by M. J. O'Shea
“Oh, God,” Pinky groaned. “Please tell me this isn’t the penguin story.”
“It’s not the penguin story,” Fen said with a sly smile.
“You’re lying, aren’t you?” Rory asked. His smile grew to a grin.
“Yep. It’s totally the penguin story.”
Ben punched him in the arm. “That damn story isn’t even true.”
“It is. Lemme tell Rory.” Fen grinned. “So here’s what happened. I was walking with my friends to the lake one day; we all had towels over our shoulders, suits, but it was really hot. We just wanted to get in the water, right?”
“And you turned down the street toward the lake, and you saw a cop pulling over a car full of penguins, blah, blah,” Pinky said in a mocking voice.
“Let me tell the story!”
Pinky rolled her eyes. “This is so dumb.”
“So anyway.” Fen swatted at Pinky. “We see a cop pulling over a car with this guy driving it and a whole bunch of freaking penguins in it. Like a least ten. We were kids, right, and we wanted to see what was up with the penguins in the car so we went over to listen. The cop was reaming this guy about how he wasn’t supposed to have penguins just driving around town and how he had to drive into Detroit and take them to the zoo.”
Rory chuckled. Ben had to fight the instinct to lean into him. It seemed like it was ingrained in his body. Rory. Touch. Now. He dug his nails into his palm to keep from doing something stupid. At the rate he was going, they’d be bloody by the end of the meeting. Ben was terrified to think of the state he’d be in by the end of the school year.
“What happened?” Rory asked.
Fen grinned. “Well, the guy said okay, and he drove off, right?”
“I’m going to get coffee,” Pinky said. She looked pretty damn annoyed that Rory’s attention was nowhere near her. Fen waved her off. “Yeah, go ahead. Anyway, so the guy left with all these penguins, and he supposedly was taking them to the zoo. But the next day we saw the same guy at a stoplight, same car, full of penguins. But this time some of the penguins had on sunglasses, and there was a huge stack of towels on the passenger seat.”
Ben rolled his eyes. “Could you drag this out any further?”
“Lemme finish,” Fen snapped good-naturedly. “Anyway, my friend Zack, he always had kind of a big mouth, right? Didn’t mind going up to strangers so he made the motion for penguin guy to roll down his window. And the guy did. Then Zack was like ‘hey mister, I thought the cop told you to take all those penguins to the zoo.’” Fen let out a chuckle. “And then the guy said: ‘Oh, I did. They had so much fun that today I’m going to take them to the beach.’”
There was silence at the table for a few seconds before Rory let out a loud, snorting laugh. “Oh, Lord. And to think I was falling for that one for a second.”
Fen stood and bowed, then sat in his chair. “Okay, real memory. One that not even Ben knows?” He smiled. “First kiss. Sherri Lancaster. Third grade. We kissed on the tire swing on the playground. It was love at first sight.”
“Very nice. I didn’t know that,” Ben said. He tried to smile casually, but inwardly, he was cringing. Not a good road to go down… no, no, no.
“What about you, Rory?” Fen asked. “Who was your first kiss?”
Aw fuck.
“He was my best friend, actually. We were next-door neighbors.” Rory smiled to himself for a moment before his smile faded. Ben wanted to impale himself with about five hundred sharp objects.
“H-he?” Pinky, who’d returned with her coffee, choked and turned a little pink to match her name. “So you’re on Ben’s team? Should’ve known.” After that, she mumbled something under her breath that sounded a lot like “fucking unfair” and went back to sipping her coffee.
“I wasn’t aware Ben had a team, but for the record yes, I date men.” Rory smiled at Pinky when he said it, and damn if the bastard didn’t come off as charming and sweet as he was letting her down. “I don’t like to make a big deal about it.”
“So what happened to this boy next door?” Fen asked. He was obviously trying to get Pinky out of her embarrassing situation. He couldn’t have picked a worse question.
“He was a jock.” Rory shrugged. “I guess the jock and the geeky gay science kid who fall in love and live happily ever after is a story that only works in movies.”
Ben wanted to puke. Like seriously puke. “Sometimes it works out in real life,” he said quietly.
“Not for me.” Rory barely even glanced his way.
THE RAGING tides of awkward rose to a flooding point after the morning’s staff meeting when the “boy wonder” team, as Schroeder liked to call Ben and Fen, were appropriated to show Rory around the school. Ben didn’t know if he should try to get out of it, or if avoiding Rory would only make things worse. He didn’t have much choice. He just stood there and nodded and felt like taking his poor clueless principal out with some sort of very lethal weapon. Or fangs. If he were a vampire, he wouldn’t mind going all Spike and bad Angel on Schroeder for putting him in such a painfully awkward position. But no. He nodded. Like a jerk.
FEN AND Rory showed up at the door to his classroom, ready for the school tour, before he had a chance to manufacture a reason to get out of it.
“Uh, hey, guys. We going?”
“You don’t have to come,” Rory said flatly. It was the first time he’d really looked at Ben since that awful moment of recognition back at the staff meeting.
“Sure he does! Nobody knows the back corners of this building like Ben here.”
Ben cringed. Fen, shut up. Now. Sure, he knew the back corners. Back corners he used to make out with Rory in before… well, before. “Actually, I think there’s someone else. Why don’t we just show him the new building? Pretty sure Rory knows this one.”
“You went to school here too?” Fen asked.
Rory nodded. “Yep. Spent a lot of time out here too.” He grinned disarmingly at Fen and pointed at his chest. “Science geek.”
“Yeah.” Fen rolled his eyes and looked Rory up and down, all lean muscles, designer jeans, and runway-model hair. “You look super geeky.”
Sometimes, Ben wondered if Fen spent so much time with him that he forgot he was straight. Rory chuckled and gestured for Fen to lead the way out of the annex.
The annex was all that was left of the high school Ben and Rory had gone to. The rest of it had been torn down a year or two before Ben started teaching to make room for the new and shiny. Mostly, he didn’t mind. Ben didn’t want a daily reminder of the time he made the biggest mistake ever. But the old halls of his part of the school reminded him of that—also reminded him of secret kisses in the chem lab and the band room, giggling when they thought they’d been caught. The first few weeks of school his senior year had been heady and wonderful. Ben’d had everything he could’ve ever wanted. He wondered if he still would if he hadn’t managed to ruin it.
The awkward trio trailed into the new building, Fen leading the way, Rory in the middle and Ben bringing up the rear, wishing he could be anywhere but where he was. At the same time, he was still reeling, just like he’d been for most of the staff meeting. Rory. He still couldn’t quite process the fact that Rory was right there, only a few inches in front of him, like some sort of mirage. Ben had played the moment over and over, the one where they ran into each other and he got to apologize, say that he’d made a huge mistake and that he wished they were still friends—well, still everything, to be honest. He’d nearly tried about a thousand times the last few months before graduation, but dumb fear and the look on Rory’s face like Ben had broken his heart kept him from doing it every single time.
“So, new building,” Fen said. “Course to me it’s not new since I’ve only been here two years, but I’ll do my best.”
Fen opened the door and gestured for Ben and Rory to go through. Rory ran his fingers through his hair again, all silky and caramel colored. Ben wanted to touch it so bad; he wanted to touch his shoulders, fami
liar but so much broader than they used to be; he wanted to wrap his arms around Rory’s waist and spend about a million years breathing him in. He—ran right into Rory when Fen stopped to show him the main building’s staff lounge. Ben’s face smooshed up against the back of Rory’s neck, and he nearly knocked both of them over.
Seriously? Ben nearly turned and booked it back to his moldy old art room where he could hide in peaceful shame, perhaps in the hole he’d dig himself in the ground. And cover with rocks. Rory turned to steady him but then clenched his jaw and turned back toward Fen.
“…So we never eat over here. We have our own staff lounge out in Loserville, and we’re happy there.” Fen rolled his eyes. “I think the sweater brigade would have a cow if any of us annexers tarnished their precious lounge.”
Rory snickered. “Maybe we’ll have to throw a barbecue over here some afternoon. Bring some tequila.”
“I like the way you think, man.” Fen bumped fists with a smiling Rory.
“I’ll lend my drink-mixing skills. I think Schroeder is still recovering from that mai tai I made him last June,” Ben joked.
Fen chuckled, but Rory only looked silently at the floor. Okay, then. Brick wall.
“Um, come this way. You already saw the cafeteria at the meeting this morning, but I’ll show you the gym and the weight room. Teachers can use it after school as long as there isn’t a team in there practicing.”
Ben followed again silently and held the door to the gym open for Rory when they got there. Rory gave him a terse, muttered “thank you,” but other than that, nothing. No eye contact, no smile. Nothing. Ben gave serious thought to quitting his job and taking up residence on his parents’ couch. There was zero chance that he could survive a year with this kind of torture.
“WE NEED to talk. Now.” Fen crowded Ben against his car in the parking lot at the end of the day. Ben had been avoiding him ever since that god-awful tour of the building earlier. He raised his eyebrows in that “Fen’s actually being serious for once?” kind of way.
“Dude, not really in the mood for talking tonight.”
“Yeah, but school starts on Monday, and I feel a long-ass year coming on unless one of us starts talking. I’m pretty sure I have nothing to say. But you do. What’s wrong with you and Newton?”
“Rory,” Ben corrected quietly. He couldn’t imagine calling him “Newton.”
“Fine. Rory. What happened with you two?”
Ben looked around the parking lot, at teachers filing out of the building. They glanced curiously at him and Fen. “Not here. Meet me at Beaver’s?”
“Yeah. Okay. I’ll be there in twenty. Order me some nachos and a Corona.”
BEN SAT in his and Fen’s customary booth at Beaver’s, fiddling with a coaster. He didn’t know how to tell Fen about what had happened. Fen wouldn’t get it. It had been so long since Ben was anything but completely out, so long since he gave a fuck what anyone thought of him, that the story wouldn’t make any sense. Fen didn’t know the teenaged Ben and his insecurities. Ben barely knew that kid anymore either.
Fen ducked into the booth and took a long pull from this beer. “Okay. What the fuck’s up with you and Rory? I was getting some major glacier vibes all morning.”
Ben took a deep breath. “Rory and I know each other.”
“Yeah. Got that part, thanks. I’m gonna need a little more info about the awkward silences and the death glares.”
And here we go.
“You know that guy who Rory kissed? His old best friend, the jock?” Ben cringed. He couldn’t think of a more uncomfortable conversation.
Fen tipped his head to the side. Understanding slowly dawned. “Dude… no. Just, no.”
“Oh, yes. That was me. Are you starting to get the picture? He was my best friend, for years. And I fucked everything up.”
“How?” Fen asked. “I think I need to know this if I’m going to be stuck with you two all year.”
“We kissed that one night, the summer we were seventeen. And we just kept kissing. I loved him so damn much. But then I got onto the varsity soccer team senior year and fuck, the way they talked about him. They called him ‘science fag’ and ‘loser brainiac’ and gave me a ton of shit for just being friends with him. They didn’t have a clue how much more it was.” Ben sighed. He didn’t know how to say it. Even in his head, it sounded so fucking stupid. “I felt like I had to fit in, my dad was so happy I made the team.”
“So you dumped him?” Fen looked horrified. He had every right to.
“Not exactly.” And here came the worst part. “I just started spending less time with him, more time with the team. Like he was always there when I got home at first, waiting for me with a smile and a kiss, and I was always so damn happy to see him—like he was really the only person I ever felt like I really fit with, ya know?” Ben was in the depths of hell. He tried so hard never to think of what he’d done to Rory. As long as he pushed it down as far away as it could go, he was fine. As soon as he remembered, he wanted to puke. Every time.
“What happened, then?”
“I just… let him go. One night when I knew he was waiting for me, I stayed out all night partying with the team. It wasn’t even fun, I just felt like I should. He was gone when I got back in the morning, and the next night, he wasn’t there. I didn’t call him again. He left me a dozen messages, tried to come see me but—” Ben didn’t know how to explain how he’d iced Rory out. His gut churned just thinking about it. Same reaction. Every time.
“And that’s just it? Nothing ever again?”
“Yeah.” But not really. More like he let Rory go without a fight, without even letting Rory fight because he’d sure as hell tried. Ben had silently chosen everything that was far less important, and he didn’t even give Rory the chance to talk him out of it. Eight years later, Ben still felt like an asshole. And he still missed Rory all the damn time. Fen was great, but there were things Rory just got about him. Things nobody else had ever managed to really figure out.
“I mean, I did see him, around school. He came out later that year. I’m sure it was rough on him. I still loved him, I just didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to take it all back.”
“Did he know that?”
“Of course not.”
Fen shook his head. “I can’t say I’m shocked. You’ve never been the guy who wants to be Mister Boyfriend.”
“It… it wasn’t that. I wanted to be like that with him. You have no idea how much.”
That was the worst part about it. Ben had spent hours every day that summer they were together, spinning stories in his head about his and Rory’s future together. He had wanted to be that guy.
“Yeah I think I do have an idea. Ben, you’ve said ‘love.’ Twice in one conversation. I mean, other than your parents, I didn’t think you knew that word.”
Ben reached across the table and punched Fen on the shoulder. “Shut up, jerk. You know I love you… just not like that.”
“You wound me!” Fen stabbed at his heart. “And here I thought you were secretly pining for me, and someday we’d end up together.”
“You wish.” Ben rolled his eyes.
A server came with their nachos. Fen was distracted for a few minutes, shoving chips in his mouth. Ben wasn’t quite off the hook, though.
“I’m really sorry. I wasn’t there to see what happened, but I bet it sucked.”
Ben couldn’t agree more. “It did. Like a lot. We’d spent our whole childhood practically sewn together, and then nothing. Because I was an asshole and chose the damn soccer team and a few months of popularity over him.”
“Kids do stupid shit,” Fen said with a shrug.
“Not that stupid.”
Fen reached over awkwardly and gave Ben a bro-pat. “Hey, listen. I know it’s a lot to ask, but can you try to fix this somehow? It really is gonna suck if you two are shooting each other those laser hate glares until June.”
“I don’t hate him,” Ben protested quietly. �
��Far from it.”
“Okay, fine, if he’s shooting you hate glares, then. Just… just try to fix it, okay?”
“I’d love to. Just tell me how.” Ben had been wishing he could fix it for years, just find Rory wherever he was and tell him he was sorry, and he still missed his oldest friend, and he was an asshole. He finally had his chance. Ben just had no idea what to do with it.
Chapter Three
EVERY YEAR Ben told himself he was going to start getting up early in August. Give his body a few weeks to get ready for that painful first day. He never did. He’d been up late the night before with Fen and Pinky, watching horror movies in preparation for the year to come. They’d gorged on burgers and beer, and he had a salt hangover as well as wanting to gouge his eyes out.
First day of school. Fantastic.
He dragged his tired butt out of bed and to the shower. At least that was quick. So was dressing. Art didn’t require that he wear a suit and a tie, and thankfully, the school was somewhat casual. Usually, jeans and a nice button-up over a T-shirt were fine. He’d never been a fan of anything dressier than that. Ben slid into his shoes, tossed a slice of toast in his mouth, grabbed his soccer duffel for after school, and sighed when he locked the door. Another year. At least he couldn’t say it was going to be just like all the rest of them. Not even close.
EVEN IF he’d done it before, three years in a row, two semesters of brand-new kids each year, Ben always got butterflies waiting for that first class to arrive. It seemed like over summer he kinda forgot how it felt. There was always that brief moment of panic, wondering if he could really do it still or if he’d forgotten how to teach. It didn’t take long to get over it, but the early rush was intense.
Of course this year, the school had added a new art class—he’d been looking forward to it since they’d announced it the previous spring. Advanced Techniques. The kids had to pass his semester elective and apply. It was a whole class of his most talented and dedicated students, and Ben couldn’t wait to get reacquainted with them. But it was also new territory. So, yeah, a little scary, and they were his very first class.