Chapter 20 #3
“Benny told me that story after I found him crying in his room later that night. He had just gotten over food poisoning and had said he hadn’t really wanted to, but that dumbass was dressing up the whole first-time thing so much that he felt he needed to.
Then the jackass wasn’t—he… He didn’t care about Benny at all during.
So there Benny was trying his best to do his best—to make this really vulnerable, memorable thing right—and then this guy just made it all about him.
Derrick even told Benny—Jack, this is where it gets cruel—that somehow Benny had been so bad he’d made Derrick question if he even liked guys after that.
He didn’t put that in the blog, Jack. Benny was devastated.
The best I could do to make him feel better was agree with him that Derrick would probably only brag that he’d had sex, not share anything else. ”
Callum was so mad again that he was spitting.
“Benny may be pretending that all of his embarrassing stories he has out in the world don't bother him that much, that this blog thing going viral is fine, but all he's done is just gotten really good at hiding that some of these things really hurt.”
Callum’s anger bounced back into severity.
“Do you know about our parents? Did he ever tell you about how they died out of nowhere?” Callum swayed a little. He was also drunk, but Jack knew that what he was saying were the words of an older brother who deeply cared.
“Our parents—Our parents just went out to the store one day and never came back,” he continued.
“Benny was fifteen and just starting to fall in love and get really close to people, you know? Crushes and passing notes and being comfortable with who he liked. But after they died? He—He disconnected. It was all Ethan and I could do to keep him talking to us. After some time passed, he eventually got better, but it was never the same. He'd start these relationships—start being him again—but then pull back. I-I think that's why he really started that blog. It was all of the stuff he’d wanted to do—to say—but couldn’t because he’d cut the connection. ”
He took a step to the side. Jack put a hand up to steady him.
“Yeah,” he kept on. “I admit I was a little ticked he kept the blog a secret from me too, and kept the secret of you—Guy, or whatever he called you—for that matter, but I'm so, so proud of him for taking the leap to make that blog public. To connect himself back to the world again. To be—to be the teenager he was before Mom and Dad…”
Callum’s words trailed off.
Then he flipped on a dime again.
He was back to mad.
“And then, then people like Carol and Derrick Fucking Kennerly try to ruin that for him. They try to ruin him. His name and reputation. They even try to ruin you. We—We can’t let him disconnect again, Jack. We can’t let him be alone again.”
Jack wasn’t drunk.
He wasn’t under the influence of painful memories or the memory of family tragedy.
There wasn’t a camera pointed at his face and there was no Robertson in sight.
He hadn’t even known Benny the month before.
And yet, he made a promise right then and there to his brother.
“He won’t be.”
It was short and sweet.
What he said next, after pushing back into the bar and walking right back up to the microphone, still on from before, was not.
The movement echoed throughout the bar. Every patron turned his way.
“My first time was with a girl named Gina. I was sixteen and thought I was going to rock her world. Turns out all I did was poke her in the ass so many times that she ended up slapping me. Once I got it right, I lasted a cool thirty seconds. If that. That’s why she called me the ass king in school my senior year.
I told everyone it was because I had a good ass. ”
For a second, no one said a word.
Then good ole Dixon hollered out, laughing.
“You know, I thought it was weird you said that’s why she called you that! If anything my ass is the best of the Knox family.”
Laughter broke out at that.
Jack capitalized on it.
“Now, since first times are usually the worst, if anyone can beat that story with a more embarrassing first time, I'll clear out your tab and you'll drink for free all next week.
And, since we already know Benny's story, we'll make him the judge.” Jack found his guy at the bar, standing between Ethan and Callum.
“If that's okay with you? Not sure how we can beat a first time with someone like Derrick Kennerly on top of us, though.”
A woman named Julie, who’d gone to high school with them, gave a loud second to that.
Benny’s eyes were wide.
Jack worried that Callum was right.
That this would make him revert to the guy who hadn’t jumped into the water yet.
But, to his immense relief, Benny managed an answer.
And his voice didn’t waver once.
“Only if I can take that prize if no one can do better.”
Dewey popped up from his table like a flower in spring.
“Y'all think your stories were embarrassing?” He chuckled and walked toward the microphone. “Just you wait until you hear about why you should never try to make your own scented lube.”
The room was already laughing.
Jack made his way back to the bar. Callum and Ethan stepped aside as he led Benny to a chair Ms. Peggy had pulled out to the middle of the room. Dixon made him one of Cassidy's famous mixed drinks, Jack took a seat next to him, and the room settled in for Dewey's cautionary tale about lube.
Somewhere in the space between Dewey's allergic reaction story and having to call his mom, Benny took Jack's hand.
That’s when it happened.
While the word lube floated through the air around them, a fucking butterfly fluttered in Jack’s stomach.
No.
It wasn’t a butterfly.
It was Benny.
Jack sat up straighter in his chair.
Well, shit.