Page 130 of The Bartender Special

Not that they weren’t real.

Not that his time in Arbor Bay was coming to an end.

Not that there was an agent with a book deal that needed an ending.

No.

Benny forgot something much more important right then and there.

He forgot he was The One Who Said Nothing.

That he was the boy who typed the first entry with shaking fingers. That he was the man who kept typing with pain, with worries, with regrets.

That he was the one who had hidden from the world on purpose and then, on accident, had forced himself back into it.

He forgot that boy.

He forgot that man.

He forgot that fear.

Instead, in that moment, he was just Benny.

And he laughed.

He honest to goodness laughed.

And then, Jack joined in.

* * *

Two days later, he still didn’t realize how important that detail was. Instead, Benny was bouncing from foot to foot outside of Cassidy’s. He was impatient. He was anxious.

He was also a bit sore.

It was Friday night, a half hour before the bar’s festival party was set to start. Benny and Jack had spent the last few days stuck in a whirlwind of decorating Roger's boat, decorating the bar, and having sex.

Not that Benny was complaining.

Jack was still grumpy about the festival and Benny was still nervous about the internet, but behind closed doors they had found an easy groove of lips, tongues, and thrusts. So much so that Jack had spent the night before at the house and Benny had a bag in Cassidy’s office, ready to venture to Jack’s apartment after the party.

It was an exciting change.

It was also the reason why Benny was grumbling outside the bar’s door, waiting for Ethan to show up.

Thankfully, he didn't have to wait until the cows came home. Ethan's green Volkswagen barely had time to pull in before Benny converged.

He greeted his best friend in a way neither of them had expected.

“I had sex on a boat today!”

Benny hadn't meant to yell the information, but he opened the driver's side door wider and kept on, staring right into Ethan’s wide eyes. “Jack and I had just finished decorating it and then, well, we had sex on the boat.”

Since boundaries had never been much of a thing between them, Ethan simply laughed.

“And I'm guessing by your clear excitement that it was lightyears better than doing it on Derrick's dad's boat.”

Benny gave one definitive nod.