Chapter 28
By the time Janis returned, Ben was getting into the back of Al’s family SUV with Addison. Ben noticed her materialise in the driveway, looking a little put off.
“Ben, did you really convince Addison to stay the night?” she slapped a hand to her forehead. “Now when are you gonna get the time to hack into the CAP mailing list?”
Unable to speak freely, Ben simply shrugged as he buckled up. Janis phased through the car door, groaning.
“Well, you’re lucky you have me to help you do it fast,” she said, head shaking, “otherwise you wouldn’t be getting much sleep tonight.”
As Sammy Jo and Al jumped in the front seat, he waved to Sam and Donna in the rear-view mirror. The couple, standing at the doorstep, waved back, offering huge smiles.
“Those two are gonna be busy tonight,” Al commented with a sly look to Sammy Jo before starting the engine.
Addison looked at Ben with a grimace. “Know what?” she said in a voice that only Ben could hear, “I’ve pictured my grandfather having sex way too many times tonight.” She hid her eyes. “Gross gross gross…”
Ben grinned. “Well, if it never happened, you wouldn’t exist.”
Addison groaned. “Come on, not you too!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Ben said. “Let’s change the subject.”
“Good idea.” She leaned in towards him, whispering. “So, I saw you were trying on a prom dress with a… girlfriend?”
Ben nodded, eyes flicking to Janis between the seats for assistance.
“It’s okay, you can talk freely,” she said. “Dad knows already.”
Taking the cue, Ben piped up. “Ideally, we’ll be going as a couple. It’s tomorrow night.”
“Ideally?”
Ben shrugged. “Yeah, there’s some anti-gay group trying to pressure the school into banning us. Not if I have anything to do with it.” He flashed a smile at Janis.
“What can you do?” Addison asked, head tilted.
“Oh, I have some tricks up my sleeve,” he said, cracking his knuckles.
“You’re not gonna go hacking into their emails, are you?” Al asked from the front seat. “Not again with that. You gotta be careful! I don’t want my youngest daughter thrown into juvie.”
Ben noticed Janis smiling warmly at her father. “Tell him I’m too good to get caught.”
“I’m too good to get caught,” Ben parroted.
“Yeah? Well, you know—that’s what Al Capone thought,” Al said, the corner of his mouth lifting in amusement.
“Touché,” Ben said, smirking. “But if those homophobic jerks succeed, it’ll be such a setback for progress around here. Imagine us defeating them and making the news for being the first gay couple welcomed at prom? It’ll be huge!”
And Janis will have the prom memories she deserves.
Al stole a glance back to Ben as he stopped at a red light. “I don’t doubt that, pumpkin. But I’m just worried that a nice prom photo with Kat will be the last thing you get to see before one of those—” he mimed a small square shape and sliced a hand up and down across it, “—little prison windows with bars.”
Janis laughed, but it turned more into a sob as it went on. “God I miss you, Dad,” she murmured.
“Look… Dad…” Ben said, “no marginalised group who seized their rights did it without risking their own neck once in a while. If I somehow get caught, then so be it, you know? That’ll be on me.”
In his periphery, he sensed Addison smile at this statement. He was glad to be winning her over.
Al, for his part, also smiled. “Sweetheart, you got me there. Can’t say I didn’t get roughed up and locked in a cell a time or two during the Civil Rights movement. And I watched it happen to Sam a lot—you know one time he put a noose around his own neck in defence of a black man about to be lynched? And you know what? It was always worth it, every time.” He shrugged. “Okay. You do what you gotta, Janis—I’m behind you. Just do your best to avoid the fuzz, huh?”
Ben and Janis exchanged a satisfied glance.
“Yes sir,” Ben said with a lopsided grin.
“Sam did that?” Addison said quietly. “Was he… always doing stuff like that?”
“Oh yeah!” Al said. “The man’s a bona fide hero.”
“Every time he leapt, he had to do something to help others,” Ben said. “That’s the way it worked.”
“So what was he doing when he met Grandma Fuller?”
“Saving her life,” Sammy Jo cut in. “He met her multiple times. At least twice, maybe three times.”
“That’s right,” said Al. “He saved Abigail’s life three separate times. First from a house fire, then from… well, another lynching, actually. And then third from the death penalty.”
“He was the guardian angel Grandma Fuller sometimes talks about,” Sammy Jo said to her daughter. “The one she said was looking out for her all her life—who broke the family curse.” Her eyes were glistening with tears now, and she returned her gaze to the front in an apparent effort to hide that fact.
Addison went quiet, taking the information in. It seemed she may have been coming around to believing that Sam really was a time traveller.
If only you knew about the one right next to you, Ben thought.
* * *
Sam waved to the SUV as it started up, and found his eyes wandering to the back row, where he was sure he’d caught some kind of movement, but… well, there wasn’t anything there between the two teenage girls, nor behind them. He watched the vehicle drive away, his brow furrowed.
“Is something wrong, Sam?” asked Donna, looking at him with big, beautiful eyes.
Sam shook his head. “No… I don’t think so…” he said in an uncertain tone, and turned to his wife, taking hold of her hand and forcing a smile. “Let’s go inside.”
The two of them headed back in, and Sam started to relax again. Maybe he’d been too paranoid for too long. It was affecting him even now, safe in his own life. He was safe, wasn’t he?
Donna let go of his hand and headed to a set of drawers at the wall of the living room. “I have something to show you,” she said with a mischievous smile. “You might want to sit down for this.”
“What is it?” he asked, as he followed her suggestion and sat on the couch, leaning his elbows on his knees.
Donna pulled out a large unmarked envelope, and tossed it to him. Startled, he caught it, and peered in. A number of what looked like bank statements could be seen inside.
“What’s this?”
“Just take a look.”
As he scanned an eye over the pages, his eyes slowly became wider and wider.
“Is this…?” He looked up at her, speechless. A joint bank account in his and Donna’s names, replete with more than four million dollars.
“I invested your pay while you’ve been gone,” Donna explained. “As it is, you earned about seven hundred thousand in that time, and I managed to grow it nearly sixfold.”
“How did you know where to invest?” Sam asked. “Don’t tell me you got Ziggy to predict the stock market? I’m not sure if that’s ethical—”
“No, I just got lucky,” Donna said. “Well, as far as anyone can prove.” She winked, and approached him on the couch, holding both her hands out. “I’ve always wanted to make it with a handsome millionaire. What do you say?”
Sam tossed the envelope onto the coffee table, and grasped her hands, allowing her to lift him, meeting her lips with his own.
“We can do anything we want,” he mused between kisses. “Go anywhere we want.”
“The question is, what do we want?”
“I only know what I want right now…” he said, guiding her towards the bedroom.
It had been four years since the last time Sam had spent a night with Donna, but it was as if no time had passed at all.
And when it was over, Sam found himself lying awake long after Donna had drifted into a blissful sleep.
His mind had wandered back to the strange feeling of being watched while he was at the dinner table, and then the similar feeling when he had been watching the SUV drive away.
It had been so similar to when he had been with the man who’d turned out to be Ben in the back of that cab.
Was he really safe from Lothos now? Or would they go after him, knowing that he’d returned to his life?
And would they go after him directly, or… start with his loved ones?
Sam gingerly slipped out of the bed, throwing his clothes back on. He had a bad feeling, and it wasn’t going to stop until he could be sure everyone was who they said they were.