Page 39 of Baby, It's Cod Outside
Jackson lets the final chord breathe, a velvety hum that drifts up to the high ceiling. It hangs there, delicate and imperfect. Almost holy.
He knows what still needs doing tonight. Track down the forger, nail the proof, pull Ben’s name out of the mud. All worthy, urgent goals especially given his deep desire to move Ben from an undercover source to just under covers. But right now, he wants one more breath inside this little snow globe he and Ben have accidentally shaken: full of soft lamplight and bad piano and that laugh that cracked out of Ben like something finally breaking free.
It would be so easy, just to lean in a little closer, catch that next laugh with his mouth. Capture the heat they’ve both been feeling for days and keep going until Ben was beneath him, pliant and gasping andhis.
Then Ben’s phone vibrates.
It’s subtle, but they’re sitting so close on the bench that Jackson feels it buzz through the both of them. Ben reaches for it instantly, reflexive, built from years of being summoned. Jackson clocks the exact second Ben goes rigid as they both read the screen.
Dad.
“Just a sec,” Ben says, stepping a few feet away. He’s already shifting into that other register. Practiced in a way that makes Jackson’s skin crawl.
He knows what Ben really sounds like. When he’s laughing so hard he snorts. When he’s stumbling over his own compliments. When he’s gasping into Jackson’s mouth, warm and breathless. He hates this tight-lipped, press-conference version of him.
Jackson only hears one side of the conversation.
“Of course. Mmhmm. Absolutely not a problem.” Ben’s face tells a whole different story, one that unfolds in stages: confusion, panic, disappointment, frustration, then panic again.The delivery never falters.
There’s nothing familiar in it. Nothing warm. It’s not the way Jackson talks to his dad. Hell, it’s not even how he talks to Mort when he’s trying to weasel another day out of a deadline.
“Sure. See you in a bit.”
Ben ends the call and pockets the phone like a live grenade. “I’m just going to, uh… see how the caterers are doing,” he says lightly.
Easy to believe, maybe, if you weren’t paying attention.
That wasn’t curious-about-the-hors-d’oeuvres. That was keep-it-together. That was don’t-break-where-anyone-can-see. That was get-somewhere-safe-before-smiling-cracks-your-teeth.
“I’ll be right back.” And just like that, Ben turns and walks away.
Jackson watches him detour, not toward the catering staff, but straight up the grand staircase.
He waits.
Counts to twenty.
Then he follows.
The fourth door Jackson tries has a time-capsule energy. The science fair trophy sits proudly on the dresser, flanked by a battered stack of Redwall paperbacks and a model schooner. The wallpaper has tiny, tasteful compass roses on it. One corner of the corkboard is still pinned with a fading flyer from a senior year beach clean-up.
Big house, Jackson thinks.No one needed this room back.His own childhood bedroom had been repainted coral and turned into a yoga-cum-gift-wrapping situation by his mom approximately ten minutes after he pulled away in the U-Haul. There’s something weirdly reverent about Ben’s room by contrast, someone trying to preserve the echo of the kid who used to live here.
Ben’s sitting on the far corner of the bed, turned away from the door, back hunched. He’s holding himself so still he nearly disappears into the wallpaper.
Jackson knocks gently on the doorframe, then crosses the room to sit beside him. The mattress dips a little under his weight; Ben doesn’t react, his eyes on the wall. Jackson watches his hands opening and closing against his thighs, something rising in him that he can’t wring out.
“Not a lot of caterers up here,” Jackson says gently.
Ben exhales. Almost a laugh, but not quite. “No.”
For a moment, they just sit. Ben’s drawn a circle of space around himself, and it feels like crossing it right now would miss the point.
“Three times in one week,” Ben says finally, his voice flat, stripped of all inflection. “That’s got to be a new record for me.”
Jackson tries for light. “In your defense, it seems like you’ve been having a particularly shitty week.”
It doesn’t land wrong, exactly, but it doesn’t land right either.
