“Do you have to be so brutal about it?” Ben emphasized the word brutal, knowing full well that Lisa would know what he meant. Not just that she was being rude to poor Emma.
“Is that your word of the day?” Lisa smirked.
“Better than clammy,” he muttered.
“Look. I’m sorry I said your hand felt clammy.” Lisa came the rest of the way into the den. She plopped into the seat opposite from where he and Emma were sitting. “You know how it is when you’re desperate to come up with something.”
“Wh-wh-what… what are you two talking about?” Emma’s head whipped back and forth between them.
“Writing!” Both he and Lisa said it, then grinned at each other.
“We’re both writing books and stuff,” Ben explained. “We go to Mrs. Audrey’s house every couple of weeks. She gives us back the chapters we gave her the last time and talks about them, then assigns us some words we have to try to use.”
“Yeah. But we don’t have to put the words in our books if we can use them in front of each other. Like this. ‘You’re poem was so dense!’” Lisa smirked at him.
“You don’t have to make it personal.” He was getting tired of her little comments. “And that was a stretch anyway.”
”Like ‘brutal’ wasn’t a stretch. Besides, that was a compliment. Poetry is supposed to be dense. Yours is fantastic. Emma, you should read it sometime. He gets so much meaning into a single line. I bet it would be good lyrics for a song, too.”
“So wh-wh-when she said you were t-t-taking notes?” Emma’s voice rose up kind of sharp.
“Everything in life is grist for the mill,” Lisa said. “And Ben is particularly bad about writing stories about his friends.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Ben rushed to assure Emma. “I really do care about your mom and dad, and not just because it would make a great story or fit so well into the book I’m write….”
“Besides,” Lisa interrupted. “I wouldn’t want you to get confused about something. Ben doesn’t realize that when he gives you his full attention it feels good. He doesn’t think he’s flirting. But he’s MY boyfriend. Get it?”
“Y-y-yes!” Emma suddenly sat straighter.
“Well at least that’s one of us,” Ben muttered. He wasn’t flirting at all. He was just listening. He really didn’t see why Lisa had to get so worked up about every little thing.
“Um. Do you… do you have any poetry that would go with that song Gene wrote? The one that goes hummm-hm-hmmmm-hmmmm-hummmmm?”
“Uh, I don’t know. I didn’t know he wrote that.”
“Yeah!” Emma’s face got all enthusiastic. “But he doesn’t like anything we try to put with it, so it’s just an instrumental. I want to sing it! And… and not just hum. Can… can I see? You poetry?”
“Sure.” Ben stood. “Lisa can you show her? I’ll put my dirty dishes away.” He didn’t want his mother to see that he’d been eating in the den.
“Alright.” Lisa got up. “Come on.” Now she was all smiles and friendly with Emma.
“Women.” Ben muttered and rolled his eyes.
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