Chapter Eight #3
“I’m headed to the game,” Phil announced. It should have been obvious, but since he wanted Ben to kiss him again, Ben had forgotten what day it was all over again. “Take care of Charlie. That’s what’s important now. The rest can wait.”
He was right, and he wanted Ben to kiss him again, so Ben did what he said.
He went into the kitchen and rummaged through Phil’s pantry.
It was always well-stocked, thanks to his grocery service, and though Phil had a lot of precooked meals stored in the freezer, he also had plenty of things to cook properly.
Ben pulled out potatoes, rinsed them off in the sink, and dumped them in a pot while he rummaged for something healthy. Since Charlie had arrived, he’d been guilty of relying on takeout and snack food. Now that he’d applied for guardianship, he had to start making an effort.
He found a package of fresh spinach and a crate of portobello mushrooms and rinsed them before chopping them up with some onions and garlic.
He set it all out to sauté and grabbed a couple steaks.
He couldn’t help but grumble a bit at how ridiculous he found it that Phil just had this stuff in his fridge with no concrete intention to use it.
They were nice steaks, too, with marbled flesh and no huge fat rinds around the edges.
Ben had never so much as considered buying himself a cut this nice because they cost something horrendous, at least twenty dollars per pound.
Watching the steaks sizzle in the pan, he wished Phil had stayed home for dinner so he could critique Ben’s use of the oven’s grill feature.
He pushed the thought down hard. Phil might want Ben to kiss him again, but he’d agreed with him when Ben pointed out he wasn’t gay.
Ben had no idea if that meant “gay” was the wrong label or if it meant Phil enjoyed kissing but wasn’t interested in more or if it meant Phil was deeply in denial.
Ben was incredibly attracted to him, and every time Phil chose to be kind and to keep offering up his home and his help, it only got worse, but nothing could come of it.
Orientation was only the tip of the iceberg.
Phil didn’t even know Ben’s real name, let alone what he did for a living.
With the steaks in the oven and the potatoes boiled, mashed, and drowned in butter, Ben ventured upstairs.
“Charlie?” he called through the closed door. “I made dinner.”
First there was silence.
Then a slow rustle, a blanket being moved, and finally the door opened a crack. The lights were off in the room, so Ben couldn’t see much beyond the top of Charlie’s tousled hair and the streetlights outside the window.
“You cook?”
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Outside of Utah, men cook, too, sometimes.”
Charlie snorted. “What did you make?”
“Steak, potatoes, and vegetables.”
Charlie looked skeptical, but his stomach rumbled. “Okay. Can we watch the hockey game while we eat?”
“Okay.” Less than a week, and Phil had already gotten to him.
They ate sitting on the couch with the game on Phil’s stupidly massive flat screen.
At some point in the last few days, one of Phil’s various services must have been tasked with decorating for the season, so Christmas lights and snowflakes twinkled in the windows, replacing the decorative gourds.
The table runner on the coffee table had been switched from burnt orange to dark green with a gold lining.
The whole thing was so picture-perfect it made Ben think uncomfortably of the staged Christmas photos of his youth.
He wondered who did the decorating. It wasn’t laundry, and it definitely wasn’t the grocery shopper, which only left the cleaning service.
Decorating didn’t count as cleaning in Ben’s book.
If Phil had a special service just for putting up seasonal knickknacks, Ben would mock him forever.
The commentators on the game pointed out the insane chemistry between Tom and Jax and called the choice to promote Luca Mazetti to the first D-pair “inspired.” Had the team been losing, Ben expected they would have found less flattering words.
At one point, the cameras panned to Phil sitting in the press box, watching the ice with a serious expression.
The suit really did look gorgeous.
“You didn’t have to go today?” Charlie asked when their plates were empty, and the game was in intermission.
“I did. But I’m not in this job long-term, so…” Ben trailed off with a halfhearted shrug. “Seemed like maybe you needed company and a home-cooked meal more.”
Charlie looked back at the TV as if the ad for fabric softener held his attention far more than the conversation. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Sure, I did.” For lack of other ways to make Charlie look at him, Ben poked Charlie in the shoulder. “Wanna talk about it?”
“No.”
“Okay, then I guess I won’t share the ice cream in the freezer.”
Charlie gasped. “You wouldn’t.”
“Try me.”
“It’s stupid.”
Ben pointed to the TV, where the commercial break had ended, and the broadcaster showed a slowed-down replay of the fight Howie had gotten into with Damir Denisov, who stood easily a head taller and about one-and-a-half times broader than Howie.
“No, that’s stupid. Look at them wobbling around on their tiny little skates, trying to hit each other. ”
Charlie watched and, when Howie’s flailing arms made him overbalance and fall to the ice, laughed. “Okay, yeah, he looks pretty dumb.”
“So what happened today?”
Running his thumb over the seam of the couch cushion, Charlie said, “I went to school. It was…I don’t know…normal? But I didn’t know anyone, and all the classrooms looked different, and I just…” He looked down, but Ben caught the tears slipping down his cheeks. “I missed my mom.”
Tentatively, Ben rested a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. “That’s not stupid.”
“She hates me.”
There were so many things Ben could say about his own experience and his mother and what he felt about her. He didn’t. “You know how they preach about turning the other cheek and how God is love?”
“Uh-huh.”
“These days, I like to think I live up to those words more than they do if I can love people who gave up on me.”
Charlie took a deep, shuddering breath and slumped a little closer to Ben, close enough he could wrap an arm around Charlie’s shoulders.
They stayed that way until Tom Crowler skated onto the ice for the first face-off of the second period.
Then Ben got a tub of Rocky Road from the freezer, and they ate it straight from the carton.
Later, when he’d poured a half-asleep Charlie into bed, Ben sat in his room and stared at his phone. He had to get a move on with Trout. It was more imperative than ever he figure out an exit strategy from this job.
Trout had offered to cover for him. Maybe Ben should take him up on it.
Thanks, he texted. Late night gone wrong. I’ll be back for the roadie.
Almost immediately, Trout responded. Late night gone wrong, eh? Sounds interesting.
Got into it with my bookie. Never go drinking with a guy when you owe him money.
There was a longer pause this time. Ben toggled over to his messages with Phil. It would be a while before Phil got home, longer if the team went out. Would it be weird to let him know Ben was thinking of him?
He drafted a few attempts: Thank you for your help tonight read too formally. Looking sharp made him sound like someone’s grandmother. Can I please lick your thighs? was just too much in general. Nothing sounded right.
Trout responded. Let’s get a drink when we’re in LA. I know a guy who could help you out.
Finally, an in.
Ben gave it six-and-a-half minutes before shooting Trout a thumbs-up.
Then, he texted Phil. Nice suit, by the way.
He resisted double texting until he went to bed.
Then, the sight of his toothbrush by the sink next to Phil’s as if he really lived here, as if he could stay, destroyed his sense of self-preservation, and the second message blinked up at him from his phone screen before he’d fully realized he intended to send it.
I’d like to take it off you.