"No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength; but with the trial He will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it." -1 Corinthians 10:13
221 days sober
“We need to get out of here right now,” Stohler says urgently the second I’ve cleared the doors to the Lakewood Rehabilitation Center. “In the hour you’ve been inside, three different people have come out here to tell me that, if I’m ready to talk, they’re ready to listen.”
“Uh, that’s ‘cause you look hungover as shit, and you’re like, half-passed out in the backseat of a Mustang that’s parked in the lot of a rehab facility,” I say. “Christ, I kind of want to offer you a cup of coffee and a first-day-sober welcome chip.”
She shrugs and rolls around in the seat a little to make herself more comfortable. “I haven’t been sober for an entire day. Jesus, I don’t think I’m sober now. And someone already brought me coffee.”
“Yeah?” I say, grinning at her.
She nods. “And a donut. It was good. Can we go?” She hauls herself over the middle of the seats, into the passenger seat, and I take my place in the driver’s seat.
“We still meeting Al for lunch? ‘Cause while we’re here, I kind of want to stop by Ben’s store. Jamie was supposed to ask him if they could make things official last night, and I wanna see if he followed through with it.”
“So? Text one of them and ask, it’s easier. Or we can go see them later this afternoon. But right now, we’re going to go to Al’s apartment, and we’re going to take a nap, and then we’re going to go get pizza with all the singles I convinced creepy ’mos to tuck under your ballsac last night.”
Before I pull out of the parking lot, I shoot Jamie a text that just says SOOOOO???? But he still hasn’t replied by the time Stohler and I get to the apartment. I want to call him, but Stohler is impatient for sleep. She drags me over to the intercom and hammers the button for Al and Ben’s apartment. After a minute, the speaker crackles, and Alex grunts, “What.”
“Don’t use that ungrateful tone with me, young man,” Stohler warns, and yep, she’s definitely still at least a little bit drunk.
I bump her out of the way with my hip and say, “Let us in, we’re sleepy. We wanna nap in your bed and then take you out for pizza when we wake up.”
Stohler leans around me to coo, “Sleeeeeepy strippers,” into the intercom. I elbow her right in the ribs. She might be a stripper, but I’m going to cling to that thin boundary between “go-go dancer” and “stripper” until the day I die.
When Alex’s voice comes through again, he’s chuckling. “Uh, my bed’s kind of taken right now, but Ben’s at work, so his is free. C’mon up.”
The door latch clicks open, and Stohls and I tumble over each other through it. The apartment door is unlocked when we get to it, and Alex is definitely not alone in the kitchen. A girl wearing one of his t-shirts and what looks like a pair of his boxers is sitting at the kitchen table. She’s got a cute face, but it’s kind of twisted up right now, making me all too aware of the fact that Stohler and I aren’t exactly smartly dressed. We’re both unshowered and half-awake; she’s still wearing her slinky tank top and stilettos, and I’m still in my Patton sweatpants.
My parents taught me manners, even if I rarely use them. I step forward, smile, and hold my hand out for a shake. “Hi. I’m Garen. This is Stohler.”
“Erika,” the girl says, taking my hand after a beat. She barely touches me before she withdraws her hand and stands. “I’m going to, uh… go back to bed. Nice meeting you?” It’s definitely a question, not a statement. When she gets to the hallway, she rubs her palm against the hem of her t-shirt.
I look around at Alex. “She’s made of sweetness and light, huh?”
“What do you expect?” Alex says. “You guys are pretty gross-looking right now. Go sleep for a while, and fuckin’ shower when you wake up. I’m going to go, uh—” He gestures after Erika and gives us a little smirk before following her.
“We’re not that gross-looking,” I mutter to Stohler.
She’s leaning against the wall so that she can unstrap her battered feet from the torture chambers she calls shoes. “You might as well get used to it now.” I frown, and she shrugs. “Sometimes, when I’ve just gotten off a long shift but haven’t had a chance to go home and shower yet, I have to run errands or whatever. Hit the gas station, stop for a coffee, maybe pick up breakfast from the grocery store. People can tell—who I am, what I do. And they all give me that same look.” She imitates Erika’s pinched expression, then shrugs, lets the face drop. “You’re a go-go dancer now, not a stripper. But a lot of people won’t see the difference. You should accept it sooner, rather than later.”
Her words don’t make me feel any better, but after only one night of dancing, I haven’t really earned the right to continue bitching, so I do my best to shrug it off. We steal some Pop-Tarts from the kitchen, then let ourselves into Ben’s room and crawl into his bed. Just for the hell of it, I get my phone out and snap a picture of the two of us peeping out over the top of the blankets, send it along to Ben with the caption, naptime bitch, guess whos in your bed.
It’s close to one o’clock by the time I finally fall asleep, and nearly dark out by the time I wake up. Stohler’s still out beside me, but I can hear the television out in the living room, so Alex must be up. I elbow Stohler until she grunts at me. “Wake up,” I order. “We have to go get food.”
She kicks me under the blankets, first in the shin, then makes a haphazard attempt to reach my balls. “Go shower. Wake me again when you’re done.”
I roll my eyes and heave myself out of the bed. Alex is playing Assassin’s Creed on the Xbox in the living room, and I’m a good enough friend to make sure I’m not blocking his view of the screen as I ask, “Do you know if I’ve got any clean clothes here? I’m sure I’ve left stuff here before, but I don’t know if it would’ve ended up with your stuff or Ben’s.”
“Probably Ben’s. You hang out with him more than you hang out with me,” Alex says, shrugging and not taking his eyes off the screen.
I blink, because that’s… weird. I’ve been friends with Ben for just as long as I’ve been friends with Alex, and when I’m here, I’m usually hanging with both of them. Most of the times I’ve gone anywhere with just Ben have been because Alex doesn’t want to hang with us. Right now, he’s still more focused on the game than me, so I trudge back to Ben’s room and hunt through his clean, folded laundry until I find a pair of jeans I left here a few months ago, a t-shirt, and Jamie’s old captain sweatshirt from the Patton lacrosse team. I shower, get dressed, and—because they still haven’t responded to my texts—snap a picture of myself in the hoodie and send it along to both of them, with a caption of wow look how cozy i am now.
Fucking finally, Jamie replies, Excuse me. I don’t recall offering that to you.
o rly? who did you offer it to then? I text back. While I’m waiting for his response, I crawl back onto Ben’s bed and beat Stohler with a pillow until she hauls herself out of bed to go take her turn in the bathroom. It isn’t until maybe five minutes later, when I’m hanging out in the living room, watching Alex on the xbox, that Jamie sends me another message.
Sweet Lord, you’re absolutely insufferable when you feel like you haven’t gotten enough attention. I’m in the middle of key-smashing out a message of gibberish when he sends another text. I offered it to my new boyfriend. Are you happy, you nosy little twat?
Happy? I’m fucking ecstatic. I punch the air like I’m starring in the final frames of a sports movie training montage, even though I almost drop my phone while doing so. That’s apparently weird enough to make Alex look over at me, but his on-screen character almost dies, and he turns his attention immediately back to the game, swearing loudly.
I tap out a message to Jamie that says, SO HAPPY. my bestest friends are a couple, lets double-date.
Who would you even be bringing on a double-date? Travis or your redhead?
I pause and make a face at my phone, wishing he could see it without me having to take another picture. I reply, can i bring them both & call it a triple-date?
He sends me half a dozen sad-face emojis, and I shove my phone back into my pocket. I don’t know which annoys me more; the fact that he has apparently decided he’s anti-Declan, or the fact that I don’t have an emoji keyboard to respond with a bunch of tiny animal icons.
Stohler wanders down the hall to join us. Her hair is a sopping wet mess hanging down over her shoulders, leaving huge damp splotches on the pale turquoise fabric of her sundress. She plops down onto the couch between me and Al, then starts finger-combing her hair until it’s neat enough to be wrangled into a braid.
“You look nice,” I say, and she narrows her eyes, like she’s sure an insult is coming. Smart girl—I tack on, “Is that so that you can get sloppy drunk tonight at whatever restaurant we choose, and no one will judge you because you look so innocent?”
“I’m thinking I want Mexican tonight,” Stohler says.
“You’re thinking you want margaritas tonight,” I correct, and she smiles slyly.
Alex shakes his head. “There isn’t a Mexican place in Lakewood.”
“Yeah, but there’s one like, three blocks away from here,” Stohler objects. “Why are we going all the way to Lakewood for dinner?”
“’Cause we’re going to pick Ben up from work first,” Alex says. “His parents needed him to babysit last night, so he stayed in Lakewood and drove over to the shop with his dad this morning.”
Stohler glances over at me, and Alex is still watching the screen, so I point to Jamie’s name and jersey number embroidered on the sleeve of the hoodie I’m wearing. Stohler wiggles her eyebrows at me, and I wiggle mine right back. We both look quickly away from each other to avoid laughing.
“Anyway, his car’s still here, so he doesn’t really have a way to get back, unless he asks his dad to drive him all the way to New Haven and drop him off. I figured it’s easier for us to just pick him up and go for dinner. He gets off in about half an hour, so we should probably head out,” Alex finishes.
“Does he know we’re going to pick him up?” I ask, and Al nods and says, “Yeah, I texted him a couple hours ago.”
Just for good measure, once we’re in the car and on our way to Lakewood, I send Ben a message that says, mayday mayday mayday. al & me & stohls are en route to your store, plz dont let us roll up on you getting dicked by jamie in the stockroom. he went home already right???
He still hasn’t responded by the time Alex has pulled the car into the parking lot of the little shopping center where Ben’s dad’s bookstore is. I send a few more question marks, but I don’t get any sort of reply. Stohler’s sitting shotty and bitching about how hungry she is, and Alex is singing loudly along to Metallica on the car stereo in an attempt to drown her out. I start to compose another text to Ben, but just then, the shop door swings open, and Ben slips out. Alex raises a hand to the steering wheel, preparing to honk the horn to get his attention, but Ben doesn’t even spare a glance around the rest of the lot before his face splits into a little smile and he heads towards another car—a black Caddy with Georgia plates.
Oh, fuck.
“When you texted Ben to say you were going to pick him up, did he text back?” I say sharply. “Does he know we’re here?”
“Nah, I just figured he had his phone off while he was, uh… hang on, is that James’ car?” Alex says, his hand frozen over the horn. “I didn’t know he was in town. Since when are they good enough friends to—”
“Dunno, guess they’ve just been talking more for the past few weeks,” I interrupt. I lean between the seats and try to get at the horn, but Alex grabs my wrist to stop me. I try to shake him off and say, “Come on, let’s just get him. Let’s get them both, we can all go for food togeth—”
“Hang on,” Alex says absently. His eyes are still fixed on Ben, who looks like he’s saying something—I guess Jamie’s window must be down, which makes me so fucking thankful that ours aren’t, because at least that means Alex can’t hear what’s being said.
Doesn’t really matter, though. When Ben reaches the car, Jamie leans out of the window, cups his face between his hands, and kisses him. That pretty much says everything Alex needs to know.
There is absolute silence in our car. My eyes won’t stop flickering back and forth between Alex and the scene outside. Stohler is side-eying Al, too, mostly because I think she’s considering making a leap for the horn if that kiss doesn’t end on its own. Alex… Alex just stares through the windshield.
“What the fuck,” he says. “Seriously, what the fuck.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say quickly.
It would probably be a more convincing statement, if Ben and Jamie’s kiss hadn’t turned into an all-out, hands-in-the-hair makeout session. That can’t even be comfortable, not with the door between them and both of them twisted at odd angles to get at each other. I briefly consider voicing this opinion, making a joke out of the whole thing, but before I can, Alex jerks the car into drive and stomps on the gas pedal, jolting us straight through the lot and parking a few spaces down from the Cadillac. He gets out of the car and slams the door, and Ben and Jamie finally break apart.
I tumble out of the car and shout, “Hey, wow, this is crazy, huh? It’s a good thing that we’re all such reasonable, rational people, and nobody’s going to overreact, right? ‘Cause that would suck, you know, if anybody blew this out of proport—”
“Garen, shut the fuck up,” Alex snaps. I don’t even have time to get offended before he turns to Ben and points right in his face, the movement sharp enough to make Ben step back. “You’ve got about five seconds to explain what’s going on before I lose my shit, Ben.”
“It kind of seems like you’re planning to lose your shit no matter what,” Stohler points out, but she gets completely ignored. She shrugs, unsurprised, and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, offering one to me.
I take it, let her light it for me, but don’t inhale just yet. I’m too focused on Ben, who is looking completely and utterly panicked. He has definitely taken more than five seconds to compose himself, but Alex still hasn’t started screaming, so I’m counting it as a win. Ben finally clears his throat, grimaces, and says, “So, um, Al, there’s—there’s maybe something that you and I should uh, talk about?”
He looks back at Jamie like he’s already anticipating the flat, judgmental stare that Jamie gives him for such a lame response, and that look is what really ruins everything—because all at once, it seems to calm Ben and absolutely enrage Alex.
Al plants both hands on Ben’s chest and shoves him hard enough to send him stumbling back into the side of the Escalade. Jamie is out of the car in a second, brushing a hand against Ben’s elbow to be sure he’s steady, then rounding on Alex with a sharp order of, “Get yourself under control, Alexander. I don’t care how angry you are—you keep your hands to yourself.”
“And maybe keep ‘em off the Cadillac, too,” I suggest. “It’s like, an eighty-thousand dollar car.”
It earns me another snarled, “Garen, shut the fuck up.” I make a face at Alex, but he doesn’t see it. He’s only got eyes for Ben. “So, come on, Ben. Tell me the truth. You guys are… what, together now? You’re a couple or something?”
To Ben’s credit, no matter how uncomfortable he is with the way this conversation is proceeding or how nervous he is about his best friend’s reaction, there isn’t even a second of hesitation before he answers, “Yeah. We’re together now.”
I’m expecting Alex to say something else to him, but instead, he turns to look at me and Stohler. I squint back at him. He can’t tell me to shut up again—I haven’t even said anything yet.
Maybe that’s the problem.
“And everybody knew but me, I guess,” Alex says finally, turning back to Ben, who looks like he’s trying very hard not to wince. “These two definitely did, at least. And I bet Travis knows, too?” The wince wins out. “Of fucking course he does. How long has this been going on?”
Jamie leans carefully back against the driver’s door and says, “Well, I only asked him to be my boyfriend this morning. So, technically, I suppose it’s been going on for about nine hours.”
“And what about untechnically?” Alex snaps.
“That’s not a real word,” Ben says, in barely more than a whisper. I finally take a long, deep drag from my cigarette, because Jesus, Ben, really? I know his social skills aren’t always the best, but someone as smart as him should be able to figure out that now is exactly the wrong time to be playing grammar police.
Sure enough, Alex’s voice is almost a yell when he says, “You know what I’m saying, Ben. How long have the two of you been fucking each other? A month, two months, the entire year you’ve known each other, come on. Tell me the truth now, since you obviously haven’t been bothering to tell me anything before tonight.”
Ben rubs one of his hands over his face, like shielding his eyes for a few seconds will give him enough time to compose himself. He shoves his hands back into the pockets of his sweatshirt, takes a deep breath, and says, “Five months.”
“Five months—are you fucking kidding me, Ben?” Alex hisses. “What did you do, hop on his dick the second he and I broke up?”
“No, see, that would imply that you and I were ever a couple, which we were not,” Jamie interjects. “We slept together a bit, but you never wanted to date me, and you don’t have the right to pretend otherwise now that—”
“You weren’t broken up,” Ben blurts out.
“Ben,” I say warningly, but it doesn’t help at all.
On the best days, Ben has zero instinct towards self-preservation. Right now, he must be actively aiming for self-destruction, because he shuffles a little bit closer to Alex and admits, “It was—you were still hooking up, the first time, I—it was right after Travis turned eighteen, when we all went out together. And don’t—it wasn’t James, don’t get mad at James, it was me. I’m—I’m the one who initiated it, Al, and I know I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry—”
Alex punches him. I burn my own damn hand dropping my cigarette, and Stohler practically shrieks, “What the fuck, Alex!”
The only thing keeping Ben upright is the Caddy. He staggers back against it, stunned, both hands over his face, but it doesn’t really help; red is seeping out between his fingers, looking almost black in the low light. That’s all I need to see before I kind of snap. I grab Alex by the collar of his shirt, dragging him back until I can push him up against the side of his own vehicle.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demand. “Ben’s your best friend. Don’t you dare--”
“It’s fine, Garen, stop,” Ben says. He kind of sounds like he’s choking a little, and when I look over my shoulder at him, it’s easy to see why. Jamie has managed to pry his hands away from his face, and there’s blood everywhere. I can’t imagine that Alex knows how to throw a good punch, but he must have lucked out enough to get Ben right in the nose, maybe even hard enough to break it. But that still isn’t enough to stop Ben, gigantic dumbass that he is, from saying, “Let go of him, G. It’s fine. I-I deserved it anyway, and I’m fine, I’m—”
“You didn’t deserve it, and you’re not fine, McCutcheon,” Jamie says sharply. “You’re hurt, and you’re bleeding, for Christ’s sake. At least let me—”
Because we’re apparently living in the 1940s now, Jamie digs into an inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a handkerchief. God, I bet his initials are monogrammed on the corner of it in color-coordinated thread. He folds it into Ben’s hand and guides it up to his bleeding face. The whole scene must be just as ridiculous to everyone else as it is to me, because Alex barks out something like a laugh.
“Wow, Ben, congratulations. That’s quite a gentleman you’ve got there. I mean, he wasn’t enough of a gentleman to stop himself from fucking my roommate behind my back when he was supposed to be in bed with me, but other than that, yeah, you both really hit the fucking jackpot.”
And then, the only thing that could possibly make this situation worse happens. From maybe fifty feet away, a sharp voice says, “What’s going on out here?”
I turn to see Warren McCutcheon standing in the doorway of the bookstore, squinting through his glasses to make out the faces in the dark. When I turn back to my friends, the blood is draining from Ben’s face, literally and figuratively—he’s still holding the handkerchief to his nose in an attempt to stop the blood pouring from it, and he’s paler than I’ve ever seen him.
“N-Nothing, Dad, go back inside. Everything’s fine,” Ben says, but his voice is hoarse and thick, and the second Warren realizes that his kid is injured, his eyes darken, and he storms across the lot.
“What happened to you?” he demands. He puts one hand on the back of Ben’s neck, maybe to comfort him, and the other goes to his wrist in an attempt to pry the cloth away so he can see the damage to Ben’s face. But I’ve been beaten enough times to understand Ben’s panicked expression—he knows that letting anyone see his injury is only going to make things worse, so he just shakes his head. Warren repeats, somewhat louder and more to the rest of us, “What happened here? Who hit my son?”
Ben shakes his head again. At this point, I don’t think he’s silent because he won’t speak, but because he can’t speak. Warren’s eyes flicker over the rest of us, first to me and Alex, then to Jamie and Stohler, the two unfamiliar faces. Stohler, in her sundress and giant wedge sandals, doesn’t look ready to beat anyone up (though I have no doubt that she could), so Warren’s attention narrows in on Jamie.
And wow, no, a whole world of fuck that.
“Alex did it,” I announce.
“Garen, shut up,” Ben finds his voice to say.
Shameless, I throw my hands up and say, “What do you want me to say, dude? He did.”
Warren snaps around to stare at Alex. “Alex? Is that true?” Alex says nothing. “You two have been best friends since you were twelve. What in the world could be worth fighting over like this?”
“It doesn’t m—” The letter ends up coming out a lot closer to a hum than an actual syllable. Ben huffs out a breath and closes his eyes, licks his bloody lips and tries again, “It doesn’t m-matt--matter.” The color comes back to his cheeks in a horrible, splotchy flush. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone look as humiliated as he does when he says, in barely more than a whisper, “Dad, just go.”
“I think we should take you to the emergency room,” Jamie says quietly, stepping closer so that he can put his hand on the small of Ben’s back. “Your nose might be broken, and it’d be best if you had a doctor set it sooner, rather than later.”
Speaking is clearly a mistake, because Warren’s focus goes right back to Jamie, to Jamie’s hand. “Ben, if you want to go to the hospital—”
“I don’t.”
“—you’ll go with me, not with some boy I’ve never even met before.”
Alex snorts. “What, you haven’t met James? He’s the guy who’s—”
“Baker, knock it off,” Stohler interrupts at the same time that Warren says, “Alex, you are lucky that I haven’t called the police. Get in your car and go. Leave Ben al—”
“—who’s having sex with your son,” Alex finishes. Ben’s eyes fall shut, and Warren’s open wider. “At least, he’s the latest one, right, Ben?” Ben lets out a sound that might be a whimper, and Alex crowds closer to him, yells right in his bleeding face, “Come on, man, tell him! Tell your dad all about how you can’t stop stealing your best friends’ boyfriends, or how you’ll let any asshole with a six-pack or a varsity jacket put his dick in your mouth, or how you’re a freaky little S&M slut who thinks that none of the fucked up shit you do counts just because you wear this.”
He hooks two fingers under the collar of Ben’s shirt to fish out the gold chain that’s home to a small crucifix and the silver purity ring from Ethan Hall’s keychain. I hadn’t realized that Jamie stole the ring when he had the keychain in Georgia; I hadn’t realized he’d brought it back. Alex curls his hand into a fist, and I step forward to stop him if he tries to swing again. Instead, he yanks on it hard enough to break the clasp, then holds the ruined chain and its charms up in front of Ben’s face. Ben’s eyes flutter open, then dart back and forth, following the swinging of the crucifix and ring like he’s hypnotized.
Alex takes a deep breath to start yelling again, but before he can, Warren snatches the chain out of his hand and steps between the two of them. He isn’t much taller than his son, still half a foot shorter than Alex, but his absolute fury makes him something to be terrified of right now.
“Don’t you ever touch my son again,” he snaps, pointing a stern finger right in Alex’s face. It’s from the same hand that’s now holding the chain, letting it dangle between them. Alex looks like he wants to shrink back, but won’t let himself. Warren comes closer to him and says, “Now, you listen to me. You are going to get in your car, and you are going to get out of this lot right now. I don’t care where you go, but I want you to get the hell away from my family. Are we clear?”
His voice leaves no room for argument. Alex throws one last disgusted look at Ben and Jamie, then stalks around to the driver’s side of his car and gets in. He peels out of the lot, sending bits of gravel everywhere. For a minute, there is silence among everyone remaining in the lot.
Then, Stohler whispers to Jamie, “Yeeeah, that was kind of my ride? So, I’m gonna need a lift back to New Haven, if you guys are going back there tonight.”
“Ben isn’t going anywhere, except for back into the shop,” Warren says. “There’s obviously a lot we need to talk about.”
Ben and Jamie exchange a glance. I can see Jamie’s grip tightening on the back of Ben’s hoodie, like he’s not prepared to let go just yet. Luckily for them, manners aren’t really my strong point. I have no qualms about shuffling closer and saying, “But we can come, too. Right?”
Warren sighs. “Garen, I think it would be better if—”
“What Alex said was total bullshit, Mr. M,” I say. Warren winces, and Ben kicks out at my shin. Hastily, I amend, “Sorry, I know you’re not big on the, uh, swearing thing. What he said was… bull… crap? Is that better?”
“No, but you shutting up probably would be,” Ben hisses. “God, ‘bull-crap,’ what’s wrong with you?”
Undeterred, I trot after Warren as he heads back towards the door of the shop. “Seriously, I know that these aren’t ideal circumstances for you finding out that Ben’s dating somebody, but you have to know, Alex is being an idiot. Ben’s still a really good guy, and Jamie’s awesome, I swear. He’s my best friend in the world, total boyfriend material, you absolutely do not have to worry about him being as much of an ass as Alex is turning out to be. He’ll totally treat Ben right, I promise. And if he doesn’t, I could always beat him up for—”
“You talk more than all six of my children combined,” Warren sighs. He holds open the door, and I dart inside.
“Yeah, probably, but only five of ‘em really count. Asher’s only, what, a year and a half? He can’t be saying that much yet. But hey, Jane’s gotta be giving me a run for my money. She talks a lot, too.”
“Not this much,” I think Warren might say under his breath. He looks back over his shoulder and sees that Ben still hasn’t moved. He snaps his fingers, points at his son, then directs that same finger to the interior of the store. “Ben. Get inside. Now.”
I snort and say, without thinking, “That’s what Jamie says, too. See? You guys already have a lot in common.”
“Garen, shut the fuck up!” Ben howls. Usually, he’d be in a shitload of trouble for saying that in front of his dad, but Warren just turns and stares, wild-eyed, into the shop for a minute before he shuffles inside, muttering as he goes, “I sincerely hope that the bottle of bourbon the part-timers gave me for Christmas is still in the cupboard.”
Ben darts forward to follow him, but still pauses long enough to slug me in the ribs as he passes me. I peek back out of the store at my remaining friends. Stohler has a hand clamped over her mouth, and her shoulders are shaking. I’m a little bit mollified by the fact that at least one other person thinks I’m funny.
Jamie, on the other hand, has both his arms spread out as if to say, what the fuck. “Garen,” he says slowly, quietly. “You do realize that I’m meeting my boyfriend’s father for the very first time, don’t you? A boyfriend who I’ve been dating for less than a day and who is covered in blood, and his father, a devout Catholic who has only just now been alerted to the fact that his eldest child is not a virgin.”
“Yeah,” I say, equally slowly. “I mean, I’ve pretty much been here for the whole thing.”
“And you still feel that now is an appropriate time to be making jokes about Ben fucking me in the ass,” Jamie says.
“Well, the punchline was more about what a powerbottom you are,” I admit, “but uh, yeah, that was maybe one of my less-awesome ideas. Do you wanna just—” I point into the shop. Jamie rolls his eyes and bumps past me into the store.
The sign on the door has been flipped to ‘closed,’ and most of the lights are off. Ben has left the ‘employees only’ door open behind the counter, which is enough of an invitation for me. I clamp one hand on the back of Jamie’s neck, the other on the back of Stohler’s, and steer them both through it.
The store’s back room serves as a combination office, break room, supply closet. There’s a desk and a small table, but both are too covered in books to actually be usable. There are stacked boxes of books in most of the corners and on a few of the mismatched armchairs. Stohler immediately steals a place on one of the few empty chairs, and I fling myself down on another. Jamie carefully lifts a haphazard stack of books from one of the remaining chairs, but instead of sitting down, he shuffles through the books, reordering them and neatening them.
Ben watches him do that, then watches his dad mess around with the electric kettle set up on the corner of the table. He clears his throat and says, “Just let me clean up and change my shirt, and then we can talk, okay?” He means, change the shirt that has blood all over it? Yeah, that’s a fucking great thing to draw attention to right now. I strip off Jamie’s lax hoodie and lean over to drape it across Ben’s arm, careful to avoid the blood smears on his own sleeves. He gives me a jerky nod of thanks before he slips through another door into the bathroom.
The four of us wait for him with no words spoken between us, the only sound coming from the boiling kettle and the running faucet in the bathroom. Warren sets the broken necklace, the cross, and the ring on the corner of the table before he switches the kettle off and gathers a few mugs from a cupboard above his head. He begins fixing cups of tea; Stohler accepts one, I refuse, and Jamie takes his with a soft, “Thank you.”
Those two words aren’t much, but at least they break the silence. Warren swallows and says, “It’s ‘James,’ right?”
“Yes, sir,” Jamie says, sitting down and meeting his gaze with a careful neutral look. “James Goldwyn.”
“And I’m assuming you’re not exactly a local boy, with that accent,” Warren adds. His voice is eerily calm. Like a serial killer.
“No, sir. I’m originally from Savannah, Georgia, but I attend school in New York City.”
At that, Warren turns to look at me. I want to protest that I’m not personally responsible for every single person on the island of Manhattan, but since I technically am the only reason Ben and Jamie know each other, I think that argument would fall kind of flat. I give Warren a sheepish smile. His mouth tightens, and one of his eyebrows arches ever so slightly upward.
“Oh god, that’s where he learned that look,” I whisper. “Unless it’s not a learned behavior. Are derisive stares genetic?”
But Warren has already turned his attention back to Jamie, who sits up a little bit straighter.
“I wasn’t aware that my son was seeing anyone.”
“We haven’t been together very long,” Jamie says.
“And yet, long enough that you’ve found time to get in bed together, apparently,” Warren says.
Stohler and I exchange horrified stares. Jamie tries very hard not to move at all.
Ben comes tumbling back out of the bathroom. He has changed into Jamie’s clean hoodie, but he hasn’t gotten all of the blood off his face just yet; there are still a few smears right at the edge of his beard. “Holy Mother of God, Dad, we are not talking about this. Seriously, stop, I don’t—”
“Why not?” Warren demands, slamming his tea mug down on the desk so that he can cross his arms over the front of his sweater. “If you all think that you’re adult enough to be having sex, then I expect you to be adult enough to discuss it.”
“I’m sorry if you feel that I have disrespected you, your son, or the rest of your family in any way. That was never my intention,” Jamie says. Ben whips around to give him an incredulous stare, and I can’t help but do the exact same thing from where I’m curled up in the armchair. Jamie loves disrespecting Ben. I’m pretty sure that consensual degradation is the foundation of every single one of their sexual encounters. Jamie meets Ben’s eyes, and his mouth sort of twitches, like he wants to sneer at him but knows that now isn’t really the time. He looks at Warren again, schools his face back into neutrality, and continues, “I sincerely regret the fact that he and Alex are having problems because of me. And my feelings for Ben are complicated, but… genuine. If you only take one thing away from meeting me, I’d like it to be that.”
“Why are you pretending you’re nice?” Ben whispers. “You’re not nice, and this is weird. Stop trying to sweet-talk my dad.”
“Do you think you’re helping this situation at all?” Jamie demands.
“Do you think this is a situation that can be helped?” Ben says. His voice cracks halfway through the question, but he doesn’t seem like he really notices it. “God, you heard what Alex said outside. Everybody heard. It doesn’t matter how much damage control you try to run right now, I can’t come back from something like that, I’m still just—everybody knows now, if they didn’t before, they know I’m just a screwed up slut like Alex said I—”
“Benjamin, don’t you ever let me hear you say something like that about yourself again,” Warren says sharply. “I don’t care what kind of things you’ve done, or who you have done them with; you’re my child, and I love you, and I won’t allow you to speak of yourself with anything less than respect. Do you understand me?”
Ben jerks his head in a nod, but it seems more like a reflex than an actual agreement. He won’t meet anyone’s eyes. Instead, he picks up the broken necklace and starts screwing around with the clasp. I think he’s trying to fix it, but it’s no use; the clasp is totally broken, and his fingers are trembling so badly that I’m surprised he hasn’t dropped it anyway.
Jamie reaches out and covers Ben’s hands with his until Ben stops moving. Once he’s still, Jamie releases him and reaches up to one of the supply shelves for a pair of scissors and a spool of the sleek red twine that sometimes gets used to tie off the boxes of books here. He snips off a length of about three feet, folds it over on itself once to reinforce it, and threads the crucifix and the ring onto it. He beckons Ben closer; Ben shuffles a half-step forward, just within reach. Jamie ties the twine around Ben’s neck so that the cross hangs low on his throat, resting just below his collarbone.
Ben looks like he wants to say thank you, but can’t manage to get the words out. Jamie nods like he heard it anyway and says, “We’ll get the chain fixed, alright?”
“Yeah,” Ben agrees quietly.
Warren watches the entire scene unfold in silence. Once my friends have lapsed back into silence, he says, “Garen and, ah…”
He looks over at Stohler, who unfolds herself from the arm chair and holds her hand out for a brief shake. “Lindsey Stohler. Sorry, should’ve mentioned that earlier.”
“It’s good to meet you, Lindsey. But I’d like to speak to Ben and James for a moment, if you and Garen wouldn’t mind waiting in the store.”
“Of course,” Stohler says, at the same time that I say, “I guess, but just so you’re aware, they’re probably going to tell us everything you say anyway.”
Stohler grabs the collar of my t-shirt and yanks me out into the store proper. She closes the door, but it’s a tiny shop, and no matter where we try to stand, the low murmur of voices in the back room is still plainly audible. In the end, we go outside to avoid the awkwardness of eavesdropping.
Stohler lights a single cigarette, and we pass it back and forth between us in silence for several minutes before I say, “I can’t believe Alex actually hit him.”
Stohler grimaces. “I’m trying not to think about that, actually.”
“I can’t think about much else,” I admit. “I mean, really. He hit Ben? Nobody hits Ben. I’ve never even hit Ben, and I hit pretty much everyone. But Ben—”
“Ben isn’t delicate. And he isn’t weak. I’m sure he can take care of himself, but…” Stohler sucks the end of the cigarette, considers her words carefully, and eventually exhales, “He chooses not to, I think. He’d rather take care of everyone else. If I know that after only being friends with him for six months, then Alex has definitely got to know that after six years. He knew Ben would accept that punch like he’d earned it, and that makes the whole situation even more fucked up.”
I nod because that’s easier than speaking right now. I keep picturing the stunned look on Ben’s face when he was hit, the way he crumpled against the side of the Cadillac. I keep picturing the blood.
“Think we should kill Alex when we get back to the apartment?” I ask.
“Trying not to think about it,” Stohler repeats. “Al’s my friend. So is Ben, and so is Jamie. I don’t want to choose sides, and pretty much the only way I can avoid choosing sides is by pretending that I didn’t just see Alex throw a temper tantrum and punch his best friend in the face over a guy he was never really that into in the first place.” She glances sideways at me and takes another drag off the cigarette. “Not that Jamie isn’t great and all that. I know he’s your best friend, and I’m not trying to insult him. He’s a good guy, he’s fun to hang with, and he’s wicked hot. I’d probably fuck him, if he wasn’t so embarrassingly preppy and well-groomed. Maybe if he stopped shaving, grew out his hair, skipped a couple showers, got a motorcycle—”
“Your taste in dudes is pretty troubling,” I interrupt.
She snorts and gives me the finger. “Don’t fucking talk to me about ‘troubling taste in guys,’ Anderson. You’re nailing a ginger.”
“Yeah, a built ginger with a pierced tongue. That’s got to count for—”
“Look, my point is that Jamie’s great, but Alex never really thought so. They were never really going anywhere, relationship-wise. It’s total bullshit that Alex is pretending to be upset about that.” Stohler stubs out the cigarette. “Like I said, if I think about it too much, I’m just going to end up hating one of the only friends I’ve got.”
I’m spared the trouble of responding when the shop door opens and Ben and Jamie trudge out. Neither of them looks particularly pleased, but at least Jamie has an arm draped over Ben’s shoulders. I give them a thumbs-up, then twist it into a thumbs-down, then back up. “How’d it go?”
“My presence has been requested at Mass tomorrow morning,” Jamie says. “Apparently, all judgment is being reserved until Mrs. McCutcheon has had a chance to meet me as well.”
“But that’s good, right?” I say, shrugging. “I mean, church with the family—that’s a relationship kind of thing, isn’t it? That’s got to be a good sign.”
“Might be a better sign if the invitation hadn’t been preceded by a brief lecture about how completely and utterly unacceptable it is that Ben and I have been sleeping together for months now,” Jamie sighs. “I can’t wait to see how much longer that lecture will be tomorrow, when it’s both of his parents instead of just one.”
“I kind of hope Hillary yells at you in Italian,” I admit. “It’ll make for a way more interesting story when I have to listen to you whine about it later this week.”
Jamie opens his mouth to retort, but before he can, Ben tips his head up to look at him and says quietly, “Will you take me home, please?”
“Of course. But… if I’m being honest, I think your father had the right idea in suggesting that you stay at my hotel tonight. At least until Alex has calmed down a bit,” Jamie says slowly. “It’s up to you, though.”
Ben ducks out from under his arm and heads for the passenger side of the Escalade. “Sure. I can do that, I guess.”
By the time we get back to the apartment in New Haven, it’s pretty fucking clear that Alex hasn’t calmed down at all. The four of us all go upstairs together, even though Stohler and I are planning to head over to her place. She has agreed to put me up for the night so I can take a train back to New York tomorrow, but neither of us is willing to leave Ben’s building until we’re sure the situation is a bit more settled.
Ben manages one step into the apartment before he freezes in place. Alex is kicked back on the couch, surrounded in so many torn scraps of paper that it looks like snowfall. As the rest of us watch, he tears a few more pages from the book in his hand and flings them on the ground. He’s moving quickly, and he has been at this for a while; there are almost three dozen empty, ruined book covers on the couch cushion next to him, and the entire middle shelf of Ben’s overstuffed bookshelf is missing.
“Alex,” Ben croaks. “Stop, what are you—”
“What does it look like I’m doing, asshole?” Alex snaps. “You did something you knew would make me mad, so I’m returning the favor. The only difference is that I’m not hiding it.”
Jamie walks right up to him and yanks the ruined book out of his hand. The cover is hanging halfway off, but Jamie still turns it to read the title, then shoots Alex an absolutely disgusted look. “I didn’t buy him this book so that you could destroy it, Alex.”
“No, you bought him that book so you could get in his pants,” Alex says flatly. “And honestly, you probably didn’t have to expend so much effort. God knows he gave it up easy enough for Garen and Travis and your cousin and who fucking knows how many guys at Yale.”
He picks up another book, flips open the cover, and tears out the first three pages. Jamie grabs that book out of his hand, too, then stoops to move the rest of the stack of books away from Alex so that his only choices are to stop ruining Ben’s books, or to try to get past all of us to reach the books still on the bookshelf. The only one left near him is a thick old volume on the far end of the coffee table. It has a white cover with no title, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort of reaching for.
“Th-There hasn’t been anyone at Yale,” Ben tries to protest. “I’m not—I know that what I did was fucked up, and I know I shouldn’t have slept with James while you two were still involved, but I didn’t mean, I’m n-not—” He stops, takes a deep breath, and opens his mouth to keep going, but in that pause, Alex seems to lose it.
“You didn’t, you haven’t, you’re n-n-n-not, fucking spit it out, Ben. I thought you got over this stutter bullshit in high school.”
Ben’s face crumples, and it’s too much for me to handle. I slip an arm around his shoulders and turn him right around so that he’s facing the hallway. “Come on, dude, we’re gonna go pack your stuff for the night.”
“I can go,” Jamie says quickly, but I shake my head.
“No, you have to stay here and make sure Alex doesn’t go apeshit on the rest of the books. Besides, if I stay in this room any longer, I’m gonna break that fuckhead’s jaw, and I might have made some good tips last night, but I didn’t make enough to cover those court fees.”
I herd Ben down the hall to his bedroom. He lets me, but he isn’t doing too much to help. Once we’re in his room with the door shut, he sits down on the edge of his bed and blinks at the scuffed white toes of his Chucks. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have some sort of sports bag for me to pack his stuff in, so I dump his schoolbooks out of his backpack and start going through his dresser to find clean clothes. He makes a soft noise of protest behind me, but when I look around to see what the problem is, he just makes an aborted gesture and gets up to do it himself.
“Ben,” I say quietly. “You can talk in front of me. I’m not going to say anything about, you know.” I’m not sure if it would even be okay for me to say the word stutter right now. He mentioned it to me forever ago, of course—said he hates public speaking so much that he used to be completely incapable of even getting a full sentence out in a crowded classroom, explained that LHS put him in speech therapy until he learned to pave over his terror with detached monotone. The stutter, the stammer, whatever it is, it was gone by the time I met him, and I’ve never seen him stressed enough to let it out again. I’m not entirely sure what standard operating procedure is now.
Ben doesn’t seem to know, either. He avoids my eyes and edges past me to get to his dresser, but he summons the nerve to say very, very quietly, “Not regular clothes. Church in the morning.”
“Right, sorry. Do you want me to—”
“I can,” he whispers. I step out of the way and watch as he gathers up pajamas and boxers and plain t-shirts from the dresser, then moves to the closet, where his nicer clothes are hanging up. He takes down an Oxford, a pair of dark navy trousers, a sweater, and a tie, then tosses them all onto the bed in a big lump. Instead of stuffing them into his bag, he just rubs both his hands over his face and mutters, “Fuck. I can’t believe I couldn’t even keep this going for a whole day.”
I can feel my forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Keep what going?”
Ben gestures towards the hall, presumably indicating the people down it. “This. With James. I can’t believe I—I mean, he’s gonna break up with me. Of course he’s going to break up with me, he barely likes me as it is, and he’s not—he didn’t bargain for this. A big fight with my best friend—his ex, a-and meeting my parents right now, having my dad find out we’re fucking already, having to bring me back to his hotel for—he wanted me to come back there for sex, not so he could keep my friend from fucking up my face even more.” Ben finally looks up at me, wide-eyed and miserable. “We’ve been dating for twelve hours, and he’s already going to break up with me. That’s how fucking pathetic I am. I know he’s out of my league, but I figured that once we got together, I might be able to last, what, a fucking week, at least.”
If he hadn’t already gotten punched once tonight, I think I’d want to hit him myself, just to show him what an idiot he is. Instead, I stomp over to the door, fling it open, lean into the hall, and shout, “Jamie, get the fuck in here.”
He joins us in less than five seconds, looking expectantly back and forth between us, but before he can ask what’s up, I point to Ben and say, “Are you going to break up with him, or what?”
Jamie squints. “Excuse me?” His eyes flicker to the side when Ben finally starts shoving his clothes into the backpack, and then Jamie’s whole face kind of twists up in annoyance for a half-second. He grabs the clothes back out of the bag and says, “Really? I’d understand if you chose not to fold everything, but there’s no excuse to just crumpling up a dress shirt and shoving it—”
“You shove it, dude, answer my question,” I interrupt. “Are you going to break up with Ben?”
“Why would I?” Jamie asks. He smooths out the dress shirt and folds it into a perfectly neat square, like something that belongs on a department store shelf. “I only asked him out this morning. I know we joke about how easily I get bored of people, but that would be extreme, even for me. Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, his family expects me for church in the—”
“I can just tell them it’s not going to happen,” Ben says. “It’s—they’d get it, they’d be understanding of the whole si-situation, I think.”
Jamie stops in the middle of folding the sweater. “Wait a moment. Are you trying to break up with me? Because if so, you can fuck right off with that idea, you little midget. It took nearly a year for me to start liking you, and I’ll be damned if I let you break it off the second we start to figure things out.”
“I’m not trying to end this,” Ben protests. “I just know you don’t—”
But he stops speaking abruptly, for pretty obvious reasons—the low tones of whatever conversation Stohler and Alex had been having in the living room has erupted into yelling.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I mutter, trudging out into the hall with the other two on my heels. I don’t know exactly what I’m expecting to see when we get to the living room, but it’s definitely not… Stohler pinning Alex down on the couch and pimp-slapping him repeatedly across the face. Which is what’s happening.
“Get her the fuck off me!” Alex snaps at us. “Come on, I’m not going to hit a chick—”
“Wow, Al, you’re right,” Stohler declares, punctuating her words with another backhand across his face. “It’s really fucking shitty when somebody beats up on someone who can’t fight back.” Another slap. “It’s a good thing you’re too nice of a guy to ever do something like this, right? I mean, what kind of crazy bitch hits a guy, knowing he’ll never hit her back because she’s a girl?” She hits him harder, then grabs one of the couch cushions and starts trying to smother him as she yells, “What kind of asshole would hit his best friend, knowing he’ll never hit him back because that best friend thinks he deserved to get hit?”
Honestly, I’m pretty cool with the idea of letting her go on for as long as she wants. It’s kind of entertaining to watch, and it’s not like Alex doesn’t deserve it. But Ben must disagree, because he darts forward and grabs Stohler around the waist, hauling her off of Alex with a lot of effort and absolutely no assistance from me or Jamie.
“Stohls, knock it off,” he pants. “This isn’t helping, okay? I don’t want to fight with Alex. I just want to make things okay again.”
Stohler’s response to that is to kick Alex in the stomach with one of her giant wedge sandals.
Ben shoots me an annoyed, alarmed look. “Can you fucking help me, G? My neighbors are going to call the goddamn cops if everyone doesn’t calm down and shut up soon.”
I heave a sigh, but loop my arms around Stohler and hold her at bay. I immediately wish I hadn’t, because the first thing that Ben does is turn to Alex and resume his awful, pathetic begging.
“Alex, you’re my best friend. I want things between us to be okay,” Ben pleads. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have lied to you about this. Just tell me what I have to do, and I’ll—”
“Break up with him,” Alex says, pointing at Jamie.
Ben blinks. “What?”
“You want to know what you have to do? Break up with him. Right now,” Alex snaps. He’s still pointing at Jamie, who is watching Ben in wide-eyed apprehension. “Come on, Ben, you said you wanted to make things okay. They’re not going to be okay as long as you’re with him!”
Ben’s eyes dart back and forth between Alex’s face and Jamie’s for maybe ten seconds before finally falling somewhere between them. The tattered remains of all the ruined books are lying in a pile on the floor; it’s a bizarrely neat pile, like maybe Jamie spent a few minutes trying to see if they were salvageable before I called him into the bedroom. Ben stares at the pile of pages for nearly a minute before he takes a deep breath and says, “No.”
“No?” Alex repeats, his eyebrows shooting upward.
“No,” Ben repeats, voice quiet but firm. His hands are shoved in the pocket of his hoodie and his shoulders are hunched, but his eyes are clear and unblinking when he finally looks up at his best friend. “No, I’m not going to break up with him, and fuck you for asking me to. I can date anyone I want to date, and it’s—that’s my choice.” His shoulders hunch higher, like he knows he’s about to say something that’ll make Alex want to take another swing at him. “You couldn’t make things work with James, and that’s your own fault, not mine. I didn’t steal him from you, and I am tired of being asked to step gracefully aside so that other people can have their second and third chances. I, um.” He takes another deep breath and looks at the floor. “I deserve a chance to get what I want, too, sometimes. And I want James.”
For too long, there’s nothing but a heavy silence in the room. I kind of expect Alex to question the decision again, but he doesn’t. He just stares. Finally, he reaches for the last book on the table, the fat white volume. “Alright. I hope getting fucked by him is worth losing your best friend over.” He flips open the cover and thumbs through a few pages that are as slim and translucent as a moth’s wings. “I really, really hope he’s worth it, Ben.”
“Alex, don’t you fucking dare,” Ben say. The nervousness is entirely gone from his voice now, replaced by something bordering on fury. “Put it down.”
Alex blinks at him. “What, you’re the only one who gets to put your hands on things that don’t belong to you?”
For the first time since leaving the bedroom, Jamie bristles. “Alright, hang the fuck on. I sincerely hope you’re not implying that I have ever belonged to anyone but my damn self, because that would be—”
“Alex, get your hands off my fucking Bible right now,” Ben cuts across him.
Alex crumples half the Book of Genesis in his fist and rips. Ben’s whole face goes blank, and so does Alex’s; it’s like he only realizes that he has crossed the line the second after the pages have been torn. He blinks down at the Bible in one hand, the stack of pages in the other. After a few seconds, he places the pages back inside the book, closes the cover, and holds it out. Ben takes the Bible from him and opens the cover, staring down at the torn pages. From where I’m standing, I can see over his shoulder that the first page bears a calligraphy inscription of the words, This Holy Bible is presented to Benjamin Brendon Anthony McCutcheon on the occasion of his Confirmation, with a date of about eleven years earlier. Ben closes the Bible.
“Ben,” Alex says, but Ben just shakes his head and tucks the ruined Bible into the backpack that Jamie has brought out of the bedroom. Alex repeats, “Ben.”
“We’re not okay,” Ben says. He shoulders his backpack, takes Jamie’s hand, and heads for the door, not even turning to look at Alex again as he says, “I need you to leave me alone now. I’ll see you around, I guess.”
Alex looks upset over that, but it’s nearly impossible for me to feel bad for him. Stohler and I let ourselves out.
“We need to get out of here right now,” Stohler says urgently the second I’ve cleared the doors to the Lakewood Rehabilitation Center. “In the hour you’ve been inside, three different people have come out here to tell me that, if I’m ready to talk, they’re ready to listen.”
“Uh, that’s ‘cause you look hungover as shit, and you’re like, half-passed out in the backseat of a Mustang that’s parked in the lot of a rehab facility,” I say. “Christ, I kind of want to offer you a cup of coffee and a first-day-sober welcome chip.”
She shrugs and rolls around in the seat a little to make herself more comfortable. “I haven’t been sober for an entire day. Jesus, I don’t think I’m sober now. And someone already brought me coffee.”
“Yeah?” I say, grinning at her.
She nods. “And a donut. It was good. Can we go?” She hauls herself over the middle of the seats, into the passenger seat, and I take my place in the driver’s seat.
“We still meeting Al for lunch? ‘Cause while we’re here, I kind of want to stop by Ben’s store. Jamie was supposed to ask him if they could make things official last night, and I wanna see if he followed through with it.”
“So? Text one of them and ask, it’s easier. Or we can go see them later this afternoon. But right now, we’re going to go to Al’s apartment, and we’re going to take a nap, and then we’re going to go get pizza with all the singles I convinced creepy ’mos to tuck under your ballsac last night.”
Before I pull out of the parking lot, I shoot Jamie a text that just says SOOOOO???? But he still hasn’t replied by the time Stohler and I get to the apartment. I want to call him, but Stohler is impatient for sleep. She drags me over to the intercom and hammers the button for Al and Ben’s apartment. After a minute, the speaker crackles, and Alex grunts, “What.”
“Don’t use that ungrateful tone with me, young man,” Stohler warns, and yep, she’s definitely still at least a little bit drunk.
I bump her out of the way with my hip and say, “Let us in, we’re sleepy. We wanna nap in your bed and then take you out for pizza when we wake up.”
Stohler leans around me to coo, “Sleeeeeepy strippers,” into the intercom. I elbow her right in the ribs. She might be a stripper, but I’m going to cling to that thin boundary between “go-go dancer” and “stripper” until the day I die.
When Alex’s voice comes through again, he’s chuckling. “Uh, my bed’s kind of taken right now, but Ben’s at work, so his is free. C’mon up.”
The door latch clicks open, and Stohls and I tumble over each other through it. The apartment door is unlocked when we get to it, and Alex is definitely not alone in the kitchen. A girl wearing one of his t-shirts and what looks like a pair of his boxers is sitting at the kitchen table. She’s got a cute face, but it’s kind of twisted up right now, making me all too aware of the fact that Stohler and I aren’t exactly smartly dressed. We’re both unshowered and half-awake; she’s still wearing her slinky tank top and stilettos, and I’m still in my Patton sweatpants.
My parents taught me manners, even if I rarely use them. I step forward, smile, and hold my hand out for a shake. “Hi. I’m Garen. This is Stohler.”
“Erika,” the girl says, taking my hand after a beat. She barely touches me before she withdraws her hand and stands. “I’m going to, uh… go back to bed. Nice meeting you?” It’s definitely a question, not a statement. When she gets to the hallway, she rubs her palm against the hem of her t-shirt.
I look around at Alex. “She’s made of sweetness and light, huh?”
“What do you expect?” Alex says. “You guys are pretty gross-looking right now. Go sleep for a while, and fuckin’ shower when you wake up. I’m going to go, uh—” He gestures after Erika and gives us a little smirk before following her.
“We’re not that gross-looking,” I mutter to Stohler.
She’s leaning against the wall so that she can unstrap her battered feet from the torture chambers she calls shoes. “You might as well get used to it now.” I frown, and she shrugs. “Sometimes, when I’ve just gotten off a long shift but haven’t had a chance to go home and shower yet, I have to run errands or whatever. Hit the gas station, stop for a coffee, maybe pick up breakfast from the grocery store. People can tell—who I am, what I do. And they all give me that same look.” She imitates Erika’s pinched expression, then shrugs, lets the face drop. “You’re a go-go dancer now, not a stripper. But a lot of people won’t see the difference. You should accept it sooner, rather than later.”
Her words don’t make me feel any better, but after only one night of dancing, I haven’t really earned the right to continue bitching, so I do my best to shrug it off. We steal some Pop-Tarts from the kitchen, then let ourselves into Ben’s room and crawl into his bed. Just for the hell of it, I get my phone out and snap a picture of the two of us peeping out over the top of the blankets, send it along to Ben with the caption, naptime bitch, guess whos in your bed.
It’s close to one o’clock by the time I finally fall asleep, and nearly dark out by the time I wake up. Stohler’s still out beside me, but I can hear the television out in the living room, so Alex must be up. I elbow Stohler until she grunts at me. “Wake up,” I order. “We have to go get food.”
She kicks me under the blankets, first in the shin, then makes a haphazard attempt to reach my balls. “Go shower. Wake me again when you’re done.”
I roll my eyes and heave myself out of the bed. Alex is playing Assassin’s Creed on the Xbox in the living room, and I’m a good enough friend to make sure I’m not blocking his view of the screen as I ask, “Do you know if I’ve got any clean clothes here? I’m sure I’ve left stuff here before, but I don’t know if it would’ve ended up with your stuff or Ben’s.”
“Probably Ben’s. You hang out with him more than you hang out with me,” Alex says, shrugging and not taking his eyes off the screen.
I blink, because that’s… weird. I’ve been friends with Ben for just as long as I’ve been friends with Alex, and when I’m here, I’m usually hanging with both of them. Most of the times I’ve gone anywhere with just Ben have been because Alex doesn’t want to hang with us. Right now, he’s still more focused on the game than me, so I trudge back to Ben’s room and hunt through his clean, folded laundry until I find a pair of jeans I left here a few months ago, a t-shirt, and Jamie’s old captain sweatshirt from the Patton lacrosse team. I shower, get dressed, and—because they still haven’t responded to my texts—snap a picture of myself in the hoodie and send it along to both of them, with a caption of wow look how cozy i am now.
Fucking finally, Jamie replies, Excuse me. I don’t recall offering that to you.
o rly? who did you offer it to then? I text back. While I’m waiting for his response, I crawl back onto Ben’s bed and beat Stohler with a pillow until she hauls herself out of bed to go take her turn in the bathroom. It isn’t until maybe five minutes later, when I’m hanging out in the living room, watching Alex on the xbox, that Jamie sends me another message.
Sweet Lord, you’re absolutely insufferable when you feel like you haven’t gotten enough attention. I’m in the middle of key-smashing out a message of gibberish when he sends another text. I offered it to my new boyfriend. Are you happy, you nosy little twat?
Happy? I’m fucking ecstatic. I punch the air like I’m starring in the final frames of a sports movie training montage, even though I almost drop my phone while doing so. That’s apparently weird enough to make Alex look over at me, but his on-screen character almost dies, and he turns his attention immediately back to the game, swearing loudly.
I tap out a message to Jamie that says, SO HAPPY. my bestest friends are a couple, lets double-date.
Who would you even be bringing on a double-date? Travis or your redhead?
I pause and make a face at my phone, wishing he could see it without me having to take another picture. I reply, can i bring them both & call it a triple-date?
He sends me half a dozen sad-face emojis, and I shove my phone back into my pocket. I don’t know which annoys me more; the fact that he has apparently decided he’s anti-Declan, or the fact that I don’t have an emoji keyboard to respond with a bunch of tiny animal icons.
Stohler wanders down the hall to join us. Her hair is a sopping wet mess hanging down over her shoulders, leaving huge damp splotches on the pale turquoise fabric of her sundress. She plops down onto the couch between me and Al, then starts finger-combing her hair until it’s neat enough to be wrangled into a braid.
“You look nice,” I say, and she narrows her eyes, like she’s sure an insult is coming. Smart girl—I tack on, “Is that so that you can get sloppy drunk tonight at whatever restaurant we choose, and no one will judge you because you look so innocent?”
“I’m thinking I want Mexican tonight,” Stohler says.
“You’re thinking you want margaritas tonight,” I correct, and she smiles slyly.
Alex shakes his head. “There isn’t a Mexican place in Lakewood.”
“Yeah, but there’s one like, three blocks away from here,” Stohler objects. “Why are we going all the way to Lakewood for dinner?”
“’Cause we’re going to pick Ben up from work first,” Alex says. “His parents needed him to babysit last night, so he stayed in Lakewood and drove over to the shop with his dad this morning.”
Stohler glances over at me, and Alex is still watching the screen, so I point to Jamie’s name and jersey number embroidered on the sleeve of the hoodie I’m wearing. Stohler wiggles her eyebrows at me, and I wiggle mine right back. We both look quickly away from each other to avoid laughing.
“Anyway, his car’s still here, so he doesn’t really have a way to get back, unless he asks his dad to drive him all the way to New Haven and drop him off. I figured it’s easier for us to just pick him up and go for dinner. He gets off in about half an hour, so we should probably head out,” Alex finishes.
“Does he know we’re going to pick him up?” I ask, and Al nods and says, “Yeah, I texted him a couple hours ago.”
Just for good measure, once we’re in the car and on our way to Lakewood, I send Ben a message that says, mayday mayday mayday. al & me & stohls are en route to your store, plz dont let us roll up on you getting dicked by jamie in the stockroom. he went home already right???
He still hasn’t responded by the time Alex has pulled the car into the parking lot of the little shopping center where Ben’s dad’s bookstore is. I send a few more question marks, but I don’t get any sort of reply. Stohler’s sitting shotty and bitching about how hungry she is, and Alex is singing loudly along to Metallica on the car stereo in an attempt to drown her out. I start to compose another text to Ben, but just then, the shop door swings open, and Ben slips out. Alex raises a hand to the steering wheel, preparing to honk the horn to get his attention, but Ben doesn’t even spare a glance around the rest of the lot before his face splits into a little smile and he heads towards another car—a black Caddy with Georgia plates.
Oh, fuck.
“When you texted Ben to say you were going to pick him up, did he text back?” I say sharply. “Does he know we’re here?”
“Nah, I just figured he had his phone off while he was, uh… hang on, is that James’ car?” Alex says, his hand frozen over the horn. “I didn’t know he was in town. Since when are they good enough friends to—”
“Dunno, guess they’ve just been talking more for the past few weeks,” I interrupt. I lean between the seats and try to get at the horn, but Alex grabs my wrist to stop me. I try to shake him off and say, “Come on, let’s just get him. Let’s get them both, we can all go for food togeth—”
“Hang on,” Alex says absently. His eyes are still fixed on Ben, who looks like he’s saying something—I guess Jamie’s window must be down, which makes me so fucking thankful that ours aren’t, because at least that means Alex can’t hear what’s being said.
Doesn’t really matter, though. When Ben reaches the car, Jamie leans out of the window, cups his face between his hands, and kisses him. That pretty much says everything Alex needs to know.
There is absolute silence in our car. My eyes won’t stop flickering back and forth between Alex and the scene outside. Stohler is side-eying Al, too, mostly because I think she’s considering making a leap for the horn if that kiss doesn’t end on its own. Alex… Alex just stares through the windshield.
“What the fuck,” he says. “Seriously, what the fuck.”
“It’s not a big deal,” I say quickly.
It would probably be a more convincing statement, if Ben and Jamie’s kiss hadn’t turned into an all-out, hands-in-the-hair makeout session. That can’t even be comfortable, not with the door between them and both of them twisted at odd angles to get at each other. I briefly consider voicing this opinion, making a joke out of the whole thing, but before I can, Alex jerks the car into drive and stomps on the gas pedal, jolting us straight through the lot and parking a few spaces down from the Cadillac. He gets out of the car and slams the door, and Ben and Jamie finally break apart.
I tumble out of the car and shout, “Hey, wow, this is crazy, huh? It’s a good thing that we’re all such reasonable, rational people, and nobody’s going to overreact, right? ‘Cause that would suck, you know, if anybody blew this out of proport—”
“Garen, shut the fuck up,” Alex snaps. I don’t even have time to get offended before he turns to Ben and points right in his face, the movement sharp enough to make Ben step back. “You’ve got about five seconds to explain what’s going on before I lose my shit, Ben.”
“It kind of seems like you’re planning to lose your shit no matter what,” Stohler points out, but she gets completely ignored. She shrugs, unsurprised, and pulls a pack of cigarettes out of her purse, offering one to me.
I take it, let her light it for me, but don’t inhale just yet. I’m too focused on Ben, who is looking completely and utterly panicked. He has definitely taken more than five seconds to compose himself, but Alex still hasn’t started screaming, so I’m counting it as a win. Ben finally clears his throat, grimaces, and says, “So, um, Al, there’s—there’s maybe something that you and I should uh, talk about?”
He looks back at Jamie like he’s already anticipating the flat, judgmental stare that Jamie gives him for such a lame response, and that look is what really ruins everything—because all at once, it seems to calm Ben and absolutely enrage Alex.
Al plants both hands on Ben’s chest and shoves him hard enough to send him stumbling back into the side of the Escalade. Jamie is out of the car in a second, brushing a hand against Ben’s elbow to be sure he’s steady, then rounding on Alex with a sharp order of, “Get yourself under control, Alexander. I don’t care how angry you are—you keep your hands to yourself.”
“And maybe keep ‘em off the Cadillac, too,” I suggest. “It’s like, an eighty-thousand dollar car.”
It earns me another snarled, “Garen, shut the fuck up.” I make a face at Alex, but he doesn’t see it. He’s only got eyes for Ben. “So, come on, Ben. Tell me the truth. You guys are… what, together now? You’re a couple or something?”
To Ben’s credit, no matter how uncomfortable he is with the way this conversation is proceeding or how nervous he is about his best friend’s reaction, there isn’t even a second of hesitation before he answers, “Yeah. We’re together now.”
I’m expecting Alex to say something else to him, but instead, he turns to look at me and Stohler. I squint back at him. He can’t tell me to shut up again—I haven’t even said anything yet.
Maybe that’s the problem.
“And everybody knew but me, I guess,” Alex says finally, turning back to Ben, who looks like he’s trying very hard not to wince. “These two definitely did, at least. And I bet Travis knows, too?” The wince wins out. “Of fucking course he does. How long has this been going on?”
Jamie leans carefully back against the driver’s door and says, “Well, I only asked him to be my boyfriend this morning. So, technically, I suppose it’s been going on for about nine hours.”
“And what about untechnically?” Alex snaps.
“That’s not a real word,” Ben says, in barely more than a whisper. I finally take a long, deep drag from my cigarette, because Jesus, Ben, really? I know his social skills aren’t always the best, but someone as smart as him should be able to figure out that now is exactly the wrong time to be playing grammar police.
Sure enough, Alex’s voice is almost a yell when he says, “You know what I’m saying, Ben. How long have the two of you been fucking each other? A month, two months, the entire year you’ve known each other, come on. Tell me the truth now, since you obviously haven’t been bothering to tell me anything before tonight.”
Ben rubs one of his hands over his face, like shielding his eyes for a few seconds will give him enough time to compose himself. He shoves his hands back into the pockets of his sweatshirt, takes a deep breath, and says, “Five months.”
“Five months—are you fucking kidding me, Ben?” Alex hisses. “What did you do, hop on his dick the second he and I broke up?”
“No, see, that would imply that you and I were ever a couple, which we were not,” Jamie interjects. “We slept together a bit, but you never wanted to date me, and you don’t have the right to pretend otherwise now that—”
“You weren’t broken up,” Ben blurts out.
“Ben,” I say warningly, but it doesn’t help at all.
On the best days, Ben has zero instinct towards self-preservation. Right now, he must be actively aiming for self-destruction, because he shuffles a little bit closer to Alex and admits, “It was—you were still hooking up, the first time, I—it was right after Travis turned eighteen, when we all went out together. And don’t—it wasn’t James, don’t get mad at James, it was me. I’m—I’m the one who initiated it, Al, and I know I shouldn’t have done that, I’m sorry—”
Alex punches him. I burn my own damn hand dropping my cigarette, and Stohler practically shrieks, “What the fuck, Alex!”
The only thing keeping Ben upright is the Caddy. He staggers back against it, stunned, both hands over his face, but it doesn’t really help; red is seeping out between his fingers, looking almost black in the low light. That’s all I need to see before I kind of snap. I grab Alex by the collar of his shirt, dragging him back until I can push him up against the side of his own vehicle.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” I demand. “Ben’s your best friend. Don’t you dare--”
“It’s fine, Garen, stop,” Ben says. He kind of sounds like he’s choking a little, and when I look over my shoulder at him, it’s easy to see why. Jamie has managed to pry his hands away from his face, and there’s blood everywhere. I can’t imagine that Alex knows how to throw a good punch, but he must have lucked out enough to get Ben right in the nose, maybe even hard enough to break it. But that still isn’t enough to stop Ben, gigantic dumbass that he is, from saying, “Let go of him, G. It’s fine. I-I deserved it anyway, and I’m fine, I’m—”
“You didn’t deserve it, and you’re not fine, McCutcheon,” Jamie says sharply. “You’re hurt, and you’re bleeding, for Christ’s sake. At least let me—”
Because we’re apparently living in the 1940s now, Jamie digs into an inner pocket of his suit jacket and pulls out a handkerchief. God, I bet his initials are monogrammed on the corner of it in color-coordinated thread. He folds it into Ben’s hand and guides it up to his bleeding face. The whole scene must be just as ridiculous to everyone else as it is to me, because Alex barks out something like a laugh.
“Wow, Ben, congratulations. That’s quite a gentleman you’ve got there. I mean, he wasn’t enough of a gentleman to stop himself from fucking my roommate behind my back when he was supposed to be in bed with me, but other than that, yeah, you both really hit the fucking jackpot.”
And then, the only thing that could possibly make this situation worse happens. From maybe fifty feet away, a sharp voice says, “What’s going on out here?”
I turn to see Warren McCutcheon standing in the doorway of the bookstore, squinting through his glasses to make out the faces in the dark. When I turn back to my friends, the blood is draining from Ben’s face, literally and figuratively—he’s still holding the handkerchief to his nose in an attempt to stop the blood pouring from it, and he’s paler than I’ve ever seen him.
“N-Nothing, Dad, go back inside. Everything’s fine,” Ben says, but his voice is hoarse and thick, and the second Warren realizes that his kid is injured, his eyes darken, and he storms across the lot.
“What happened to you?” he demands. He puts one hand on the back of Ben’s neck, maybe to comfort him, and the other goes to his wrist in an attempt to pry the cloth away so he can see the damage to Ben’s face. But I’ve been beaten enough times to understand Ben’s panicked expression—he knows that letting anyone see his injury is only going to make things worse, so he just shakes his head. Warren repeats, somewhat louder and more to the rest of us, “What happened here? Who hit my son?”
Ben shakes his head again. At this point, I don’t think he’s silent because he won’t speak, but because he can’t speak. Warren’s eyes flicker over the rest of us, first to me and Alex, then to Jamie and Stohler, the two unfamiliar faces. Stohler, in her sundress and giant wedge sandals, doesn’t look ready to beat anyone up (though I have no doubt that she could), so Warren’s attention narrows in on Jamie.
And wow, no, a whole world of fuck that.
“Alex did it,” I announce.
“Garen, shut up,” Ben finds his voice to say.
Shameless, I throw my hands up and say, “What do you want me to say, dude? He did.”
Warren snaps around to stare at Alex. “Alex? Is that true?” Alex says nothing. “You two have been best friends since you were twelve. What in the world could be worth fighting over like this?”
“It doesn’t m—” The letter ends up coming out a lot closer to a hum than an actual syllable. Ben huffs out a breath and closes his eyes, licks his bloody lips and tries again, “It doesn’t m-matt--matter.” The color comes back to his cheeks in a horrible, splotchy flush. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone look as humiliated as he does when he says, in barely more than a whisper, “Dad, just go.”
“I think we should take you to the emergency room,” Jamie says quietly, stepping closer so that he can put his hand on the small of Ben’s back. “Your nose might be broken, and it’d be best if you had a doctor set it sooner, rather than later.”
Speaking is clearly a mistake, because Warren’s focus goes right back to Jamie, to Jamie’s hand. “Ben, if you want to go to the hospital—”
“I don’t.”
“—you’ll go with me, not with some boy I’ve never even met before.”
Alex snorts. “What, you haven’t met James? He’s the guy who’s—”
“Baker, knock it off,” Stohler interrupts at the same time that Warren says, “Alex, you are lucky that I haven’t called the police. Get in your car and go. Leave Ben al—”
“—who’s having sex with your son,” Alex finishes. Ben’s eyes fall shut, and Warren’s open wider. “At least, he’s the latest one, right, Ben?” Ben lets out a sound that might be a whimper, and Alex crowds closer to him, yells right in his bleeding face, “Come on, man, tell him! Tell your dad all about how you can’t stop stealing your best friends’ boyfriends, or how you’ll let any asshole with a six-pack or a varsity jacket put his dick in your mouth, or how you’re a freaky little S&M slut who thinks that none of the fucked up shit you do counts just because you wear this.”
He hooks two fingers under the collar of Ben’s shirt to fish out the gold chain that’s home to a small crucifix and the silver purity ring from Ethan Hall’s keychain. I hadn’t realized that Jamie stole the ring when he had the keychain in Georgia; I hadn’t realized he’d brought it back. Alex curls his hand into a fist, and I step forward to stop him if he tries to swing again. Instead, he yanks on it hard enough to break the clasp, then holds the ruined chain and its charms up in front of Ben’s face. Ben’s eyes flutter open, then dart back and forth, following the swinging of the crucifix and ring like he’s hypnotized.
Alex takes a deep breath to start yelling again, but before he can, Warren snatches the chain out of his hand and steps between the two of them. He isn’t much taller than his son, still half a foot shorter than Alex, but his absolute fury makes him something to be terrified of right now.
“Don’t you ever touch my son again,” he snaps, pointing a stern finger right in Alex’s face. It’s from the same hand that’s now holding the chain, letting it dangle between them. Alex looks like he wants to shrink back, but won’t let himself. Warren comes closer to him and says, “Now, you listen to me. You are going to get in your car, and you are going to get out of this lot right now. I don’t care where you go, but I want you to get the hell away from my family. Are we clear?”
His voice leaves no room for argument. Alex throws one last disgusted look at Ben and Jamie, then stalks around to the driver’s side of his car and gets in. He peels out of the lot, sending bits of gravel everywhere. For a minute, there is silence among everyone remaining in the lot.
Then, Stohler whispers to Jamie, “Yeeeah, that was kind of my ride? So, I’m gonna need a lift back to New Haven, if you guys are going back there tonight.”
“Ben isn’t going anywhere, except for back into the shop,” Warren says. “There’s obviously a lot we need to talk about.”
Ben and Jamie exchange a glance. I can see Jamie’s grip tightening on the back of Ben’s hoodie, like he’s not prepared to let go just yet. Luckily for them, manners aren’t really my strong point. I have no qualms about shuffling closer and saying, “But we can come, too. Right?”
Warren sighs. “Garen, I think it would be better if—”
“What Alex said was total bullshit, Mr. M,” I say. Warren winces, and Ben kicks out at my shin. Hastily, I amend, “Sorry, I know you’re not big on the, uh, swearing thing. What he said was… bull… crap? Is that better?”
“No, but you shutting up probably would be,” Ben hisses. “God, ‘bull-crap,’ what’s wrong with you?”
Undeterred, I trot after Warren as he heads back towards the door of the shop. “Seriously, I know that these aren’t ideal circumstances for you finding out that Ben’s dating somebody, but you have to know, Alex is being an idiot. Ben’s still a really good guy, and Jamie’s awesome, I swear. He’s my best friend in the world, total boyfriend material, you absolutely do not have to worry about him being as much of an ass as Alex is turning out to be. He’ll totally treat Ben right, I promise. And if he doesn’t, I could always beat him up for—”
“You talk more than all six of my children combined,” Warren sighs. He holds open the door, and I dart inside.
“Yeah, probably, but only five of ‘em really count. Asher’s only, what, a year and a half? He can’t be saying that much yet. But hey, Jane’s gotta be giving me a run for my money. She talks a lot, too.”
“Not this much,” I think Warren might say under his breath. He looks back over his shoulder and sees that Ben still hasn’t moved. He snaps his fingers, points at his son, then directs that same finger to the interior of the store. “Ben. Get inside. Now.”
I snort and say, without thinking, “That’s what Jamie says, too. See? You guys already have a lot in common.”
“Garen, shut the fuck up!” Ben howls. Usually, he’d be in a shitload of trouble for saying that in front of his dad, but Warren just turns and stares, wild-eyed, into the shop for a minute before he shuffles inside, muttering as he goes, “I sincerely hope that the bottle of bourbon the part-timers gave me for Christmas is still in the cupboard.”
Ben darts forward to follow him, but still pauses long enough to slug me in the ribs as he passes me. I peek back out of the store at my remaining friends. Stohler has a hand clamped over her mouth, and her shoulders are shaking. I’m a little bit mollified by the fact that at least one other person thinks I’m funny.
Jamie, on the other hand, has both his arms spread out as if to say, what the fuck. “Garen,” he says slowly, quietly. “You do realize that I’m meeting my boyfriend’s father for the very first time, don’t you? A boyfriend who I’ve been dating for less than a day and who is covered in blood, and his father, a devout Catholic who has only just now been alerted to the fact that his eldest child is not a virgin.”
“Yeah,” I say, equally slowly. “I mean, I’ve pretty much been here for the whole thing.”
“And you still feel that now is an appropriate time to be making jokes about Ben fucking me in the ass,” Jamie says.
“Well, the punchline was more about what a powerbottom you are,” I admit, “but uh, yeah, that was maybe one of my less-awesome ideas. Do you wanna just—” I point into the shop. Jamie rolls his eyes and bumps past me into the store.
The sign on the door has been flipped to ‘closed,’ and most of the lights are off. Ben has left the ‘employees only’ door open behind the counter, which is enough of an invitation for me. I clamp one hand on the back of Jamie’s neck, the other on the back of Stohler’s, and steer them both through it.
The store’s back room serves as a combination office, break room, supply closet. There’s a desk and a small table, but both are too covered in books to actually be usable. There are stacked boxes of books in most of the corners and on a few of the mismatched armchairs. Stohler immediately steals a place on one of the few empty chairs, and I fling myself down on another. Jamie carefully lifts a haphazard stack of books from one of the remaining chairs, but instead of sitting down, he shuffles through the books, reordering them and neatening them.
Ben watches him do that, then watches his dad mess around with the electric kettle set up on the corner of the table. He clears his throat and says, “Just let me clean up and change my shirt, and then we can talk, okay?” He means, change the shirt that has blood all over it? Yeah, that’s a fucking great thing to draw attention to right now. I strip off Jamie’s lax hoodie and lean over to drape it across Ben’s arm, careful to avoid the blood smears on his own sleeves. He gives me a jerky nod of thanks before he slips through another door into the bathroom.
The four of us wait for him with no words spoken between us, the only sound coming from the boiling kettle and the running faucet in the bathroom. Warren sets the broken necklace, the cross, and the ring on the corner of the table before he switches the kettle off and gathers a few mugs from a cupboard above his head. He begins fixing cups of tea; Stohler accepts one, I refuse, and Jamie takes his with a soft, “Thank you.”
Those two words aren’t much, but at least they break the silence. Warren swallows and says, “It’s ‘James,’ right?”
“Yes, sir,” Jamie says, sitting down and meeting his gaze with a careful neutral look. “James Goldwyn.”
“And I’m assuming you’re not exactly a local boy, with that accent,” Warren adds. His voice is eerily calm. Like a serial killer.
“No, sir. I’m originally from Savannah, Georgia, but I attend school in New York City.”
At that, Warren turns to look at me. I want to protest that I’m not personally responsible for every single person on the island of Manhattan, but since I technically am the only reason Ben and Jamie know each other, I think that argument would fall kind of flat. I give Warren a sheepish smile. His mouth tightens, and one of his eyebrows arches ever so slightly upward.
“Oh god, that’s where he learned that look,” I whisper. “Unless it’s not a learned behavior. Are derisive stares genetic?”
But Warren has already turned his attention back to Jamie, who sits up a little bit straighter.
“I wasn’t aware that my son was seeing anyone.”
“We haven’t been together very long,” Jamie says.
“And yet, long enough that you’ve found time to get in bed together, apparently,” Warren says.
Stohler and I exchange horrified stares. Jamie tries very hard not to move at all.
Ben comes tumbling back out of the bathroom. He has changed into Jamie’s clean hoodie, but he hasn’t gotten all of the blood off his face just yet; there are still a few smears right at the edge of his beard. “Holy Mother of God, Dad, we are not talking about this. Seriously, stop, I don’t—”
“Why not?” Warren demands, slamming his tea mug down on the desk so that he can cross his arms over the front of his sweater. “If you all think that you’re adult enough to be having sex, then I expect you to be adult enough to discuss it.”
“I’m sorry if you feel that I have disrespected you, your son, or the rest of your family in any way. That was never my intention,” Jamie says. Ben whips around to give him an incredulous stare, and I can’t help but do the exact same thing from where I’m curled up in the armchair. Jamie loves disrespecting Ben. I’m pretty sure that consensual degradation is the foundation of every single one of their sexual encounters. Jamie meets Ben’s eyes, and his mouth sort of twitches, like he wants to sneer at him but knows that now isn’t really the time. He looks at Warren again, schools his face back into neutrality, and continues, “I sincerely regret the fact that he and Alex are having problems because of me. And my feelings for Ben are complicated, but… genuine. If you only take one thing away from meeting me, I’d like it to be that.”
“Why are you pretending you’re nice?” Ben whispers. “You’re not nice, and this is weird. Stop trying to sweet-talk my dad.”
“Do you think you’re helping this situation at all?” Jamie demands.
“Do you think this is a situation that can be helped?” Ben says. His voice cracks halfway through the question, but he doesn’t seem like he really notices it. “God, you heard what Alex said outside. Everybody heard. It doesn’t matter how much damage control you try to run right now, I can’t come back from something like that, I’m still just—everybody knows now, if they didn’t before, they know I’m just a screwed up slut like Alex said I—”
“Benjamin, don’t you ever let me hear you say something like that about yourself again,” Warren says sharply. “I don’t care what kind of things you’ve done, or who you have done them with; you’re my child, and I love you, and I won’t allow you to speak of yourself with anything less than respect. Do you understand me?”
Ben jerks his head in a nod, but it seems more like a reflex than an actual agreement. He won’t meet anyone’s eyes. Instead, he picks up the broken necklace and starts screwing around with the clasp. I think he’s trying to fix it, but it’s no use; the clasp is totally broken, and his fingers are trembling so badly that I’m surprised he hasn’t dropped it anyway.
Jamie reaches out and covers Ben’s hands with his until Ben stops moving. Once he’s still, Jamie releases him and reaches up to one of the supply shelves for a pair of scissors and a spool of the sleek red twine that sometimes gets used to tie off the boxes of books here. He snips off a length of about three feet, folds it over on itself once to reinforce it, and threads the crucifix and the ring onto it. He beckons Ben closer; Ben shuffles a half-step forward, just within reach. Jamie ties the twine around Ben’s neck so that the cross hangs low on his throat, resting just below his collarbone.
Ben looks like he wants to say thank you, but can’t manage to get the words out. Jamie nods like he heard it anyway and says, “We’ll get the chain fixed, alright?”
“Yeah,” Ben agrees quietly.
Warren watches the entire scene unfold in silence. Once my friends have lapsed back into silence, he says, “Garen and, ah…”
He looks over at Stohler, who unfolds herself from the arm chair and holds her hand out for a brief shake. “Lindsey Stohler. Sorry, should’ve mentioned that earlier.”
“It’s good to meet you, Lindsey. But I’d like to speak to Ben and James for a moment, if you and Garen wouldn’t mind waiting in the store.”
“Of course,” Stohler says, at the same time that I say, “I guess, but just so you’re aware, they’re probably going to tell us everything you say anyway.”
Stohler grabs the collar of my t-shirt and yanks me out into the store proper. She closes the door, but it’s a tiny shop, and no matter where we try to stand, the low murmur of voices in the back room is still plainly audible. In the end, we go outside to avoid the awkwardness of eavesdropping.
Stohler lights a single cigarette, and we pass it back and forth between us in silence for several minutes before I say, “I can’t believe Alex actually hit him.”
Stohler grimaces. “I’m trying not to think about that, actually.”
“I can’t think about much else,” I admit. “I mean, really. He hit Ben? Nobody hits Ben. I’ve never even hit Ben, and I hit pretty much everyone. But Ben—”
“Ben isn’t delicate. And he isn’t weak. I’m sure he can take care of himself, but…” Stohler sucks the end of the cigarette, considers her words carefully, and eventually exhales, “He chooses not to, I think. He’d rather take care of everyone else. If I know that after only being friends with him for six months, then Alex has definitely got to know that after six years. He knew Ben would accept that punch like he’d earned it, and that makes the whole situation even more fucked up.”
I nod because that’s easier than speaking right now. I keep picturing the stunned look on Ben’s face when he was hit, the way he crumpled against the side of the Cadillac. I keep picturing the blood.
“Think we should kill Alex when we get back to the apartment?” I ask.
“Trying not to think about it,” Stohler repeats. “Al’s my friend. So is Ben, and so is Jamie. I don’t want to choose sides, and pretty much the only way I can avoid choosing sides is by pretending that I didn’t just see Alex throw a temper tantrum and punch his best friend in the face over a guy he was never really that into in the first place.” She glances sideways at me and takes another drag off the cigarette. “Not that Jamie isn’t great and all that. I know he’s your best friend, and I’m not trying to insult him. He’s a good guy, he’s fun to hang with, and he’s wicked hot. I’d probably fuck him, if he wasn’t so embarrassingly preppy and well-groomed. Maybe if he stopped shaving, grew out his hair, skipped a couple showers, got a motorcycle—”
“Your taste in dudes is pretty troubling,” I interrupt.
She snorts and gives me the finger. “Don’t fucking talk to me about ‘troubling taste in guys,’ Anderson. You’re nailing a ginger.”
“Yeah, a built ginger with a pierced tongue. That’s got to count for—”
“Look, my point is that Jamie’s great, but Alex never really thought so. They were never really going anywhere, relationship-wise. It’s total bullshit that Alex is pretending to be upset about that.” Stohler stubs out the cigarette. “Like I said, if I think about it too much, I’m just going to end up hating one of the only friends I’ve got.”
I’m spared the trouble of responding when the shop door opens and Ben and Jamie trudge out. Neither of them looks particularly pleased, but at least Jamie has an arm draped over Ben’s shoulders. I give them a thumbs-up, then twist it into a thumbs-down, then back up. “How’d it go?”
“My presence has been requested at Mass tomorrow morning,” Jamie says. “Apparently, all judgment is being reserved until Mrs. McCutcheon has had a chance to meet me as well.”
“But that’s good, right?” I say, shrugging. “I mean, church with the family—that’s a relationship kind of thing, isn’t it? That’s got to be a good sign.”
“Might be a better sign if the invitation hadn’t been preceded by a brief lecture about how completely and utterly unacceptable it is that Ben and I have been sleeping together for months now,” Jamie sighs. “I can’t wait to see how much longer that lecture will be tomorrow, when it’s both of his parents instead of just one.”
“I kind of hope Hillary yells at you in Italian,” I admit. “It’ll make for a way more interesting story when I have to listen to you whine about it later this week.”
Jamie opens his mouth to retort, but before he can, Ben tips his head up to look at him and says quietly, “Will you take me home, please?”
“Of course. But… if I’m being honest, I think your father had the right idea in suggesting that you stay at my hotel tonight. At least until Alex has calmed down a bit,” Jamie says slowly. “It’s up to you, though.”
Ben ducks out from under his arm and heads for the passenger side of the Escalade. “Sure. I can do that, I guess.”
By the time we get back to the apartment in New Haven, it’s pretty fucking clear that Alex hasn’t calmed down at all. The four of us all go upstairs together, even though Stohler and I are planning to head over to her place. She has agreed to put me up for the night so I can take a train back to New York tomorrow, but neither of us is willing to leave Ben’s building until we’re sure the situation is a bit more settled.
Ben manages one step into the apartment before he freezes in place. Alex is kicked back on the couch, surrounded in so many torn scraps of paper that it looks like snowfall. As the rest of us watch, he tears a few more pages from the book in his hand and flings them on the ground. He’s moving quickly, and he has been at this for a while; there are almost three dozen empty, ruined book covers on the couch cushion next to him, and the entire middle shelf of Ben’s overstuffed bookshelf is missing.
“Alex,” Ben croaks. “Stop, what are you—”
“What does it look like I’m doing, asshole?” Alex snaps. “You did something you knew would make me mad, so I’m returning the favor. The only difference is that I’m not hiding it.”
Jamie walks right up to him and yanks the ruined book out of his hand. The cover is hanging halfway off, but Jamie still turns it to read the title, then shoots Alex an absolutely disgusted look. “I didn’t buy him this book so that you could destroy it, Alex.”
“No, you bought him that book so you could get in his pants,” Alex says flatly. “And honestly, you probably didn’t have to expend so much effort. God knows he gave it up easy enough for Garen and Travis and your cousin and who fucking knows how many guys at Yale.”
He picks up another book, flips open the cover, and tears out the first three pages. Jamie grabs that book out of his hand, too, then stoops to move the rest of the stack of books away from Alex so that his only choices are to stop ruining Ben’s books, or to try to get past all of us to reach the books still on the bookshelf. The only one left near him is a thick old volume on the far end of the coffee table. It has a white cover with no title, and it doesn’t seem worth the effort of reaching for.
“Th-There hasn’t been anyone at Yale,” Ben tries to protest. “I’m not—I know that what I did was fucked up, and I know I shouldn’t have slept with James while you two were still involved, but I didn’t mean, I’m n-not—” He stops, takes a deep breath, and opens his mouth to keep going, but in that pause, Alex seems to lose it.
“You didn’t, you haven’t, you’re n-n-n-not, fucking spit it out, Ben. I thought you got over this stutter bullshit in high school.”
Ben’s face crumples, and it’s too much for me to handle. I slip an arm around his shoulders and turn him right around so that he’s facing the hallway. “Come on, dude, we’re gonna go pack your stuff for the night.”
“I can go,” Jamie says quickly, but I shake my head.
“No, you have to stay here and make sure Alex doesn’t go apeshit on the rest of the books. Besides, if I stay in this room any longer, I’m gonna break that fuckhead’s jaw, and I might have made some good tips last night, but I didn’t make enough to cover those court fees.”
I herd Ben down the hall to his bedroom. He lets me, but he isn’t doing too much to help. Once we’re in his room with the door shut, he sits down on the edge of his bed and blinks at the scuffed white toes of his Chucks. Unsurprisingly, he doesn’t have some sort of sports bag for me to pack his stuff in, so I dump his schoolbooks out of his backpack and start going through his dresser to find clean clothes. He makes a soft noise of protest behind me, but when I look around to see what the problem is, he just makes an aborted gesture and gets up to do it himself.
“Ben,” I say quietly. “You can talk in front of me. I’m not going to say anything about, you know.” I’m not sure if it would even be okay for me to say the word stutter right now. He mentioned it to me forever ago, of course—said he hates public speaking so much that he used to be completely incapable of even getting a full sentence out in a crowded classroom, explained that LHS put him in speech therapy until he learned to pave over his terror with detached monotone. The stutter, the stammer, whatever it is, it was gone by the time I met him, and I’ve never seen him stressed enough to let it out again. I’m not entirely sure what standard operating procedure is now.
Ben doesn’t seem to know, either. He avoids my eyes and edges past me to get to his dresser, but he summons the nerve to say very, very quietly, “Not regular clothes. Church in the morning.”
“Right, sorry. Do you want me to—”
“I can,” he whispers. I step out of the way and watch as he gathers up pajamas and boxers and plain t-shirts from the dresser, then moves to the closet, where his nicer clothes are hanging up. He takes down an Oxford, a pair of dark navy trousers, a sweater, and a tie, then tosses them all onto the bed in a big lump. Instead of stuffing them into his bag, he just rubs both his hands over his face and mutters, “Fuck. I can’t believe I couldn’t even keep this going for a whole day.”
I can feel my forehead wrinkling in confusion. “Keep what going?”
Ben gestures towards the hall, presumably indicating the people down it. “This. With James. I can’t believe I—I mean, he’s gonna break up with me. Of course he’s going to break up with me, he barely likes me as it is, and he’s not—he didn’t bargain for this. A big fight with my best friend—his ex, a-and meeting my parents right now, having my dad find out we’re fucking already, having to bring me back to his hotel for—he wanted me to come back there for sex, not so he could keep my friend from fucking up my face even more.” Ben finally looks up at me, wide-eyed and miserable. “We’ve been dating for twelve hours, and he’s already going to break up with me. That’s how fucking pathetic I am. I know he’s out of my league, but I figured that once we got together, I might be able to last, what, a fucking week, at least.”
If he hadn’t already gotten punched once tonight, I think I’d want to hit him myself, just to show him what an idiot he is. Instead, I stomp over to the door, fling it open, lean into the hall, and shout, “Jamie, get the fuck in here.”
He joins us in less than five seconds, looking expectantly back and forth between us, but before he can ask what’s up, I point to Ben and say, “Are you going to break up with him, or what?”
Jamie squints. “Excuse me?” His eyes flicker to the side when Ben finally starts shoving his clothes into the backpack, and then Jamie’s whole face kind of twists up in annoyance for a half-second. He grabs the clothes back out of the bag and says, “Really? I’d understand if you chose not to fold everything, but there’s no excuse to just crumpling up a dress shirt and shoving it—”
“You shove it, dude, answer my question,” I interrupt. “Are you going to break up with Ben?”
“Why would I?” Jamie asks. He smooths out the dress shirt and folds it into a perfectly neat square, like something that belongs on a department store shelf. “I only asked him out this morning. I know we joke about how easily I get bored of people, but that would be extreme, even for me. Besides, in case you’ve forgotten, his family expects me for church in the—”
“I can just tell them it’s not going to happen,” Ben says. “It’s—they’d get it, they’d be understanding of the whole si-situation, I think.”
Jamie stops in the middle of folding the sweater. “Wait a moment. Are you trying to break up with me? Because if so, you can fuck right off with that idea, you little midget. It took nearly a year for me to start liking you, and I’ll be damned if I let you break it off the second we start to figure things out.”
“I’m not trying to end this,” Ben protests. “I just know you don’t—”
But he stops speaking abruptly, for pretty obvious reasons—the low tones of whatever conversation Stohler and Alex had been having in the living room has erupted into yelling.
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” I mutter, trudging out into the hall with the other two on my heels. I don’t know exactly what I’m expecting to see when we get to the living room, but it’s definitely not… Stohler pinning Alex down on the couch and pimp-slapping him repeatedly across the face. Which is what’s happening.
“Get her the fuck off me!” Alex snaps at us. “Come on, I’m not going to hit a chick—”
“Wow, Al, you’re right,” Stohler declares, punctuating her words with another backhand across his face. “It’s really fucking shitty when somebody beats up on someone who can’t fight back.” Another slap. “It’s a good thing you’re too nice of a guy to ever do something like this, right? I mean, what kind of crazy bitch hits a guy, knowing he’ll never hit her back because she’s a girl?” She hits him harder, then grabs one of the couch cushions and starts trying to smother him as she yells, “What kind of asshole would hit his best friend, knowing he’ll never hit him back because that best friend thinks he deserved to get hit?”
Honestly, I’m pretty cool with the idea of letting her go on for as long as she wants. It’s kind of entertaining to watch, and it’s not like Alex doesn’t deserve it. But Ben must disagree, because he darts forward and grabs Stohler around the waist, hauling her off of Alex with a lot of effort and absolutely no assistance from me or Jamie.
“Stohls, knock it off,” he pants. “This isn’t helping, okay? I don’t want to fight with Alex. I just want to make things okay again.”
Stohler’s response to that is to kick Alex in the stomach with one of her giant wedge sandals.
Ben shoots me an annoyed, alarmed look. “Can you fucking help me, G? My neighbors are going to call the goddamn cops if everyone doesn’t calm down and shut up soon.”
I heave a sigh, but loop my arms around Stohler and hold her at bay. I immediately wish I hadn’t, because the first thing that Ben does is turn to Alex and resume his awful, pathetic begging.
“Alex, you’re my best friend. I want things between us to be okay,” Ben pleads. “I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have lied to you about this. Just tell me what I have to do, and I’ll—”
“Break up with him,” Alex says, pointing at Jamie.
Ben blinks. “What?”
“You want to know what you have to do? Break up with him. Right now,” Alex snaps. He’s still pointing at Jamie, who is watching Ben in wide-eyed apprehension. “Come on, Ben, you said you wanted to make things okay. They’re not going to be okay as long as you’re with him!”
Ben’s eyes dart back and forth between Alex’s face and Jamie’s for maybe ten seconds before finally falling somewhere between them. The tattered remains of all the ruined books are lying in a pile on the floor; it’s a bizarrely neat pile, like maybe Jamie spent a few minutes trying to see if they were salvageable before I called him into the bedroom. Ben stares at the pile of pages for nearly a minute before he takes a deep breath and says, “No.”
“No?” Alex repeats, his eyebrows shooting upward.
“No,” Ben repeats, voice quiet but firm. His hands are shoved in the pocket of his hoodie and his shoulders are hunched, but his eyes are clear and unblinking when he finally looks up at his best friend. “No, I’m not going to break up with him, and fuck you for asking me to. I can date anyone I want to date, and it’s—that’s my choice.” His shoulders hunch higher, like he knows he’s about to say something that’ll make Alex want to take another swing at him. “You couldn’t make things work with James, and that’s your own fault, not mine. I didn’t steal him from you, and I am tired of being asked to step gracefully aside so that other people can have their second and third chances. I, um.” He takes another deep breath and looks at the floor. “I deserve a chance to get what I want, too, sometimes. And I want James.”
For too long, there’s nothing but a heavy silence in the room. I kind of expect Alex to question the decision again, but he doesn’t. He just stares. Finally, he reaches for the last book on the table, the fat white volume. “Alright. I hope getting fucked by him is worth losing your best friend over.” He flips open the cover and thumbs through a few pages that are as slim and translucent as a moth’s wings. “I really, really hope he’s worth it, Ben.”
“Alex, don’t you fucking dare,” Ben say. The nervousness is entirely gone from his voice now, replaced by something bordering on fury. “Put it down.”
Alex blinks at him. “What, you’re the only one who gets to put your hands on things that don’t belong to you?”
For the first time since leaving the bedroom, Jamie bristles. “Alright, hang the fuck on. I sincerely hope you’re not implying that I have ever belonged to anyone but my damn self, because that would be—”
“Alex, get your hands off my fucking Bible right now,” Ben cuts across him.
Alex crumples half the Book of Genesis in his fist and rips. Ben’s whole face goes blank, and so does Alex’s; it’s like he only realizes that he has crossed the line the second after the pages have been torn. He blinks down at the Bible in one hand, the stack of pages in the other. After a few seconds, he places the pages back inside the book, closes the cover, and holds it out. Ben takes the Bible from him and opens the cover, staring down at the torn pages. From where I’m standing, I can see over his shoulder that the first page bears a calligraphy inscription of the words, This Holy Bible is presented to Benjamin Brendon Anthony McCutcheon on the occasion of his Confirmation, with a date of about eleven years earlier. Ben closes the Bible.
“Ben,” Alex says, but Ben just shakes his head and tucks the ruined Bible into the backpack that Jamie has brought out of the bedroom. Alex repeats, “Ben.”
“We’re not okay,” Ben says. He shoulders his backpack, takes Jamie’s hand, and heads for the door, not even turning to look at Alex again as he says, “I need you to leave me alone now. I’ll see you around, I guess.”
Alex looks upset over that, but it’s nearly impossible for me to feel bad for him. Stohler and I let ourselves out.