Take A Picture (It'll Last Longer)

Ben had pretty much been in a bit of a mood since the entire “male stripper” joke. I figured it was because that Elle and Cordelia were being so mocking of the situation and perhaps a little bit because of the totally hot businessman Ben had tried to make jealous a few days before. When everyone had gone home and Ben and I were left with the wonderful task of cleaning up the mess they left behind, I decided I might as well talk to him about the entire thing. Ben is a pretty sensitive guy, which is one of the reasons it’s so easy for other people to hurt him like they do, and I knew I should probably dance around the subject. Unfortunately, I’m not that good at dancing period, even in the figurative sense.

“Are you still annoyed about the whole stripper thing?” I asked him. “Because Cordelia and Elle were just joking…”

“Not,” Ben shook his head, picking up all the crumbs Dirk left behind, “I know it was a joke. It doesn’t bother me.”

“It doesn’t look like it doesn’t bother you,” I snorted. Ben continued picking up chip crumbs and didn’t say anything back. I wasn’t about to give up, though. “Ben, I know something’s wrong. You’ve got that same depressed look on your face you get when Dr. Who goes on hiatus.”

“It’s nothing,” Ben said.

“Why are you making this so hard?” I asked him. “Just tell me what’s going on!”

“It’s nothing…” Ben insisted.

“You do realize that you’re just making this harder for both of us?” I said to him, annoyed. Ben frowned and sighed, putting the crumbs he had collected into the trashcan I had put in the center of the living room for our cleaning up.

“It’s just that… you missed out, you know?” Ben said to me.

“You’re upset… because I missed out on something?” I said to him, confused.

“Yeah,” Ben nodded. “What Elle and Cordelia said about the whole party thing… I mean, you didn’t get a chance to have one of those big weddings you girls always go on about or any fancy parties and the nice dress and things like that… I feel like I robbed you.”

“You didn’t rob me,” I snorted. “Besides, don’t you think if I really wanted all of that I would have made you do it?”

“Um, well,” Ben said, not sure how to respond, “Yes?”

“Of course I would have,” I nodded. “But I’m not one of those girls who has every last detail planned out. For a while, I didn’t think I would ever get married.”

“What changed your mind?” Ben asked me.

“I don’t know,” I sighed, sitting up against the couch thoughtfully, “I guess when I was serious about Jon, the two of us would talk off and on about marriage. More in the abstract sense than anything, but I guess I kind of thought one day…”

“Jon? Who cheated on you with every girl on campus?” Ben asked me in disbelief.

“Well, I didn’t know that at the time!” I said to him defensively.

“But Jon? Even before he cheated on you he didn’t seem like marriage material,” Ben said with a frown.

“And how would you know?” I asked him.

“Because he was a jerk to everyone, including you,” Ben said. “We were all asking you why you bothered to go out with him…”

“No. You were asking me why I bothered to go out with him,” I reminded him. “Elle thought he was great until he cheated on me and Kip could care less about anyone’s love life but his own.”

“Okay, but he was a jerk to you,” Ben admitted.

“Yeah, he was,” I shrugged. “But I liked him so I overlooked it.”

“Liked him or loved him?” Ben asked me pointedly.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I wasn’t paying close enough attention at the time to really think about it and it’s been so long since I felt the way I did for him that I can’t remember correctly. I’d like to think I knew he was scum all along, but I didn’t.”

“Well, he was scum,” Ben said annoyed.

“What about you?” I asked him.

“Huh?” Ben asked. “I’m not scum…”

“No,” I shook my head. “Did you ever think you would get married?”

“Someday,” Ben nodded. “I worried about not finding the right girl and I worried about my life turning into one of those Hugh Grant movies. Is it just me, or has he been playing the exact same character in every movie he’s been in since the Eighties?”

“Pretty sure you’re correct on that one,” I said. “So you had all the flowing white gowns and ugly bridesmaids dresses and eighty tier cakes with a seven piece orchestra playing in mind?”

“Sort of,” Ben shrugged. “But after Brigit I figured that I would never get married. When she ran off, I thought ‘There goes the only girl I’ll ever be able to love’. What I thought clenched the deal was when my sister skipped out on her own wedding. My parents gave her the whole she-bang, the orchestra, the flowers, the cake, the dress… and she just left. Like it didn’t matter at all. Then I sort of figured some people just aren’t meant to be married, even if they want to.”

“Maybe you’ve just gotten cynical in your old age,” I snorted.

“I’m only nine months older than you are!” Ben said defensively.

“Tell that to your receding hairline,” I said teasingly. Ben threw a couple of crumbs at me.

“I’m not as old as you look,” Ben replied.

“At least I’m not as dumb as you look,” I snorted.

“At least I don’t look as dumb as you are old…” Ben said. “Wait… that doesn’t make any sense…”

“Yet again, your genius shines through,” I said sarcastically. Ben stuck his tongue out of me in that totally immature way of his then picked up the trashcan and put it right back where it belonged. After doing that, he joined me on the couch. “Do you think people are going to treat us weird when we go back to work tomorrow?”

“Dunno,” Ben shrugged. “They have a strict ‘Don’t Date Your Co-Workers’ policy but nothing about marrying them. I think it’s going be a little strange. If it isn’t strange and awkward, then something is definitely wrong. I think they’ll treat us a little…”

Ben’s cell started vibrating on the counter top in the kitchen and he jumped over the couch to answer it. The thing about Ben’s line of work is that his editor often calls him at the last minute to go take a picture something completely irrelevant at two thirty in the morning, so Ben is pretty much always on call. When he doesn’t actually have anything to do, though, he mostly just loafs around, waiting for something to happen. He seems to be pretty flexible about having short periods flurried with activity in between the long gaping spans of time filled with nothing whatsoever. He carried on a conversation for about ten minutes then returned to the couch.

“Was that Landon?” I asked him.

“No,” Ben said in a grumpy tone.

“Was it your other wife?” I asked him. Ben glared at me. “Okay, okay. Not funny. I get it. Who was it?”

“It was my sister,” Ben grumbled.

“Amelia? Why did she call you?” I asked him.

“Why does Amy ever call me?” Ben snorted. “Because she wants money.”

“Isn’t it a little odd that your older sister is always calling you for money? Why can’t she get some from one of those rich jerks she usually dates?” I asked him.

“Apparently, she’s stranded in a small town twenty miles south of Amsterdam and needs me to wire her twenty quid for bus fare,” Ben rolled his eyes. “She’ll probably blow eighty times that much on whatever she does in Amsterdam when she gets there.”

“Why do you do it?” I asked him.

“You’re an only child. You don’t get it,” Ben shrugged. “She’s my sister. When we weren’t at each other’s throats, we bonded over our mutual hatred of our parents. Besides, I know that if I needed money, she’d get it for me.”

“No you don’t,” I snorted. “She’s never loaned you any money in your life.”

“Okay, but if I really needed her, Amy would be here,” Ben said.

“Unless there wasn’t anything in it for her,” I pointed out.

“So maybe Amy isn’t the best or most reliable sister in the world,” Ben admitted, “she’s the only one I’ll ever have. Unless my dad’s had kids he hasn’t told us about… but even then, I’d still do things for her. It’s hard to explain.”

“Why is she in the Netherlands in the first place?” I asked him.

“I don’t know,” Ben sighed. “Amy acts on impulse. She gets it into her head that something would be fun and then she goes and does it. I think that’s why she skipped out on her own wedding.”

“How did the guy take it? You never mentioned that,” I said to him. Ben blushed a little.

“Well, he got pretty mad. I had to tell him because no one else could get up the courage. And at first he didn’t believe me but then he punched me in the face because I didn’t do anything to stop it,” Ben sighed. “Amy still owes me big for that.”

We sat in silence for fifteen minutes before I decided to get ready for bed. Once I got out of the bathroom, I walked into my bedroom to find Ben sitting on the bed, staring up at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the world. I crawled onto the other side of the bed and slipped under the covers beside him. He smiled slightly as I snuggled up against my pillow. I looked up at him curiously.

“Ben?”

“Hmm?”

“What are you thinking about?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” Ben said. I knew he was lying, but at that moment, I didn’t care.