14. Benny

FOURTEEN

BENNY

I wake up after having slept for what feels like less than two minutes. For thirty heavenly seconds I'm in blissful ignorance, but I don't even have to open my eyes to suddenly remember last night.

It all comes rushing back without any prompting. All I can do is groan and burrow deeper under my covers.

Chris had sex with Jules and Bear.

I know it was years ago, I believe him completely.

Besides, lying would be super stupid since he knows I can ask my friends.

And to think I was actually excited to introduce him to the guys. I feel so.. . dumb. Now there's really no way I'll ever stop being a rookie in their eyes. I couldn't even tell them how I'm not actually in love with Bates.

The look in Jules's eyes when Xander stopped talking is something I will never forget.

I'm not the brightest crayon in the box, I'm well aware of that, and even though I'm way too successful considering I'm not even twenty-five, I've received plenty of pitying looks in my life. But Jules looking at me with pity?

So. Much. Pity.

That's not going to stop popping into my mind like a horror film for a very long time.

And then Chris.

He came after me, explained.

Which of course he did because he's a sweet guy and I really do think he likes me—like, for real . And that's awesome. Of course that's awesome. It's what I want.

I like him just as much, if not more.

But he had sex with two of my best friends .

I want to whine. I do whine actually. There's no one here after all. Once more, Benjamin Olsen is all alone.

So I'll be kind to myself and I won't keep any of this in.

"Why?" I ask my empty bedroom.

I could've found any other guy in this city who has probably never even met my friends.

But that guy wouldn't be as wonderful as Chris . Well, I don't know that.

What I do know is that I've never met anyone who makes me feel like Chris. Ever.

No one can make me melt like putty with a look. No one can make me feel safe while literally having control over my breath.

Not one single man in three years has gotten me to not think about Bates for several consecutive hours.

Only Chris.

So I somehow have to just get over this?

I sit up and—again, since I'm all alone—I pout and slam my fists on the mattress like a toddler .

" Why? " This time the whine is even more high pitched and dragged out. My doorbell rings at that very second and I glare at the door of my bedroom.

I know it's Jules and Bear, I don't even have to check the camera in the hallway. They're some of my best friends so of course they're good guys, but why can't they just leave me alone to wallow in my misery for a couple more hours?

I'm going to have to stop whining because if I do that in front of them then I'll get even more pity looks. They'll never see me as an adult if I stomp my feet in front of them the way I want to as soon as I stand up.

Just to get it out of my system, I do stomp one time. "This is so unfair!" I whisper furiously.

I walk to the front door and open it again, without checking who it is. And I was right. I only realize when I feel a deep disappointment that I was hoping it was Chris.

Why can't he be here? I would be totally fine with acting like a baby who has to share his favorite, brand-new toy if he was around.

But I told him to give me space—like an idiot!

"Ugh," I say and groan at my friends. They both look stupidly worried, even more than they did two years ago when I broke a rib. I spin on my heel and walk into the kitchen without saying anything else. I get out the eggs, some ham and cheese, orange juice, and two tomatoes.

Without any prompting, they sit on the other side of the counter to watch me make all of us breakfast. I don't know if they've had breakfast of course, but it's seven in the fucking morning and we're hockey players—we're always hungry.

Also, if they're not hungry, they better just eat because they had sex with my boyfriend .

Not my boyfriend, I know, I know. What-the-fuck-ever.

"Benny," Jules starts with that pity in his tone and I turn around with the pan in my hand way too fast.

"No, don't Benny me. I know it was years ago, I know it was only once, I know you're married and you're both in love and all that shit and it's not your fault that you met the sexiest man alive before I did, Jules. But I get to be fucking annoyed at this, okay?"

"No one's saying this doesn't suck, Benny. Or that you don't get to be annoyed," he says leaning back and holding up his hands defensively. "What does meeting Sterling have to do—ah, you meant Chris."

"Of course I meant Chris," I snap at him. "Your husband's a fine specimen, Picard, but you're not the only one who can bag himself a hot piece of ass." I scoff and turn back around.

"Benny," he starts again, but I just shake my head as I break all the eggs into a bowl. "I'm sorry."

"You know what the worst part is?" I demand, and keep going before they can respond. "The worst part is that no one did anything wrong, so feeling..." I trail off because I don't even know how to describe how I'm feeling. "Feeling all I'm feeling seems unfair, and childish. I should shrug it off, right? Be an adult ," I sneer the word out. "I can't be jealous over any of this because Chris hadn't met me yet, right? I can't be mad about it because I never talked to Chris about being a hockey player. Because stupid, na?ve Benny thought it was fucking amazing that Chris didn't badger me with questions about the Pirates or about any of you. And now I know he's seen the both of you naked?— "

"You've seen us naked too," Bear interrupts and I turn just to glare at him.

"I haven't seen you in the middle of an orgasm, Bear!"

"And let's pray to all the gods that we never have to," Jules says trying to defuse the tension, but it only makes me snap. My body goes all still all of a sudden.

I shut off the burner of the stove methodically and let out a measured breath.

Fuck it .

"It's so fucking unfair !" Aaaand now I'm screaming. "I finally found a guy that likes me just the way I am. Finally stop thinking about Bates like he's the love of my life and realize he's just my best friend in the whole wide world. Finally, I have a guy who wants to see where things go with me. And you ," I sneer as I turn to them and point a finger in each of their faces. "You two who already have your perfect careers, your ‘acts together', the loves of your fucking lives, you two just happen to have slept with him too?"

"Whoever's in control of this simulation is one sick bastard," Bear says with great wisdom.

"You've got that right!" I shout just one more time. And then I'm just breathing hard, chest heaving. There's nothing I can do. No matter how much I want all of this to be some cruel joke, it's not.

There's no erasing their pasts.

And I just have to learn to live with it.

But how?

"I'm gonna talk now," Bear announces, and I see he's raising his eyebrow at me. "And you're gonna hear me out without interrupting me because I'm your friend and you know I would never do anything to hurt you, okay? "

"You're the one who interrupted me first," I mumble but eventually nod at him to say what he has to say.

"The night I had with Chris changed my life." I see fucking red. I'm about to jump over the breakfast bar and punch the daylights out of him—even though I doubt I could even get that far against him—but he holds up a hand. I breathe hard, clench my jaw, and fist both my hands. Get yourself under control Olsen. "He helped me realize that who I am is who I'm supposed to be and that I don't need to change. But I didn't even remember his name, man. The sex was fine, not gonna lie, but he talked to me, and that's what I remember. I told Drew about him when we started getting close and all I told him was that I felt lucky to have stumbled into a guy who could tell I needed somewhere like Provoke where I could be myself. He's a good man, Benny, and you shouldn't hold his past against him if you're serious about him. And from everything you said, you are."

I swallow hard. I don't know why Bear needed a sex club, and I really don't want to know the specifics, but I am glad he felt he found what he needed.

"It's pretty much the same for me." Jules pipes up when I still don't know what to say to Bear. "He helped me a lot, and like Bear, it's actually thanks to Chris that I eventually met Sterling, so if I could I'd give the dude a medal of honor or something."

I snort despite myself and shake my head.

"Look," Jules keeps going. "We know this is awkward right now?—"

"Uh, yeah. Understatement." Bear gives me his tiny smile that translated to normal humans is actually a beaming one .

"Like I never would've thought Bear was a member of Provoke."

"Hard same, Picard. I'm still trying to forget the fact that you and Sterling go too, and I just want to let you know right now, we better never talk about this again after today." He stares hard at Jules who responds with an eye roll and then at me. I nod repeatedly at him. Like I said, Bear's infinitely wise.

"And I didn't know that Xander and Drew used to work there , but eventually we're all going to get over the fact that we know these things about each other. All I'm saying is that you think about this. When the time comes when it's all back to normal, do you want Chris to still be a part of your life?"

"I do," I whisper. I lean my palms on the counter and let my head drop. "I do," I repeat.

"Then I think you need to talk this through with someone. Not one of us, not Chris. We talked about it." He points to Bear and himself. "And we agreed that you can tell one person you trust everything you learned last night and everything we told you. Talk about it for days and days if you need to, get another perspective. I don't really know what happened with Bates and you at the celebration at Gab's house, but I thought it could be him if everything's back to normal. It could be one of your sisters, even."

"I think you should actually call Daddy Jake," Bear pipes up.

"Huh?" I ask super eloquently. Who the hell is Jake and why does Bear call him Daddy?!

"Chris's brother, the owner of Provoke. He's actually a really great guy. I bet he?—"

"No, no, no, no, no. No. Just no. I'm not meeting Chris's brother for the first time to talk about how his brother hooked up with my friends who are also apparently his friends. Nope. "

"All right then," Bear nods, accepting my refusal without resistance.

"I'll talk to Bates. You're right, getting someone else's opinion on this will probably be good."

"And once we're all over this... episode," Jules settles on. "You'll tell us all about what happened with Bates and how you went from being ready to marry him to dating Chris?"

"Ugh, fine." I sigh as if bothered but honestly, I'm relieved. I already feel like things could get back to normal with them.

Bear snickers, something totally out of character for him, but I only gawk at him for like fifteen seconds.

"We were all sure you were in love with him," Bear says before I can recover. "But apparently not." Again with the eyebrow raising. It's so infuriatingly effective to get me talking.

"I thought so too, actually. But clearly, I'm not. If I was in love with him, I wouldn't be so torn up about Chris sleeping with you two. I might even think it's funny."

"Yeah, about that," Bear says and reaches back to scratch his head. "Xander asked me to tell you how sorry he is for the way he spoke last night, that he made fun of the situation."

I wave him off. "Tell Xander to put it out of his head, I'm sure I'll see the humor in all of this soon enough. Besides I know why he reacted that way." I let out a big sigh. "I'm sure that if he were in my shoes, this would be funny to him, he's a lot more open about all things sex than I am. I just need..." Chris , a voice deep inside me finishes my sentence but I shut that shit down. I can't have Chris right now.

When he came to see me last night, I couldn't stop picturing him kissing Bear for some reason. I hated myself for it, but that doesn't make it any less true.

"Time," Jules says. "You need time, and that's perfectly acceptable and understandable. Also, you're the type of guy who needs to talk things through and you can tell whoever you want, like I said. If you want that to be Bates, we know you trust him and we trust him too, so that's more than fine by me." Bear nods his agreement.

"Thanks guys, uhm, I'll probably go do that today, and sorry about the dinner."

"Please." Bear rolls his eyes. "It's just a sign that I should never invite people over."

"We'll have one at my place when it doesn't look like it exploded with diapers, okay?" Jules smiles softly at me.

"Okay," I agree, and give them the best smile I can, but my mind is already racing to another thought—what will that dinner party look like?

Because in my head, there's no way I'm going to that dinner without Chris. And how the hell will that work?

Chris said last night Sterling hates him. What if Sterling can't ever accept Chris into the group? Would that mean I would be ousted from my friend's life?

Ugh, I really need to talk this through with someone. Bear and Jules stay over for the breakfast I finally cook, but the second they leave, I grab my phone and wallet and take the elevator to the garage and am on the road on my way to Bates's house.

"Well, fuck dude." Bates responds the usual way. Then he sighs, stands from his couch, and walks out of the room, leaving me feeling a little bereft after I just told him the whole tragic story.

He comes back with two beers.

"It's not even ten in the morning, Bates." I might be chastising him, but I damn well reach for the beer. If there's ever a day to start drinking before noon, it's today.

He rolls his eyes at me and sits while he takes his first pull from the glass bottle. We sit in silence for a few minutes. I know he needs time to process things, he never gives his opinion without processing, that's his process. Why can't I stop thinking about the word process?

Now it's lost all its meaning.

I hate it when that happens.

"Okay, I'm not even going to touch the sex-club subject because that will take me at least a few days to process, but when it comes to Chris, hear me out," he says in that tone he uses when he's about to blow my mind with how he's going to spin this. If there's one thing Bates is good at—besides playing hockey—it's finding a silver lining.

"I'm listening." I take another long sip to prepare myself.

"So if I'm getting this right, the main reason why you're upset is because Chris had sex with two of the guys you admire the most, right?"

"Among other things," I hedge.

"Okay then, talk those through with me before I go on."

"It's just kind of a bummer, I guess. It's something that they will always have done before me. "

"And . . ." He nudges me.

"And I'm jealous. I'm so fucking jealous, man." I rub a hand down my face and shake my head. "It's the worst feeling in the world."

"It is, no doubt about it, but still, what exactly makes you jealous?"

"They've seen Chris come!" I explode with the most obvious answer.

"Well, yeah, but only once right? I feel like everyone has like three different ways they come, so you've probably already seen Chris's three ways right?"

I stare at him, incredulous. "How is it that I'm the gay one here?"

"Okay, okay," he concedes and waves a hand at me. "Back to my original thought. So you admire Bear and Jules a lot, they're the guys you want to be when you grow up and blah, blah, blah."

"Sure."

"Well, I think Chris clearly has a type, and since he slept with them and with you, you're the same type as Jules and Bear. So it's a compliment!" He smiles widely and spreads his hands in front of him like he just finished a dance routine or something.

I'm about to snap at him to take this seriously, but then I think about it for just a second too long, so it sounds actually logical.

"So you're saying that Chris sleeping with me means I'm like Bear and Jules."

"Kind of? I mean think about it, he picked you up and slept with you, but he didn't send you to some sex club to learn more about the neck thing you have going on with some other dude. He did that to them, but with you he wanted to show you himself. So you're even better than Picard and Bear. At least in his eyes, you are."

"Better than Picard and Bear," I whisper in wonder.

"All right, keep it in your pants," he says with mock-disgust, then bursts out laughing after a minute.

I'm the one that needs to process now, so I lean back to rest against the back of the couch and think it through.

Maybe Bates's optimistic outlook is the way to trick my mind into getting over this. I've slept with men before Chris, and if it turned out he knew one of those guys—unlikely but possible—I would feel like shit.

Because Chris is a lot more important to me than the men from before.

Last night, he didn't treat me like I'm just another hookup. He was really upset over the whole thing, and he made sure to explain it all to me right away.

"I need to fix this," I say while I'm having the epiphany.

"You're gonna run to him in the rain and declare your love for him or some shit like that?" Bates asks. I just frown at him completely confused. "Caroline loves chick flicks and she's making me watch all her favorite ones," he explains.

I nod. "Makes sense. But no, dumbass. It's Las Vegas in the middle of the fucking summer, there's no rain. And I can't go declaring my love for him because I don't think either one of us is there yet."

"But you are going to make a grand gesture, right?"

"Hell yeah, I am. Now turn on the TV. We have some chick flicks to watch so I can brainstorm ideas with you."

He smiles at me like a dope instead of doing what I ask.

"You are so gone over him. "

"Shut up," I grumble, but I do it with a smile.

"Open up ," I sing-song at the front door of Jules's house and snort when Bates has to bend over and hold his stomach from how hard he's laughing. "We're here to order a rock star, please. We need him well seasoned, and meaty ."

Bates starts to wheeze then falls down. Thankfully he gets his hands in front of him before totally face planting on the concrete of Jules's front steps.

"Well hello, boys." I hear, and realize the door opened.

"Jamie," I cheer and throw my hands up. "Jamie's here!"

"I do happen to live here, cutie. What are you guys up to?" She smiles sweetly, I love Jamie.

"We have a mission," I tell her with the utmost seriousness. "And the only thing we're missing to complete it is one rock star, please."

"You're in luck, then. We have one right here, and he's being sulky, so I'm more than happy for you to take him off my hands."

"Yes! You're the best , Jamie. Can we?—"

"What the hell is going on?" Jules says, appearing out of nowhere. He doesn't look happy.

"Captain." I salute him and somehow lose my balance. I stumble for two steps but it's all good because I find a column I can lean against in no time.

"Are you drunk?" he whisper-shouts.

"C'mon, capt'n," Bates says, climbing to his feet. "We have a great pla—" He gets cut off by a hiccup. "Plan. We just need your husband to stop being mean. "

"Yeah," I cheer with a nod. "He can't be mean. We need his help with the mission ," I whisper conspiratorially.

"What mission?" he demands, then holds his palm up to my face before I can answer. "You know what? I don't care. Take him. Ster!" he shouts as he turns to walk back into the house.

Jamie stays with us and keeps smiling at me, so of course, I smile back. "Love you, Jamie girl." She shakes her head and leans against the door frame while muffled voices come from the inside of the house. They get closer and I can only make out what they're saying at the very end.

"You're only bringing the mood down here, so you're going to go with Benny and Bates and think about what a toddler you're being while you help them, okay?"

"Baby," Sterling says in a warning tone.

"Nope, that's not going to work today. You're being fucking annoying for no reason, Ster. Just go. And you better drive them, they're drunk."

Sterling turns to look at us with a mighty scowl and I just keep smiling and wave for the hell of it.

"Fine," Sterling sighs. "What else is there to do at seven in the evening on a Wednesday?" he grumbles then walks back into the house.

"Where did he go?" Bates asks.

"He's just getting the keys to the car. You guys go to the garage, okay? You didn't drive here, did you?"

"Nope," I say and shake my head. "We walked from Bates's place."

"You're such good boys," Jamie croons at us. "Now scram, before you wake the baby and I have to murder you." Her words aren't as sweet anymore, but her tone and smile still are, so I bend down and kiss her cheek.

"You got it. Give him and Ava a kiss from uncle Benny, okay?"

"You know I will."

Bates and I lean on each other while we walk around the house to the garage, and I'm thankful Sterling's already in the driver's seat and the car's running. I climb into the front passenger seat after making sure Bates is in too, and then look at Sterling.

"You were mean to Chris," I state.

"No I wasn't," he snaps as he turns to look at me. His eyes shift back to Bates. "Put your damn seatbelts on and tell me where we're going."

"We're going to the Winner resort, and you totally were mean to Chris and you know it, otherwise you never would've agreed to help out." His only response is to narrow his eyes at me. "I'm drunk but I'm not stupid, so just take us there and I'll tell you what we're doing on the way."

"Grand gesture!" Bates cheers from the back.