Page 131 of The Bartender Special

“Well, I'm glad boat sex with Jack is so good I’m getting yelled at for it.” He threw Benny the pair of back-up hot glue sticks that had been requested of him and got out of the car. Like Benny, he’d dressed up for the occasion. Both had slacks and shirts that showed off their best features, tastefully. Benny had also donned his mother’s favorite fun ring on a chain around his neck for the event. A detail Cal had approved of before Benny had left earlier.

“You know, I love you, I really do…” Ethan continued as they started to walk through the parking lot. “But I think I like you more when you’re around him. Jack, I mean.”

Benny put his hand to his chest in offense.

Ethan waved him off before he could call him on it.

“What I mean is, I haven't seen you like this in a really long time,” he explained. “You just really seem to be digging you and, I don’t know, it’s kind of cool.”

“I’m digging being myself?” Benny repeated. “Was I not before?”

Ethan seemed to think about the question for a second.

He shrugged.

“I mean, within the last month you’ve published a secret blog, all but clinched a contract with a literary agent, brunched and boated with the Robertsons—and survived, might I add—played spies, became judge and jury of perhaps the most embarrassing first-time sex stories I’ve ever heard in my life, and you’ve just yelled at me about boat sex. Something I appreciate but did not, in fact, ask to know.”

He pointed a finger gun at Benny.

“Yeah, Jack might have helped push you out of your comfort zone some but, Benny De Carlo, you're the one who started almost all of the chaos outside of it.”

Benny started to deny the observation. He stopped.

Ethan wasn’t wrong.

For someone who loved a comfort zone, he’d gone and tried to escape through someone else’s window.

“Well, whatever or whoever is making me this way, let’s hope my luck and not my awkward holds out tonight,” Benny concluded. “Everyone inside is really counting on it going well.”

Jack, Dixon and his parents, and Santana were all inside, bracing for what they hoped would be a party that reminded Arbor Bay of the sense of community a small-town bar could offer.

Sometime in the last few weeks, he’d also become invested in that hope.

“Cassidy’s is a good place,” Ethan added on.

Benny nodded, a few steps from the front door.

He slowed when Ethan asked a question he hadn’t expected.

“And a place you might want to stick around for?” Ethan held his hand up to stop a response. “What I meant to say is, I've already made peace with you moving out of Arbor Bay and staying away, and I won't for a second try to guilt you or beg you to come back just because I miss you. Because moving on is normal and no one should force themselves to live in their hometown just because it is their hometown. But. I like seeing you happy and, well, I just like seeing you. So, for tonight, why don't you do me a favor and pretend you live here again? Then tomorrow, remember that you're leaving. After the pageant? Tell me which feels right. What do you say?”

Benny didn’t know what to say.

Ethan, who still had no idea that Jack wasn’t his real boyfriend—wasn’t his Guy—had just asked him to play pretend.

Not only that, he’d asked him to think about his future with the guy he was already playing pretend with.

Addressing the lies and the future all at once became an overwhelming weight in Benny’s chest.

The best he could give his friend was one little answer.

“I can try.”

* * *

Missy Robertson was drunk and swearing she wasn't, Ms. Peggy had an eye patch on, Dewey's shirt was wet from the impromptu wet T-shirt contest out on the patio, Callum and Ethan were talking in rasps after their karaoke set, and Benny had kicked off his boots beneath the table he was sharing with Marcus and Felicity since he'd damn near worn his feet out after dancing for over an hour.

Jack, sexy-as-hell and smooth-talking bartender extraordinaire, was in his element slinging drinks and vibing with every person who stood across from him.