Page 54 of Smart Ass

Ben

Ben rolled over and flapped his hand around until it hit his alarm.

What the hell kind of time was ten a.m. anyway, and why was it attacking him?

He rubbed his eyes, and reluctantly rolled out of bed. He wanted to be awake for… something. Something important.

Oh, yeah! Evan was getting released from the hospital today! And, ummm… a thing. A thingy-thing.

A later thing. It would be on his calendar.

He yawned, rubbed at one of those weird little gritty pieces of sleep dust that wouldn’t get out of his eyes… and then realized with a thrill that he wasn’t alone.

Was he?

His tablet was still propped up beside the bed, though the screen was dark.

He gave it a tentative little wave, so he could pretend to himself that he wasn’t desperate to know if Max was still watching him and was just scratching himself or something.

Not that it really mattered or anything. It was just that Max had said he was going to be watching him all night and…

“Good morning, Ben.” Max’s voice was rich and warm, like melted chocolate.

“Uh, hi,” Ben said. Super slick. And he was wearing his favorite t-shirt because it was soft and it had seemed like a good idea last night, but it had holes in it and he was sure his hair was a disaster and not the sexy type of disaster he usually styled it into, and now Max was watching him and… “I need the magical bean juice.” God, was that true. Maybe his brain would work better with caffeine.

Though he was secretly pleased that Max was still there. That Max was, kind of, in his bedroom. Did Max like what he saw? Did he even notice things like that?

There was a pause, then Max said, “I don’t think I can make coffee for you.”

Ben chuckled. “Not unless you have hands.” Had Max actually expected to make it for him in his own apartment? That didn’t make sense.

Ben grabbed the tablet with its stand and plunked it down on the kitchen table. Tilted up, so Max couldn’t see his pale legs, which were somehow both scrawnier and flabbier than he’d prefer. Not that Ben was body-conscious or anything. That was all bullshit perpetuated by popular media and capitalist pharmacology. Ben loved his body just like it was.

But would Max care? Did knowledges care about that type of thing? It would make sense that if Max didn’t have a body, he might not care about Ben’s body.

But then, he’d been so damn competent in their scene a few nights ago.

Was that going to happen again? Please, oh pretty please with a cherry and sprinkles and dirty blowjobs on top?

Well, not blowjobs. He couldn’t exactly give Max a blowjob.

But he would. He totally would if he could figure out a way to do it.

Fuck, he would kneel down, open his mouth, and just… let Maxamillion do whatever he wanted to.

Although… why wasn’t Max saying anything right now? Just good morning? That was it?

Ben poked the appropriate coffee-making buttons to produce a steaming mug of heaven. Even smelling it was good. Now some caramel sea salt creamer, which was way better than the chocolate hazelnut he’d had last week, and it would be just cool enough to drink. Ahhhh… Oh, god, that was good.

But seriously, why wasn’t Max talking to him?

Was Max giving him space to wake up? Distracted by something else? Waiting for an engraved invitation?

Were they ever going to scene together again?!?!?

Ben yawned and sat down in front of the tablet. He took another sip of coffee. Maybe that would calm him down.

Coffee was supposed to make people hyper, but it made Ben’s rabid squirrel brain slow down. It was like an ADHD party up there. He knew the low levels of norepinephrine caused his dopamine levels to go wacky, and that the caffeine was supposed to block the adenosine receptors to even it all out, but still… brains were fucking wild.