Buy Me a Drink - 6. Chapter 6

“What’s my nickname, Aaron?” Ben asks, repeating his question as he looks at me expectantly.

I should lie. I know I should lie. I should say ‘it’s Hottie’ and kiss him. Or maybe ‘it’s Sexy Ass’ and wink at him or something.

But I know he’d see through that. He already seems to have developed a very disconcerting habit of calling me on my bull shit. Anyway, I guess when you think about it ‘Hottie’ doesn’t really fit with ‘Cosmo’, ‘Daisy’, and ‘Giorgio’.

“Well…umm, you know how you…I mean sometimes…Well,” I really can’t figure out a way say this.

“Aar, com’on. Just tell me” He says as he puts his hand on my arm and appropriates Jake’s nickname for me. Damn! I already like it better when he says it than when Jake does. Why couldn’t his nickname be something cute and affectionate?

“Benji is a good nickname for Ben,” I offer. Okay, it’s not exactly the truth, but it’s no lie either!

“Yeah, and my mom calls me that sometimes, but what do YOU call me?” See! See! I told you he wasn’t going to fall for lying!

Oh well, I’m interested in the guy, and after all they do say that honesty is the cornerstone of any good relationship.

“Bmad,” I mumble in a very low voice as I avert my eyes and admire his taste in shoes. Hmm, I wonder if that would change the subject effectively.

“Cool, shoes man!” I say quickly in a much louder, more enthusiastic voice. Hey, it’s worth a shot right?

“Thanks…but I didn’t hear what you said before that.”

WRONG!

I look up at him and briefly establish eye contact, pleading with him not to get angry, when I tell him. Suddenly I lose myself in the moment. I mean it’s funny really, I knew he had green eyes, but until now I’d never really noticed just how deep and expressive they were.

“You have beautiful eyes,” I say with a slight sigh. I seriously wasn’t stalling there. His eyes are just so beautiful, I couldn’t not tell him when I noticed.

“Thanks. I have beautiful eyes, cool shoes, and a nickname. Now what was that nickname again?” Tenacious isn’t he?

*gulp*

Time to take the plunge.

“Bmad,” I say much more loudly this time, steeling my resolve.

“Be mad? What? I’m not mad but why won’t you tell me?” He questions haltingly as if none of this made sense. Oh wait it doesn’t.

“No, um, your nickname. It’s Bmad. Not ‘be’ as in ‘Be, being, been’,” Do you know your linking verbs, boys and girls? “but ‘B’ as in ‘A, B, C, D…’ ya know, and ‘mad’ is just like how you say it…it’s not mad like ‘angry’” I hope! “It’s really like ‘b, m, a, d’.”

“Okkaaayyyy?”

Perfect! I knew he wouldn’t be angry! Back to staring into his eyes now.

“But what does that mean? Like what’s it stand for?” CRAP! What is this an interrogation?

“Buy me a drink,” I say quickly. It’s like ripping off a band-aid. One quick motion, one quick motion.

He starts to say something, probably something to the effect of ‘I don’t buy people drinks, they buy me drinks’, then understanding flashes into his deep green, very beautiful eyes, and suddenly they’re glaring at me as though I’d just remarked that he was wearing last year’s color.

“That’s all you think I am isn’t it? Some stupid joke?! Some drunken slut who can’t keep his pants on!”

Actually it’s your shirt you seem to have that problem with, but now isn’t the time for that.

“I didn’t say that? I mean that’s…”

“But that’s what you think, isn’t it? You just sit here every goddamn night scribbling in your notes. Jotting down, ‘Oh look, Bmad caught another one’!” Fuck! Did he read that? No, he couldn’t have, it wasn’t written anywhere on the page he was looking at.

“I…Umm…Sorry?” I offer weakly.

“Prick!” he shouts as he puts his cigarette out – thankfully not on my arm – and then storms back inside.

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You know why fish all swim in the same direction when they’re in one of those ‘school’ things? It’s because if one of them turned around and tried to swim in the opposite direction he would crash into all the other fish. Duh.

“Ben, wait!” I shout as I take off after him.

Unfortunately it’s getting later and the club is starting to fill up. I guess none of the smokers want to try their luck at dancing until they’ve reduced their lung capacity a little farther, and eight of them all seem intent on coming outside just as I’m attempting to do the opposite.

By the time I finally make it back inside – I swear they would have lit up and smoked the damn things in the doorway if I hadn’t glared at them – Ben is nowhere to be found. Desperately scanning the club, the first set of eyes I make contact with are Jake’s. He looks concerned and nods his head toward the front. There are fewer people in the front and clearly none of them are Ben, so I rush outside…and right into a line of people queuing up to get in.

After I swim err ‘walk’ a bit further I pause, out of breath, and ask the nearest group of guys, “Did anyone see a really hot guy go past?”

“Just one,” one of them responds with a leer. Whoa! Did I just get hit on?

“Dark blond hair? Having a ‘Joan Collins’ moment?” Another member of the group inquires. “He went that way,” the guy says pointing toward Hollywood Café, a late night coffee house and bistro popular with the club crowd.

“Thanks!” I say as I take off at a slight sprint toward the coffee house.

After a quick, frantic search, I spot Ben sitting in a booth at the back of the coffee house, calmly drinking a cappuccino. As I slide into the booth, I can’t help but wonder if he’ll ever speak to me again.

“You want my biscotti?” he offers casually, not looking at me. “I don’t really like them.”

“Um, no thanks. Listen Ben…”

“You should go get something, Aar,” he cuts me off with a slight edge to his voice. “They’ll throw you out if you don’t.”

“O-K…,” I say hesitantly as I turn around and go to the counter.

When I make it back to the booth with my coffee, I’m relieved to find him still sitting there lost in thought and lightly tapping the outside of his mug with a spoon.

“Ben, about before–,” I start as he once again cuts me off mid-sentence.

“Matt and I met Jose here. Right in this booth actually. It was about four years ago. He looked so helpless and nervous just sitting here. He had just moved here from Columbia. It was right after his parents had freaked out about him being gay. Anyway, he was just sitting here, staring desperately into his drink like he thought it held the secret to life or something.

“Matt and I were still in high school, and Matt was taking Spanish – he’s fluent now – so he went right up to Jose and said:

“‘Por que estas tan triste, guapo?’

“It means, ‘why are you so sad, handsome?’

“Matt was just flirting with him. I mean it’s not like he actually cared. But then Jose broke down and started sobbing and he told us everything and…

“And then Matt did you know? Care that is…we both did.” Ben finishes quietly as he stares into his own half-consumed beverage. “I guess sitting here just sort of reminded me.”

You know what would have been adorable? If I’d like slid around to his side, put my arm around him and said that ‘triste/guapo’ line to him. That woulda been so priceless. Instead I opted for:

“Oh”

Sighing and breaking out of his reverie he looks at me and teases, “Finish your coffee; you still owe me that drink.”

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I don’t think Daisy likes me. I mean I might have mentioned that before, but I think it’s especially important that I stress that point again now.

See, evidently he and Giorgio are taking the whole, ‘let’s make Aaron want to shoot himself’ thing in turn. Guess whose turn it was tonight?

Apparently it was such an important mission that Daisy didn’t even pick up a trick. Instead he spent the whole evening plastered to Ben’s side. Whenever we danced he slid in between us and started dancing with Ben himself. Then he would like lead them in a different direction – you know, away from me – and I was stuck following them around like a lost puppy.

At one point, when we were in line in the restroom he even started to go into Ben’s stall with him. At this Ben glared at him (FINALLY!) and Daisy pretended to be joking.

Cosmo, ever the trooper, did what he could to give us some breathing room, but unfortunately every time he was with us for more than a few minutes Giorgio would show up and like, distract him somehow.

By the time they were leaving – Giorgio the only with a trick – I was pretty pissed off. I mean, okay Daisy is a bitch and Giorgio is huge, but Ben’s a big boy – by all indications a very big boy – so what was stopping him from telling them to fuck off?

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“Cheese fries, boys?” Boots asks as she comes up to our table. Boots is one of the waitresses at Frank’s. We – well mostly me – call her ‘Boots’ because even though they have these weird little purple dresses for uniforms, she always wears these low, combat boot, style shoes. It’s really weird.

“Yes, ma’am, thanks,” Mick is so polite.

“Bring a side of cyanide dipping sauce for me, please,” I add sarcastically.

“I don’t think we have any of that, Hun. How ‘bout some Ranch instead?” Boots offers. I have no idea whether she’s serious or not.

“Ranch will be fine, thanks,” Mick says quickly before I can say anything else.

“So, I’m guessing your night with Ben wasn’t an unqualified success?” Mick asks with a sympathetic smile on his face.

“Well, I guess it depends on how you define success. If you include calling him an alcoholic whore and then following him around all night while Daisy did everything but scratch my eyes out…then yeah, we had a grand ol’ time.”

Mick is silent for awhile, reflecting on this. When he speaks again I decide that he must secretly hate me.

“So where are you going to go with him tomorrow?”

“Um, What?” I think I’m starting to pick up Daisy’s bitchy head bob.

“Well you’re going to call him tomorrow and ask him to hang out right?”

“I’m thinkin’ ‘no’…,” I say stretching out the ‘o’.

“Well think again,” Mick informs me. “Listen, you’re not dating ‘Daisy’, you’re dating Ben.”

“Actually I’m not dating Ben. I’m…well I don’t know what I am.”

“Well I do. Tomorrow afternoon you’re calling Ben and asking him to come over and hang out. Then when I get home from working out the three of us are going out to dinner.”

Don’t you just love it when someone else plans your life out for you?

“Mick, why should I even bother? What about him, huh? The phone works both ways you know.”

“Yes, it does, and as I recall he called you last.”

“…well that was different. He…I mean I…well we…it was…I was wearing a different shirt,” I finish randomly in desperation, unable to figure out just what my excuse is.

“Well then put the shirt back on tomorrow afternoon when you call him.”

“It’s in the laundry,” I snap harshly.

“Wear a different one.”

Mick is so unbearable when he knows he’s right.