Chapter 16
SIXTEEN
Benny was hot.
Really hot.
His face, his hands, his body. Every part of him radiated.
The cool sheets on the bed beneath him did nothing to help.
Jack stood at the bedside, peering down at him. His hair had dried messy, but his smirk was on point.
His eyes took a long, leisurely stroll along Benny’s body. It was one of many he’d embarked on in the last few minutes.
This time, he ended it with a head shake and a whistle.
“Hate to say it, sweet cheeks, but looks like you should have let me apply the sunscreen this morning.”
Benny groaned.
He refused to accept total blame for his current state.
“For almost five hours today, I talked to you and you alone,” he shot back. “Did it not occur to you to give me a heads up and warn me that I was getting a little red?”
Jack put his hands up in self-defense.
“To be fair, you're red almost all the time when you’re with me,” he said. “That's, like, your thing.”
“My face is usually red,” Benny rallied. “Not my legs.”
Jack was smart—he didn't say anything else.
He backed up from Benny’s bed and placed his unburnt arms behind his back.
His eyes started to roam the room, the only safe option left.
Had it been the Benny that existed before the bay, he would have felt a twinge of self-consciousness about Jack being in his childhood bedroom, free to browse as he pleased.
That ship had sailed the moment they’d gotten back into Jack’s truck and realized Benny was no longer the same shade he had been when they’d arrived that morning.
Now Benny didn’t have the mental space to worry, be grumpy, and be in pain. Two was his maximum level at the moment.
Which worked out well when footsteps from the hall preceded Callum whistling from the open doorway.
“Wow. Someone still sucks at applying sunscreen.”
Jack chuckled.
Benny decided to elevate his grumpy level.
“If it didn't hurt, I'd throw a pillow at you,” he ground out.
Callum continued to be amused.
“Good thing for me, you're bad at throwing things, too.”
Benny rolled his eyes.
“And while everyone in town thinks you a saint, I take solace in being one of the few who knows just how annoying you can be.”
Callum caught Jack’s eye.
“He’s also bad at math, pukes on roller coasters, and he’s terrified of goats,” he offered. “And if he tells you he knows how to do his taxes, don’t believe him. Just go ahead and send me the files.”
“Callum!” Benny whined.
“Goats?” Jack repeated at the same time.
Callum laughed.
“Sorry,” he acquiesced. “I’m actually here to bring joy.
” He looked back to Benny, smile losing its annoying factor.
“I was going to see if y'all wanted to eat dinner here tonight? I'm watching Justus tonight and saw Jack’s truck and thought we could make a night of it, bring back our watch parties.”
Benny popped his head up. Excitement pushed all vestiges of grumpiness from him.
“Really?” he asked, smile also hurting. “We haven't done a movie party in a long time.”
“You haven't been home for this long in a long time.” Callum turned to Jack again, no longer in older sibling teasing mode. “You might have read the blog but don’t let it fool you, you only get the real Benny when he’s sitting in his PJs in front of the TV.
His true colors come out loud and questionable.
He finds a way to yell at at least one character per movie. No matter the movie.”
Benny was already sitting up, sunburn be damned.
Jack’s brow rose.
“I'm not that bad,” he tried. “I mean, I am, but it works for our movie parties.”
“And what exactly do your movie parties entail?” Jack asked.
Benny was nearly vibrating now.
It had been years since they’d had a real one.
“We pick an older movie—it doesn't matter if we've already seen it—get snacks that match the movie in some way, get into our PJs, make a pallet on the living room floor, and then—”
“—Then this one here talks through the entire thing, telling you what he would have done in the characters' places,” Callum interrupted. “He really becomes the worst when it’s a scary movie. He points out every time he would have jumped out of a window to his death to avoid the scarier death. And, spoiler alert: no matter the movie, that’s usually his answer a lot.
Benny here wouldn’t make it past minute five in most.”
Benny felt no shame.
“I'm sorry I'd rather die instantly than be dragged into an unknown hellscape by a demonic long-haired girl. I’m just practical.”
“Well, I don't know if we'll go super scary tonight because of Justus, but we can probably find a fun one he can watch. Maybe we can do Beetlejuice? He’s been waiting to watch it with you since it’s one of your favorites.” Callum nodded to Jack.
“Fair warning, if you do join, just know we will not meet the Robertson standards you might be growing accustomed to. You will be responsible for your snacks and your drink of choice. That goes for you too, Benny. I already told Justus I'd bankroll him, and I know he’s going to take advantage of that.”
Benny’s train of thought split into two connected carts.
The first was about snacks, and not only what he could get, but what he could advise Jack to pick. Maybe even come up with an option they could share.
The second cart didn’t hold a question.
It held a truth.
He’d forgotten that he wasn’t actually dating Jack.
And it was becoming a habit to think his presence was normal. Not stipulated.
Yet, Benny looked to the bartender, wondering if he’d accept the offer.
If maybe he’d want to watch one of Benny’s favorite movies with him and then maybe come back to his bedroom and they could talk about it and then maybe they could—
Benny’s body took on another wave of heat as he stopped that train of thought.
It was almost cruel to be able to blush while sunburned.
Jack didn’t let him daydream long, no matter where that dream ended up.
He smiled, apologetic.
“As much as I'd enjoy seeing Benny yell at the TV, I have to work tonight,” he said. “I’d play hooky if Dixon hadn’t already agreed to cover for me while I work on all the festival stuff. I don’t want to mess him up any more than I already am.”
Benny tried to mask his immediate disappointment.
Callum saw the reasoning in that.
“I keep forgetting you two signed up for all of that. It’s a lot to watch as it is. I can’t believe you two signed up for nearly everything.” Callum shook his head. “Bless you, guys.”
The two men shared a laugh of understanding and the pain of social obligation before Callum went on his way. Benny looked anywhere other than Jack.
He knew it was silly to feel the twinge of rejection in his chest, but he did.
“Speaking of the festival, I don't think we actually landed on a plan for decorating for the party or the parade, or what we're doing for the pageant,” Jack said, unaware of his slight emotional spiral.
“But Cassidy's is closed tomorrow. Maybe we can get some dinner and figure out a game plan then?”
Tires screeched to a halt in Benny’s head.
“Dinner?”
“Yeah, I figured I could pick something up from Crowley's and you could meet me at the bar.”
The image of them dining fancy in town changed to them in jeans with beers at the ready. It assuaged the slight hurt of a movie-night rejection.
Despite the embarrassing fact that he had just reminded himself that the two weren’t actually dating.
“I thought you said it was closed.”
Jack grinned.
“Lucky for us, I know a guy who has the keys.”
They agreed on a time and Benny walked him, stiffly and slowly, to the front door.
Thoughts of movie watching, followed by bedroom-something became thoughts of where Benny could find some aloe for his sunburn.
He was wondering if Ethan might come over to watch the movie while he salved it over his poor legs.
“So tomorrow at six-thirty,” he confirmed. “I'll bring my handy-dandy notebook of ideas. We can also do some social media stuff too for the bar.”
Jack nodded.
“Anything will work as long as the words 'juggling, singing, and dancing' aren't on it. That goes for the party and the parade too, not just the pageant.”
“Roger that.”
Before Benny could close the door behind him, since the conversation had clearly found its end, Jack did something that completely scrambled his thoughts all over again.
Jack bent low and kissed him.
Then he said goodnight and left.
Benny and his sunburn stood tall until the truck’s taillights disappeared down the road.
Despite all of his resolve, that night he revisited that kiss—and all of the others—beneath his sheets.
He forgot all about his sunburn then.
* * *
Jack didn't realize what he'd done until he was driving from his apartment to the bar two hours later.
Well shit.
A whole two hours had passed where he hadn’t even clocked the move.
Just straight kissed Benny on the front porch while there wasn’t a damn soul around.
At least out on the sand earlier that day there had been witnesses.
He could justify that kiss had been for the optics.
Hell, even the make out session post-spider incident could be blamed on adrenaline, if he stretched far enough.
Now he was standing behind the bar at Cassidy's and shaking his head, side-eyeing his cell phone on its top and knowing their fourth encounter had been an honest-to-God slipup.
One neither of them had addressed yet.
Should he call Benny? Text him? Say whoops with some emojis attached?
Maybe just leave it alone.
It wasn't that big of a deal.
In fact, it was kind of like they had been rehearsing.
Hard to sell a relationship as real when you never take it out of the box when no one is looking.
Jack grumbled at himself.
He’d slipped.
He’d fucking slipped.
The main door to the bar opened. Two men came in. Jack pocketed his phone. He was at the bar, not a place to dwell on the taste of warm, soft, and slightly citrus lips.
Now he needed to focus on why he was with Benny in the first place.