Page 42 of Chasing Elliott
I watched as she was suddenly in the air laughing and noticed Benjamin walk into theliving room with her hiked on his shoulder. She squealed loudly as I chuckled and finally saw Cooper strolling in behind him.
“I thought we told you boys it was a girl’s night,” I reminded them as I folded my arms in front of me.
“Yeah, but we have so much more fun when it’s the four of us together,” Benjamin stated as he sat down on the couch by my feet and pulled Kara into his lap.
Kara rolled her eyes but couldn’t get the smile to leave her face. “I beg to differ. I always have more fun when I’m with El.”
“Cute pajamas,” Cooper teased as he fell into the chair near the couch. I looked down at my onesie and grinned, pulling the hood up and over my head as Benjamin chuckled, noticing the elephant ears it had.
“What are you guys doing here, exactly?” I questioned as I flipped the blanket off me and put my feet on the floor. “Not that I don’t love your presence or anything.”
Cooper suddenly reached into the bag I just now noticed he had with him and pulled out a notepad. “We wanted another game night and this time it’s you girls in the hot seat.”
I climbed off the couch and walked over to where Cooper sat, holding a hand out to him. He slipped his into mine and I yanked him to his feet. Turning us around, I gently pushed himdown onto the couch and pressed a quick kiss to his lips before I sauntered over and fell into the recliner.
Kara slipped off of Benjamin’s lap and approached me, falling into my lap and causingme to chuckle. We stared at the boys as they flipped through the notepad, a rivalry evident between them over this ‘which couple knows each other better’ nonsense we had started.
“Okay, we have a lot of questions here,so I hope you’re ready,” Benjamin said as hesnatched the pad from Cooper’s hands. “First one’s for you, Kay baby. What sport did I play as akid?”
“Soccer,” Kara replied instantly with a shrug.
Benjamin smiled and turned to Cooper, and I chuckled as he rolled his eyes. Cooper turned his attention to the sheet, scanning it carefully.
“Alright, Elli,” he started to say as he looked up at me with a smile. “What is one of my bad habits?”
“Giving yourself a lot of credit there, Benny,” I teased. “Because you definitely havemore than one. Let’s see, you pick at the skin by your nails, you pick at your scabs which drives me up a wall, you leave your dirty clothes by the hamper rather than setting them inside it, should I continue?”
Cooper laughed and shook his head before glancing back over at Benjamin. He scowled slightly but Kara didn’t seem to notice as he disguised it with looking for his next question.
“Okay, here’s an easy one,” Benjamin pipped up. I noticed Kara stiffen in my lap so I put a hand on her back to get her to relax. It was just a game after all. “What’s my favorite color?”
“Yellow,” she answered as more of a question than a statement. Benjamin nodded and she let out a loud sigh of relief. “This is more intense than I anticipated. I don’t like this at all.”
I laughed and reached down on the floor for the bottle of water I had noticed Cooper bring in with him. I took a sip, making eye contact with him and sent a wink his way and saw asmile break out on his face.
“Baby, what’s my middle name?” He asked. I raised a brow, thinking it over. To my recollection, he had never told me that before. I mean, if we’re being honest, we never really talked about much about ourselves in that light, but then a memory clicked in my head from thetime he took me bowling.
“Henry,” I replied with a smile.
Cooper’s mouth fell open in surprise as Benjamin looked over at him to see the shock written all over his face. “Wait, had you never told her that before? How on earth did you know that?”
“It’s his father’s name,” I responded with a simple shrug. “I remember him mentioning that it was tradition in their family for the first son to take the fathers first name as their middlename.”
Cooper suddenly jumped off the couch and walked over to me, placing a kiss to my forehead. Kara hastily climbed off my lap and walked back over to Benjamin, sitting down beside him and throwing her legs over his lap.
I smiled as he moved to sit on the armrest but instead, I climbed out of the chair. Helooked at me questioningly so I pushed his shoulders down so he would sit before I fell into his lap. He looped one arm around my waist while the other rested on my thigh and one of my arms wrapped around his neck.
“Come on, Kara, we got this babe,” Benjamin said as he turned to face her. “How many siblings do I have and what are their names?”
Kara sat there quietly for a minute and bit her thumb nail as she looked to be deep in thought. Benjamin’s face fell slightly, and I watched her turn and cup his face between her hands.
“You’ve only talked about them once, besides Andrea because I see her all the time. You don’t get along with the other two,so you never really talk about them,” she told him softly before a weaksmile appeared on her face. “But your other sister is named Tara and you have atwin brother named Bennett.”
Benjamin released a relieved sigh as he kissed her quickly before turning back to faceCooper and me. He tilted his head to look at me with narrowed eyes and I mimicked his expression.
“Alright, I got one,” he announced as he cocked an eyebrow at me. “When is my birthday?”
“October eighteenth,” I replied easily, suddenly surprised with myself for actually knowing any of these answers.
