Buy Me a Drink - 8. Chapter 7

“Don’t pick up, don’t pick up,” I mutter quietly to myself as the phone rings on the other end.

I really don’t want him to answer. I guess that sounds weird since I’m calling him and all, but my heart is in my throat, and I think what I really want is to be able to see him at Bender’s next Friday and just be able to say that I had called him. Or maybe I wanted to be able to look Mick in the eye when he gets home in a few hours and say ‘yeah man, I called him, but he didn’t answer.’ Who knows, maybe what I’m really after is simply being able to look in the mirror and tell myself that I tried. Whomever it is that I most want to inform about this attempted phone call the fact remains that it has now rung three times and there’s still no answer. Isn’t there a rule of etiquette or something about hanging up after three rings? I’m pretty sure there is.

Hanging up my cell phone and sighing in relief I grab my coffee mug and walk into the kitchen to put it in the dishwasher. As I’m busy rearranging bowls and glasses to make room for the mug I hear a sound which instantly makes my stomach do summersaults of anxiety and excitement. Just what is that sounds? It’s ‘Lithium’ by Nirvana.

If you correctly guessed that I’m not just some freak who overreacts to 90’s grunge music, but that this is in fact my ring tone…well 957 bonus points for you. Staring nervously at my phone – and feigning jamming out to make myself feel better – I’m at a loss for what to do. Finally I remember an excellent piece of advice which someone – probably a Nirvana fan herself – recently gave me when I was faced with a similar situation.

“Hello,” I say weakly.

“Hey Aar, you called.” Ben states rather than asks.

“Uh, yeah. I just wanted to…see what you were up to.”

“Putting away laundry actually.” Wow! Super-boy does laundry? …or maybe he just puts it away after someone else does it for him.

“Sounds exciting,” I joke.

“Oh it’s riveting, lemme tell ya. So what’s on your agenda for today?” Ben inquires.

“Well, uhh…Actually I was calling to see if you wanted to hang out or something for awhile.” Wooo hooo! Look at me!

“Sure, what did you have in mind?”

Well that’s a good question, Ben…what did I have in mind? Oh wait, I didn’t have anything in mind, I didn’t think you were going to answer!

“ Ohhh, umm, uhhh anything you like,” I fumble. Hell, not only did I fumble, I think if this is a game he just got an interception…

“Cool, you know Hermann park?” Ben asks, obviously seeing that I’m going to need help with asking him out.

“Uhh, yeah” It’s over in the museum and medical district.

“Well let’s grab some coffee at that Starbucks on Fannin and then go for a walk there. It’s a beautiful day today.” Ben suggests. I gotta say, I’m liking this idea. It sounds fun, low-pressure, and we’ll get some sun and fresh air. Nice one, Ben!

“Okay sounds great. What time?”

“Well, it’s about 1:20 now, and I need to do some things. How bout 2ish?” Ben asks.

“Sounds good, I’ll meet you at 2:00 then.”

“You know the Starbucks I’m talking about right?” Ben asks for confirmation.

“Yeah, you mean the one by the Metrorail huh?”

“Yep, that’s the one. We can either take the train to the park or just walk.”

“OK, I’ll see you there around 2:00 then.”

“See ya in a bit, Aar.”

“Bye.”

I actually meant to say ‘bye, Ben’. Like it was on the tip of my tongue, but then I just sort of…didn’t. According to social psychologists people love it when other people say their names. It’s little wonder then that his simple, ‘see ya in a bit, Aar’ still has my head spinning.

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I walk into Starbucks at 1:53 and I’m surprised to see Ben sitting at one of the tables texting someone. I don’t know why, but I just didn’t really think he would show up until after 2:00. You know how it is, people say, ‘I’ll meet you at 2:00’ and then they don’t show up until 2:10 or something. Anyway, I guess that’s just kind of what I thought was going to happen.

“Hey,” Ben says when he spots me. He promptly gets up and gives me a hug and a peck on the lips. We’re not in Montrose anymore, but this area isn’t really homophobic either. In fact I’m pretty sure at least one – if not both – of the baristas behind the counter is gay. In any case people obviously noticed but don’t seem particularly concerned.

“Hey Ben.” See I remembered.

“What are you going to get?” He inquires casually as we go up to the counter.

“Um, I think I’ll just get a regular coffee.” I like plain coffee, okay! Is that such a crime? “What about you?”

“Green Tea Latte! It’s SOOOO good. Have you ever had it?”

“Nope, don’t think I have,” I respond shaking my head. This is going so well! I wonder if we can just keep talking about Starbucks menu items all afternoon.

“Well, I’ll give you a sip of mine then,” Ben says as he leans against my shoulder.

“Thanks.”

“What can I get you guys?” The straighter of the two baristas inquires when we reach the front of the line.

Ben starts to place his order, but I impulsively put my arm around him and order for both of us.

“He’ll have a Green Tea Latte and I’ll have the house blend coffee,” I say with a smile. A smile I really feel.

“What size?”

“Um, Venti,” I say.

“Me too,” Ben pipes in.

“Thanks, Aaron,” Ben says with a smile as I’m paying.

“No problem,” I say, and then add with a wink, “I owed you a drink anyway”

Ben laughs and squeezes my shoulder. Wow! I’m acting confident, winking, being somewhat witty…I think we need to have all our dates here. Forget Bender’s, Mick can just strip right on that table over there and Jake can get a job behind the register.

“So what’s your story, Aaron?” Ben asks as we’re walking outside.

“My story? Uhh, I don’t really know. I guess I’m still figuring it out.” I’ll take ‘Evasive Answers’ for 500, Alex.

“Fair enough, but tell me about yourself. Like what do you like to do when you’re not giving people you don’t know strange nicknames?”

“Ben I’m…,” I start to apologize, but he shrugs and smiles and I decide to just drop it for now.

“Well I’m going to UofH, and I’m majoring in sociology, and…did you want to take the train or walk?” I ask as we’re approaching the platform where we would have to wait for the train.

“Let’s just walk,” he says smiling then continues, “okay, so sociology…that’s why you like the people watching so much, right?”

I can feel myself blushing.

“Yeah, I guess so. What about you?” I ask in an attempt to shift the focus away from me and my neurotic tendencies. “ What do you like to do? School? Work? International playboy?”

I tend to make lame jokes sometimes in case you hadn’t noticed. Ben just rolls his eyes.

“I’m majoring in Business at Rice.” Wouldn’t have guessed that!

“Oh that’s cool, how much longer do you have left?” Sounded better than, ‘no way!’

“About two years, this is my third year there, but you know how it goes with dropping classes and stuff.”

“Yeah, that’s true. They say almost no one actually finishes in four years anymore,” I read an article about this recently.

“Yeah.”

Okay, so lull in the conversation, and I suck at the awkward silence thing…I wonder if I should tell him about that article?

“Hey Aar, I’ve been wantin’ to ask you something.” Oh thank god!

“Sure, shoot.” If it’s about Starbucks or articles about college demographics and attendance I can totally answer!

“What’s the deal with you and that stripper?”

“Uh, you mean Mick?” Not that I have a deal with any other strippers.

“I dunno his name, but the really hot one with the great arms.” Mick does have really great arms. Ben continues.

“After that first night when you left to meet your roommate, I was kinda pissed. I mean it felt like you were just screwing with my head or something. But then Dave told me that that stripper was your boyfriend, so I wasn’t as mad anymore. I mean I still was, but not as much. But then you pulled that drink incident and I was so fucking confused. It was like all of a sudden you were pursuing me…then Dave told me you didn’t have a boyfriend after all.” Ben sighs, but continues before I can say anything.

“And now it’s like you have this completely different look and personality. I don’t know what the hell to expect from you next at this point. If you had just wanted to fuck around that woulda been fine and we could have done that the first night, but it’s like…it’s like half the time you seem to be serious about me and half the time you’re not. Half the time you have a boyfriend and half the time you don’t. Just level with me okay. What’s going on?” He finishes. Um, where do I start?

Noticing my overwhelmed expression, Ben tries to express his questions a little more clearly. “Is that stripper your boyfriend? Or are you living with someone else who is? And what are you after with me?”

“Mick, is the stripper’s name, and by the way if you ever meet him, call him an ‘exotic dancer’ ” No sense in letting Ben get off on the wrong foot right? “ anyway he’s also my best friend and roommate, but he’s not really my boyfriend.”

Seeming to notice how the word ‘boyfriend’ still appeared in that statement, and deciding that he wanted a little clarification as to how it tied into the phrase ‘not really’, Ben presses, “What do you mean ‘not really’? Is he like an ex? Or an on again, off again thing? …or like a fuck buddy? Or…”

“No, no, none of that. He’s my pretend boyfriend, but he’s not even gay.”

“Aaron what the hell? Do you know how fucking stupid that sounds?”

“What do you mean?” I know I am explaining this like shit but I just don’t know where to start and I’m totally overwhelmed.

Ben sighs with irritation and I’m pretty sure if we were at Bender’s or anywhere else he could have stormed out of, he already would have. It’s a little more difficult to storm out of a park though. I mean you have to be having a major fit to be standing in the middle of a park and like storm all the way out…and there’s no doors or anything to slam. Yeah, parks are definitely not good storming out of options. Thank god!

“Is he in the closet? I mean is that why he’s not really ‘gay’? Is it some weird situation where he’s just ‘gay’ for you?” Ben asks doing the air quote things over gay. You gotta hand it to the boy; he’s really trying to get his head around this.

“No he’s strai…, I mean he’s not ga…, well I don’t think he’s in the clos…, he’s not in love wi…,” Suddenly I realize that despite what I know…I don’t really know.

It’s like anyone else on the planet could have asked me those same questions and I wouldn’t have hesitated to say, ‘Listen you silly dork, Mick is my straight best friend and roommate, and he has no interest in sex or romance at all. He just lives with a gay guy and works as a stripper at a gay club. I mean yeah he tells everyone that the gay guy is his boyfriend. And yeah he does pay for most of the gay guy’s expenses. And okay yes, he is openly affectionate with the gay guy. And of course he threatens to hurt people if they look at the guy wrong…but he’s not gay. No way! And he sure as hell isn’t in love with the gay guy.’

Yep, that was the story. I knew it well. Hell I lived it. But now, listening to it in my head, realizing that I was about to tell it to Ben – who by the way is looking at me with more vulnerability and fear etched across his face than I would have even thought possible, especially for him – I realize just how absolutely ridiculous all of that sounds.

None of this adds up though. I mean, if Mick were gay and in love with me why was he pushing me to call Ben and work things out? Why is he always launching into those speeches about how I should like believe in myself or whatever and go after what I want? Shouldn’t he be bad-mouthing Ben and telling me he’s the only one who’ll ever understand me? Shouldn’t he be erasing my phone messages while evil music plays in the background?

Okay so there weren’t any phone messages and Mick isn’t a soap opera villain, but this shit still isn’t adding up.

“Aaron??” Ben says as he waves his hand and tries to get my attention.

“Yes,” I respond dumbly as I look past him lost in thought.

“Fuck this!” Ben blurts out as he turns away and attempts to prove me wrong about that whole storming out of a park thing.

“Ben wait!” I shout as I run after him and grab his arm.

“Look, Mick is not my boyfriend and I swear that until this very moment I never even seriously considered the possibility that he might be gay. We’ve never fooled around, we’ve never kissed, and the only reason we tell people I’m his boyfriend is so that he doesn’t get hit on after he performs.” Ben’s angry expression is starting to soften so I continue.

“He definitely isn’t trying to stop me from seeing people or mess stuff up. In fact if it weren’t for him” and Jake, Cosmo, and Ronnie I silently add “there’s no way I’d have ever even had the nerve to try to talk to you again after that first night.”

Ben opens his mouth but I continue my speech.

“And before you ask, I’m honestly not sure why I didn’t mess around with you that night, I sure as hell wanted to and believe me I felt like a dumbass afterwards, but there’s no way it had anything to do with Mick. I just used him as an excuse.” Seriously, I hadn’t even considered any of this back then.

By this point, I know I’ve pretty much talked him down, and we could probably change the subject and be okay, but I decide to go for the clencher.

“…if you really want to know what stopped me it probably has something to do with the fact that I haven’t…uhh been intimate with anyone for over two years, and even then it was just fumbling with other closet cases back in high school.” Yikes! I feel so exposed, but I’m not done yet.

“The thing is you’re really hot, like REALLY hot, and we both know you could have any guy at Bender’s that you wanted” except Jake, but now I’m starting to worry this might include Mick after all.

“So I guess I was just really scared and intimidated. Every thing I’ve said and done since then – however stupid, lame, fucked up, and all around confusing it’s been – has only been in an effort to get you to notice me again and maybe to get to know you better.”

Everyone try to ignore that thumping sound. It’s nothing to be alarmed about; it’s just the sound of my heart lying in his hands.

After what seems like an eternity of digesting everything I’ve just said, Ben finally looks up at me and says simply:

“Yes”

“Yes?” I ask with confusion.

“Yes, I’ll be your boyfriend, Aaron.”