Reckless Chapter Twenty-Nine: Bonus Scene
James Goldwyn
Ben sleeps through the alarm at nine o’clock, my shower at nine fifteen, the phone call to room service at nine thirty, and the breakfast delivery at ten. I suspect he would sleep through the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon, if I allowed him to do so. For a long moment, I consider it. He’d miss his shift at the bookstore, but he would also miss my almost certainly doomed attempts to discuss our relationship status. It might even out.
Relationship status. It sounds like something that shouldn’t exist outside of an eighth grader’s Facebook account, and I find myself wishing he was awake to see the way my lip curls back at the thought. I’m absolutely certain that he is going to laugh in my face the moment I try to bring this up, and I’d hate for him to think that I’m taking this whole thing too seriously.
The alarm clock goes off again, and Ben makes a sound of protest that is so vehement, I worry the guests in the next room over will call the front desk. I say over him, “Sweet mother of God, McCutcheon, you’re not being tortured.”
“Yes, I am,” he groans, shoving his head under the pillow. The movement shakes his torso free of the blanket. His clothes are still scattered across the floor, and he is lying facedown; I can see the full length of the marks I clawed into his back last night… and again in the earliest hours of this morning… and again a few hours after that. My whole body is aching pleasantly from the exertion, but I’m certain that whatever I feel is nothing compared to the scratches on his skin. I switch off the alarm clock and crack back into bed, though I’m freshly showered and fully clothed.
“It’s time to wake up,” I say. I brush a kiss to his shoulder, at the very top of one of the scratches. Ben doesn’t move. I repeat the kiss on the next scratch. “I ordered breakfast sent up, and it’s getting cold. You’re being very selfish.”
“Shut up,” he might say. It’s a bit difficult to tell with the pillow between us. I nip at his shoulder in warning, but he obviously doesn’t understand my intention, because he makes a pleased sort of sigh and releases his grip on the pillow to reach back and bury one hand in my hair, keeping my mouth on him.
Under normal circumstances, I might stay here as long as he’d like, but now that his left arm is in my line of sight, I notice that it looks a bit different from normal. It’s as thin and scarred as always, but there’s a thin rope of black around it, starting at his wrist and winding around and around his forearm to a point just above the bend of his elbow. I lift my mouth off him long enough to say, “Really, Benjamin? Another tattoo? Surely you’ve got enough by now.”
“No such thing,” he says. He gives his wrist a half-hearted tug away from me, but he can’t be too bothered by the idea of me examining it, because he allows me to turn his arm this way and that until I can read the entire line of script.
1 Corinthians 10:13 - 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.
The letters are smaller than I would’ve expected anyone to be able to manage to tattoo without turning the whole thing into a blur. His artist appears to have done her best to position the words so that they don’t draw more attention to the scars on him, but it’s difficult to cover them completely, especially the one he had stitches for last October.
He peeks out from under the pillow. Moving slowly enough that he could stop me if he truly wanted to, I lean in again and kiss the delicate bones of his wrist, right where the tattoo begins. When he doesn’t protest, I drag my lips down the words, muttering against his skin, “You’re going to end up covered in these, aren’t you?”
He twists to smile into the pillow. “That’s kind of the idea. Most of my paycheck goes right to rent and bills, so if I’m going to spend money on something that’s just for me, I might as well spend it on something that I’ll get to keep for the rest of my life.”
“You mean, something that directly opposes your aspirations of becoming a schoolteacher?” I say. He huffs and rolls over and makes a rude gesture. I can’t decide whether to hit him or kiss him, and the closest I can come to doing both is to duck down and sink my teeth into his throat. His breath hitches, and he slips an arm around my shoulders, but I slip out of his grasp and sit up. “Get out of bed, you lazy swine. Once you’ve gotten ready for work, come eat breakfast with me.” I don’t think my forced calmness is even remotely convincing, but I do my best to sound casual as I add, “And there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have a moment.”
Ben sits up and rubs at his eyes a bit, tracking black circles of eyeliner halfway down his face. I refuse to be charmed by this. He says, “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”
“Get ready first,” I say firmly. There’s a strong possibility I’ll need to shove him out of the room after this conversation in an attempt to save face, and it’s a bit harder to do that if he’s naked. He shrugs and tumbles out of bed, getting himself tangled in the sheets and stumbling into the nearest wall. He doesn’t even seem to notice; I think he’s still almost completely asleep.
When he retreats to the bathroom to shower, I busy myself with checking my messages, but that turns out to be an incredibly bad idea. Garen seems to have spent a solid half hour texting me this morning, alternating between bragging about the fact that he successfully won himself a job at Rush and lecturing me on the proper procedure for initiating a conversation with Ben.
Proper procedure, it would appear, is to ‘say that only guys who date you get to cum in your mouth, idc that you dont like the taste, itll be worth it, you can use mouthwash after.’ This helpful advice is sprinkled with other, equally horrific comments, including, ‘do i have to be best man 4 BOTH of you @ your inevitable wedding or do you think he’ll finally tell alex by then?’ and ‘its a shame you guys have been going bareback since day 1 bc now youll have no way to celebrate being exclusive :( :( 8===D~~~.’ Garen is the worst person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing.
Is that meant to be a penis? I text back. More specifically, is that meant to be mine? Because if so, I believe you’ve done me a great injustice in terms of length.
8======================================D~~~, he replies, and I close my eyes, deeply regretting the day that the Patton Military Academy housing coordinators chose to assign Garen and me to the same dorm room. My phone buzzes again, and I sneak a glance at it. does the fact that youre not calling me in tears mean he said yes???
Rather than reply, I toss my phone back onto the bed and set about moving the breakfast tray out to the balcony. Once it has been relocated to the small table between the two chairs out there, I take my time rearranging it. Everything is there, of course—the pot of tea, the fruit plate, a tiny basket of pastries and baked goods, a handful of individual jam packets, the cutlery and two small plates. It’s all there, but it’s a bit of a mess.
Since Ben isn’t here, I take it upon myself to divide the fruit. One sliver of cantaloupe on each of the two plates. Six blueberries. Three cubes of honeydew melon. Four strawberries pitched over the balcony railing, because I’ll end up in the hospital if I eat any of them, and it wouldn’t make sense to leave any on his plate if there are none on mine. I’m in the process of pouring us each a cup of tea when the sliding glass door behind me opens and Ben slips outside.
The mess of eyeliner is gone, and his hair is still damp and tousled. He’s only wearing his jeans and a t-shirt; his bare arms make him look practically naked, compared to how covered up he usually is. He accepts the teacup I hand him and says, “Thanks. So, what was it you said you wanted to talk about?”
I gesture to the other seat, and he slides obediently into place. Still, the words won’t come to me. I’ve had days to plan an entire speech for this exact moment, and my mind is completely blank. Ben stares at me. I stare back. Slowly, his eyebrows start to climb upward, and I let my eyes drop to the table. He’s waiting, of course, but I have no idea how to ask this. I take a very small, pointed sip of my tea.
Ben clears his throat and says, “Okay, let’s try that again, you dumbass. So, what was it you wanted—”
“Sleeping with you last November was a mistake,” I blurt out. “I never intended for it to happen—I was jealous that the boy I wanted to date was interested in you, not me. And I was jealous that you were spending so much time with my best friend. I only slept with you because I thought it would help me see what all the fuss was about.”
Ben is silent. I can’t be sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one, and I’m too nervous to look at him, so I continue, “My reasoning wasn’t much better the second or third time it happened. In the parking lot, I only brought it up in conversation to prove that you didn’t return Alexander’s affections, and then I suppose I got a bit distracted by those scratches you had on you. Then, on New Year’s… well, I assumed it was the last time I’d ever see you, given that I had no reason to return to Connecticut. Garen and Travis had joined me in New York, and I thought it would be fitting to end things on that note.”
“Then you probably should have let them end,” Ben says, and his tone is so flat that I have to glance up. He’s staring at his teacup, but he must be able to feel my attention on him now, because he draws his shoulders up around his ears, like making himself even smaller will make this conversation ghost right over him.
Perfect. Less than two hundred words into the conversation, and I’m already making an absolute mess of it. I set my own tea down on the breakfast tray and reach for his hands. They’re folded together on top of his knees, and he seems reluctant to allow me to move them. In the end, I have to settle for wrapping my fingers around his wrists.
“I might have,” I say lightly, “if it weren’t for the books. Those—you remember the books, I would assume? That’s an idiotic question, of course you remember.” He’s squinting at me now, like he can’t figure out where the hell I’m trying to take this conversation. I can’t seem to let go of his wrists. I swallow. “For two and a half months, you sent me a steady supply of books, and every time I cracked the spine on one of them, all I wondered about was your opinion on them. I wanted desperately to know why you’d chosen those books, what you’d liked about them, what you thought I would like about them. I wanted to… talk to you. Every time I finished one of the books, I had to stop myself from calling you up just to talk about them.”
“You could’ve called,” Ben says. He blinks down at my hands and turns his wrists so that, as he withdraws, his palms drag slowly under mine. He lingers like that for a moment, my hands on his like we’re playing some sort of children’s clapping game. Finally, he pulls the rest of the way out of reach and picks up his teacup, cradling it in both hands but not moving to take a sip. He repeats, “You could’ve called. It’s not like I would’ve hung up on you.”
I laugh. “Yes, you would have. If you’d bothered to answer at all.”
His mouth quirks into a wry, conceding smile.
That smile is all I need to make me brave enough to clear my throat and say, “The books made me want to be your friend. The five-hour conversation we had about them that night on Garen and Travis’ living room sofa made me want to date you. And the… the way that you treated me after my parents—”
The moment Ben realizes where this sentence is going, he sets his teacup down and drags his chair closer to mine so that he can tangle our fingers together. One of his ankles is hooked over mine, and I think I might be able to get my words back, but not enough to say that next word.
“It’s okay,” Ben says quietly. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. I mean, if you’re just trying to thank me for that, there really isn’t any need. I don’t expect—”
“I’m not just trying to thank you,” I interrupt, and his mouth snaps shut again so he can wait for me to continue. However annoying I’ve found him in the past, he’s nothing if not a fantastic listener. My heart’s beating in my throat, and I try so hard to swallow it. “Three weeks ago, after I’d just come back from Georgia, I spent the afternoon with you, and you took me apart in your bed. I was supposed to be mourning my parents, and for a solid half hour, all I could think about was the perfection of your tongue. I was devastated by my own selfishness, inconsolable over what I’d lost, and humiliated that you were seeing me cry. And you didn’t even blink. You crawled up onto my lap, you put your arms around me, and I found more solace in that moment than I ever thought I could take in another person.”
I wish that he could know what I’m trying to say without me having to say the words. I wish he’d let go of my hands, because I don’t want to feel him pull away if his answer is no. He hasn’t tried to move away yet, though. I take a steadying breath and say, as calmly as I can, “The books made me want to be your friend, the conversation made me want to take you to dinner, and that afternoon in your apartment made me want to take things between us seriously. I realize that must sound absolutely ridiculous, given that we hadn’t even been on a date at that point. We’ve been sleeping together for a bit over five months now, but only seeing each other for a few weeks. It is very possible that I’m pulling a Garen here and trying to take things much too fast. But I think I’d like to be your boyfriend. In an official, exclusive capacity.”
Ben’s face is blank. That cannot possibly be a good sign. I contemplate throwing myself off the balcony after those strawberries, but we’re only four floors up, so I doubt I’d actually die. The silence stretches on. In the end, all I can do is wince and say, “I shouldn’t have brought this up, should I? Or, at the very least, I should have waited longer. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable—”
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks suddenly.
I can feel my forehead wrinkling in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
Ben very carefully untangles his hands from mine and draws his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on his knees. “It’s fine if you are, I guess. I’m kind of used to that from guys by now. I just don’t—I mean, you’re joking, right?”
I frown. “Has anyone ever told you that you are absolutely awful at letting someone down easily?”
“No, not really, because I’ve never let anyone down,” he says, looking down at his cup of now lukewarm tea. “I’ve had exactly two guys ask me out before. When Travis did it, he came by my house and said something that basically amounted to ‘I like how short you are, also, Garen’s not around anymore.’ When Garen did it, he mostly just asked me if we could be ‘Facebook official’ after his parents walked in on us having sex. I’m not, uh… I’m not the guy that people make declarations to. I’m the guy who people fool around with while they’re waiting for their real lovers to come back to them. And as far as I’m aware, you don’t have any stepsiblings. Plus, I’m sure this hasn’t escaped your attention, seeing as how you’re a total narcissist, but you’re sort of… astronomically far out of my league. You’re incredibly intelligent, you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen in my life, and you usually manage to find about ten minutes out of every day where you decide to be a decent human being. I’d understand, if this conversation were reversed—if I were asking you to be my boyfriend. That’d make sense. But this way, it kind of, uh… doesn’t? So I guess I’m just, um… I’m confused.”
It’s a good thing our chairs are so close together, otherwise I’m sure he’d hit the floor when I grab him by the legs and yank. He nearly hits the floor anyway, but I’m eventually able to get him out of his chair and onto my lap without much incident. I can tell that he’s preparing to scold me, but the words never make it past his lips. Or, if they do, I swallow them. It isn’t a terribly long kiss, but it’s enough to silence him, giving me a chance to cup his face between my hands and say very clearly, “No, what you are is stupid. I’m not in love with a secret stepsibling. I’m not waiting for someone else to come back. I am not interested in anyone other than you, though rest assured, your complete idiocy is definitely making me wish that weren’t the case.”
“Did it ever occur to you that being a gigantic asshole while you’re asking someone out is maybe not the way to go?” he huffs, and there—there’s that spirit he lost for a moment in his own wallowing. There’s the boy I want.
“I am not being a gigantic asshole while asking you out. I have already asked you out. The question is a ‘past tense’ issue, and my being an asshole is a current one,” I say.
“Actually, it seems to me that your need to be an asshole is probably a permanent condition. So, technically, you were an asshole when you asked me out, too,” he says.
I wonder if he might die, if I tossed him over the railing. He’s much smaller, I’m sure the fall would injure his tiny bones more than it would injure mine. It might not even be much of a struggle to heft him over. But then he ducks his head and says, more to my neck than my actual face, “So, can I still say yes, or did the moment pass?”
My heart stutters in my chest. “You can say whatever you’d like.”
He makes a little face like he’s considering saying something incredibly snide, but he ends up coming out with, “Okay, I’ll, um… yes. I’ll be your boyfriend. If you meant it.”
As much as I want to smile at that, I’ve already shown more of my hand than I’d like. Instead, I slip my hand up the back of his shirt and trace the scratches from last night until he’s shivering against me. It makes him late for work, but I take it upon myself to bring him back to bed and show him exactly how much I meant it.
Relationship status. It sounds like something that shouldn’t exist outside of an eighth grader’s Facebook account, and I find myself wishing he was awake to see the way my lip curls back at the thought. I’m absolutely certain that he is going to laugh in my face the moment I try to bring this up, and I’d hate for him to think that I’m taking this whole thing too seriously.
The alarm clock goes off again, and Ben makes a sound of protest that is so vehement, I worry the guests in the next room over will call the front desk. I say over him, “Sweet mother of God, McCutcheon, you’re not being tortured.”
“Yes, I am,” he groans, shoving his head under the pillow. The movement shakes his torso free of the blanket. His clothes are still scattered across the floor, and he is lying facedown; I can see the full length of the marks I clawed into his back last night… and again in the earliest hours of this morning… and again a few hours after that. My whole body is aching pleasantly from the exertion, but I’m certain that whatever I feel is nothing compared to the scratches on his skin. I switch off the alarm clock and crack back into bed, though I’m freshly showered and fully clothed.
“It’s time to wake up,” I say. I brush a kiss to his shoulder, at the very top of one of the scratches. Ben doesn’t move. I repeat the kiss on the next scratch. “I ordered breakfast sent up, and it’s getting cold. You’re being very selfish.”
“Shut up,” he might say. It’s a bit difficult to tell with the pillow between us. I nip at his shoulder in warning, but he obviously doesn’t understand my intention, because he makes a pleased sort of sigh and releases his grip on the pillow to reach back and bury one hand in my hair, keeping my mouth on him.
Under normal circumstances, I might stay here as long as he’d like, but now that his left arm is in my line of sight, I notice that it looks a bit different from normal. It’s as thin and scarred as always, but there’s a thin rope of black around it, starting at his wrist and winding around and around his forearm to a point just above the bend of his elbow. I lift my mouth off him long enough to say, “Really, Benjamin? Another tattoo? Surely you’ve got enough by now.”
“No such thing,” he says. He gives his wrist a half-hearted tug away from me, but he can’t be too bothered by the idea of me examining it, because he allows me to turn his arm this way and that until I can read the entire line of script.
1 Corinthians 10:13 - 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.
The letters are smaller than I would’ve expected anyone to be able to manage to tattoo without turning the whole thing into a blur. His artist appears to have done her best to position the words so that they don’t draw more attention to the scars on him, but it’s difficult to cover them completely, especially the one he had stitches for last October.
He peeks out from under the pillow. Moving slowly enough that he could stop me if he truly wanted to, I lean in again and kiss the delicate bones of his wrist, right where the tattoo begins. When he doesn’t protest, I drag my lips down the words, muttering against his skin, “You’re going to end up covered in these, aren’t you?”
He twists to smile into the pillow. “That’s kind of the idea. Most of my paycheck goes right to rent and bills, so if I’m going to spend money on something that’s just for me, I might as well spend it on something that I’ll get to keep for the rest of my life.”
“You mean, something that directly opposes your aspirations of becoming a schoolteacher?” I say. He huffs and rolls over and makes a rude gesture. I can’t decide whether to hit him or kiss him, and the closest I can come to doing both is to duck down and sink my teeth into his throat. His breath hitches, and he slips an arm around my shoulders, but I slip out of his grasp and sit up. “Get out of bed, you lazy swine. Once you’ve gotten ready for work, come eat breakfast with me.” I don’t think my forced calmness is even remotely convincing, but I do my best to sound casual as I add, “And there’s something I’d like to discuss with you, if you have a moment.”
Ben sits up and rubs at his eyes a bit, tracking black circles of eyeliner halfway down his face. I refuse to be charmed by this. He says, “Yeah, of course. What’s up?”
“Get ready first,” I say firmly. There’s a strong possibility I’ll need to shove him out of the room after this conversation in an attempt to save face, and it’s a bit harder to do that if he’s naked. He shrugs and tumbles out of bed, getting himself tangled in the sheets and stumbling into the nearest wall. He doesn’t even seem to notice; I think he’s still almost completely asleep.
When he retreats to the bathroom to shower, I busy myself with checking my messages, but that turns out to be an incredibly bad idea. Garen seems to have spent a solid half hour texting me this morning, alternating between bragging about the fact that he successfully won himself a job at Rush and lecturing me on the proper procedure for initiating a conversation with Ben.
Proper procedure, it would appear, is to ‘say that only guys who date you get to cum in your mouth, idc that you dont like the taste, itll be worth it, you can use mouthwash after.’ This helpful advice is sprinkled with other, equally horrific comments, including, ‘do i have to be best man 4 BOTH of you @ your inevitable wedding or do you think he’ll finally tell alex by then?’ and ‘its a shame you guys have been going bareback since day 1 bc now youll have no way to celebrate being exclusive :( :( 8===D~~~.’ Garen is the worst person I have ever had the displeasure of knowing.
Is that meant to be a penis? I text back. More specifically, is that meant to be mine? Because if so, I believe you’ve done me a great injustice in terms of length.
8======================================D~~~, he replies, and I close my eyes, deeply regretting the day that the Patton Military Academy housing coordinators chose to assign Garen and me to the same dorm room. My phone buzzes again, and I sneak a glance at it. does the fact that youre not calling me in tears mean he said yes???
Rather than reply, I toss my phone back onto the bed and set about moving the breakfast tray out to the balcony. Once it has been relocated to the small table between the two chairs out there, I take my time rearranging it. Everything is there, of course—the pot of tea, the fruit plate, a tiny basket of pastries and baked goods, a handful of individual jam packets, the cutlery and two small plates. It’s all there, but it’s a bit of a mess.
Since Ben isn’t here, I take it upon myself to divide the fruit. One sliver of cantaloupe on each of the two plates. Six blueberries. Three cubes of honeydew melon. Four strawberries pitched over the balcony railing, because I’ll end up in the hospital if I eat any of them, and it wouldn’t make sense to leave any on his plate if there are none on mine. I’m in the process of pouring us each a cup of tea when the sliding glass door behind me opens and Ben slips outside.
The mess of eyeliner is gone, and his hair is still damp and tousled. He’s only wearing his jeans and a t-shirt; his bare arms make him look practically naked, compared to how covered up he usually is. He accepts the teacup I hand him and says, “Thanks. So, what was it you said you wanted to talk about?”
I gesture to the other seat, and he slides obediently into place. Still, the words won’t come to me. I’ve had days to plan an entire speech for this exact moment, and my mind is completely blank. Ben stares at me. I stare back. Slowly, his eyebrows start to climb upward, and I let my eyes drop to the table. He’s waiting, of course, but I have no idea how to ask this. I take a very small, pointed sip of my tea.
Ben clears his throat and says, “Okay, let’s try that again, you dumbass. So, what was it you wanted—”
“Sleeping with you last November was a mistake,” I blurt out. “I never intended for it to happen—I was jealous that the boy I wanted to date was interested in you, not me. And I was jealous that you were spending so much time with my best friend. I only slept with you because I thought it would help me see what all the fuss was about.”
Ben is silent. I can’t be sure if that’s a good sign or a bad one, and I’m too nervous to look at him, so I continue, “My reasoning wasn’t much better the second or third time it happened. In the parking lot, I only brought it up in conversation to prove that you didn’t return Alexander’s affections, and then I suppose I got a bit distracted by those scratches you had on you. Then, on New Year’s… well, I assumed it was the last time I’d ever see you, given that I had no reason to return to Connecticut. Garen and Travis had joined me in New York, and I thought it would be fitting to end things on that note.”
“Then you probably should have let them end,” Ben says, and his tone is so flat that I have to glance up. He’s staring at his teacup, but he must be able to feel my attention on him now, because he draws his shoulders up around his ears, like making himself even smaller will make this conversation ghost right over him.
Perfect. Less than two hundred words into the conversation, and I’m already making an absolute mess of it. I set my own tea down on the breakfast tray and reach for his hands. They’re folded together on top of his knees, and he seems reluctant to allow me to move them. In the end, I have to settle for wrapping my fingers around his wrists.
“I might have,” I say lightly, “if it weren’t for the books. Those—you remember the books, I would assume? That’s an idiotic question, of course you remember.” He’s squinting at me now, like he can’t figure out where the hell I’m trying to take this conversation. I can’t seem to let go of his wrists. I swallow. “For two and a half months, you sent me a steady supply of books, and every time I cracked the spine on one of them, all I wondered about was your opinion on them. I wanted desperately to know why you’d chosen those books, what you’d liked about them, what you thought I would like about them. I wanted to… talk to you. Every time I finished one of the books, I had to stop myself from calling you up just to talk about them.”
“You could’ve called,” Ben says. He blinks down at my hands and turns his wrists so that, as he withdraws, his palms drag slowly under mine. He lingers like that for a moment, my hands on his like we’re playing some sort of children’s clapping game. Finally, he pulls the rest of the way out of reach and picks up his teacup, cradling it in both hands but not moving to take a sip. He repeats, “You could’ve called. It’s not like I would’ve hung up on you.”
I laugh. “Yes, you would have. If you’d bothered to answer at all.”
His mouth quirks into a wry, conceding smile.
That smile is all I need to make me brave enough to clear my throat and say, “The books made me want to be your friend. The five-hour conversation we had about them that night on Garen and Travis’ living room sofa made me want to date you. And the… the way that you treated me after my parents—”
The moment Ben realizes where this sentence is going, he sets his teacup down and drags his chair closer to mine so that he can tangle our fingers together. One of his ankles is hooked over mine, and I think I might be able to get my words back, but not enough to say that next word.
“It’s okay,” Ben says quietly. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to. I mean, if you’re just trying to thank me for that, there really isn’t any need. I don’t expect—”
“I’m not just trying to thank you,” I interrupt, and his mouth snaps shut again so he can wait for me to continue. However annoying I’ve found him in the past, he’s nothing if not a fantastic listener. My heart’s beating in my throat, and I try so hard to swallow it. “Three weeks ago, after I’d just come back from Georgia, I spent the afternoon with you, and you took me apart in your bed. I was supposed to be mourning my parents, and for a solid half hour, all I could think about was the perfection of your tongue. I was devastated by my own selfishness, inconsolable over what I’d lost, and humiliated that you were seeing me cry. And you didn’t even blink. You crawled up onto my lap, you put your arms around me, and I found more solace in that moment than I ever thought I could take in another person.”
I wish that he could know what I’m trying to say without me having to say the words. I wish he’d let go of my hands, because I don’t want to feel him pull away if his answer is no. He hasn’t tried to move away yet, though. I take a steadying breath and say, as calmly as I can, “The books made me want to be your friend, the conversation made me want to take you to dinner, and that afternoon in your apartment made me want to take things between us seriously. I realize that must sound absolutely ridiculous, given that we hadn’t even been on a date at that point. We’ve been sleeping together for a bit over five months now, but only seeing each other for a few weeks. It is very possible that I’m pulling a Garen here and trying to take things much too fast. But I think I’d like to be your boyfriend. In an official, exclusive capacity.”
Ben’s face is blank. That cannot possibly be a good sign. I contemplate throwing myself off the balcony after those strawberries, but we’re only four floors up, so I doubt I’d actually die. The silence stretches on. In the end, all I can do is wince and say, “I shouldn’t have brought this up, should I? Or, at the very least, I should have waited longer. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable—”
“Are you making fun of me?” he asks suddenly.
I can feel my forehead wrinkling in confusion. “I beg your pardon?”
Ben very carefully untangles his hands from mine and draws his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and resting his chin on his knees. “It’s fine if you are, I guess. I’m kind of used to that from guys by now. I just don’t—I mean, you’re joking, right?”
I frown. “Has anyone ever told you that you are absolutely awful at letting someone down easily?”
“No, not really, because I’ve never let anyone down,” he says, looking down at his cup of now lukewarm tea. “I’ve had exactly two guys ask me out before. When Travis did it, he came by my house and said something that basically amounted to ‘I like how short you are, also, Garen’s not around anymore.’ When Garen did it, he mostly just asked me if we could be ‘Facebook official’ after his parents walked in on us having sex. I’m not, uh… I’m not the guy that people make declarations to. I’m the guy who people fool around with while they’re waiting for their real lovers to come back to them. And as far as I’m aware, you don’t have any stepsiblings. Plus, I’m sure this hasn’t escaped your attention, seeing as how you’re a total narcissist, but you’re sort of… astronomically far out of my league. You’re incredibly intelligent, you’re the most attractive person I’ve ever seen in my life, and you usually manage to find about ten minutes out of every day where you decide to be a decent human being. I’d understand, if this conversation were reversed—if I were asking you to be my boyfriend. That’d make sense. But this way, it kind of, uh… doesn’t? So I guess I’m just, um… I’m confused.”
It’s a good thing our chairs are so close together, otherwise I’m sure he’d hit the floor when I grab him by the legs and yank. He nearly hits the floor anyway, but I’m eventually able to get him out of his chair and onto my lap without much incident. I can tell that he’s preparing to scold me, but the words never make it past his lips. Or, if they do, I swallow them. It isn’t a terribly long kiss, but it’s enough to silence him, giving me a chance to cup his face between my hands and say very clearly, “No, what you are is stupid. I’m not in love with a secret stepsibling. I’m not waiting for someone else to come back. I am not interested in anyone other than you, though rest assured, your complete idiocy is definitely making me wish that weren’t the case.”
“Did it ever occur to you that being a gigantic asshole while you’re asking someone out is maybe not the way to go?” he huffs, and there—there’s that spirit he lost for a moment in his own wallowing. There’s the boy I want.
“I am not being a gigantic asshole while asking you out. I have already asked you out. The question is a ‘past tense’ issue, and my being an asshole is a current one,” I say.
“Actually, it seems to me that your need to be an asshole is probably a permanent condition. So, technically, you were an asshole when you asked me out, too,” he says.
I wonder if he might die, if I tossed him over the railing. He’s much smaller, I’m sure the fall would injure his tiny bones more than it would injure mine. It might not even be much of a struggle to heft him over. But then he ducks his head and says, more to my neck than my actual face, “So, can I still say yes, or did the moment pass?”
My heart stutters in my chest. “You can say whatever you’d like.”
He makes a little face like he’s considering saying something incredibly snide, but he ends up coming out with, “Okay, I’ll, um… yes. I’ll be your boyfriend. If you meant it.”
As much as I want to smile at that, I’ve already shown more of my hand than I’d like. Instead, I slip my hand up the back of his shirt and trace the scratches from last night until he’s shivering against me. It makes him late for work, but I take it upon myself to bring him back to bed and show him exactly how much I meant it.