure."

"I got this Taj."

"What you got is a liability issue. You need this test." he said as he took out his phone. "I'm going to get a home test here tomorrow. You are going to that movie premiere and telling Lauryn the truth, and meeting with Levi."

"I'm not going anywhere," I said going to the minibar. I grabbed two beers figuring Taj needed to let the edge off. "I told her two months. And I'm not going to insult her by making her do that test when you can clearly look at those kids and see without a doubt they are mine."

Taj took the beer from me and took a sip. His features softened and I knew he was trying the friend tactic. "Ben I'm trying here. Your life could fall apart depending on how you handle this. Everything we worked for could dissolve. Not to mention the fact that she could get dragged through the dirt for this, and those kids, who knows what we're dealing with?"

"Two months. That's all I want. Two months to figure this out."

"If Chris brown can hide a kid for nine months I'm sure we can figure this out."

"And that's why I pay you," I said raising my bottle to him.

"If we're being honest. Technically I pay myself, I'm not sure you even know how to write a check."

"What do I need a check for when I have a black card?" We laughed for a moment before businessman Taj resurfaced.

"I'll let you finish your two months on three conditions."

"What are they?"

"You talk to Lauryn, we get started on a single, and you do the DNA test tomorrow."

"Taj"-

"The last one is none negotiable."

"Taj!"-

"I understand you don't want to scare her off and mess this up, but you two need something concrete if things go wrong. What if she and the husband don't split?"-

"They will!"

"You don't know that Benji. My sister has been with Richard for ten years. We knew he was a bum from the start. Yet she still stays. He cheated on her, got their home foreclosed, but she's still there."

"Mia's different."

"You know that from spending three weeks with her?"

"Look I'm not getting this test."

"If you really care about those kids you'd do it, or at the very least think about it. 'Cause if you don't, you have absolutely no right to be involved in their lives. If she moved away to another country, you'd be s**t out of luck. As their father you have rights and you can't exercise them without this test."

"I'm not taking three kids away from their mother. I'd be a monster."

"I'm not saying you should. I'm saying if you have to, if something happens to her, you need this Benji."

I looked at the sincerity in Taj's eyes and I weighed my options. Sad to say he was completely right. I had to know if the kids were 100% mine, and I had to make plans for the future of they were. If something happened to Mia I needed a way to stay in their lives. "Fine," I agreed. "Just let me talk to Mia."

Taj studied me for a moment. "Dude, you better not be into this girl."

"She's married."

"She's hot, and judging by how much you don't want to hurt her, she's wholesome."

"We just get each other."

"Of course."

I introduced Taj to everyone and he took over Mia's spot on the side of the pool while we went back up to my room. She was talking to me about something, probably trying to fill the awkward silence we fell in. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was saying exactly, but to the way her lips curved as they formed each word. She wore her towel on her shoulder since she was practically dry. I loved the yellow bikini she was wearing. Her breast spilled out of the sides and I missed the cold water. It was getting hard to tame my desire for her. "So I just want you to know I don't approve of Ella's behavior. She's been in love with you since she was thirteen."

She was looking at me for a response to our one-sided conversation. "It's okay. I know she means well."

"I just don't want you to feel you have to be Benji Russell all the time. I know you hate it," she said.

"It's hard to hate Ella," I laughed. "She wouldn't let me if I wanted to."

Mia laughed and I pulled her closer to me. Her warmth quickly consumed me and I wanted to wrap my arms around her, but decided against it. Her eyes immediately looked up into mine. She looked as if she was going to say something, but she just froze. "We-I," I didn't know how to say this.

After I didn't continue she asked, "Is everything okay Ben?"

"I...I was talking to Taj, and he just thinks it would be in our best interest if we got a paternity test done on the kids."

She didn't say anything or move. She just looked up into my eyes. "That's okay," she said backing away from me.

"I'm not going to force you to do something you don't want to Mia," I said as I took her hand.

"I'm okay with it, I just can't do it here. John doesn't know you're here and he'd probably kill me if he knew I've been lying to him," she said.

"Taj order a home test. It should arrive tomorrow and we'll have the results in a few days," I informed her. "If you don't want to"-

"I do. I need to know too. I haven't really told you a lot about my situation," she admitted. "I guess it's too crazy for even me to comprehend," she said as she rubbed her neck with her free hand. "John is the Dean of Medicine at the university hospital, he took it upon himself to decide we should have a baby. We were having trouble and one of his friend causally suggested we try in vitro and long and behold, he didn't use his own sperm. I didn't know about that until I was cleaning out some of his files in his home office for his new file cabinet and there it was clear as day. Your name and specimen number on my medical file. To make matters worse when I went to the hospital to confront him about it, he was binding one of the on-call nurses over his desk.

"I just kind of poured my heart out to the first person I could and it was Ella. She wanted to find out more about you and you filled out contact information for your file agreeing to have you identity given out. She got your mailing address and that was that. I didn't know Alyssa knew about what happened. I didn't know she sent you that letter until it was gone."

"I believe you Mia," I reassured her.

"It's not a very believable story."

"It's a bit Jerry Springer," I said teasing her. She cut her eyes up at me and I laughed. "I'll tell Taj we're doing the test."

"If this was a mistake"-

"It won't be."

"But if you're not their father, I'm so sorry Ben."

I never thought about the kids not being mine. I knew that there was no way that could happen. Everyone seemed certain of that outcome, but I couldn't see it. Maybe I was naïve, but I wanted a family, and I wanted it to be with Mia.

Mia

In some overt twist of fate Ella and Ben's friend Taj were really hitting it off. She texted him a lot and they even went on a date or two. He was going back to L.A. with Katie and they invited Ella to go with them. My dad wasn't going to let her go to L.A. with two people he didn't know. That was how it became my problem. "Mia its L.A. how many chances will I get to go there and stay with Katie."

"Probably a million," I said as I started dinner.

"But Mia all you have to do is talk to daddy. That's it. He thinks you're responsible."

"And if something happens to you?"

"Nothing's going to happen," she groaned.

I smirked. She wanted to go to L.A. more than she wanted anything in her entire life. "I don't know. I'm not really getting anything out of this," I smiled.

She groaned. "What do you want?"

"I could you a new pair of shoes, and maybe a dress to go with them?" I asked.

"Fine," she agreed. "You don't have to blackmail me, I sure Benji would buy you anything you want," she teased.

"Whatever."

"You have the hottest man on this earth wrapped around your finger and you say whatever," she laughed.

"Ella, come back to earth, you know the plant were I'm a married mother of three."

"John's a cheating liar. Ben's a hot singer. Liar, singer," she said weighing my options for me.

"It's not that simple. To get a divorce you need a lawyer and money. I have none of those things without John."

"You would if you told daddy," she said as she picked out of my pot.

"Ella daddy doesn't believe in divorce. His parents have been married almost sixty years," I informed her.

Before I could respond Ben came in with the kids. He was late and I had to redirect him out, before my dad and John's parents arrived. "Stir this until its not watery," I directed Ella.

"I can make sauce."

"Not in this lifetime," I said rushing to the front door. "You're really late," I informed him.

"Something came up," Benji said as he showed me the DNA envelope. The seal was ripped open.

"You read it without me," I yelled as I hit his arm.

"I honestly was going to, but I wanted to wait for you," he laughed.

"Lyssa take the boys upstairs and get ready for dinner," I told her. She gathers the boys and directed them up the stairs. "My parents are on the way can we do this in your car?" I asked him.

"I'm still a secret?" he asked with a note of disappointment in his voice.

"Only to my dad."

"And your husband."

"Ben can we just do this?" I didn't mean to sound so irritated, but time was flying by and I really didn't want John to find Benji at our house.

"Come on. Hey Ella," he called back to her.

"Hey bro," she yelled back.

We sat in his car for a moment just looking at the paper. "Do you want to read it?" I asked him.

"I think you should," he said giving the papers to me.

I read over the first few lines my eyes skimming for the results and there they were. "You're Alyssa's father," I said and he let out a loud cheer. My heart was speeding. And my hands were shaking as I turned the page to the boy's results. I read both of them twice. "You're the twins' father too," I said. I didn't notice I was crying until I saw the water stains on the page. I didn't know if I was angry or relieved to finally know the truth.

"Mia," Benji said getting my attention. "I'm sorry," he said apologetic.

"You didn't do anything wrong."

He bent my head and placed a gentle kiss on it. "I'm here forever," he promised me. "No matter what you need I'm here."

"Thank you," I said wrapping my arms around him. "I'll see you tomorrow," I smiled at him.

"Yep," he agreed with a smile.

I got out of his car and went into the house. I walked to the wine cooler and grabbed a bottle. "Mia," Rafaela said as I walked to the cabinet and grabbed a glass. "Mia what happened?" she asked.

"Benji's their dad, all three of them!" I yelled as the door opened.

"Mia," John called as he walked to the kitchen. "Whose car was that?" he asked. I just glared at him. He walked over to the stove and checked the sauce. "Where are the kids?" he asked. "Mia I'm talking to you."

"I'm getting them ready for dinner," Ella said as she walked off.

John tuned the stove off and walked over to me. He stood in front of me and grabbed a corkscrew from the draw next to me. He took the bottle from my hand and opened it. "Who was in that car I saw you get out of?"

"Leave me alone," I said as I attempted to get away from him.

"Mia who the hell was that man you were hugging in front of my house?!" he demanded.

"The father of my kids," I yelled at him. "You f*****g lying prick!"

John grabbed my jaw and pushed me into the counter. "What the hell did you do?" he yelled at me. His eyes were filled with venom and I knew I was going to get hell for this.

"He's their father."

"Amilia, I thought we were done with this," he yelled at me.

"I wanted to know the truth," I said and it was partially true. "They deserve to know the truth."

"They're my kids, you're my wife, and he has no place in our business," he yelled.

"Whatever John," I said trying to squirm away from him.

"Not whatever. How long were you talking to him?" he asked me.

"Not long. Can you place let me go?"

"When you decide not to lie to me Mia," he smiled. "That's when I'll let you go. Now tell me how long you've been talking to him for?" he demanded.

"A few weeks."

"A few weeks Mia! You've been talking to him for a few weeks?"

"Yes," I admitted.

"And you never said anything to me about this because?"

"This is your fault. You did this not me," I yelled at him. "You don't like it, that's on you," I said pushing past him and going to the door when the bell rung.