“He met up with his ex-boyfriend,” Ben said, noticing that it was past midnight. Jez would be back tomorrow, then Stan the day after.
“Stan?”
“No, Jez.” Ben rolled his eyes. “Of course Stan.”
“Oh. I didn’t know he had an ex-boyfriend.”
Tone got stupid when he was high.
“He’s got a few, from what I can tell. Though he doesn’t tell me much about them.”
“Do you want to know anything about them?”
“Not really.”
“So what’s the problem?”
Tone blue-shelled Ben off the Rainbow Road, and Ben let loose a string of expletives.
“He went and got coffee with his ex. In New York. His ex who’s a fucking dancer.”
“Oh.”
Tone sat back as the next game loaded, and used the break to drink some water and light his spliff again.
“I looked him up on Instagram,” Ben admitted. He felt petty. “He’s fucking gorgeous.”
“I’ll take your word for it.”
“Seriously. He’s a beautiful, tall black guy, with muscles everywhere, who wears tights for a living.”
“Are you jealous?”
“No.” Ben sulked. “Maybe.”
“That’s natural, I think,” Tone said with a shrug. “You’re still working out how you and Stan fit back together again, so another person who has history is automatically going to be a threat.”
“You’re very wise.”
“Thank you,” Tone said, though his voice came out tight because he was holding in a lungful of smoke. He exhaled heavily and passed Ben the joint.
“But,” he continued, “even though jealousy is a very human and natural emotion, you shouldn’t be. First of all, Stan is the most loyal person I’ve ever met. I tried to get him to give me a blow job dozens of times, and he never would.”
“Hey,” Ben complained.
“Second of all, he told you about it. Meeting the ex. He’s just trying to keep you in the loop so you don’t freak out.”
“I’m freaking out anyway.”
“Paranoia. Blame the weed.”
“I need to stop taking drugs,” Ben said with a sigh and passed the joint back to Tone.
“I can cut you off if you want. You know you’re not actually sober until you cut all that shit out. All of it.”
“Eh. One step at a time. You’re doing a good job at keeping me away from the worst of it.”
“Yep.” Tone sounded proud of himself. “No more of that shit.”
“No,” Ben said, and for the first time in a while didn’t feel like he missed it.
The next morning, Ben found himself in the kitchen with Summer while Geordie and Tone slept in.
“It’s fucking cold here,” she grumbled. Ben passed her a mug of coffee, and she wrapped her hands around it as she pulled it to her chest. She was wearing one of Geordie’s hoodies that was comically big on her.
“Not really.”
“It is when you’ve just come from the West Coast.”
Ben hummed. “Do you want breakfast?”
“Yeah. What do we have?”
“We got a delivery yesterday. So pretty much everything.”
“Any chance of a fry-up?”
“I can do that.”
Figuring that as soon as they smelled food, Tone and Geordie would appear, Ben decided to make enough for four. It didn’t take long to get bacon and sausages under the grill, tomatoes and beans on the stove, and hash browns in the oven. He wanted scrambled eggs, rather than fried, and didn’t give Summer the chance to complain.
“So how are you doing?” Summer asked, watching him work from her seat at the kitchen island.
“Good. Yeah. Better.”
“You look a lot better.”
“I know it hasn’t been that long, but it feels like forever.” Ben cracked eggs into a bowl, seasoned them, then got a pan heating on the stove.
“And Stan?”
“He’s good.”
She made a noise Ben didn’t know how to interpret. “What?”
“Do you know how he’s feeling about all of this?”
“I do talk to him,” Ben said with a laugh. He pushed his hair back out of his face, wishing he had something to clip it back with. Summer sighed at him and came over, pulling a grip out of her own hair to pin his back in a quiff.
“Of course you do.”
“He’s moving back to London,” Ben said. He turned to the grill to flip everything over.
“To be with you?”
“Yes and no. Partly for me, partly for his career, I think.”
She nodded, like that made sense. It didn’t to Ben.
“What aren’t you saying?” Ben asked her, knowing Summer wouldn’t be offended by his bluntness.
“Just that this is a lot, really quickly,” she said. “And I get why you would want to live with him and, you know, all the stuff that comes with getting back together with him. But—and don’t take this the wrong way—what’s he getting out of it?”
“Ouch.”
But she was right.
“Stan’s been around since before all of this took off,” Ben said. He gave the eggs a final whisk, then slid them into the pan. “I don’t think he’s after our money.”
“Me either.” Summer hopped up to sit on the counter and watch him. Ben passed her the bag of bread, and she got to work making toast. They ate a lot of toast. “I don’t necessarily think he has nefarious intentions. If anything, Stan’s a fucking saint compared to the rest of us.”
“I still love him.”
Summer whacked him around the head, which Ben probably deserved.
“Of course you do,” she said. “I could have told you that. What I’m trying to get through your thick skull is how are you going to show him that? How are you going to make it all worth it for him?”
Tone stumbled into the kitchen still wearing his pyjamas, bleary eyed, and muttered something about breakfast as he went to the coffee pot and helped himself.
“You don’t have to have an answer right now,” Summer said, taking out the toast and replacing it with untoasted bread. “Just think about it, okay? Because I’m pretty sure Stan is the most loyal guy there is. But he deserves to have a nice person to come home to at the end of the day.”
Ben leaned over and kissed her cheek. “Thanks. For kicking my arse.”
“Anytime.”
“Go get Geordie and tell him breakfast’s ready.”
She slid down off the counter and went to the doorway.
“Geordie!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Food!”
“Jesus Christ, woman,” Tone muttered.
“Tone, set the table,” she told him primly.
“Yes, sir.”
Ben started putting food on plates. Time had taught him not to get involved.
Chapter Seventeen
Stan knocked and waited. And knocked again. And waited. Then he tried the door handle, and it was open, so he let himself in.
The reason he’d been ignored became immediately clear; the noise from a massive argument was coming from the kitchen.