Even now, he wasn’t sure. He wanted to be. He wished he’d taken the time to do the necessary soul-searching, or even the necessary experimentation, but he hadn’t.
“I don’t think that’s true,” Annie said. “You should go to him. The sex is always better after the adrenaline rush. That’s why we leave such a long break after.” She grinned.
Ben blushed to the tips of his ears at the thought. Annie raised an eyebrow.
Maybe her suspicion was real.
“We’re not, uh… we don’t…” Ben chewed on his lip.
Hopefully, this would both explain his blush and their reason for being there. Annie didn’t need to know that they didn’t have sex because they weren’t together. It was the perfect, obvious relationship problem for them to have.
It was the actual problem they had, after all.
Well, no. That was simplifying it too much. They had a whole world of problems, but sex… that was at the core of it, in one way or another. It was as close to the truth as Ben could get without telling Annie his entire life story.
The last thing he wanted was to do that.
“Oh,” Annie said, her face falling. “Oh, honey,” she continued, reaching out to touch Ben’s arm.
Ben supposed it was meant to be a comforting gesture, but it seemed too intimate for a stranger. Even a stranger who was trying to help.
Maybe this was normal. Maybe Ben was the one who was being weird.
He couldn’t really tell anymore. He got the impression that a normal, emotionally healthy person would have taken the risk of rejection a long time ago and told his best friend how he felt. It was definitely starting to feel like he’d been screwing up for years.
“Well, that’s what you’re here for,” Annie went on. “To reconnect.”
Ben chuckled darkly. She had no idea.
“That’s the idea,” he said, all the doubt in his voice completely authentic. He hoped he and Sam would be on an even keel by the time the weekend was over, but…
To mix a metaphor, this was throwing them in the deep end. Sam had been nothing but upbeat, but Ben wasn’t so sure he could do this until Sunday afternoon without saying something he’d regret.
“Go to him,” Annie patted his arm. “I bet he’s just as nervous and unsure as you are. And I saw him tackle that climb. If he was my partner… I’d be getting naked right about now.”
Ben laughed nervously, not sure how else to react to that. It was phrased like a compliment, but all he could think was that he had no idea.
“Unfortunately for you, he’s gay,” Ben said.
“All the best ones are.” Annie laughed. “You say that like you’re not.”
“I’m bi, actually,” Ben responded.
He was saying that a lot this week. To his relief, it was getting easier. The more often he said the words, the more confident he became that they were true.
He wasn’t sure why he was telling Annie this. It would have been simpler to let her believe he was gay. Simpler, but not true.
Maybe it was that he was lying about enough things this weekend. He wasn’t going to lie about this.
“Oh,” Annie said. Ben braced to hear a lecture about that being why his relationship was on the rocks, that Sam didn’t trust him, that he was afraid of Ben cheating.
He might not have been out, but he’d heard what was said to other people. He’d been listening.
Ben liked to pretend he was above caring about what other people thought, but no one was. He was less affected by it, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t affected at all.
“Well, that’s… kinda hot, actually.” Annie smiled at him.
That didn’t sound like the kind of reaction she was supposed to have, but anything was preferable to judgement.
