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After a long, silent beat, he says, “Shit. I thought I’d know what to say. Turns out I’m as bad at giving advice as you are.”
“And you wonder why I didn’t come to you,” I grumble, but my comment has no venom. I feel my mouth smiling and look up to find Benji smiling back.
“Maybe staying away is a good idea,” he reconsiders. “If you put yourself out there and left nothing on the table, you have no regrets. Talia has been on her own for a long time. She and Calista are cut from the same independent quilt. She’ll find her way.”
“Back to me?” I ask, hating how hopeful I sound.
“If we’re lucky,” he says. “If not, you’re going to be a miserable son of a bitch, and that’ll be hard on everyone.”
After our beers are empty and the topic has shifted to work and my next endeavor, we walk back inside. As I’m dropping my empty bottle into the recycling bin, Benji says, “I proposed to Cris last night.”
Even at the height of my misery, I can’t hear this as anything less than good news.
“She said yes.”
“No shocker there.”
“I want you to be my best man, Arch. I already talked to Nate, and he said he wouldn’t want it any other way.”
The lump in my throat doubles a size. I attempt to swallow around it, to keep myself in check before I dissolve into an embarrassing puddle of man-tears.
“He would say that,” I manage, my voice scratchy. “Just to show me up, the asshole.”
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
“Yes. Of course it’s a yes. I’d do anything for you, and you know it.”
“I’d do anything for you too,” he says with a jovial sparkle in his eye. “Remember that the next time I do something you don’t like.”
“You don’t have to buy yourself into my good graces, Benj,” I say as I stroll to the front door. “Thanks for the beer.”
“Thanks for the tux.”
I leave, my focus on surviving the day. I have to wake up tomorrow and survive that one too, so I’m going to need to reserve some strength. One day at a time. It’s as much as I can manage at the moment.
