Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(46)

When I open the door ten minutes later, Dylan hugs me like he’s returning from war. “Look at you. Haven’t aged a bit. How long has it been?”

I count back to Dave & Buster’s. “Eight days?”

“Right right right, but we don’t count the night you gave my son away to Super Mario.” He steps into the foyer, Ben trailing behind him.

“Mario’s on the subway,” says Ben. Then he turns to hug Mikey. “Hey, man, good to see you again.”

“The famous Mikey! Aardvark’s told me so much about you!” says Dylan.

Mikey’s face is like a middle schooler being kissed on the cheek by an unknown elderly relative. Nothing but sheer polite panic. It’s like looking at my own bar mitzvah album.

Ben turns to me. “Hope it’s okay that we’re here? Samantha kicked Dylan out for the night.”

“She did not. I escaped in a blaze of glory. I don’t fuck with that crowd.”

“Who, Jessie?”

Ben rolls his eyes. “He means Patrick.”

“I don’t want to hear that name. I don’t want to see that face.” Dylan cuts through the living room, plopping onto the love seat. “That man is a goddamn bunion on the foot of my life. You know he and Samantha used to share a bed, right?”

“On family trips,” Ben says. “When they were six.”

“A bed’s a bed!”

“You and I have shared a bed. Many times.”

Dylan scoffs. “I’m supposed to find that reassuring? Benzo, every time you and I are within ten feet of each other, you can cut the sexual tension with a knife.”

Ben shoots a quick smile at Mikey. “Would you believe he’s sober?”

“Which is a crime.”

“No. It’s literally the opposite of a crime,” says Ben.

Dylan ignores him. “Seussical, what’s the drink situation here?”

“Right. Okay, water, obviously. Coke, milk, OJ, and . . . uh. I can scope out the other stuff.” I stand.

A moment later, Ben does, too. “Need any help?”

“Oh!” I sneak a quick glance at Mikey. “Um—”

“Sweet. You two, hook me up with some Seuss juice. The Mikester and I are long overdue for some bro time.” Dylan slides closer to Mikey, who looks terrified.

A minute later, I’m standing with Ben in my uncle’s tiny bright kitchen, trying to remember how conversations work. “So, um. I think most of the alcoholic stuff is—”

“Is this chocolate liqueur?” Ben holds up a bottle Jessie must have left on the counter. “Is this, like, up for grabs, or—”

“Yeah, no, definitely,” I say, nodding a little too enthusiastically. I don’t know how I forgot about this feeling—the way being alone with Ben makes my heart feels like it’s buffering. My eyes flick to Mikey’s bodega roses, now displayed in a metal pitcher I found in Uncle Milton’s Judaica cabinet.

“Have you ever tried it?”

I shake my head.

“You should. It’s like a Levain cookie in drink form.” He pulls a spoon out of my uncle’s cutlery drawer. “Godiva’s the real deal. My mom got some in a gift basket once.”

“And she gave it to you?”

“Thought it was chocolate sauce, so she spiked my ice cream. Okay, try this.” He nudges a spoonful of liqueur toward me like it’s cough syrup, but suddenly freezes in midair. I tilt my head away, flustered.

“Here.” He hands it to me instead, and I bring the spoon to my lips. It’s not technically my first taste of alcohol, but I’m pretty sure it’s my first taste of alcohol not preceded by old people saying “borei pri hagafen.” I swirl it around in my mouth for a moment, and at first I think it tastes like chocolate, but worse. But the more I sit with it, the more I like it, and by the time I finish the spoonful, I’m sold.

Ben looks at me expectantly. “What do you think?”

“It’s so rich.”

“Yeah. I mean, I think it’s usually mixed in with something. Do you have any Bailey’s?”

“Who?”

“Bailey’s Irish Cream. Or bourbon. I’m trying to think of what would pair well with chocolate.”

“How do you know all this? Is Mario a bartender or something?”

“Mario doesn’t drink.”

“Oh—”

“And he’s twenty. He’s not—oh, you’ve got vodka! That should work.” Ben looks at me. “You’re sure your uncle won’t mind?”

“Yeah, it’s totally fine.”

“Okay, cool.” He pulls up a recipe on his phone. “So we just need enough for four people, right?”

“Three. Mikey doesn’t drink either.”



I mean, technically, neither do I.

Though it’s not that I don’t drink. I just haven’t yet. But once I tried a bite of weed brownie with Musa. Sure, it’s possible we didn’t know the brownie contained weed at the time, just like it’s possible we immediately spit it out and spent the rest of the night panicking about failed drug tests and broken futures, but the point is, I’m not the baby-faced kid I was two summers ago. And maybe Ben needs to know that.