Page 26 of Technical Advances

“No, we’re not,” he mumbled back.

“If we just …”

With a sigh, Benji stood and something dropped to the pit of my stomach at the sight of him. We’d been together long enough for me to know that his messy hair meant he’d been running fingers through it behind that laptop screen. My own fingers flexed on my keyboard at the thought, and as they made imaginary strokes, his right hand, not mine, raked through his bangs, causing them to stick up everywhere. It was utterly adorable.

“We’re stuck, Anson. I think we need a break. We need to, I don’t know, touch grass or something.”

“Touch grass?”

“Yeah, you know, get out of here. Get some vitamin D.” His arm rose again, and my stomach did this strange jumpy thing, thinking he was about to stroke his hair again. Instead, he looked at his watch.

“Vitamin D?”

“It’s only 5:30. Sun’s still up. Let’s walk to the Commons. There’s this great food truck that usually parks there. The best street tacos.”

“Street tacos?”

“Oh, um. Yeah. You probably don’t have time for something like that. Maybe I should …”

“No!” I think my shouting may have surprised Benji, based on how wide his eyes got. I know I surprised myself.

“No,” I said more quietly, more like me. “I would love to touch grass with you and try street tacos.”

It felt like the entire windowless room lit up with Benji’s reaction.

“Cool! We can walk from here, if that’s okay?” We hung up our lab coats and exited the building via the main exit, me trailing after Benji, like I’d never before traversed the city I had lived in for well over twenty years. I tried to remember the last time I’d spent time in the Commons or simply walking the streets of Boston.

The weather was brisk, the sun still shining as we dodged people on the sidewalk, me keeping up with Benji’s determined pace. I could feel my hair falling from my ponytail. It wouldn’t stay put, no matter how often I tried tucking it behind my ear.

“Yeah! They’re here!” Benji led me to a truck stationed on the side of the road near the park.

“Everything’s good here. What would you like?”

We ordered, and before I could even think about it, Benji was tapping the card reader—one manufactured by New Day Tech, I noted—and paying.

“Benji!”

“You’ve been buying lunch this whole time, Anson. It’s no problem.” The transaction done, Benji turned to me. Stepping away from the counter meant stepping toward me, so we were face-to-face, mere inches apart when he said, “It’s definitely my turn.”

“Benji. You don’t have to …” I began, but then Benji’s hand was there, a fingertip on my forehead, guiding my hair behind my ear. He dropped his hand slowly, and we stood, staring at each other.

Generally speaking, I never notice people’s eyes though I sometimes force myself to look into them.

Beck’s are blue, I think? But I couldn’t tell you about anyone else’s, not even my parents’. Except for Benji’s. Benji’s were the color of chocolate, flecked with gold and bright despite the deepness of the brown. Benji’s were expressive, but I was never any good at reading faces, so what those bright eyes conveyed as he looked at me I couldn’t tell you. I also couldn’t do anything but keep our eyes locked as his hand dropped back to his side.

We stared for over thirty seconds, almost forty, technically, before a number of things happened simultaneously. My coaching from Beck made me think that I needed to say something to break the tension as thirty-four turned to thirty-five, then to thirty-six.

Repeating his motion, I needlessly tucked my hair in again. “Beck keeps pestering me to get it cut,” I shared.

Benji’s No! seemed to mirror the way I had shouted in the lab less than an hour earlier, but before he could elaborate or do anything but blush, my phone rang, his name was called from behind the counter of the food truck, and mine was called from behind Benji’s back.

“Anson Day. Holy fuck, you’re Anson Day! Dude, I literally just sent my buddy money using your app. Holy shit! Dude!” The stranger, in a Boston College ball cap, held out his hand to shake, but I focused on pulling out my phone instead. I knew from the ringtone that it was Beck calling, but I stared at the phone anyway until Benji was at my side with a paper bag in hand.

Benji looked between the guy in the ball cap and me, patted his pants pocket with his free hand, then ran back to the food truck. He returned, waving a marker in my face.

“Sign the man’s ball cap, Anson. We really do need to get back in time for our next meeting.”

The man whipped his hat off and handed it to me. I may have been slow to accept it, but Benji wagged the pen in my face, and his eyes, those deep-brown eyes that I couldn’t afford to get lost in, went wide. I signed the cap and handed it back. Benji plucked the marker from me and ran to return it to the food truck.