Instead, he’d saidyou look great, and been relieved when Eliot interrupted them.
Ben was not the man he thought he was inside his head.
“Well, I wouldn’t give up just yet,” Eliot said. “I hate to be a cliché asshole about this, but love really does change your life.”
Ben snorted. He was happy for Eliot, no question. He and Danny were the perfect, adorable couple, and so obviously in love that it made even Ben’s heart ache when he saw them together.
He’d given up on having that for himself a long time ago, though. It was probably time he started thinking about getting a cat instead.
“Did you come in here for something, or just to preemptively lecture me on my non-existent love life?” Ben asked, figuring it was about time to change the subject before he got maudlin.
Moremaudlin.
“I wanted to pitch something I think might be our Hail Mary,” Eliot nodded at the whiteboard.
Ben had been counting down the days until Ballsy was up for a project review. They’d done some good work, but nothing that, according to the higher-ups and the marketing department, made them worth the investment.
Normally, Ben would have argued that enlightenment was worth any price, but he knew it’d only fall on deaf ears.
He’d genuinely believed people would care about the truth, now more than ever. But if the truth wasn’t packaged into shareable info-bites, most people couldn’t be bothered with it.
That had been how it was since the very first newspaper had been printed, and he was a fool for thinking it would ever change.
This wasn’t the project Ben had been promised it would be yet—nor the project he’d promised Eliot it would be—but it had potential, if it didn’t get shut down. They just needed to make it past this first hurdle.
“I do want to hear it, but I want it noted for the record that you just used a sports metaphor. Correctly, even.”
“Danny’s rubbing off on me.” Eliot smirked. “I’ll get what I’ve got so far.”
Ben sat back, waiting for Eliot to grab his things, and pointedly didn’t think about any people from his past who’d might have come into his office and turned his entire day on its head in the space of three minutes.
