Chapter 19 #2
“Listen to him, acting like he doesn’t know who we are!” That wasn’t the type of comment I was used to from Beck. Not everyone outside of the tech world considered us famous.
“Beck!”
“What is your problem, man?” Ben leaned around me to get right in Beck’s face, both men practically pressed against me. It was decidedly uncomfortable. People around us may have started to stare. “Do you even know where your partner was last night?” Ben spat out.
“Oh,” Beck scoffed. “I know exactly what he was up to last night. Would you like me to fill you in?” He pressed in closer, their faces inches apart as they glared across my chest.
“Beck,” I spat out. “We’ve got cameras on us,” I whispered through a forced smile.
I adjusted my body so the two would have to put more space between them.
“I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I need to ask you both to stop whatever this is.
We’ve got eyes on us, and I’m pretty sure Benji doesn’t want to end up tagged in a video where his dad and the COO of his new company are engaging in fisticuffs at his graduation! ”
Beck smiled in spite of the anger that still obviously seethed through him, and Ben muttered a “sorry, Anson,” as he looked around and plastered a smile on his face that was so fake even I could tell.
“I never said I wanted to punch him,” Beck spit out through his own false smile.
“Let’s try this again, okay?” I was used to Beck being the one to smooth over social situations.
I was fairly out of my element, but I knew how important it was for me, and more importantly for Benji, that our relationship not start out with so much yelling between the two most important people in our lives.
“Ben Warren, this is Henry Beckett, the …”
Beck reached out a hand. “The chief operations officer of New Day Technologies, but I’m pretty sure you already knew that.” Beck’s outstretched hand was as stiff as his smile as he reached over me, and I found myself boxed between the two men again.
“Never heard of you, Henry,” Ben retorted as he grasped Beck’s hand like he intended to crush it. And how did his face end up so close to Beck’s? It was like they didn't even realize I was standing between them.
I stepped forward to break their hands apart and turned around in the tight row, facing them.
“And Ben is one of my oldest f-friends,” I shared with Beck. “We lived on the same block before I moved to New York, so we met the same way you and I did. I didn’t live there very long, but Ben was always very kind to me.”
“Everyone’s kind to the billionaire, isn’t that right, Ben?”
“We were twelve.” Ben glared, and the two slowly began to turn and face each other directly, inching closer as they did so. It may have been a mistake for me to remove myself from between them.
“We had this creek that ran behind our homes.” The statement came out high pitched and higher in volume than I had planned.
I glanced around after I said it, and while some people were still eyeing me, and possibly even still filming, most had gone back to focusing on their own group as excitement built for the pending ceremony.
I continued to attempt to offer the two men in front of me a distraction from whatever alpha-male bullshit they were presenting.
“The vegetation had grown up in such a way that we could both fit in this little hollow, right by the bank of the creek that year when we were twelve,” I continued, hoping the story would help Beck picture two kids exploring the woods and not whatever image his mind had painted of Benji’s father.
I certainly wanted to understand what all the anger that surrounded me was about.
But an MIT graduation ceremony was definitely not the time or place to discuss any of that.
Ben pulled his focus away from Beck, and I nodded encouragingly. He looked around to see the few people still paying attention to us. Then he looked at me, ignoring Beck.
“By the time we were entering the next grade at school, we couldn’t share the nook anymore.” He seemed to calm as he talked about the memory, or maybe it was just because he was talking to me and not Beck. “You really sprouted before that next summer!”
“And you … expanded.” I puffed my chest and spread my arms, elbows bent.
“Yeah.” He laughed. “I turned into a peewee football player. Sports kept me pretty busy after that.”
“And I still used to spend a lot of time in the nook.”
“Our lives certainly went in different directions that year.” Ben trailed off, turning once more and challenging Beck.
“But I always looked out for him. I’d go down to the creek at sundown if his mom was looking for him. And I made sure the other kids didn’t mess with him. My teammates knew he was off limits. All my friends did.”
“Yeah, well.” Anger started to rise in Beck’s voice, but he looked around and reigned it in. “Now it’s my job to look out for him, and I am not going to let you and your genius kid threaten his work and his company.”
“His company? Don’t you mean your company?
Who exactly are you looking out for here, Henry?
You know what, it doesn’t fucking matter, because I have no fucking clue what you’re even talking about.
What is he talking about, Anson? Are you implying that my Benji is some kind of threat to your little robot company? ”
Ahh, shit, they were inching toward each other again, and in that cramped space it meant that their puffed-out chests were practically touching in no time.
“Beck, please, you’re being ridiculous!”
“And you’re being naive!” he forced out through another fake smile.
“Beck, Ben, stop. Please, just stop. Benji is an asset to New Day. He is a genius, and I’m … we’re lucky to have him.”
Both men scoffed in my direction, their ire apparently transferring from each other to me.
We all opened our mouths as if to get the next word in, but at that moment, the marching band began to make their way up the center aisle, playing a horn-heavy version of a popular song.
They marched up to the stage and filed into the seats that had been cordoned off for them, wrapping up the song as the last members found their spots.
We followed the rest of the crowd and took our seats as well, me sitting between two men whose arms were wrapped so tightly around themselves that I thought they might snap.
After a brief pause in the music, the band began playing “Pomp and Circumstance,” and two lines of graduates proceeded up the aisle. The crowd stood and turned as one to watch their loved ones proceed toward the stage.
We didn’t have to wait long as the sea of caps and gowns passed before spotting Benji among the other PhD candidates. He was scanning the crowd but didn’t seem to notice us as he walked past, despite his dad waving and calling his name.