Chapter 2
TWO
For the next week, Ben’s life proceeds as usual.
He gets up as usual, rides the train as usual, sits at work in nightmarish boredom as usual.
His cat scratches him four times, as usual, and he forgives her four times, as usual; he tells himself, each day, that his life isn’t empty, as usual.
He makes chicken cacciatore and shrimp scampi and five-bean chili, distracting himself from his problems by cooking through them and then taking the leftovers upstairs to Mrs. C, as usual. It’s the same as it ever was.
Except that the following Friday, he’s sitting in his cubicle in his typical position—chin tilted down, shoulders up around his neck in a protective curl, one headphone in—when someone says, “Yo.”
Ben wishes he didn’t recognize the voice instantly, but spending almost ten hours editing footage of someone will do that to you. He’s still hoping he’s wrong, or having an aneurism or something, as he turns his chair… But, no. Of course, there he is, in all his hideous glory.
Pete looks bigger in person. Or, that’s not quite right—in fact, Pete looks more capable of beating Ben to a pulp in person, his broad shoulders and well-muscled arms a lot more threatening up close.
A little frantically, Ben curses himself for not thinking this through; it’s all well and good to verbally eviscerate someone on video, but it’s probably a better idea to do it to a person who isn’t actively working in the same building as you are.
Also—not that it even bears thinking about—Pete is hotter in person.
A lot hotter. His arms are crossed over his chest and he’s scowling, but that doesn’t do anything to minimize the sharp cut of his cheekbones, his full lips, his tousled hair.
The footage didn’t do him justice. If he wasn’t wearing the same Ask Me About Canned Beans shirt, Ben might be too overcome with the combination of his own panic and Pete’s frankly devastatingly good looks to do anything but sit here, staring, mute and horrified.
As it is, he finds himself opening his mouth and, almost against his will, saying, “For heaven’s sake, is that the only shirt you own?”
Pete stares at him for a moment, and then bursts out laughing.
Ben, despite an admitted surge of relief that this dude isn’t here to try and throw down, raises his eyebrows and silently wills his rude, nosy coworkers to ignore the hysterical beefcake at his cubicle.
He doubts they will, but a guy’s gotta hope.
“Oh my God,” Pete gasps, when he gets his laughter under control. “I had this whole plan, you know—I was gonna play like I was mad about it—but you’re just like this, aren’t you?”
“Like what?” Ben asks, not sure he wants to know.
“Oh, you know,” Pete says, waving an expansive hand. His grin goes all the way to his eyes, crinkling them up at the corners, and Ben tries frantically to remember that he’s angry at this guy, however attractive he might be. “Mean.”
“Mean?” Ben repeats, suddenly finding it less difficult to hold onto his annoyance. “I’m not mean, I’m—”
“Exacting?” Pete suggests, eyes dancing. “Particular? Mean people usually have another word for it.”
“Look,” Ben says, nettled, “I’m sorry if I upset you or whatever, but that doesn’t mean you get to come down to my office and—”
“Oh, no, let’s be clear,” Pete says, holding up a hand to shut Ben up. “I loved it. You’re hilarious, man—and you saved my bacon on that video. I know it must have been straight-up garbage before you cut it up like that.”
“I—what?” Ben stares at Pete, wondering if maybe he’s having a stress-induced hallucination. “You—what?”
“I’m not very good on camera,” Pete says, in the tones of an admission.
He ducks his head and rubs the back of his neck, obviously uncomfortable.
“When Rick told me I was going to have to do this, I seriously thought about quitting my job, which, believe me, would be a nightmare. But I watched the video last night, and honestly? It’s pretty funny.
And I know that was you, so I thought I’d come down here to…
I mean, okay, to rib you a little, for making me look like such a jerk, but really to thank you.
For fixing it, or whatever. Making it look like it could have been on purpose. ”
Oh my God, Ben thinks, it wasn’t on purpose?
“Wait,” Ben says, before he can stop himself, “you’re just like this?”
Pete smiles, but it’s very nearly a smirk. It takes Ben a second, and then he realizes he’s more or less parroted back at Pete the exact question Pete asked him not five minutes ago. He scowls, and Pete’s smile widens into a lazy, self-satisfied grin.
“Like what?” Pete says, all innocence.
“Possessed of the intelligence of your average housefly,” Ben snaps, before he can temper his tongue. “A fool with a cast-iron pan! God, I thought maybe you were faking it or whatever on camera, trying to get out of it, but clearly, you couldn’t fake your way out of a paper bag!”
This doesn’t have the intended effect. Usually, when Ben snaps at someone, shows them the jagged edges of his personality, they make an annoyed face and immediately get away from him, which is the desired outcome.
Ben’s long since known that most people don’t like him, the real him, with his complicated angles and his sharp tongue, and it hurts less to figure that out up front.
It backfires on him occasionally, sure; sometimes they burst into tears, which is the living worst and always makes Ben feel like a terrible person, and sometimes they snap back, which inevitably ends badly for everyone.
Every now and again someone laughs awkwardly and rolls their eyes, but that’s about the best it ever gets.
Pete… Pete laughs again, a real laugh, his shoulders shaking.
It’s not like when Rick laughs at Ben’s personality, either; there’s always an edge of condescension to that, as though Ben is a particularly entertaining dog, which, admittedly, has made a little more sense since discovering he’s Richard Raleigh.
Pete’s laughter is—more genuine. Kinder.
It seems designed by nature to invite others to laugh along.
It’s just a laugh, Benjamin! Ben thinks, semi-hysterical. You’re losing it! His hotness has hypnotized you! You can’t snap at him until he goes away; he clearly enjoys it! Run for the hills!
“I’ve known a lot of brilliant houseflies,” Pete says, grin still wide. “They’re basically geniuses, at least when it comes to avoiding me murdering them, so I think that’s an unfair comparison. But I’m making ‘A fool with a cast-iron pan’ my new bio, like, everywhere.”
Ben stares at him, trying to think of something to say that won’t a) make him, Ben, look like a fool himself or b) make Pete do anything else inexplicable and unprecedented, to which Ben will have to respond. Eventually, because he’s been sitting silently blinking for too long, he says, “Uh. Okay?”
Pete claps a hand on Ben’s shoulder; Ben doesn’t flinch, but only just. It’s been a while since he’s been touched by…
well, by anyone, save the occasional app-sourced hookup, and the apps are enough of a nightmare to keep Ben from bothering most of the time.
Pete’s hand is warm through the thin cotton of Ben’s T-shirt and Ben tries his best not to think about it, wills his face not to turn the color of a ripe tomato.
“It was nice to meet you, Ben,” Pete says, and flashes that grin again, all easy amusement. “I gotta get back to work now, but seriously, thanks again. The video’s going up tomorrow, and I don’t feel like running away to the woods, where I’d probably die, so. I appreciate it.”
“I’m not sure I feel good about that,” Ben admits, a little faintly. “I think it might be better for cooking—and humanity—if you went ahead and pulled a Henry David Thoreau.” Feeling like a bit of a schmuck, he adds, “Assuming you’d, like, survive it, I suppose. I’m not wishing you death here.”
“Very generous,” Pete says, still smiling, shaking his head. He sounds… weirdly happy about it when, waving and turning to go, he adds, “I’m sure I’ll see you around.”
Ben doesn’t watch him walk away. He doesn’t. He doesn’t.
That’s Friday.
The video goes up Saturday; Rick sends him a link.
Ben watches it again, feels vaguely proud of his work, and forwards it to a few friends.
It’s not Citizen Kane or anything, but it’s amazingly decent given what Ben started with.
He takes a moment to admire his own name in the credits, and maybe one more to marvel at Pete’s utter buffoonery, then closes the window, closes his computer, and stops thinking about it.
It’s over and done with; no point dwelling on it, or on its star, or on that star’s visit to Ben’s cubicle.
He spends a quiet day bouncing around the city, grateful that the unholy union of rain and sleet has decided to take its talents to some other metropolitan area.
Still, it’s chilly out for all it’s bright, motivating Ben to dig out his favorite scarf—thick and dark blue and knitted by his sister, though Ben has never told her how often he wears it—and loop it under his canvas jacket as he runs out the door.
As always, he regrets it bitterly within three minutes of every subway ride he takes, and then is incredibly grateful for it within five minutes of being back aboveground; this, more than anything else, is what marks for Ben the beginning of the end of the year.
Sure, it starts with going back and forth about whether he should have bothered with a scarf, but somehow, before he knows it, Ben will find himself surrounded by twinkling fairy lights and snow-covered bus benches and a really unnerving number of drunk guys in Santa costumes.