In the meantime, Joe was lying on his bed, thinking. There's no telling of what he was thinking, his thoughts were so scattered. He kept thinking about how he would escape his family's debt to society, since almost all of his household family members were either drug dealers, gang members, or addicts, which actually contributed to the household income. He was proud of himself for not falling for the seduction of making fast cash. But he wasn't proud of his family, which at times he felt guilty about. He didn't want to feel that his family wasn't good enough, because he loved them to death. But he wanted a legit life. Legal. One where he could step outside of his home and not have to run and hide whenever he heard a siren.
That's pretty much what he experienced, in his old neighborhood. But the only difference was that his new surroundings in the gated community were quiet, with pretty nosy neighbors and manicured lawns. Oh, well, nothing beats this, Joe thought as he got up from his bed and walked up to the window, looking out at the incoming storm. I'll take this over an overnight drive-by any day.
"OK... I don't understand why you won't tell your parents what happened," Jodi said as she pressed Ben with questions.
Ben didn't want to answer, so the best response he could give her was to easily ignore her. Besides, he thought, Jodi doesn't know anything about me, so shut the fuck up.
"I know what you're thinking," said Jodi.
"Really?" said Ben, raising his brow out of curiosity. "Then tell me: what am I thinking?"
"You're thinking of me."
"In your wildest dreams."
"You're thinking about when I caught you coming out of my bathroom shower, butt-ass naked."
"Whatever," Ben mumbled under his breath. A flash of light filled the dark room, as a rumble of thunder from a distance made the whole house slightly vibrate. This scared Ben a bit, along with the fact that Jodi blew his spot.
"You're thinking of the moment when you took me by the neck and kissed me...naked," Jodi teased, a slight smirk forming at the corner of her mouth.
"Uh-uh!" yelled Ben. He was paranoid about her spilling his secret, even though she was talking to him in a close-to-whisper tone. He didn't want to admit that he really had feelings for her; he felt he'd be damned to hell if he did.
He always thought of her, since the first day they met, starting with puppy-dog love-at-first-sight. He's thought about doing so many things to her since then, things that his family and his religion denounced, especially before marriage. He was a Mormon, whose family was living its own double life, his father a polygamist, and up until the time he met Jodi, he was committed to his faith and everything he was taught. The minute he met her, and started thinking these... things, Ben's beliefs started to change. He began... thinking more independently. He started a journal recording his thoughts in vivid and somewhat graphic detail, describing his dreams down to a T. He... loved her.
The only problem was that not only would that not fly, but the last thing he needed was his family to be shunned even further than it already was, although he didn't give a damn as to what people thought.
Surprisingly enough, when he took Jodi to meet his family, he was shocked as to her reaction to the whole situation. She didn't see anything strange about having one father and two mothers; as for Ben's family, they welcomed her with open arms. Since the meeting, Jodi had been helping with Ben's younger siblings - all nine of them, Ben being the oldest - while his father took one of the wives out for a romantic night. Then Ben began to think: When will I get to spend a romantic night with Jodi?