Here's to Us(What If It's Us #2)(83)
“Cute.” He pokes my arm. “Should we go in?”
“Sure! I mean—unless you want to wait for Mario to get here?”
“Oh—no, he’s packing.” Ben scratches the back of his neck, suddenly flustered. “I’ll probably head over a little later to help him.” He pauses. “Or not. I guess he’s pretty much done? We—um. He was going to leave tomorrow, but he pushed the U-Haul rental back a week. Couldn’t miss Dylan’s wedding.”
“Right.” I follow him into the store, trying to ignore the pang in my chest. We. “You were right—this place is aggressively cute.” I peer around the space, taking in the spherical light fixtures and bright white display tables, holding artfully arranged onesies and bedding.
Ben points to a stack of organic blankets, each patterned with a different illustrated print. “See, this is exactly what I’m talking about. Does the baby like macarons? Does it even have a digestive system yet? Who fucking knows!”
I smile. “Okay, but they have unicorns. And narwhals!”
“Absolutely fucking not. I’m not having Dylan mock me for another six months about how narwhals are real.”
“Wait, Dylan thinks narwhals are real?”
Ben tilts his head. “They are real.”
“Uhhh . . .”
Ben bursts out laughing. “Right? That’s what I said! Arthur, it was so bad. I had this whole water scene mapped out for the Wicked Wizard War sequel, and yeah. So, I’m telling Dylan about it—this is Christmas break—and he’s like, ‘Benion, I love you, but I can’t let you set a narwhal scene in the Caribbean.’ So I start talking like an asshole about how it’s my ‘interpretation of a fantasy creature,’ and Dylan? Fucking loses it. Like, laughing so hard I thought he was choking. Because, as it turns out . . .” Ben pulls out his phone, types into a search bar, and holds it up to show me.
It’s a photograph of a whale with a long, pointy horn.
“WAIT—”
“Absolutely one hundred percent real.”
“I—had no idea.”
Ben makes a face that’s somehow split between a smile and a cringe. “We’re the only two people on earth who didn’t know.”
“Life comes at you fast.”
“Speaking of.” Ben lets out a quick, breathless laugh. “Can you believe Dylan and Samantha planned a wedding right under our noses?”
“I know. True legends.”
“You’re going, right? Are you bringing Mikey?” he asks. “I don’t know if Dylan talked to you yet, but you guys are definitely invited.”
I freeze.
“Um. I—am not bringing Mikey. Because.” I bite my lip. “We kind of. Broke up?”
Ben’s hand goes still on a flower-print onesie. “You did?”
“Yeah. Like, two weeks ago. When he was up here?” Cool. Loving the upspeak I’m serving. King of confidence.
Ben opens his mouth, closes it, and opens it again. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely. It was after the whole open mic thing, and I just realized . . . I don’t really want to get into it, but it just wasn’t working, and so I told him, and . . .” I shrug. “That’s pretty much it.”
“I had no idea.”
“Sorry. Yeah, I didn’t want to dump that on you. You have so much going on.”
“That’s not—” Ben shakes his head. “Don’t do that. You don’t have to keep that stuff from me. I want to be there for you.”
“I know. It’s just complicated. But really, I’m fine.”
Ben’s quiet for a moment, brows knitted together. “Sorry, I’m just—” He studies me for a moment, almost like he’s deciding whether or not to say something. “I could have sworn I saw you guys at Pride?”
“Wait, what?”
“Maybe I hallucinated it. It was by the Strand? We were waiting for Dylan and Samantha to finish peeing. Again.”
“I was at the Strand! But not with Mikey. Are you sure you didn’t see Ethan? He was in town that weekend.”
Ben squints. “Was he wearing a hat? I didn’t really see him too closely—”
“Yes! A Queer Evan Hansen hat!”
“Oh!” Ben’s eyes widen. “Is Ethan—”
“Let’s just say he had an epiphany.” I smile.
“Good for him,” Ben says—and then he looks up with a start. “Wait, are you guys—”
“Oh my God, no!” I burst out laughing. “That would be like you dating Dylan—okay, bad example, because I can totally see you dating Dylan—”
“Might I remind you that we are literally, right at this moment, picking out gifts for the baby he’s having with his fiancée, who he’s marrying next weekend—”
“Okay, fair enough, but I’m not dating Ethan. I am a single young intern.”
Ben smiles. “Interns are cool. Also, wow! Less than two weeks until the show, huh?”
“Yup, the seventeenth! And the first dress rehearsal’s in four days.”
“Fuck. Are you freaking out?”
I laugh. “It’s weird—I actually think it’ll be really good? The ads just went live, and I’m obsessed with them. Want to see?” I pull the image up on my phone and hold it up.