It is, Ben realizes, the first time Pete’s spoken in a while. For once, he hasn’t been paying attention; the stories have been revealing and interesting, if not necessarily in the way the peopletelling them meant them to be, and anyway Ben’s been doing his level best not to stare at Pete too obviously. He regrets it now. There’s a quality to Pete’s tone, to the hunch of his shoulders, to the strained, tight look in his eyes, that reminds Ben of the energy he puts off when the camera is rolling.
Naturally—and oh, Ben could kill him for it—Ezra, several drinks deep himself, seems to take this as a challenge. “Comeon,” he says, in a wheedling tone. “Therestof us are doing it?—”
“Famously a great reason to do something,” Pete says, his tone ringing with so many obvious warning sirens that Ben’s amazed Ezra can’t seem to hear a single one. “Not atallthe sort of sentence that has led to some of history’s worst decisions?—”
“Oh myGod, don’t be a suchbaby,” Ezra says, rolling his eyes. “You can just tell us a boring story like Adina’s?—”
“Hey!” Adina snaps, glaring at him over the rim of her glass. Ben notices, warmed by it a little in spite of his growing apprehension, that her eyes dart briefly to Pete as she says it, as though she too has picked up on the same tension Ben’s noticed. “Just because my story doesn’t involve the worst thing I’veeverheard of someone doing with a pom-pom?—”
“You need to get out more,” Ezra says, although Ben, having also heard the pom-pom story, thinks that the reality is maybe that Ezra needs to get out less. Even so, he finds himself wishing Ezrawouldget out, would goanywhere else, when he turns back to Pete and says, “Seriously, man, it’s your turn. We all agreed?—”
“Did we?” Pete’s voice is low, rumbling now. “Or did you all agree, while I sat here silently, because I wouldneveragree to?—”
“Listen, you should let me go; I’m going to win anyway,” someone says; oh no, wait.Bensaid it, before he could think about it, before he could remind himself that the last thing he wants to tell Pete is the story that lead-in demands. But, God help him, it’s alreadycome out of his mouth, and Pete is giving off a trapped-animal-lashing-out energy that, in Ben’sexperience, never leads to anything good. So, in for a penny, he carries on. “I can pretty much guarantee you I’ve got the most embarrassing story here. Might not be any point hearing Pete’s, really. You’ll see what I mean if you let me tell it.”
Ezra looks at him like he’s bitten a lemon; Ben raises an eyebrow back. Finally, sounding irritated about it, Ezra snaps, “Oh,fine, then. If you must.”
“Well, I started messing around with video editing when I was in middle school,” Ben says. He tries, as he talks, to lean into how much he’s had to drink, to sound confident and over it and like it never bothered him at all. It’s easier, now, than it’s ever been—it always is, with each telling of it. “So by high school, I sort of knew what I was doing, and I started helping out with some audio-video stuff in my spare time.” He keeps from them, though it’s the more complete truth, that he’d done this mostly because it kept him out of Trattoria Luciana until as late as five or six at night, and thus generally got him out of being asked to cover a call-off.
“Thrilling so far,” Ezra says, with a pointed yawn.
Ben ignores him. And since he can’t bring himself to look at Pete, or anywhere that might risk making eye contact with Pete, as he tells this particular story, he focuses his eyes on the dartboard on the far wall as he continues, “And every year my school did this big boring assembly right before Christmas break, giving out like, honors to the teachers, and talking about the year to come. So they were doing one of those, and I was supposed to play a video on the big screen, a like ‘Our District’s Year in Review’ type of thing? Only…” Ben swallows, trying to force back the resistance clawing at his throat—it was years ago. It’s funny! It’s not like it matters now. Still, he’s proud of the way the ache doesn’t show in his voice as he says, “It, uh. It wasn’t that video…that I played.”
For all Ezra’s complaining, he sits for a beat of breathless, anticipatory silence with the rest of them, and then, very satisfyingly for Ben, snaps, “Well? What was it?”
“It was,” Ben says, and closes his eyes briefly, surprised to find himself laughing on the words a little for all they’re still mortifying. “Well, it was a shot-for-shot recreation of an episode ofStar Trek? The one where Kirk and Spock seem, um, really gay for each other? More than the usual amount of gay, I mean. And I was kind of…playing all the parts.” In the yawning silence, unable to totally stop the words as they tumble out of his mouth, Ben can’t help but add, “And, um…once it started playing, the computer I was using froze, so it took—about ten minutes? To get it to stop? And the whole school was there? So. Ah. You know. Hard to top that one.”
The silence is, for a moment, quite painful. Then someone snickers; a second later they’re all laughing, some harder than others, even Ben. There are tears running down Brogan’s face; Adina has gone so red from amusement she looks like a tomato; even Ezra is howling, shaking his head, chuckling, “All right, all right—you’re right. Can’t beat that, goodLord.”
The only person who isn’t laughing is Pete: When Ben finally turns to look at him, there’s a smile on his face, to be sure, but not an amused one. He looks—glad, maybe, or grateful. The word “fond” floats by in Ben’s slightly overserved mind, and he tries, as it does, not to notice it.
But Pete mouths, “Thank you,” while the rest of them are looking away, so clearly sincere that Ben can hardly bear it. They hold eye contact for a long moment, and then Brogan asks who wants another round, and the conversation turns, and before long the bar is spitting them back out again, all a bit unsteadier and somewhat worse for the wear, but in good enough spirits.
In a happy coincidence, Pete and Ben are both walking the same way for a few blocks; they break off from the others andset out again, the air colder now than it was a few hours ago. The snow is still falling, the flakes thicker and more aggressive, and Pete sounds almost wistful when he says, “Okay. Don’t tell the others or anything, but: You want to know my most embarrassing story?”
“Oh,” Ben says; it’s an exhalation more than a word, and for a hanging, confused second Ben entertains the thought that it’s shock freezing his breath in the air. Then, recovering himself enough to speak, he stammers, “Oh, but you didn’t want… You don’t have to?—”
“It’s okay.” Pete shrugs, and then, slanting a wry, slightly self-effacing glance at him, adds, “It’s not like you haven’t seen me at my lowest, right? Anyway, you told me yours; it’s only fair.”
“But,” Ben argues, not sure why he’s doing so even as the words come out of his mouth—after all, heisdesperate to know. “So did the others, and you didn’t want to tell?—”
“Eh,” Pete says, waving a hand. “They didn’t really. Ezrawantedto tell that story, you know? I think he brought the whole thing up just to tell it. Brogan, okay, thatwasa good one, but she wasn’tembarrassed, I don’t think. She knows it would be embarrassing, for someone who embarrassed more easily than she does, but I’m not sure anything embarrasses Brogan. And Adina…” Pete sighs, and shakes his head, a little smile slipping onto his face that makes a brief and irrational jealous rage flare within Ben, for all he likes Adina, and knows her to have been happily married to Tom for more than a decade. “Both those stories were genuinely embarrassingfor Adina, but I’m not sure she’s ever been bad at anything in her whole life. She’s great, don’t get me wrong, I love her like a sister, but she doesn’t know, I don’t think. Not what it’sreallylike, to be properly, publicly humiliated, and then have to carry it around with you, how that felt. None of them know.” He slants another glance at Ben,assessing this time, before he sighs and says, “Butyoudo. Don’t you?”
“Yeah,” Ben says, after a second, with an uncomfortable shrug. “I guess I do.”
Pete nods sharply, just the once. “Right. So it’s different, okay? Telling you is—it’s not the same. It’s just not.”
“Okay,” Ben says quietly, afraid to put too much volume behind the word. A little part of him, less than logical but quite upsettingly strong, is sure that Pete will take it back, say he didn’t mean it, if Ben draws too much attention to the fact that he’s said it at all.
He’s distracted anyway, as they reach the edge of Bryant Park; to his surprise and pleasure, Ben realizes the Winter Village has opened for the season at some point in the last few weeks. It’s always up this time of year, transforming the park’s open courtyard into a series of little pop-up shops and restaurants, but he hasn’t been by, too wrapped up in everything at work. There’s a large, if temporary, outdoor ice rink set up in the center of everything, multicolored string lights and a steady backdrop of Christmas music making even the sloppy, stumbling skaters currently on the ice look picturesque.
The holiday season has never meant much to Ben; every year back home in Michigan had been pretty much the same, with his parents constantly trying to balance things out between Hanukkah, Christmas, and the restaurant, and inevitably ending up giving the bulk of their attention to the restaurant. But he likes the Bryant Park Winter Village, and has ever since he stumbled upon it his first year here; it was his first taste of New York’s tendency to deliver unto you, on an otherwise unremarkable day, a small wonder.
“Want to go in for a minute?” Pete asks, following Ben’s gaze. “I haven’t been yet this year, and I could really go for a beverage thatdoesn’thave alcohol in it. And, uh. It might be easier to talkabout this not, you know.” He ducks his head and looks away for a second. “Surrounded by a bunch of people?”
“Oh,” Ben says, surprised and pleased both to have been asked to go in, and that Pete had noticed he wanted to go in at all. “Sure, yeah. If, um…if you don’t mind. That sounds nice.”
They end up getting hot chocolates, which is to say Pete gets them each a hot chocolate, and Ben manfully resists the urge to shout, “DOES IT COUNT AS A DATE IF HE BOUGHT ME A HOT CHOCOLATE??? ISSUE A RULING AT ONCE,” at random passersby. But it’s good, rich and nicely spiced and warming, and Ben follows Pete over to a tiny wrought-iron table tucked up against one of the hedges marking the park boundaries. It’s in an odd place and looks like maybe it was forgotten or left behind when they reset the area for the Village, but it gives a good view of the ice rink and is fairly well isolated from everyone else.
