Page 74 of Friends With Benedicts

I whacked the bottom of his plastic cup, and it flipped magnificently before landing top down in the grass.

“Dick,” he said flatly.

“That’ll teach you to call me stupid.”

“Hey, I call it like I see it. Just like anybody with two eyes and a brain between their ears can see you dummies are lovesick and pining after each other like you can’t have what you want. You’ve just gotta get over yourselves and say what you want instead of fucking around about it, waitin’ for the other one to read your goddamn mind. She’s not psychic.”

“Neither am I. I don’t even know if she wants me to stay.”

Again, he laid a dead-faced look on me. “Quit being stupid, stupid.”

I made to punch him in the arm, but he dodged me and stole my beer, batting me off while he chugged it. He then burped loud enough that I felt it rumble in the metal of the tailgate.

“‘Scuse me.” He pounded his chest with a closed fist and burped again, this time with his mouth shut. “Point is, you love her, right?”

A hot shock of pain split my heart open. “Yeah,” I admitted.

“And you want to give it a shot?”

I started to list the reasons I was mad at her, but he shut me down.

“Fuck all that. You want to be with her. Because you love her. And you love Cilla. So whatever the fuck you think the problem is, that ain’t it. Your only problem is being too pigheaded to buck up and do what needs to be done.”

“And in your sage wisdom, what needs to be done, oh wise one?”

“Tell her you love her, idiot. And then go with her. I mean, if she doesn’t hate your guts. But she doesn’t.”

“How do you know?”

He pointed at his eyes, then tapped his temple. “I got these. Unlike you.”

“So you don’t think I should leave?”

“You don’t want to go—you want to run away and lick your wounds in an African desert, getting eat up by mosquitoes.” When I laughed, he continued, “For real—if you need that many shots to go somewhere, you might think about why exactly you want to go there. I prefer to stick to places that aren’t tryin’ to kill me.”

Before I could answer, Manny broke through the crowd and strode in our direction with a big smile on his face.

“Hey, was wondering where you went,” Manny said as he approached.

Wyatt nearly melted into goop at the sight of him. “Had to come talk some sense into shit-for-brains here.”

“Ah,” Manny started. “Presley?”

“Who else?” Wyatt hopped off the tailgate and stepped into Manny. “Bastian here thinks he doesn’t know what he wants.”

Manny busted out laughing. “Really? I thought he was just being stubborn.”

“I’m still sitting here, FYI,” I noted.

“We see you,” Wyatt said without looking at me. “And stubborn has something to do with it. On both counts.” He shifted to acknowledge me with eye contact. “You’re the dummy who didn’t tell her you wanted to stay. You left all that shit out in your kitchen knowing she’d be around. What’d you think was gonna happen?” I started to answer, but he cut me off. “Never mind. I don’t even want to know what nonsense you imagined. Fact is, you could have avoided all this.”

“What about her? She never even told me she wanted me to stay.”

“Oh, bullcrap. What’d you want, a formal invitation? It’s not up to her to drag you into a commitment—it’s up to you to insist on it. Listen, I’m not saying she’s not a dummy too. Only that you can be the one to fix it all. You saved the town, motherfucker. Now save yourself some heartache and tell Presley you love her before you lose her.”

I didn’t want to admit he was right. That I was wrong. That it could be that easy. But for the first time, it truly hit me that I could stop her. That I could end my pain—and hers, if she wanted me—with a handful of words.

I don’t want you to go.

I want to be where you are.

I love you. I’ve always loved you.

All I had to do was forgive her, and I could have everything I wanted.

Had I already forgiven her? Had I been trying to convince myself otherwise to make the idea of her leaving more palatable? It was easier to be mad, to villainize her, than to face losing her. Just as she’d assumed I was leaving, I’d assumed she was too.

Wyatt was right.

I was an idiot.

Manny laughed, threading his arm around Wyatt’s waist. “Aww, look at his face. He figured it out.”

“He keeps doing that,” Wyatt noted.

I was out of things to throw, so I flipped him off instead.

“Go on—tell me I’m right.”

“You’re right. Feel better?”

He smoothed the front of his t-shirt and puffed out his chest. “I really do.” He turned to Manny. “Come on, I need a drink. Some asshole ruined mine.”

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