Pete sighs. “Sit still, shut up, don’t take anything they offer me until you say I can.”
Veronica smiles brightly at him, leaving an overall impression of dark hair, dark lipstick, and the vaguely implied threat that you’ll regret not giving her your complete and total attention. “Good, Pete. And Ben? What about you?”
Ben also sighs, before, in a slightly droning monotone, he says, “I have the same rules as Pete, except you said, ‘Shut up,’ about six more times, and especially not to mention my firing.”
“I also told you not to scowl like that,” Veronica says, scowling briefly herself, “but close enough. Are you ready, boys? This is going to be fun.”
And, to Ben’s surprise, itisfun. Miranda isn’t there, first of all, which is a huge bonus. Rick’s in the meeting, though; the man is absolutely beaming, his face radiating delight. When Ben asks where Miranda is, Veronica glares at him, mouthing, “What did I say? Shut! Up!”But Rick lets out a brief, cut-off guffaw and then sits smugly across from them, looking like a cat who has infiltrated canary headquarters.
“Miranda’s talents are urgently needed elsewhere in the company,” says one of the three black-suited men who had joined Rick across the table. They all introduced themselves at the top of the meeting—one of them is a Formica executive, and one is a Formica lawyer, and one is a Formica human resources representative. Unfortunately, Ben has utterly lost track of who is who, and has to settle for thinking of them in relation to their ties: Purple, Blue, and Egregiously Ugly.
“Gastronomehas been assigned a new mid-level executive to partner with on growth initiatives, and to spearhead otherinternally driven changes,” says Purple. “You’ll meet her next week—Bethany. We hope you’ll find her…easier to work with than you seem to have found Miranda.”
“We’re not here to discuss Miranda, though, are we?” Veronica says, cutting one more sharp look at Ben. “Or, not at this juncture.”
The suits exchange nervous looks with one another. Then Egregiously Ugly, who Ben suspects of being the lawyer, adjusts his hideous tie and says, “No, I suppose not.”
Veronica smiles; Egregiously Ugly winces. Negotiations begin.
It takes, in the end, quite a long time. Ben largely doesn’t follow it, drifting in and out as a mixture of legalese and jargon flows over him like so much wet cement, so boring as to be totally immobilizing. His mind wanders aimlessly, picking up occasional phrases like “revenue per mille” and “points on the gross” and “sustained harassment campaign” and “corporate malfeasance.” Pete, too, seems to be far away when Ben looks over, gazing out the window with a totally slack expression on his face.
But when Ben takes his hand under the table, concerned that perhaps the slackness is in fact a sign that Pete’s gone somewhere dark and spiky within the confines of his mind, Pete turns to him, his eyes focusing at once. He smiles, and squeezes Ben’s hand, and mouths, “I’ve never been this bored in my life,” which makes Ben choke back a laugh.
He doesn’t let go of Pete’s hand, and Pete doesn’t let go of his, either. He rubs his thumb slowly over the back of Ben’s wrist instead, the steady, patient intimacy of the motion working Ben up even as it calms him down. When his mind drifts this time, it’s to the hours he and Pete have spent together over the last few days in much less public—and clothed—circumstances. These are good thoughts. Distracting ones.
He’s so caught up in them that he doesn’t realize the meeting is ending until it’s already over, Purple and Blue packing up their briefcases, Egregiously Ugly straightening his awful tie one last time, Rick offering them a final beaming smile and saying, “Well played,” as he walks by. Pete must be in a similar headspace to his; Ben directs an urgent, questioning glance at him, meaning “What happened? Where did things end up? Did you understand anything they said?”But all he gets in reply from Pete is a somewhat desperate shrug.
“Um,” Ben says, when the room has emptied out, and it’s just the two of them and Veronica. “Am I allowed to talk again now?”
Veronica rolls her eyes, packing up her own bag. “Not that you listened to mebeforeor anything, but yes, Ben. You can talk.”
“Did we…” Ben looks helplessly at Pete, who shrugs again. “Did we win? What happened? I don’t speak CorporateorLawyer.”
Looking exasperated, Veronica says, “Well, let’s see here. You wanted to be the show’s primary video editor, working forGastronomein a full-time position, with benefits; you got it. You wanted Pete to have right of refusal on video concepts, sponsors, and scripted lines; you got that, too.” Glancing down at her nails, she adds, “You also got a creator credit, as did Pete, and both of you will be receiving drafts of your renegotiated contracts later this afternoon, once they’ve passed through my office. They are, I will say,quitea bit more lucrative than your old ones, and more correctly structured for the kind of work you’re doing.Andyou’ll both be seeing a percentage of the profits on traffic and sponsorships now, so. Assuming the videos do as well as they have been, reach out if you need me to recommend a money guy.” She snaps her briefcase shut, and, sighing at Ben’s still only half-comprehending face, and says, “Yes, Ben. You won.”
“Oh,” Ben says, realizing abruptly that he’s not sure how to react to this information at all. “Well. Um. Hooray!”
Veronica gives him a flat look, and Pete hides a smile behind his hand, and Ben decides it’s for the best if he goes back to shutting up until he’s back out in the sunshine.
But he doesn’t make it back out to the sunshine. Instead, when they get into the elevator, Pete hits thirty-four and says, “Veronica, you don’t mind if we say goodbye here, do you? I figure Ben and I should probably check in at work.”
It hits Ben as the elevator descends the fourteen floors, as Veronica says easily that she has a meeting anyway: Theywon.He has ajobagain. Not only a job—a permanent, full-time video editing gig atGastronome. He’s not going to have to become a California guy, learn how to love sunshine and sand and cutting together orange juice commercials: Ben’s going to get to stay here, and work with his friends, and with Pete, andbewith Pete. Nothing, after all, had turned out to be the disaster it appeared at first, which, Ben thinks with a sigh, does seem about right.
When he gets off the elevator and follows Pete down the hall, only his own shadow follows him; he leaves the last dregs of depression behind the closing doors, not even noticing it fall away. It’ll be back for him someday, probably—it does have that nasty habit—but for now, at least, he walks again without it.
Ben had been braced for a kitchen full of eager test cooks, brimming with questions, but it’s early still—their meeting on forty-eight had started at 8:00 a.m., so it’s only 9:15, too early for most of the staff to have dragged themselves inside. Instead, it’s just the two of them, the way Ben can’t help but feel itshouldbe. They drift by habit over to Pete’s station and take up their usual positions on either side of the enormous butcher block that serves as a counter, Pete next to the range and Ben across from him.
He looks as dazed and amazed and overwhelmed as Ben feels. For a second, Ben wants to shout with laughter, less because it’s funny and more for something todowith all this vibrating energy gathered up under his skin. He feels a brief moment of fellow feeling for the Laundromat Barker: Suddenly, he really understands the desire to let out some kind ofsound,if only as a release valve.
Deciding that he should probablynotbase his choices on the assumed reasoning of a barking stranger, Ben gives Pete a half-sheepish, half-pleading look and says, “So, uh. What do we do now, do you think?”
“What do we do now,” Pete says, thoughtful. Then he grins, and leans across the counter, and grabs Ben by the lapels of his jacket to pull him in for a long, luxurious kiss. Ben feels himself relax to the point of near bonelessness, and when Pete finally breaks away, it’s all he can do not to slither to the floor.
“Great suggestion,” Ben manages, still gathering himself and his breath, “extremely compelling, will take it underveryserious advisement, but we can’tjustdo that, right? Not that I wouldn’t like to, but.” He glances around the kitchen slightly guiltily. “I’m not sure we can get away with defiling this place twice.”
“Probably better not to risk it,” Pete agrees, sounding regretful but laughing on it a little, and pulls a knife out of his block. He taps the dull side of the blade very lightly against the counter a few times, clearly considering something, before he says: “Listen—I know you were too stressed on the way in, and that’s fair, but what if I throw breakfast together now? Could you eat? What’re you hungry for?”
Ben smiles up at Pete, this complex tangle of a person who has become both more simple and more complicated every day since Ben met him. Pete’s dark brown hair, which Ben knows now is soft and smooth to the touch and often smells faintly of woodsmoke, is falling into his eyes again, and from theexpression on his face, the bounce in his step, you’d never know he had the capacity for dread and panic and despair. Ben is so desperately in love with him that he thinks there’s the chance he might perish from it.
