“And what was that?” Ben feels giddy, dizzy with proximity and happiness and relief, but the curiosity underneath is real.
Pete’s eyes are warm and fond under his snow-flecked beanie. “Well, as it turns out, nothing scares me as much as the thought of you never talking to me again. In the face of that, what’s a little camera time? A little internet fame?”
“Oh,” Ben says, semi-hysterically. “Is that all? Just the single most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me in my whole life, no biggie? How am I supposed to respond to that, Pete? I’m not going to saythank you, that seemsinsanelyawkward, but my reference points for things like areold moviesand I can’t imagine that my most dignified move here is toswoon?—”
“You can if you want to,” Pete says, sounding amused. “But, honestly, I’d settle for hearing that you forgive me for getting you fired? Because, if it’s all the same to you, I’d like to get around to kissing you at some point.”
“Forgiven, forgotten, let’s skip ahead,” Ben says hastily. “Don’t let me delay you.” And then Pete’s leaning in and Ben’s tipping his face up and the world’s falling away, leaving nothing but a distant echo behind.
SEVENTEEN
For a long, blissful series of seconds, Ben is aware of nothing but Pete. Pete’s lips, warm and soft and opening under his own; Pete’s hands sliding possessively over him, pulling him close. The long and only half-familiar line of Pete’s body, flush against his, and the warm, stubbly skin of his neck under Ben’s palm. This is a good series of seconds. Excellent, even. It’s an experience Ben would be happy to have for much longer than a few seconds. An amount of time measured in minutes would be acceptable, but Ben would prefer hours or, ideally, days.
Unfortunately, after those seconds have passed, Ben’s ears interrupt his happiness with several urgent reports.
The sound is distant to Ben, at first. Maybe it’s more accurate to say that it’s drowned out by the roaring in his own ears, internal and external fading deceptively together; he tries to ignore it, to write it off as his brain playing tricks on him. But…wouldhis own brain be shouting, “Yeah, boy! Get some!” He doesn’t think so, although, admittedly, he doesn’t disagree with the sentiment at all.
Pete, too, must notice that something is amiss; he pulls back from Ben, resting their foreheads together for a moment, and then they both open their eyes and?—
“Oh,Christ,” Pete mutters. He doesn’t pull away from Ben, but he does lift one hand to slide over his rapidly reddening face. Ben can’t blame him; he’s sure his own face is the color of a summer tomato, or maybe a strawberry.
Loosely surrounding them, pressing in from every side, is a small but dedicated crowd of people who have been distracted from the enormous Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. Wearily, and a little amused in spite of himself, Ben can’t help but recognize them as quintessentially New Yorkers: immediately abandoning the famous icon they came here to see in favor of watching a private moment of human drama play out before them. Ben can’t say he blames them, or that he wouldn’t have done the same in their shoes, but it’s more unnerving than he would have guessed to be on this side of things. He feels a bit like a butterfly pinned to a board, desperate to squirm and equally sure it would be a huge mistake to do so.
This last is mostly because a few members of their audience have clearly realized who they are, or at least who Pete is. These onlookers are holding up their phones, obviously filming, with the hungry, slightly manic expressions of people who expect to make a lot of money very shortly.
“Crap,” Ben mutters, under his breath. He looks up at Pete, bracing to be met with wild-eyed panic, or the blank, dead-eyed expression that means he has descended into the pits of despair. Ben’s even prepared for Pete to be looking around desperately for escape routes, and to dash off into the crowd before Ben can so much as try to talk him down.
But instead, Pete is looking down at him with cheerful, sparkling eyes, not seeming remotely perturbed by the crowd. Smiling small and secretive, just for Ben, he leans in and whispers, “Oops. Probably should’ve thought that one through a little more, huh? You want to get out of here?”
“God, yes,” Ben breathes, and then Pete’s breaking away from him, taking his hand, and pulling him towards the street.
“Pete!” The onlooker who yells this out is small and reedy but obviously tenacious; he’s clearly fought his way through to the front of the crowd, and keeps elbowing people to get past them as he follows Pete and Ben across the sidewalk, a camera phone trained on them. “Listen, man, can I get a quote? I saw you onLate Night Live, and this is Ben, right? Who you were talking about?” To Ben’s surprise, Pete nods at the man as he reaches the street, raising a hand for a cab. “Okay, great, so: Anything you want to say? That you’d like people to know? Updates? Anything?”
“Why?” Pete says, cocking his head curiously, as though he doesn’t already know the answer. “Do you think the footage will be worth more if I tell you something juicy?”
To his questionable credit, the man doesn’t look at all caught or called out by this question. He just says, very fervently, “Yes.”
A cab pulls up, and Pete opens the door for Ben, smiling warmly at him and gesturing for him to slide in first. Ben does, but, intrigued, lingers near the door instead of scooting over, not wanting to miss Pete’s response.
He’s glad he waited: For his trouble, he is rewarded by seeing Pete, his hand on the open cab door, turn an enormous grin on the man with the camera. “I do have quote, actually. Something I really want everyone seeing this to hear, and know that I mean very deeply, with all of my heart. Are you ready?”
“Yes,” the man says again, leaning closer. Ben, his own breath catching slightly—Pete has surprised him more than once tonight, after all—leans a little closer, too, and sees the rest of the crowd doing the same.
Pleasantly, as though he hasn’t noticed this, Pete says, “You sure? You don’t need a pen or anything?”
“No,” the man snaps, a whining note entering his tone now. “I’mrecordingyou, man, go ahead! Say what you want to say!”
“You got it, buddy.” Pete touches his lips and gestures outwards as though spreading the good word unto them all as, cheerfully, he says, “Mind. Your. Own. Business.”Then he waves jauntily, climbs into the cab as Ben scrambles back to make room, and shuts the door.
“Where to?” The cabbie, thank God, does not seem at all interested in what just happened, or who they are. “Pleasedon’t say Greenpoint—I’ve been back and forth three times already tonight and I’m over it.”
Ben looks over at Pete, and nearly chokes when he finds Pete already staring at him, his eyes soft, wondering. It’s only barely that Ben manages to say, “Um. My place? Unless—if you need to go back to Jersey for your dad, that’s?—”
“No, Chris is with him,” Pete says. He reaches out and pushes a piece of Ben’s hair out of his eyes, which reminds Ben that he still probably looks like he fought his way here through a series of wind tunnels. “And my sister is taking over later. Your place soundsgood.” He growls this last word low and right in Ben’s ear, which sends a shot of adrenaline through Ben.
Or, at least, it sends a shot ofsomethingthrough Ben. Adrenaline might not be the right word, especially since it seems to be focused in a region rather below Ben’s heart, but it does make him briefly forget his own address, or even the nearest cross street.
He recovers himself after a second, though, and once he’s given their destination to the driver, he and Pete spend the next fifteen minutes trying not to commit lewd acts in the back of a taxicab. It’s harder than it should be by such a wide margin that after those fifteen minutes, when they realize they’ve only made it about five blocks, they elect to pay the fare and get out, walk the rest of the way. It should take them about twenty minutes,but, in the end, it’s nearly an hour before they stumble through the front door of Ben’s building, snow-dusted and freezing and attached at the lips, laughing into one another’s mouths. The whole journey was a series of interruptions, one of them pulling the other into every alley or alcove they passed, each too impatient to touch again to make it one more step.
