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It started when that new trucker stopped in at Rosa’s to have breakfast at the same time Sammy and Ben did after their show. Ben honestly didn’t pay him much attention - truckers ate at Rosa’s all the time, it was nothing new.
But then he sat at the table right next to theirs, which come on, so rude, and Sammy kept glancing over in the middle of their conversation to look at this guy, and Ben couldn’t help but glance over himself (look, if Sammy was distracted there had to be something interesting about him).
There wasn’t, if you asked Ben.
Sure, the trucker was around their age and had wavy dark hair and a chiseled jawline and was stupidly fit for someone who sat in a truck all day long. But that wasn’t interesting!
Look, Ben wasn’t that stupid. He knew Sammy was into guys. It’s not like it bothered him. He was in every play King Falls High School had put on, he met literally half of the school’s not-straight population. Hell, he had jokingly flirted with most of that population.
But did Sammy really have to be into this guy? He was obviously such a douchebag. Obviously.
“Ben? Buddy? You there?” Sammy asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What, yeah, of course, I’m totally here.” He grinned, trying in vain to remember what they were talking about. “Always ready to talk about… anything with you, man.”
The trucker laughed at some (super dumb, probably) joke the waiter made as he dropped off the guy’s breakfast. Sammy turned a little at the sound, smiling almost unconsciously. Come on, the guy didn’t even get the pancake puppies. Lamest breakfast ever.
“So, uh, how do you feel today’s show went?” Ben blurted, and Sammy looked back at him, still grinning.
The light coming in through the large windows behind Sammy almost gave him a sort of aura.
It was actually making it really hard to look directly at him, and Ben scooted his chair to the right a little so he could see him.
And apparently also so that he could notice the sort of bemused expression Sammy was currently making. “You know that has been what we were talking about since we walked in the door.”
“Yeah, I know, I was just making some chit-chat, like we all do with our buddies, am I right? Always more to talk about in the radio biz.” Nope, that was really not what he should have said there. That was not how normal people sounded.
“Are you okay, Ben?” Sammy asked, leaning forward a little. He looked concerned, which wasn’t super surprising at this point.
Ben shook his head, waving his friend off. “I’m fine, I just didn’t get a ton of sleep last night.” That was true, if not the particular reason he was acting like this.
Which was no reason at all. This weird new guy was just gonna eat, and then go, and everything would be fine.
Sammy sat back in his chair, but Ben knew him well enough at this point to recognize the worry still present in his face. He was probably not gonna let this go.
“Hey, I couldn’t help but hear you guys talking, and I have to ask - are you two the Sammy and Ben from King Falls AM?”
That was definitely the trucker. Who was definitely grinning in an inappropriately flirtatious manner at Sammy.
Why did bad things happen to good people?
By the end of that breakfast Sammy had the trucker’s number and Ben had an intense desire to throw his pancake puppies at said trucker.
He just had no right to barge in on the conversation of two friends like that. It was rude. And also Ben had really not gotten enough sleep the night before. Those were definitely the only reasons he disliked this guy so much.
Definitely.
A couple of weeks later (the trucker had thankfully long since moved on), and Sammy and Ben were interviewing some guy who’d temporarily settled into town with his dogs as part of a pomchi breeding exchange with Archie.
And if you asked Ben (which no one had), this guy was not letting Sammy and Ben ask enough questions and was asking way too many questions about Sammy.
“So do you have any dogs?” he asked, smiling at Sammy while holding an adorably sleepy puppy.
So invasive.
Sammy had come into the puppy room and immediately sat down on the ground to play with the puppies. (Apparently totally forgetting about the actual interview portion of the interview.) He muttered something about not having the time or the space for a dog. The way he stared at the puppy vainly trying to steal his shoelace, his dark eyes wide with adoration, said something entirely different. Something more along the lines of ‘I don’t have a dog, but I will soon.’
Ben sighed. This was going nowhere fast. “I have a cat, his name is Peas, and he is definitely a normal cat. So, uh, how long are you in town again?”
The dog breeder knelt on the tiled floor to set the puppy on the ground, and of course because this was Ben’s life now, sat down on the ground next to Sammy.
“Do you want to hold her?” he asked, with that same idiotic smile on his face. Ugh, every jerk
with perfect white teeth and dimples thought he could get away with anything just by smiling at people.
Sammy looked at the guy, practically ecstatic. “Can I?”
He nodded at Sammy. “Here, let me show you how to pick her up.”
“You know, we are live on air,” Ben interjected, but the only person who seemed to notice was a pomchi puppy who yipped at him when he tried to say anything further.
They were going to get way off schedule if they didn’t finish this interview in the next two minutes. Sometimes, it felt like Ben was the only one who truly cared about schedules in the whole town. The life of a well-scheduled radio host was a lonely one, indeed.
It was especially lonely when your co-host was basically holding hands with a dog breeder instead of interviewing him. Surely the dude didn’t need to have his hands wrapped around Sammy’s to show him how to hold a puppy.
How hard could it be, really?
Ben sighed again, louder. “How long have you been in the pomchi breeding business?” he asked, resisting the urge to tap his foot on the floor.
The breeder didn’t appear to notice the question, but Sammy glanced up at him (finally!) and sheepishly grinned. Sorry , he mouthed. He tipped his head towards the other man who was (way too) close to him. Distracted .
Like that wasn’t what had been bothering Ben for the past ten minutes. All he wanted was an interview, and this dumb dog person wouldn’t stop flirting with Sammy while he was on the job! It was inappropriate workplace conduct. A perfectly reasonable reason to hate the way the guy’s hands held on to Sammy’s for a little bit longer than was necessary after they put down the puppy and Sammy helped him up.
Perfectly. Reasonable.
Ben picked up a dog treat off the counter for the sole purpose of snapping it in half.
And so when they cut to commercial after the aforementioned two minutes had passed, it was only natural that Ben felt the urge to strangle the other guy when he walked up to Sammy and started talking to him again.
That particular encounter left Ben with the increasing conviction that he was a cat person, the dog breeder with the promise of a lunch date and dog walk with Sammy before he headed home, and Sammy with an adorable orange pomchi puppy.
He named her Carrots.
“Peas and Carrots, Ben, you can’t say that isn’t the cutest thing you’ve ever heard,” Sammy told him after, snuggling the puppy close. “We have to introduce them.”
That whole situation was almost worth it just for that.
The third time it happened, Emily was there to notice something was up. Even if she didn’t seem to quite realize just how infuriating this guy was acting!
Sammy had gone to the library to pick up a couple books on house-training a puppy, and Ben had tagged along. He could always subtly browse the books on exotic pets.
When they arrived, however, the two of them were accosted by a strange man who quickly established himself as someone to avoid.
“Hey, can I help you with anything?” he asked, gesturing at the bookshelves around them and smiling sunnily at Sammy. “My name is Erik, and I am always willing to help out a couple of pretty faces like you two.”
Ben’s first reaction was to tell him no they did not need his help and ask what he was doing here, and his second reaction was to ask him if he knew how insulting it was to reduce anyone, guy or girl, to just ‘a pretty face’ was.
He quashed both reactions in time to see Sammy run a hand through his hair and grin at the other man. “Well, that all depends on whether or not you can lead me to any books you have on house-training a puppy.”
Erik laughed. “That is my job, so I would hope so. Right this way!” He guided Sammy towards another part of the library with a totally inappropriate hand on his shoulder.
Left with nothing but the sight of the other two mens’ retreating backs, Ben walked over to the library’s front desk. Emily was trapped in a one-sided discussion with an older woman who seemed to be very upset that the library did not stock any copies of her favorite bonnet-ripper romance novel.
“All I’m saying,” the woman insisted, “is that if the youth of this generation had something wholesome to read, maybe they wouldn’t have to fill their time with those cell phones they’re always on!”
From Emily’s expression, this was not the first time the woman had made this point. “Mrs. Walker, I’m sorry,” she sighed. “We do not carry When The Heart Cries or its sequel, When The Soul Dies. All of our romance novels are on the second level in the room on the far left.”
Mrs. Walker humphed and stalked away from the front desk without any books in her hands. “I sure hope you have those books ordered, then!”
“You doing okay?” Ben asked as he approached the desk.
Emily had let her head fall onto the desk in despair as soon as the woman had walked away. Her voice was muffled by the wood, as she did not look like she was planning on lifting her head up off of it any time soon. “Just wonderful , Ben. Peachy. Keen.”
“Is there anything I can do? A coffee, some water? A mute button for particularly irritating patrons?”
The librarian was silent for a moment as she considered her options. “A coffee would be nice. There’s a cafe right outside the library, if you really don’t mind? Just whatever they have that’s more sugar than coffee. Here, wait a sec.” She sat up and dug around in the desk drawers to pull out her purse. “Let me give you some cash for it.”
“Nah, I got it. Just keep an eye on Sammy and Mr. Short Fair and Irritating over there, will ya?” Ben asked, turning to head towards the door.
“Who?”
Ben stopped walking and waved a hand dismissively. “You know, that overly helpful dude who like, accosted me and Sammy when we walked through the door?”
Emily frowned slightly. “You mean Erik? Ben, I hired him to do just that. He’s supposed to help patrons when they walk through the door.” She set her purse down on the counter and folded her arms. “Was he rude to either of you?”
The two of them glanced over to where Erik and Sammy had sat down at a desk to pore over the books they’d gotten. They were definitely sitting far too close for casual acquaintances to sit near each other and Ben and Emily looked over at just the right time to see them both burst into laughter and try to shush each other in an irritatingly adorable fashion. It certainly did not look like Erik was being rude to Sammy.
When Ben looked back at Emily, the expression on her face could only be described as cat that had caught an ostrich instead of a canary - gleeful and shocked and smug all at the same time.
“Are you jealous , Ben?”
“That is so ridiculous it doesn’t even deserve a response!” Ben sputtered. Emily raised an eyebrow, but since she was still smothering a grin the effect was somewhat limited. “Look, this Erik guy is an asshole, I’ll prove it.”
Emily laughed. “ Sure , Ben. But I want you to think long and hard about how you feel now versus how you felt when Greg tricked me into going to dinner with him. Please tell I’m not going to have to convince you not to pelt Erik with hush puppies. I don’t want him to quit, he’s barely been working here for a week and his cuteness brings in more people.”
“This is nothing like that!” Ben promised. “I just want to help Sammy out as a friend .”
“Then accept his choices in boyfriends,” Emily suggested. She moved to the far end of her desk, pulling books out from a return basket and shelving them on the temporary shelf almost too nonchalantly. “Unless, of course, you’re not simply worried that Erik - who I thoroughly vetted before hiring and found to be an engaging and funny person - is a jerk, you’re jealous that he’s getting Sammy’s attention rather than you.”
Ben snorted. “Ridiculous.”
Emily shrugged. “If you say so. Now, were you ever going to get us coffee or was that a fever dream I had brought on by my coffee withdrawal symptoms?” Before he could answer, she’d handed him enough cash to buy her coffee and his own and gently pushed him away from the door.
The distraction did not work, and as Ben was walking out the door he still saw Erik and Sammy exchange stupid sappy grins and what looked like phone numbers.
Whatever. Erik would probably skip town soon, just like that trucker and the dog-breeder. He and his blond hair and perfect teeth would not be here for long, Ben was sure.
Ben was wrong.
So, unimaginably, horrifically wrong.
Erik had not left. If anything, Erik was now less likely to leave, because apparently he was dating Sammy now.
It was unbearable.
He would wait for Sammy outside the studio at least a couple times a week and they would go out to breakfast at Rosa’s, which had until then been something Ben and Sammy did. Now Erik and Sammy would swap stories and jokes over waffle plates while Ben did his level best not to try subtly tossing a piece of waffle at Erik. It was like the concept of a third wheel had never even occurred to the two of them.
Ben was not jealous, no matter how many times Emily folded her arms and raised an eyebrow when he complained to her about Erik.
Or if he was, he was jealous in a friendly way. It was totally natural for a best friend to be jealous of a new boyfriend, right?
It all came to a head a couple weeks after Sammy and Erik had started dating, on Friday night.
Date night.
Sammy and Ben had been hanging out earlier that afternoon, and at about five thirty (no, Ben hadn’t been watching the clock and hoping Erik would call and cancel the date, that would have been dumb) Sammy paused the movie.
“Sorry, Ben, I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. You mind if we pick it up later? Erik and I are going to go see if we can catch some of the Perseid meteor shower tonight.” He smiled at Ben, and stood up off the couch.
Ben sighed as inconspicuously as he could and resisted the urge to comment that the Perseids wouldn’t really be out until 4 AM, which, wouldn’t you know it, Sammy was working then. With Ben. His best friend. He stretched his face into something resembling a smile in return and shrugged. “It’s fine, man. I’m sure your boyfriend appreciates the effort.” As Sammy walked away, Ben couldn’t help but mutter, “I mean, it’s not like he ever gives any sign that he appreciates anything you do, but I’m sure he does. Somewhere.” If asked, Ben would swear that he hadn’t meant for Sammy to hear him.
He kind of had, though.
Sammy stopped just before leaving the room. “Okay, that was out of line. Erik’s a great guy, Ben.”
“So you keep saying…” Ben trailed off.
A little voice inside him told him that pissing off your best friend with unfounded comments about his relationship was probably a bad idea. Screw that. Ben envisioned hitting the voice with a hammer, and sat up on the couch to better see Sammy.
His friend had turned to face him, arms folded across his chest and frowning. “What has Erik ever done to you, Ben? Besides have the nerve to date me, apparently.”
Ben shrugged, hoping the gesture portrayed a confidence in his opinion that he could not back up with evidence. “I don’t know, man, he just gives me a bad vibe. How do you know he’s not a, a serial killer or another freaking werewolf who runs around with the Williams boys every full moon!”
“That’s speciesist.”
“That’s ridiculous. Look, Sammy, I just don’t like Erik. You can date him or whatever, I don’t care.” Lie. “It’s no big deal.” Bigger lie. “I just don’t really wanna hear about him every second of the day.” True. Ben would be happy to never hear about him again.
Sammy took a deep breath. “Ben. I have been trying not to make a big deal out of this, but you don’t ‘just dislike Erik’. You have done this every guy you’ve seen flirt with me.” He stared at Ben, his face tired and angry and for the first time Ben started to realize that maybe he had more than a little bit screwed up. “Just be honest, please. Is it because I’m gay?”
“I, uh-”
There was a knock at the door.
“That’s Erik,” Sammy said. He looked at Ben one last time, but Ben was fairly certain his vocal cords would never be functional for speech ever again. “I… Sorry, buddy. I’ll see you at work?”
And he left.
Ben dropped his head into his hands. “Dammit.”
If one more old woman came in here and asked Emily for When The Mind Lies or whichever book it was, she was going to hit them with the nearest book. Or hit herself.
Either way, the thought was too tempting.
In the end, she quashed the urge for book-related violence and pulled out her laptop to add the book to her list of possible books to buy. If enough of the women were into the book enough to fill out the request form, she’d order it.
That’s not to say that she’d be happy about it.
The bell above the main door of the library rang quietly and Emily glanced up to see who was coming in. Ben trudged through the door and let it fall shut behind him loudly, earning some glares from the studying students at the tables nearby.
“I screwed up,” he announced as he approached the desk. “Big time.”
Emily leaned back against the wall and shook her head. “It can’t be any worse than hush puppies.”
He just looked at her a second before shaking his head.
“What on earth did you do?”
“Let me preface this by saying that I did not cause a public disturbance this time,” Ben said, and jumped up to sit on the desk. Emily bit back a comment about behinds and desks and how never the twain should meet in favor of listening to whatever he was about to say. Friends could let go of a couple desk smudges.
Ben continued. “So, Sammy and I were hanging out last night -stop waggling your eyebrows at me, this is serious - and, well, maybe I’d been feeling a little bit…”
“Jealous?”
“Left out. Look, every best friend feels this way when their friend gets a new significant other. Totally normal feeling, and I had everything under control. I had a plan!”
“Did this plan involve throwing fried cornmeal appetizers at anyone?” Emily asked, eyes wide and innocent.
Ben glared at her. “One. Time. One time!” He sighed. “Moving on, Erik showed up because apparently it was date night or whatever, and I may have made a tiny offhanded comment about his dickishness, because he’s a dick. And uh, I may not have made that comment as quietly as I thought I did. Sammy may have gotten a little upset, and the night may or may not have ended with him asking if I was homophobic and he walked out to go on his date with Erik before I could answer.”
Emily winced. “Oh.”
“Yeah.” Ben sighed again and let his head fall till his chin rested on his chest.
She chewed on her lip for a moment and glanced at the patrons around them in the library. It wasn’t super active right now; the library would be fine if she wasn’t on duty for a little while. Besides, in a couple minutes one of the junior librarians she’d hired should be here and they could handle it. Having made her decision, she walked out from behind her desk and grabbed Ben’s wrist, pulling him to his feet.
“Come on, Benny. You look like you need some coffee and chocolate, and we happen to be right next to somewhere that sells both of those things.”
The two of them settled into a corner booth at the cafe, both nursing caramel macchiatos and nibbling on a couple of chocolate filled pastries.
After she’d taken a moment to really enjoy her drink, Emily pushed it aside and looked at Ben. “You want to fix this, right? As in really, really want to.”
“Of course I do!” Ben sputtered as he hastily swallowed his mouthful of chocolate. “He’s my best friend, why are you even asking?!”
Emily took a deep breath. “Look, Ben, you have to ask yourself this. Why are you so jealous of Sammy and Erik? Is it because you’re Sammy’s best friend? Is it because you’ve somehow been secretly homophobic this whole time? Or, and Ben Arnold if you cut me off here before thinking your answer through I will never buy you a caramel macchiato ever again, are you jealous of Erik because you want what he has? Not just Sammy’s time, and not just his friendship.”
Ben opened his mouth. And promptly closed it again.
“Take your time,” Emily said, and reached across the table to squeeze his hand once before letting go and returning to her own drink and dessert.
She had just finished off the last bite of her chocolate and cheese danish when Ben made a weird-choked off noise.
“Oh my god,” he breathed. “I’m in love with Sammy.”
It took the most self control Emily had ever exerted in her life to stop herself from applauding. “You’re sure?” she asked instead of shouting, ‘YES. HOW HAVE YOU NOT SEEN THIS POSSIBILITY ONCE IN THE PAST MONTH. AT LEAST YOU RECOGNIZED YOUR FEELINGS WHEN YOU WERE INTO ME.’
Emily had to give him credit, though, because for all she knew this was the first crush that he had had on a guy that he’d actually admitted to himself was a crush.
“I’m, I’m pretty sure,” he said weakly. “God. What do I even do now?”
“Ben,” Emily said, calm as the eye of a hurricane. “Please validate my faith that you are not actually a teenage boy with no common sense. Whether or not you had feelings for Sammy, if you got in a fight with him that you caused, what would be the best course of action?”
The radio host was silent for a long minute before his grip on his cup tightened and his eyes lit up and Emily was terribly afraid she had just inspired a long convoluted secret plan that everyone involved would regret. Luckily, Ben spoke before her mind could run too far with that idea. “I should apologize,” he decided. “I should go right now, he probably- god, he probably still thinks I’m homophobic.” Ben downed the last of his caramel macchiato in a single gulp. “I promise I’ll pay you back for this later, Em, I gotta go!”
And with that, he ran out the door before she could even tell him that the drink came free with the emotional consultation. It was just what friends did for each other.
Emily smiled and took another drink from her coffee. Maybe after this she could introduce Sammy and Ben to the couple of books she had on nontraditional romance. For instance, polyamory.
It wasn’t like she’d be heartbroken if they dismissed the possibility immediately.
But it would be nice to try.
Ben arrived at Sammy’s house but had to stop outside the building to catch his breath. Turns out rashly leaving your car at the library and running (and then walking) to your friend’s place halfway across town was not the best way to travel.
It happened while he was hunched over, leaning heavily on the outer brick wall and trying his damndest to breath normally.
Sammy’s front door slammed open a few inches from his face, and Ben jumped back in surprise.
Erik was standing in the doorway, facing into the house. “Look, it’s not my fault!” he shouted. “You knew the stupid library job was temporary, and this is a much better offer!”
Ben stood outside the door and stayed very quiet and very still. It would be weird to interfere, right?
He couldn’t see Sammy, but he could definitely hear his response. “It’s still a dick move to tell me you’re moving to Virginia the day before you leave !”
“I thought it would be easier this way,” Erik insisted. “Like ripping off a band-aid!”
“You thought it would be easier to show up at my house and ask for your DVD of Back to the Future back, because ‘oh, did I mention? I got a great job offer and I’m moving to Virginia, and I don’t do long-distance relationships.’”
Ben got the distinct feeling he was making things worse for himself the longer he stayed silent.
“Sam, babe, just stop-”
“It’s Sammy.”
Erik sighed. “Fine, Sammy. I just came to get my DVD, and I have it. Bye.” He turned to walk out to his car and spotted Ben standing awkwardly off to the side. “Oh, and of course you’re gonna go running to your radio ‘friend’. God, are you this clingy with everyone you know?” He frowned at Ben and stalked off to his car. He paused before he got in, but didn’t turn around to face Ben. “Don’t think I never noticed the way you looked at Sammy, either. You were so goddamn jealous and you never had the guts to say a word. Coward,” spat Erik, before getting in.
And then Erik drove off, and he was gone.
Ben looked back at the house to see Sammy, standing in the doorway.
Sammy slowly slid down until he sat on his front doorstep, and all Ben could see was the tired curve of his back as he slumped over, the hair falling out of his ponytail and around his face in messy curls, the dark circles under his eyes like crescent moons and a thousand other little things that said that Sammy Stevens was so, so tired.
“Hey,” he said, soft and hesitant.
Sammy didn’t even look up. “What do you want, Ben? Or are you okay with me now that I’m not kissing another man?”
Ben walked over and sat down next to him. Now or never. “We-well,” he began, but his voice cracked and he had to stop and clear his throat. “I, well. It turns out,” he mumbled, “I don’t have a problem with you kissing guys, it’s just-” He had to clear his throat again. Sammy was looking right at him now, his eyes dark and serious and sad and making this so much harder. “I don’t have any problems with you kissing guys if it’s me you’re kissing,” he said as fast as he could.
“What?” They were still holding eye contact and Sammy just looked blindsided, he didn’t look happy or sad or angry that Ben was such an idiot, he just sat there like a werewolf caught in a headlight beam.
That was it, Ben’s life was over, he was never leaving his house ever again. “You heard me,” he mumbled, looking down at the stone between them.
He heard a weird, muffled noise from Sammy next to him, and when he looked over Sammy had his face in his hands and his shoulders were shaking.
Was he crying ?
“Oh god, Sammy, I am so sorry, that was inappropriate and I’m trying to work on articulating my feelings but that was-”
Sammy waved an arm, cutting Ben off. He sat up and he was brushing tears away from his face, but he was also laughing so hard that he just kept crying. “You’re terrible,” he gasped in between bouts of laughter. “That was the dorkiest thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
Ben couldn’t help a grin. “That’s a good thing, right?” he teased.
Sammy turned to meet his eyes again, and he still had dark circles under his eyes and his hair still looked more than a little bit like he’d stuck his finger in a light socket, but he was smiling like sunshine and still helplessly snorting in laughter every few seconds. “The best,” he said. Then he shook his head, still smiling. “So, definitely not homophobic, then?”
Ben shook his head solemnly. “No way, buddy.”
“Then…” Sammy bit his lip and Ben tracked the movement with his eyes.
How had he never noticed how much he was into Sammy. Or how gorgeous of a hazel-brown his eyes were, or how soft his lips looked, or how his hair was almost the same gold as the sun when the light hit it in just the right way.
How.
Sammy brought one of his hands up, cupping the side of Ben’s face. “I promise this isn’t a rebound,” he whispered, and pulled Ben into a kiss.
Ben had never kissed anyone with stubble before.
It wasn’t half bad.
(It was so much more than half good.)
His cheeks were surprisingly damp and when they pulled away, Sammy was tearing up again. “Sorry,” he said hoarsely, still with a hand on Ben’s face and his other hand on Ben’s shoulder. “I’ve just had a lot happen in the past couple of days.”
Ben shook his head, close to tearing up himself. “Me too, buddy, me too.”
When he pulled Sammy into a second kiss, they were both almost smiling too hard to keep kissing each other.
But they did keep kissing each other.
Ben knew it was illogical, but he never wanted to stop.
If he could have, he would have made this moment last forever. Sitting next to Sammy on the concrete step, the setting sun gilding the scene and someone’s lawn mower buzzing in the background, lost in the pressure of Sammy’s lips on his and the feeling of Sammy’s hand pulling him closer and the sound Sammy made when Ben tugged on his hair.
It was pretty close to perfect.