Chapter 1
It was a Friday afternoon, Benny was laying across Ethan’s bed while Ethan finished up some homework at his desk. Benny impatiently tapped his hands against his legs, hoping the two of them would get a chance to play some video games before Sarah came over to babysit Jane. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Sarah, Sarah was great, she was definitely way cooler than the two of them, and definitely cooler than Rory; who, to be fair, was the only one out of their friend group who was actually dating someone, but still. He was glad to have Sarah and Erica around, it made the three of them cooler by proxy, but he just missed having time for just him and his best friend. He’d take what he could get, though.
“Dude, if you’re doing the calc homework you can just copy mine tomorrow,” Benny offered, trying to speed things along.
“It’s English,” Ethan answered without really looking up. “Almost done.”
“Hurry up, so i can kick your ass again," Benny challenged, hoping to coerce his friend into abandoning his studies to spend time with him instead with the promise of a little friendly competition.
“Like hell you will,” Ethan countered with a laugh, spinning around quickly in his desk chair at the challenge.
Four rounds into Mortal Kombat and Ethan had yet to come close to winning, which Benny would be sure to gloat about, but he’d be lying if he said it didn’t worry him. Ethan was never this bad, he had to have something else on his mind.
“Not that I’m not loving all this free glory, but you seem distracted,” Benny observed, setting his controller down. “Everything good?”
“Yeah, just thinking,” Ethan nodded, abandoning his focus on the screen and discarding his controller, too. “I think I might finally ask Sarah out tonight.”
Benny does his best to withhold his gasp of disbelief. “Seriously?”
“Yeah, we’ve been getting a lot closer and I think i’m ready, I think I might actually have a chance.” He sounded confident, but Benny wasn’t quite convinced. Or maybe he just didn’t want to be convinced.
“No offense E, but I’m not sure I’m buying it.” He thinks it over for a minute while Ethan is busy rolling his eyes and manages to come up with a plan. “How about a wager?”
He knows betting makes Ethan super nervous, and if there were any sure-fire way to prolong the Sarah-less time he gets to spend with his best friend, this was it. Either Ethan would turn him down and be so stressed out by the prospect of a bet that he’d flake on asking her on his own and turn down the wager, or he’d accept, and he’d likely still flake under pressure. Genius.
“Fine,” Ethan announces, unsuspectedly. “What are your terms, then?”
Benny hadn’t really expected him to take the bait, so he hadn’t exactly thought of what the terms of the bet would be before proposing it. He’s quick enough in his feet to come up with something that could at least earn him some cash at the expense of Ethan’s bruised confidence.
“50 bucks if you can’t ask her out before the end of the night?” He suggests, feeling only kind of shitty for taking financial advantage of his friend’s lack of game.
“Fine, sure. What happens when I do ask her?”
//I’ll lose my best friend because he’ll be so caught up in finally getting the girl of his dreams that he’ll forget I exist.//
“Uh, I don’t know, dude, you pick. I’m not too worried about it,” Benny replied with a forced grin.
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Benny woke up Saturday around noon to what seems like a million texts from Ethan, which would usually make him smile, but now filled his stomach with dread.
He’d asked her, and it was clear from Ethan's genrous use of caps lock and keysmashes that she had said yes.
Benny knew he should be happy for his friend, he should be ecstatic that Ethan was finally getting what he’d waited for the past three years of high school, but he couldn’t shake the sinking feeling in his gut as he read over the texts again and again. He tried to tell himself he was only disappointed because he’d lost the bet, but he wasn’t a very good liar. He already felt like he was losing Ethan.
He figured he should call and congratulate him anyway.
“I hear there’s congratulations in order,” Benny said with a sigh of defeat, hoping Ethan takes it as disappointment over the bet rather than anything else.
“I’m still kind of shaking, can’t believe she said yes.” The happiness in his tone was bittersweet music to Benny’s ears.
“That’s- that’s really great, man.” He took a second to clear his throat. He didn’t want to mention his end of the bargain, there was no telling what kind of cruel and unusual punishment Ethan might come up with when his spirits were so high. So instead he just asked, “What’s the plan?”
“Um, I think we’re going bowling tonight,” Ethan said, nerves creeping into his voice as his reality settled in. “And probably for pizza or ice cream or something. I wanted to take her somewhere nice but I don’t want to put too much pressure on it. It’s just our first date.”
“Nice.” there was a pause that Benny hoped didn’t seem awkward. “Want to hang out for a while before you go?”
“I think I’m gonna get ready, I want to look nice.”
“For bowling and pizza? Sarah’s already seen like ninety-nine percent of your wardrobe anyway,” He countered, trying not to sound too annoyed. “Guess i could come help you find something less dorkish, if you want.”
He couldn’t really say much about Ethan’s style choices, he wasn’t exactly super fashionable himself, but he was grasping at straws, frankly.
“I may have already picked up a few things with blind hope she’d say yes. Sorry for not asking you to tag along, I just didn’t want to psych myself out any worse than I already was.”
“No, I get it, it's totally fine,” Benny assured him, running a hand through his hair. “Have fun later, guess I’ll see you around.”
“Thanks, I’ll text you after, okay? Let you know how it goes.”
“Yeah, sure. Good luck, dude.”
Benny hung up, gently tossing his phone onto his bed, and let out out a deep breath. He shouldn’t worry about being ditched today. They hang out practically every day, today was just important for Ethan, he could understand that.
So why did he still feel like shit?
He sat around and stewed in his weird mood for a few hours before deciding to ask Rory to hang out so he didn’t drive himself completely crazy. He couldn’t remember the last Saturday he’d spent by himself.
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Rory ended up crashing at Benny’s after a pretty intense night of gaming. It would have been nice to have Ethan there, but Rory was a lot easier to beat.
He was kind of grateful Rory’s boyfriend Jesse lived out of town; he knew it had to suck for Rory but at least now with Ethan potentially dating Sarah, he would at least have someone to hang out with every now and then. They slept through most of Sunday until Benny’s grandma insisted they both get up and clean all the discarded snacks from the room.
He hadn’t had the chance to check his phone much the night before, having spent most of it with his eyes glued to the screen, thankful for the welcome distraction. But now it’s hard to miss the collection of excited notifications littering his lockscreen. He had to suppress a groan, pressing the lock button and tucking his phone back under his pillow. Maybe he could put off hearing about all the fun Ethan was having without him on Monday.
“Woah, Ethan finally asked Sarah out?” Rory asked, holding a garbage bag full of pizza crusts in one hand, his phone in the other.
“Oh, yeah he did,” Benny said, hoping to just brush it off and move on before Rory got the wrong idea.
“Jealous?” Rory asked, waggling his eyebrows.
“Of Sarah? Dude, no way,” Benny answered, already on the defensive.
“No! Not of Sarah doofus, of Ethan. ’Cause he got a date with a girl before you could.”
Benny just rolls his eyes. “I could if I wanted to.”
“I thought there was like some magic rule about not using it for love or personal gain or something,” Rory chuckled, reaching up to catch an empty can of energy drink Benny was tossing his way.
“Oh, fuck off,” Benny chuckled, picking up a few more cans from the floor. “When have I ever followed the magic rules anyway?” He raised his eyebrows and Rory shruged in agreement.
They finish up cleaning and Benny tries to think about anything else.
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Monday rolled around, slowly but surely, and Benny still hadn’t read Ethan’s texts from Saturday night. He figureed Ethan would update him on the way to school, so he just doesn’t bother reading them.
It’s his week to drive so he’s sitting in his car in Ethan’s driveway, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel along to the music while he waits for his friend.
Ethan comes outside with a radiant smile on his face, waving good morning, first to Benny’s grandma who was having her morning tea on the porch next door, and then to Benny, making him feel strangely warm inside.
“Mornin’, Romeo,” Benny greeted him jokingly as Ethan slid down into the passenger seat. “The date go okay?”
Ethan nodded with a contagious grin. Benny was glad to see him this happy, at least.
“Yeah, yeah it actually went really well.”
“That’s...that’s really awesome. I’m happy for you,” Benny responded, keeping it short and to the point. The last thing he wanted was to make Ethan feel guilty just because he was maybe a little bit jealous of having to share his attention. “Want to come celebrate with me and Rory tonight? We missed you on Saturday.”
“Oh, dude, sorry, I can’t tonight. Sarah wanted me to come see some movie later. Maybe tomorrow?”
Benny’s disappointment is palpable.
“I promise I’ll make it up to you,” Ethan says after a brief moment of semi-awkward silence.
“Oh, no, sorry it’s totally fine. Just spaced out. Don’t worry about it.” Benny just hopes he sounds convincing enough.
Ethan gives him a nod that seems pretty unconvinced, but they both unspokenly decide to let it drop.
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A full week later, Benny has seen Ethan outside of school a total of two times. Once on wednesday for a study session at their favorite pizza place, and again on Friday, when they watched a movie at Ethan’s with Sarah and Jane, and Benny had felt like the only person who even noticed he was there was Jane. Ethan had even started riding to school with Sarah or vice versa.
Benny was just grabbing his books for his first few classes of the day out of his locker when he heard a knock from the other side of his locker door. He scrunched up his face in confusion , peeking around the edge to find Ethan standing there, smiling brightly at him.
“Um...hi?” He said with confusion in his voice as he closed his locker to meet the other boy's gaze.
“You okay?” Ethan asked, his energy shifting to one of concern.
It was getting increasingly harder for Benny to pretend he didn’t kind of resent Ethan for dating Sarah as time went on. He could only put on the supportive best friend facade for so long when it felt so much like he was being replaced.
“Yeah, fine, just headed to class,” He answered, keeping his tone neutral.
“I realized something this morning," Ethan states,
//That you basically completely forgot that I exist the second you finally had a chance with Sarah, and the idea of spending one solitary second with me instead of letting me fade into the background of your fairytale high school bullshit is so unfathomable that you’d rather just cut me loose and get it over with?//
“What’s that?” He asked instead, putting the last of his things into his bag before shutting his locker and turning to face Ethan.
“You never held up your end of the bet.”
He wants to roll his eyes. How could any punishment be worse than getting pushed aside like a forgotten christmas present by his own best friend?
He just shrugged and said, “Well, you never came up with anything.”
“You’ve got to ask Erica out,” Ethan blurts out, nearly causing Benny to choke from surprise.
“Erica?” He asked, kind of confused. Sure, he’d mentioned being into her a few times before, but not enough recently for it to warrant Ethan bringing it up. Maybe he just felt bad for him or something, Benny wasn’t sure, he just knew it didn’t really make him feel better. But still, Erica was great and a bet was still a bet, whether it made Benny feel like shit or not. “Okay, yeah, sure,” He said passively, nudging past Ethan so he could head to class.
“Well don’t get too excited,” Ethan jokes, jogging a bit to catch up with Benny’s longer strides. “Didn’t you have a thing for her?”
Yeah, Benny things, freshman year.
Strangely, Benny couldn’t quite remember the last time he’d truly had a thing for anyone.
“Yeah, yeah she’s cool,” Benny agreed. “She’s really pretty.”
“Then ask her! You seem really bummed lately, I thought this might cheer you up,” the other boy countered, patting Benny on the shoulder. “You deserve something really great, dude.”
“Okay.” he nodded. “I’ll uh, probably wait and ask her after lunch.”
“Smart,” Ethan chuckled, releasing his shoulder. “Later.”
And then he was alone again.