Friends With Benefits

“Why are we doing this again?” Fletch asked as soon as we got into his driveway.

“We’re starting over, okay?” I sighed. “Just pretend you asked me out for the first time. This can be our first date, okay?”

“Fine,” Fletch muttered.

“You know, I don’t think I want to go out with a guy who acts pissed off when he comes to pick me up,” I pointed out.

“I am pissed off at you right now,” Fletch pointed out.

“Well, pretend you’re not,” I said. Fletch rolled his eyes and then rounded the car to open the door for me. Once I was safely ensconced inside, he got into the front and started backing out of the driveway.

“So, do you wanna go shopping or just hang out?” Fletch asked.

“Maybe we could hang around the arcade… and then get some supper… I don’t know… maybe a movie at the multiplex if you don’t mind being out too late…” I suggested. Fletch let out a sigh of annoyance but changed his tone when he saw me glaring.

“How about we hit up the multiplex first and see what’s playing,” Fletch suggested. “It’s always crowed Friday nights so we can get tickets early for a later show. That way, we can kill time by eating supper and hanging out in the arcade before the show starts.”

“Perfect,” I grinned.

My attempt to start anew with Fletch was fairing better than I had dared to hope. Fletch was able to act as if it was our first date and we were really getting to know each other. Rather than fight with me, he was sweet and tried to even impress me a little with his various knowledge about cars, movies, and pop culture. I had my own turn to impress him when I requested we purchase tickets to an action movie for that night rather than one of the three romantic dramadies playing. Movie tickets in Fletch’s pocket, we headed to the main part of the mall took look around at what was going on. Eventually, we headed to the arcade where I soon easily beat Fletch at four rounds of Mortal Kombat.

“This really sucks,” Fletch mentioned to me. “I mean, I’m the one paying for these games and you keeping whipping my ass at it…”

“You know I’m better at Mortal Kombat than you,” I rolled my eyes. “You wanna play one of the shooter games so you can win something?”

“Sure,” Fletch pouted. I rolled my eyes and let him pick out a stupid deer hunting game where he easily trounced me.

We only garnered a few tickets from our several quarters worth of spending on the various arcade machines. When we were kids, Fletch and I would often pool our tickets and save up for something big. We would work together so I could get a lava lamp or so Fletch could get the clock radio he wanted. Being an only child, Will was rather possessive of his tickets and wouldn’t share with us. This time, Fletch and I pooled our meager amount of tickets and purchased matching pirate bandannas and cheap woven bracelets from the creepy 40-something man who had been manning the arcade counter since my brother’s fifth birthday party.

“Man,” Fletch said as we exited the arcade, “I hope I’m not handing out prizes to snot nosed kids at an arcade when I’m in my forties. I mean, what does that say about you life? Being paid minimum wage to hand out cheap plastic crap to little kids who don’t understand the value of a dollar…”

“Says the guy who once spent nearly five hundred dollars so he could get enough tickets for one of those revolving disco lights?” I snorted.

“Hey, I was in sixth grade then,” Fletch said. “And to be fair, that disco light still works and is awesome. I put it to use quite frequently.”

“I assume you still have the dinosaur shaped water gun and that remote control car you were dying for?” I asked.

“Nah,” Fletch shook his head. “Sold the remote control car in a garage sale since it ran through batteries like crazy. The water gun… my parents took that from me after I used it to spray lemonade on Kristy… In fact… I don’t think I ever got it back…”

“Probably for good reason,” I snorted.

“And I guess you don’t have the flashing butterfly wand or the 3-D crystal engraved unicorn?” Fletch mused.

“No,” I shook my head. “Matt broke the crystal unicorn thing and the butterfly wand ran through batteries faster than your monster truck.”

“I wish I still had all the money I spent on crap back then,” Fletch sighed. “I’d save up my allowance money all month and blow the whole forty dollars on teeth-rotting candy and whoopee cushions…”

“I remember,” I nodded. “I was afraid to sit down anywhere lest I make a fart sound and your cavity covered grin popped up behind me.”

Fletch laughed and I suddenly noticed that somewhere between cashing in our tickets at the arcade and arriving at the food court, Fletch had clandestinely slipped his head into mine. I felt a weird, tingly feeling in the bit of my stomach. Whereas the old Lenny probably would have jerked away and made some motion to disinfect my hand, I realized it sort of felt nice to have Fletch twisting his fingers around mine. It was what I had asked him for, after all, and for the first time since our string of awkward hook ups, I actually felt like Fletch and I were finally acting the part of boyfriend and girlfriend.

“So, where do you wanna eat?” Fletch asked me.

“I’m fine with just about anything except for pizza,’ I shrugged. “Too much of that lately…”

“How about you get hit up Asian Lotus and I’ll grab some stuff from the Steak Shop so we can split it up between the two of us,” Fletch suggested. I agreed and we went our separate ways, meeting up a few minutes later in one of the booths.

We were actually having a pretty good time. We were laughing, joking, and sharing food back and forth. I had managed to snag an extra fortune cookie for Fletch since he seemed to live by their sayings and look for the lucky numbers on the back to appear in random places in his life. I found myself pretty lost in just talking and spending time with Fletch, something the two of us had never really done before. We were using our chopsticks to fight over the final dumpling when a shadow arose over our table.

“Hey! What are you guys doing out here tonight?” Will asked with his thousand-watt grin. I gaped as he stood there, his arms wrapped around a leggy blonde who looked like she had all of the fat from her butt injected into her lips.

“Eating and going to see a movie,” Fletch said. I bit down on the sense of jealousy starting to rise in me as Will’s date gave me the once over. “What are you doing out? I thought you had mono… aren’t you supposed to be quarantined or something?” Will’s date looked slightly apprehensive at the mention of mono, but Will played it off.

“Wasn’t mono. Just the flu,” Will shrugged. “But I haven’t had a fever in two days and since I was really good, my parents thought I could have an evening with Shelly here…”

“Michelle,” she hissed.

“Right,” Will nodded.

“I thought you were grounded because of your party,” Fletch frowned.

“Mom and Dad decided getting sick was enough punishment,” Will shrugged. “Gave me my car keys back and everything. So, what have you two been up to since I’ve been confined to my room?” Will looked from me to Fletch and then back again. Fletch had speared his Mongolian beef, obviously wanting Will to make himself scarce.

“Not much,” I shrugged. “School’s school… Chuck got canned by a group of seniors again. He rolls down hill faster than he did freshman year, I think.” I thought about adding ‘Fletch and I had hot monkey sex in the treehouse,’ but decided Will probably couldn’t handle that tidbit just yet.

“So… what are you guys doing tonight?” Will asked curiously. “I mean, I didn’t get a call from either of you so I just assumed…”

“We were alone in our rooms moping about the general lack of Will Swain in our lives?” Fletch snorted. “You had a date tonight anyway, so why does it matter we didn’t invite you out with us?”

“Well, I just thought…” Will began. He frowned as Fletch sent him a menacing glare I didn’t understand. “Anyway, what are you two crazy kids up to?”

“Fletch is taking me to see that new action movie… the one with that ex pro-wrestler and the other guy…” I frowned. “He was in that crappy franchise about illegal street racing, wasn’t he?”

“Different guy. This guy played the secondary villain in that superhero movie that bombed last year,” Fletch corrected.

“Fletch is taking you?” Will repeated skeptically.

“Yeah,” I said, suddenly feeling a little small and scared.

“How about you get on with your date?” Fletch suggested to Will. “I don’t think Sherry wants to be bored to death hanging out with Lenny and I.”

“It’s Michelle,” she hissed at Fletch.

“Are you two up to something?” Will said, confused. “I mean, what is going on here?” I looked at Fletch, wondering if he or I was the one who was going to have to grow some cajones and announce to Will that we were secretly quasi-dating behind his back.

“Can we go?” Michelle demanded of Will. “You promised me we’d go to Jamba Juice!”

“Alright, alright,” Will sighed. Before strutting off with Michelle, however, Will glared between Fletch and I. “You two have some explaining to do later, though…” Once he was gone, I let out the huge breath I didn’t realize I had been holding in.

“What are we gonna do? Are we gonna tell him?” I asked. “I mean, duh. We should tell him. We have to tell him. How are we gonna do it? Maybe we should sit him down tomorrow and explain… if both of us are there he’ll probably react better…”

“Tell him what?” Fletch asked. “That we fucked like rabbits or that we’ve decided to stop fucking like rabbits and date like boring, normal people?”

“You know what I mean, Fletcher,” I rolled my eyes.

“No I don’t,” Fletch snorted.

“I mean how are we going to break it to Will that we’re together now?” I replied obviously. “Aren’t you just the teensiest bit nervous how Will’s going to react? I mean, what if we’re all like ‘Hey, we were out on a date Friday and that’s why we didn’t invite you’ and he goes ballistic and smashes your taillights in or something…”

“Why would Will smash my taillights in?” Fletch wanted to know. “Have you been watching too many music videos about crazy ex-girlfriends or something?”

“You don’t think he’d freak out?” I asked. “I mean, I know if I were in his shoes, I’d be worried that I was going to become the third wheel or that you guys wouldn’t want me around any more because I’d ruin the love vibe…”

“You thought there was a possibility Will and I would go gay for each other and then push you out of our lives so we could butt hump in private?” Fletch snorted. “What goes on in your weird head?”

“Please never say your name, Will’s name, and the phrase ‘butt hump’ in a sentence ever again,” I said. “Actually, how about you remove the phrase ‘butt hump’ from your vocabulary altogether, okay?”

“I’m going to the T-Shirt Factory right now and making you a giant shirt that says ‘butt hump’ in all caps with glow-in-the-dark lettering,” Fletch said.

“Gross and don’t change the subject,” I said. “I mean, I thought… maybe…. I don’t know… When you first moved here and you and Will started being all buddy-buddy, I thought I would be phased out. And if I were Will, I know I’d be concerned that you and I wanted him to go away or whatever so we could… you know…”

“Butt hump?” Fletch suggested unhelpfully.

“No,” I glowered. “And if you say that one more time, I’m calling Sara to pick me up and you can kiss any chance you have of ever doing anything remotely resembling humping in my presence ever again.”

“Fine,” Fletch sighed. “And no. I don’t think we should consider Will’s namby-pamby feelings about this or anything. He never considered us when he went through his string of whores or stood us up for his flavor-of-the-month girlfriends. I think he deserves a taste of his own medicine.”

“I thought we’d want to be better than that,” I frowned.

“Lenny, all I want to do is for you and me to you know… be together in the boyfriendly-girlfriendly way you were talking about earlier this afternoon,” Fletch said. “As far as I’m concerned, we should do what we want and if Will doesn’t like it, he can go butt hump himself or whatever disease infested cheerleader wannabe comes along…”

“You don’t think he’ll hit you, do you?” I asked worriedly.

“Why would he hit me?” Fletch snorted.

“Well, Matt will hit you if he ever finds out what happened in the tree house… and earlier today…” I admitted. “And since we’re trying this boyfriendly-girlfriendly thing out as you said… well, I’d rather not be girlfriendly with a guy who had his face punched in.”

“I could take Will,” Fletch insisted.

“At checkers maybe,” I snorted.

“You don’t think I could beat Will up?” Fletch pouted.

“I think Will has the advantage of three hours a week of football weight training over you,” I shrugged. “I just don’t… I don’t want things to get weird between everyone, okay? Especially not since things are going the right way for once.”

“You’ve been hanging around Eric for the past...what… three years now? Things are already weird enough with him and Chuck in the mix,” Fletch snorted.

“Exactly why I don’t want them to get any weirder,” I sighed. “Or strained. You know how long Will and I have been friends and… well, not telling him about us… is sort of like a betrayal, I guess…”

“And you are worried he’ll be betrayed that you and I are together, right?” Fletch wanted to know. “Not because you’re still in love with him and holding out that he’s going to wake up and want to butt hump you or something?”

“The Will ship has sailed,” I nodded. “Besides…this… boyfriend-girlfriend thing with you… it’s different than I pictured it. A lot different. You know, Fletch, you’re really sweet when you want to be…”

“Don’t tell anyone. Then I might actually have to start being nice to people,” Fletch snorted.

“I’ll keep it our secret,” I smiled.

“You know, I’ve said butt hump at least twice and you haven’t left,” Fletch pointed out.

“Yeah,” I smiled. Without really thinking, I leaned over and placed a soft but still tender kiss on his lips before pulling back, admiring the shocked and slightly pleased look creeping across Fletch’s face. “Now come on. You promised me an action movie.”

“Yes ma’am,” Fletch grinned.