by Megan Walker
I refrain from rolling my eyes. Ben and I tried to live together for the first two years of college, which was an enormous mistake. Ben is kind of a slob, and while I’m all for having a space to make a mess, I can’t live in it full-time.
It’s fruitless to pick a fight about it, though, and I’m especially not going to do so when he’s in so much pain.
But I am going to get that couch professionally cleaned.
I walk into the room and sit in the matching suede armchair. My large fountain babbles ceaselessly, and while it’s gorgeous, it often makes me need to pee.
“I finally talked to Wyatt,” Ben says. He slurps down another bite of pizza, and a drop of sauce splats onto our couch. I wince.
“Yeah? How’d it go?” I can only imagine how much Wyatt’s been dying the last several days, not hearing from him. Though I suppose Ben’s probably been hoping Wyatt would be the one to call.
I might have asked him about that, but until today, Ben’s been holed up in the guest room, not willing to talk.
Ben shakes his head, and stuffs the rest of the pizza slice in his mouth. I’m not sure if he’s actively trying to choke himself to death or if he’s just trying to tell me he doesn’t want to talk about it. I wait quietly to either inquire again—because he damn well needs to talk about it, whether he wants to or not—or to call 911 and report his attempted suicide by pizza.
There’s a drizzle of grease running down his chin when he finally answers. “I did what you said. I laid it out there and told him that I feel like I’m not enough for him.”
Oh, shit. That’s a big deal for Ben, who likes to talk about feelings about as much as he likes to talk about designer suits. But from the fact that he’s still in my house and now stuffing his face, I imagine this didn’t go well. “How’d he react?”
Ben swallows and watches the fountain for a long moment. “He cried. And then he said ‘No, I guess you’re not.’”
I stare at him, my stomach dropped out from under me. “He said that. Those exact words.”
Ben nods.
Shit. Wyatt can’t have meant that. Not really. Ben and Wyatt have been each other’s whole world since they first met. I was jealous, at first, afraid I was going to lose my best friend, but it didn’t turn out like that.
“Do you think he meant it?” I ask.
“Yeah, I think he meant it,” Ben snaps. “Why else would he say it?”
“But Wyatt loves you.” I’m fumbling through this, trying to think of the right thing to say, but I’m failing miserably. I don’t know what’s wrong with me in the last week, but this is a really bad time for me to be so far off my comfort game.
“I know,” Ben says, more than a little bitterly. “Just not like I love him.”
That hits me right in the gut. “I don’t think that’s true.”
“Isn’t it?” Ben asks. “I’d do anything for him. There’s nothing I wouldn’t give up. Nothing. Hell, if it was a life or death situation and I had to choose, I’d save him over you.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I say. I’m joking, but Ben looks at me sharply.
“I would. Come on, if it was me or Anna-Marie, you’d choose her in a heartbeat.”
My throat closes. While what he’s saying is true, I’m not about to announce that to my grieving best friend, who just got told by his husband that he isn’t enough.
I try to smile and play it off. “Lucky for us, there aren’t that many life or death situations where I’m likely to have to make that decision.”
Ben narrows his eyes. “If you did, though, you’d choose Anna-Marie.”
Shiiiiiiit. I do not know what I’m supposed to say now, but I’m worried that if I say anything that sounds even slightly like abandonment, Ben is going to lose it.
He picks up a beer he had shoved in the couch cushions behind him. Open. He doesn’t drink it, just keeps staring at me, like this is a challenge. “Dude,” he says. “I know you would.”
I hold up my hands. “Hey, how did this come to be about us all dying in some disaster? I’m sorry about what Wyatt says, but don’t you think if you talk some more—”
“I did talk to him,” Ben says. “I told him what you told me to tell him, and it turns out I was right.” He takes a swig of his beer, and shakes his head. “Maybe I didn’t want to know, but mostly I just didn’t want it to be true.”
“I know something about conversations that don’t go the way you want them to,” I say with a sigh, and Ben raises his eyebrows.
“Things okay with you and Anna-Marie?”
“Yeah,” I say, and then realize that’s only half true. Things are better, after our talk about what a jerk I’ve been, but I still feel like we’ve both been walking on eggshells ever since. Like neither of us really knows what to do with my admission, or with this strange place we are in our marriage.
More things I can’t fix. And even worse, I know I’m not supposed to, but I can’t stop myself from feeling like I should.
Being with her, though, making love to her, it did feel different than it has these past months. Like the time we were together under the stars in that circle of trees in Wyoming, the first time we said we loved each other. Desperate and passionate and full of need.
It went a long way toward making me feel like I haven’t irrevocably destroyed our marriage by being such an ass.
“I mean,” I say, “we had a fight. And then we made up, kind of. But lately . . . it hasn’t been great.”
Ben looks genuinely concerned. “Is this about me staying here?”
“No, that was fine. But I did some stuff I’m not proud of that I had to admit to her. I think I’ve been a crappy husband and I’m not sure how to stop.”
He pauses with the beer bottle at his lips. “Dude. You didn’t cheat on her.”
“No!” I say. “Of course I didn’t. God. But I guess I just . . . always feel like I have to fix everything.”
He takes a drink and shrugs. “But Anna-Marie likes that. She’s kind of high maintenance, right? She likes you to keep her happy.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “In some ways we’re both high maintenance, I guess.”
“Ha. You’re just now figuring this out?”
I shake my head at him. He’s been teasing me about what a diva I am—caring about clothes and wanting to talk about feelings—since we were kids. “But it’s not that. I like to keep her happy, but it’s because I’m scared she’s going to leave me if I don’t. And she says I shouldn’t be doing that stuff from a place of fear.”
Ben picks at the label on the bottle. “I don’t know. Seems like a reasonable thing to be afraid of to me.”
My heart sinks. Of course it does, when he just got told he isn’t enough by the person he loves most in the world. It still doesn’t seem like a thing that Wyatt would say, but I also don’t believe Ben would make that up—which makes me wonder what the hell must be going on in Wyatt’s head.
“But I’m not supposed to do that,” I continue. “Help people out of fear, I mean. Not just her, but everyone. And I’m realizing that maybe I do that to keep people dependent on me, so that I have . . . a place in the world, I guess. And if that’s wrong, then I don’t know who I am, but it isn’t the person I thought I was.”
Ben pauses again with his drink mid-tilt. “What? That’s stupid. You’re Josh.”
“Yeah. But I guess I’m just not as good a person as I thought.”
“That’s bullshit,” Ben says. “Dude, you’re being ridiculous.”
I bristle at that. “Maybe. But I can’t help it.”
“Are you having some kind of mid-life crisis? Aren’t you a little young for that?”
“Sure. Maybe that’s what it is.” I sound bratty and I know it, but I really just want to get out of this conversation without yelling at Ben to stop eating pizza on my couch and telling
me that my feelings aren’t valid. I know from experience that neither of those is going to get a positive reaction, even at the best of times.
This is exactly why Ben and I decided we can’t live together all those years ago.
“I’m going to go clean the loft,” I say. “We’re having Ty Mays over for the evening as a favor to Felix and Jenna.”
“Seriously?” Ben says, which is reasonable. It’s not like Anna-Marie and I are in a habit of babysitting much. Even my sisters-in-law don’t ask us to. “Since when are you so close with Felix and Jenna?”
Oh. That. There’s an edge of judgment in his voice, and I’m pretty sure that’s about the church thing, and I both don’t blame him and don’t want to get into it.
“We’re not,” I say, before realizing that was a lie. I may not have been friends with Felix for long, but I’ve definitely told him things I wouldn’t tell anyone who wasn’t at least a good friend. Which is weirdly what we are now, I guess. “I offered to show the kid the train table, since they just had a baby. So try not to be a drunken mess when he’s here, okay?”
“Fine,” Ben says. “Whatever.”
That went well, I think. I take a deep breath, and then stalk off through the house toward the loft.
Thirteen
Anna-Marie
I’m more than ready to be home after a long day of work—especially after my co-star Nina started playing an Accidental Erotica album from her dressing room, just to be a bitch.
I maintained the same level of outward calm that I always do when it comes to my ex-boyfriend creating song after song that mix details of our (long-past) relationship with bald-faced lies. The same calm I summoned last year when the press kicked up again with the second album, and Josh and I had to reiterate our statements (aka the truth) about how I never cheated on Shane, how I never cheated on Josh, etc.
And I am more calm about it all, I suppose. A few years of therapy has let me get rid of a lot of the old grievances against Shane. Because the truth is, as much as I accused him of being a terrible boyfriend, I’ve come to realize that I was a pretty terrible girlfriend, too. There were definitely two of us involved in that shit-show. And I wish we were at a place where I could apologize for my part in that. That we could just talk again.
But we sure as hell aren’t there now. Because I haven’t gotten over the grievance of him being an asshole who threw me under the bus for fame, and he doesn’t seem inclined to stop.
Outward calm aside, my teeth are sore from clenching so tightly all the way home. When I finally walk in the door, I kick off my gorgeous-but-toe-destroying Valentino heels with a low moan of relief.
“If that’s your mating call, I should warn you that Josh just left,” a male voice says from the front room. “And it’s not likely to work on me.”
“Aww, that sucks,” I say back, hanging my purse on the hook by the front door. “I’d really hoped to seduce my husband’s gay best friend today. And you said Josh just left? Was he back from work alread—”
I cut off when I see Ben in the front room, draped across our expensive suede armchair, wearing nothing but his boxers. Eating Doritos. The room smells like beer, and I’m not sure if it’s because he’s just drank enough it’s exuding from his pores, or if there’s a pool of it spilled somewhere.
I grit my teeth again, but hold back my instinct to yell at him. The poor guy is in pain, he’s separated from his husband, he’s—Wait, are those my special Spicy Nacho Doritos I save for cheat days?
Patience, Anna-Marie, I tell myself. Empathy. He needs comfort carbs more than you do.
“Why do you wear shoes like that, anyway?” Ben asks, around the crunch of Doritos.
I shrug and sit down on the couch. “Because foot pain is temporary, but the joy of wearing amazing shoes is forever.”
Ben stuffs his hand back in the Doritos bag with a loud rustling noise. “Sounds like something Wyatt would say.”
The sadness in his voice squeezes at my heart. I feel horrible for him, and for Wyatt. I seriously love both of them, though the truth is, I’ve always been closer to Wyatt. He’s a fashion-loving soap opera fan who appreciates a good celebrity gossip-fest over cocktails, while Ben can’t tell the difference between Jennifer Aniston and Jennifer Garner, and prefers beer in front of a hockey game. The main things Ben and I have in common are our loves of Josh, Death Arsenal, and bitching good-naturedly (and sometimes less good-naturedly) at each other.
Which, really, are the important things in life.
He pulls a script out from behind him on the chair, like it was stuffed into the cushion. “Is this that new show you booked?”
I snatch it out of his hands. “Yes, it is. And thanks for getting it all covered in cheesy fingerprints.” I brush off some of the offending chip dust.
“I read it,” Ben says, as if I’d assumed he’d just pawed it with his Doritos hands to spite me. “Seems like it could be a pretty funny part. Though it says she was a phone sex operator—you know that in a future episode, they’re going to have to do some sort of flashback to that.”
“Probably,” I say. “What, you think I can’t pull that off?”
Ben shrugs.
“I assure you, I could be an amazing phone sex operator. I had a dream once that I was, actually. It was kind of hot.”
“Whatever works for you.” He scarfs down another handful of chips.
“Besides, it’s a comedy,” I say. “The real acting challenge will be in being a bad phone sex operator.”
Ben gives a half-hearted chuckle, then his expression drops again. “I was thinking when I was reading it that Wyatt will probably love this show. It’s totally his kind of humor.”
“Yeah,” I agree softly. It totally is. “How’re you holding up?” I ask. I would say I could tell by his state of dress and snack consumption, but I’ve seen him look pretty much the same at his own house in happier times, so that in itself is no big sign.
“How do you think I am?” His tone is bitter enough to answer that.
“Feels like shit, I imagine.”
“You imagine right. Ten points for Gryffindor.”
I sigh. “Ben, I’m sorry this is happening, I—”
“Whatever,” he says. “It sucks, and that’s it. I don’t need to go on and on about it.”
He hasn’t, not with me at least. Probably he’s been talking more with Josh, and that’s good.
“Yeah, okay, I—is that pizza sauce?” I point at a red splotch a foot away from me on the couch cushion.
Ben groans. “Oh my god, you guys and your furniture. It’s just a couch. Lighten the hell up.”
“It’s suede and it’s a bitch to get cleaned,” I say, my irritation beginning to rise above my capacity for empathy. “As is that chair you’re eating chips in, by the way.”
Ben glares at me and pulls a beer out from behind him—what the hell else does he have stuffed back there?—and drinks it. At me.
So it’s going to be one of the less-good-natured bitchy days. Not that I blame him.
And if he wipes his cheese-stained fingers on my suede, I won’t blame myself for killing him, either.
He sticks the beer back behind him, looking a little disappointed to not get a bigger reaction from me with his passive-aggressive drinking. “Josh went to the store, in case you were wondering. You guys were out of food that he thought the kid might eat.”
The kid. That’s right, Ty Mays is coming over for the evening so Felix and Jenna can have a date night. I’m happy to help out—and it’s always super fun to show kids the train tables—but I’m also selfishly glad they decided to keep Rachel home with them.
I try not to think about how much I wish I could be holding a baby of my own. A little me-and-Josh.
“We’re out of kid-friendly snacks? Gee, I wonder how that happened,” I say. Josh and I don’t cook
much, either eating out or getting our dinners from this great place that delivers pre-prepared, healthy meals. So our snack indulgences—we both have a thing for chips—have no doubt been what Ben’s been living off of.
Ben gives me a smirk, but a moment later his expression drops. “Hey, you and Josh are good, right? Like, you know he loves you?” It’s a weirdly genuine-sounding level of concern for Ben.
“Of course I know he loves me,” I say. Even with our issues of late, I haven’t doubted that. I find myself looking down at my hands, though, as I continue. “I mean, things have been tense lately. But we’ll figure it out.”
“You guys will, right?” He sounds desperate, and I look back up at him sharply. “I mean.” He stammers a bit. “Like I know Josh will want to. Because he loves you.”
“You said that already, Ben. Are you drunk?”
“Probably. You wanna join me?” He picks up the beer and swishes it at me, sending little droplets flying. I feel my blood pressure rising. Seriously, he could be doing this anywhere else in the house . . . .
“Considering we have a child coming over soon, I’m going to pass. And for that same reason, it’d probably be better for you to get wasted in the guest room tonight.”
“The guest room,” Ben groans, like I’m banishing him to solitary confinement in some foreign prison instead of our really nice guest room with a private bathroom, a Sleep Number bed, and a huge-ass TV.
“Yeah,” I say, my annoyance beginning to bubble out. “And could you put on some pants when you come out next time? Just because you’re in pain doesn’t mean any of us need to be treated to a view of your testicles.”
Ben glares at me, though he does shift to cover the gaping leg hole in his boxers through which I can see way too much crotch skin. “Whatever. Don’t tell me Josh doesn’t walk around here in just his boxers sometimes.”
“It’s our house, so yeah. But not when we have a kid over.”
“Felix’s kid,” Ben mutters, and takes another drink.
Oh. Is Ben jealous of Felix?
It makes sense, actually. Josh doesn’t really have other guy friends, not that he talks to like he talks to Ben. I know there’s no replacing Ben as far as Josh is concerned—Ben’s like a brother to him. But Ben’s already all sorts of wounded right now, with what’s happening between him and Wyatt.