Chapter 23 #2
Not after he’d barely spoken to Benny since.
And why should Benny say anything more?
Why should he keep asking if Jack was okay?
Everything they had been working on for weeks was about to be done.
Benny would be able to finish his story, complete the blog, and go back to Nashville.
Jack would stay at the bar.
That’s what he’d always wanted, right?
His mood, despite his best efforts, only soured more as the auditorium filled with pageant participants, volunteers, and Golden Boy Robertson himself.
When Marcus saw them, he waved and smiled.
That easy smile.
“So, I knew logically that being in a pageant meant being on stage in front of a lot of people, but I guess it hadn't really hit me until now.” Benny’s voice was soft.
He motioned out to the chairs facing the stage.
“I forgot how many seats are in here. What's the thing you're supposed to do to get over stage fright? Picture the audience in their underwear? Or do we picture them naked?”
His dark eyes swung to Jack.
That stone didn’t move.
“If my regulars really do come to this thing, I suggest not picturing them in anything but what they're wearing.”
Benny’s voice was soft; Jack’s was cold. Clipped. He rolled his shoulders back, trying to distance himself from that damned piss-poor feeling that had been eating him up.
It, again, didn’t go unnoticed by Benny.
His eyebrow arched high.
If he kept asking what was wrong, what would Jack even say?
“I’m an idiot who fell for a fake situationship and now that situationship is about to leave.”
But Jack couldn’t say that.
Benny didn’t push, but he did try to keep the conversation going.
“Well, the parade was fun, right? Everyone from the bar took a ton of pictures and I was looking through them, and it might actually be a good idea to print some and hang them in Cassidy’s.”
Jack watched the runaway train that was Carol round the corner. She picked up speed toward them once she made eye contact. She was holding a clipboard but never once looked at it.
“Well, if it isn’t our two very own Arbor Bay stars,” Carol said in greeting. “The parade sure was a hit for y’all wasn’t it?”
“It was!” Benny rallied. “People are still uploading pictures and videos of our float too.”
Carol nodded, suddenly sage.
“It was real smart to decorate Roger's boat like a pirate ship,” she said. “Even if, you know, the theme was supposed to be sailors.”
Normally, Jack would have reacted to the passive aggressive response.
Instead, he stood there like a schmuck.
Benny fought her solo.
“I'm just glad so many people seemed to enjoy it,” he said. “At the end of the day, isn’t that what the festival is all about?”
Carol agreed.
That should have been their red flag.
But Jack was in his feelings.
He didn’t see it waving.
“All right, well, since you two are our celebrities here, why don’t we use you to check out the sound and lights for the About Me sections?
” Carol pointed back towards the stage. “Marcus can help you get the microphone on and working, Benny, and Jack, we'll have you stand on stage so our lighting crew can get the positioning right. Does that work?”
Jack had to try hard not to grumble, especially when Benny met with and followed Marcus just off stage.
Had he ever been like this with Felicity?
Had he ever grumbled this much?
Had he ever felt this wrong?
Carol directed Jack to a spot that conveniently gave him a clear sightline to the two. Jack took a deep breath and tried to focus on the task at hand.
But then something small happened.
Marcus pushed Benny's hair behind his ear to place the small earpiece and microphone. It was quick. It was innocent. It made sense.
However, Benny smiled.
Jack’s self-pity shifted into pure jealousy.
And that’s when Carol went for the jugular.
“Benny sure does look happy,” she said, smile ringing her lips. “I'll sure miss him when he goes back home. Won't you?”
That's when Jack knew two things for certain.
One.
Carol had been playing chess since the first night he'd kissed Benny in the bar.
Somehow, she knew Jack wasn't Guy and, what's more, she somehow knew her brother was.
Instead of using the information to out them, she'd decided to toy with them instead.
To apply pressure to the crack that was their lie.
To remind Jack, without saying a word, that Benny had loved Marcus since he was seventeen and had still loved him less than five months ago.
That, at the end of it all, even though Marcus was marrying Felicity, Benny would go back to where he belonged.
To a life that didn't include him.
And Jack couldn’t stop it.
Two.
Carol had won.
That pressure she had applied created a chasm out of that crack. And Jack couldn't fake it anymore. He shook his head just as Benny turned and met his eye.
In less than a month, he’d become one of Jack’s favorite sounds.
And Carol was just standing there, happy to muffle it.
Jack looked back at the devil debutante.
“Fuck you, Carol.”
Then he jumped off the stage and walked away.
* * *
“Jack?”
Benny's voice came through the speakers at the edge of the stage, but Jack was already on the other side of the auditorium doors.
Carol hurried over, already talking fast.
“I don't know what happened, but he seems really upset.” She grabbed for the little control box clipped to Benny's belt loop. “Let me turn this off so you can go chase him!”
Benny didn't understand what was happening, but when Carol stepped back, he was running. His bartender made it to the lobby doors before he caught up.
“Jack, stop! Jack! What's wrong?”
Benny’s heart was galloping, but it still managed to pick up speed when the man whirled around and answered within the space of a breath.
“I quit.”
Benny slowed to a stop a few feet from him.
“You quit what? The pageant?”
Jack shook his head. He motioned between them. He was angry. Benny didn’t understand why.
“This. Us.” He shook his head again. “It's not working out for me anymore. And I-I can’t.”
“What do you mean?” Benny felt his face go hot. “I don't understand. What happened in there? Did Carol say something?”
“No. It’s not her. It’s…It’s not that.”
“She must have said something,” Benny tried. His stomach tightened. “I mean one second we're fine and now you’re—”
Jack took a step toward him, stopping just short.
“I read the blog post,” he interrupted. The anger in his voice drained as he continued. “I read the blog post, Benny. The one you wrote five months ago.”
Benny blinked.
Jack didn't need to explain which post he was talking about.
He knew.
Of course, he knew.
The post that had taken The One Who Said Nothing into the stratosphere and had everyone interested asking: Who was Guy?
Jack ran a hand through his hair.
“I-I can't compete with that, Benny. I can't compete with Marcus. I can’t pretend to be Guy, not when he’s here.” Jack put his hand to his chest. His voice softened.
Hurt thronged through every word. “You've known me for two weeks.
But him? You've loved him since you were seventeen.
And I think it's time you told him. Finally do something about it. Not just hide behind me.”
Benny felt like he was trying to mentally walk down a very steep hill on stilts he’d somehow felt confident enough before to put on.
There was no comfortable footing now.
No purchase that guaranteed he wouldn’t fall.
That he wouldn’t hit the ground.
That he wouldn’t hurt.
“You want me to tell Marcus?” he couldn't help but repeat. “You don’t—You don’t want me to hide behind you?”
He was slow with it but Jack nodded.
“I think you have to. Yeah.”
“And because you think I love him, you want to end our arrangement?”
Jack hit his chest and let his hand ball into a fist at his side after.
“Dammit, Benny. I don't want this to be an arrangement at all. And that's why I can’t—”
“I don't want this to be an arrangement either.”
The words came out before Benny could stop them.
No overthinking.
No hiding.
No blog.
His stilts were sliding down the hill, but he was still managing to stand.
Benny took the smallest of steps forward.
He kept the pattern of saying exactly what was on his mind, charting new territory he knew he probably should have ventured through much earlier in life.
“The One Who Said Nothing was easy to write because people can’t die there, Jack,” he dove in.
“My parents, out here? They went out for ice cream one night and then suddenly I was sixteen. Seventeen. Eighteen. Twenty-one. They missed everything and, the worst part of it all, is I didn’t even know to be afraid of that before they were gone.
So…So I became afraid of it after instead.
I wrote everything down and then I let that be my life.
Just words on a screen because words on a screen don’t go away unless you want them to. But coming here? Meeting you?”
Benny wanted to take another step forward.
But this time, he knew it was important that he stand there.
Loud.
Proud.
True.
He wanted Jack to hear him.
“You reminded me that, while special days are important, it’s the noises of living that I missed.
That they are what make the special days special.
That’s why I told you about my parents. That’s why I kissed you in the office while you were wearing those ridiculous tights.
That’s why I held your hand after. It’s you, Jack.
You’re every day of the week. You’re late weekend nights and early Sunday mornings. You’re the ice and the cream.”
Benny lightly touched his own chest, right above where his heart was racing.
“I don’t love Marcus, Jack. Not anymore. Not for a very long time. I think it was just easier to hold on to something I never had so, when it did go away, it didn’t hurt. It couldn’t. Because it never made me feel…like me.”
He took the smallest of steps forward now.
Jack’s gaze never moved from his.
“I want to be with you, Jack Knox. No more playing pretend.”
That was it.
That was what Benny had been feeling.
What he felt.
The One Who Said Nothing had finally, finally said what he’d meant.