[fic] no time to second-guess it, parks and rec, ben/leslie, pg13, 3200 words
Title: No Time to Second-Guess It
Pairing: Ben/Leslie, April/Andy
Fandom: Parks & Recreation
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3200
Notes: Man, I got bit by the P&R bug BUT GOOD. And these two, I literally cannot even. It's been awhile since I've written fic for a sitcom (BBT isn't a sitcom, right? At least not a funny one?) so forgive any rough edges. juniperlane did her best to smooth them out, and fujiidom gets props for being a cheerleader and crack dealer, since she's probably to blame for how much I love this show. Title from Neko Case (obsessed), "I'm an Animal." Anything of quality is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fuck, Ben thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well.
----
When Ben wakes up in the morning and manages not to trip over any trash on his way to the kitchen, he thinks things are looking up. The house didn’t catch fire in the night because Andy made a midnight snack and forgot to turn the oven off, what minimal furniture they have seems to still be in the same place it was when he went to bed, and there’s no new writing on the walls. All good signs, he thinks.
But when he steps into the bathroom to shower, he sees a piece of paper stuck to the mirror. (It might be held up by a piece of gum. He’s not going to check.)
“Ask out Leslie.” That’s all it says. The writing’s far too legible to belong to Andy and Ben’s pretty sure it was done in lipstick. He hangs his head. Fuck, he thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well. He tears down the paper (there’s definitely gum on the back) and throws it in the newly purchased trash can, then spends the whole morning trying to figure out how to make this go away.
--
Ben’s stuck in budget meetings until noon, but when they finally let out he heads straight for the shoeshine stand. Sure enough, April’s sitting in one of the seats and Andy’s behind the counter. When they see him coming, April gets this look on her face that’s equal parts superior and indifferent. It’s pretty much how her face always looks when she sees him.
Ben checks to make sure no one important is in the hallway when he walks up to them. He scans quickly for the cameras but they must be in Leslie’s office or following Ann. “Hey guys,” he says. The way April’s looking at him is even more unsettling than usual and he clears his throat and rocks kind of awkwardly on his heels, then climbs up into the seat next to her. “So about that note on the mirror this morning. I need you to not ever say that again, okay?”
“Andy didn’t say anything about you liking Leslie.” April picks at a thread on her jeans and Andy flips through a course catalog for the community college and won’t look Ben in the eyes. Ben rubs a hand over his face. April looks up at him, eyes as blank as always. “I’m lying, he told me. Ask her out.”
Ben sighs, that deep, long-suffering sigh that seems to have only gotten long-suffering-er since he got to Pawnee. He likes this town, he really does, but it is honestly filled with the craziest, strangest people he’s ever met. And he’s from Minnesota.
Ben checks the hallway again (this is usually the time when Leslie heads to the commissary for lunch, not that he’s all that familiar with her schedule or anything, and not that he tries to time his lunch with hers so they can sit in the courtyard and talk about politics or city projects or the weather) and then turns in his seat. “April, I’m serious. You cannot say anything. I know you’re just here because you don’t have anything better to do, but this is my career.” He tries to be stern; fatherly or brotherly or whatever, but judging by the look she’s giving him, he just sounds kind of pathetic. No wonder Andy brought home a marshmallow gun; she’s got weird powers, fueled by apathy and silent hostility and big, cute eyes. This isn’t going very well.
“I won’t say anything,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter. You always look at her like you’re about to ask her to prom. It’s weird.”
“I don’t,” Ben starts, but really, if he’s being honest with himself, he’s probably not doing a very good job of hiding his feelings. Not that he should have to, he thinks, and he wishes again that Chris could be just a little less Chris about some things and lighten up. So what if it’s a huge conflict of interest and could potentially tarnish both of their future politic careers? Small potatoes compared to the tight feeling he gets in his chest whenever she walks in a room. Chris noticed once and prescribed wheat germ and fish oil or something equally dubious-sounding, but Ben blamed it on the burrito he’d had for lunch and Chris didn’t mention it again.
He ends up just sighing and running his hand through his hair. He’s almost got a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue when Andy calls out, “Leslie!”
Ben looks up and Leslie’s walking down the hallway toward them, cameras in tow. He glances at April and she’s looking right at him, eyes set and unwavering, and his heart starts beating really quickly. Then again, that might be because Leslie’s got three pencils holding her hair up and the wisps of blonde frame her face in a way that Ben finds professionally adorable.
“Hi, Leslie,” April calls out. She’s suddenly way too chipper and Ben jumps down from the chair, tries to win control of this potentially disastrous situation.
“Lunch?” he asks. “I hear the commissary’s serving turkey chili.” Leslie smiles and nods, waves hello and goodbye to April and Andy, and they take off down the hallway. Ben looks over his shoulder at April and she’s still sitting in the shoeshine chair, eyes deadlocked onto his.
Fuck, he thinks again.
--
It goes on like this for two weeks. He keeps finding notes stuck all over the house: in the silverware drawer, taped to the fridge. She pastes photos of Leslie’s face all over his steering wheel and he seriously considers moving out (for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time).
He gets home from work one day and Andy’s sitting on the couch, his guitar in his lap, halfway through a verse that sounds suspiciously like, “Ben, Ben just ask her out, she’s cool and blonde and good with math.”
“Andy, what the hell?” Ben tries to focus less on the fact that Andy’s writing songs about him and Leslie and more on the fact that he’s finally using a coaster, but it doesn’t work.
“Sorry, dude,” Andy answers. He moves his guitar onto the couch and stands up. For a grown man, he looks like a kid caught sneaking into the candy jar way too often. “I usually just write what I know, and April’s been complaining about you and Leslie a lot lately, and I guess it just got into my head. But I’ll write about something else!” Andy looks eagerly around the room. “Hey, what rhymes with the word carpet?”
Ben just sighs and runs his hand over his face and prays to god Mouse Rat doesn’t get booked for any live shows in the foreseeable future.
--
For being a nonessential department, Parks and Recreation has more meetings than anyone else in Pawnee’s city government, which probably has less to do with additional projects and more to do with Leslie’s love of color-coding and organization and hearing the sound of her own voice. In a way that Ben finds (totally inappropriately) cute.
“So we’ll be taking names of volunteers for the Ramsett Park clean-up day. You guys can sign up in shifts, and don’t worry: I’ve already made snack packs for everyone.” Leslie’s walking back and forth in front of the table, talking with her hands while everyone else doodles on their packets. Jerry’s staring out the window. Ben’s trying to look interested but it must come off as something else (something like I’d like to make out with you or at least buy you dinner) because when he looks across the table, April’s looking back and forth between him and Leslie, rolling her eyes and smirking. He clenches his jaw and puts on his best “I’m a responsible adult” face, but when Leslie dismisses the meeting, she heads right toward him.
“I thought I’d sign you up for a mid-morning shift? Mornings in Ramsett Park are beautiful, and there are a lot of moms there with their kids. Push a few swings, smile a lot, you’ll get plenty of sign-ups. It’ll be great.” She’s talking really quickly all of a sudden, it’s like she just ate a NutriYum bar. Ben’s always been pretty bad at reading signals, so she either likes him or snuck a few treats while making their snack packs. Knowing Leslie, it might even be both.
Ben smiles and gathers up his padfolio. “Definitely,” he says. “I will, yes, that’ll be, sure.” He sees April watching them from across the room where Tom’s showing her something on the computer that’s probably not work-appropriate. He looks back at Leslie and says, “Umm, will you be there?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Sunday mornings I lead a kids’ exploration troop in the forest preserve across town. This weekend, we’re studying coniferous trees!”
She’s way too excited in the way she’s always way too excited and Ben can’t help the way his mouth splits open into a huge grin. “Okay,” he says. “Well, I’ll do my best.”
On his way out of the office, April bumps into him and he doesn’t notice until he gets back upstairs that she slipped a piece of paper in his pocket. It’s a far more graphic depiction of Jerry’s painting (he’s had enough trouble getting over the sight of her tastefully painted half-naked self, he’s not ready to deal with the things April’s drawn), and scrawled across the bottom in April’s now familiar hand are the words, “Quit being a bitch.”
He stuffs the paper in his pocket and goes about his day. Disposing of it on government property would just be irresponsible.
--
Ben wakes up in the middle of the night because there’s something (probably a raccoon, possibly a Yeti) rooting through the trash outside. He lays there for a long time, staring at the shadows on the ceiling before he decides to get up and get something to drink.
When he gets to the kitchen, April’s sitting on the counter in an over-sized Mouse Rat t-shirt eating ice cream out of the carton. For a second he feels self-conscious, standing there in just his boxers and a t-shirt (he’s her boss, or her boss’ boss, but they’re roommates and it’s not weird and maybe he didn’t think this all the way through before he moved in), but she kicks her legs back and forth against the counter and goes back to her ice cream like there’s nothing strange about meeting her boss’ boss in the kitchen at 3 am while he’s just wearing his underwear.
“Hey,” he says. He gets a glass from the cabinet (they’d bought sets of glassware like he’d told them to, but there are four different cups from, like, 4 different sets in there: Andy set up a Beatles vs. Stones war last night, using the Muppets cups as refs) and fills it with water from the fridge. April just licks ice cream off the underside of the spoon and kicks her feet back and forth again.
They don’t say anything for awhile. Ben leans back against the counter and drains his glass of water and April’s heels thud hollowly against the cabinet door. He finally opens his mouth to speak but April interrupts him.
“Ask out Leslie.” She’s said it to him a thousand times, it seems: under her breath when they’re in a Parks Department meeting, when she sees him in the hallway at City Hall, when he’s making breakfast in the morning and she comes in to get her first of a hundred cups of coffee. It sounds different now, more sincere, and that’s not a word he uses to describe April all that often, so he doesn’t tell her to shut up, or act like an adult. He doesn’t say anything.
April jumps down from the counter and sets the carton of ice cream next to the microwave. “Leslie’s awesome,” she says. She kind of toes at the floor and Ben remembers how young she is, how ridiculous this whole marriage is, how much he’s secretly hoping she and Andy last forever and never, ever become as cynical as he’s been these past few years. He was at their wedding and usually he forgets about that great big smile on her face when she said “I do” (or “fine” or “whatever” or however she and Andy ended their vows), but it’s times like these when he remembers.
He purses his lips and nods his head. “I know,” he says. And he does. She is awesome, and April’s not the first person to tell him so, but he’s glad that she did, that April cares about Leslie. Ben thinks everyone should. It’s only fair, since Leslie cares about everybody else.
April drums her fingers on the counter and looks out the window over the sink, shrugs her shoulders like it’s no big deal, she’s just trying to give him life-changing advice. She did get married after three weeks of dating Andy, so. It’s all relative. “She likes you, you know. It’s totally obvious. And confusing, because you’re a huge dork.”
“Thanks,” Ben answers. He’s getting better at reading April after all these weeks (his accuracy varies day to day) but he’s pretty sure she’s not actually insulting him.
April puts the lid back on the ice cream carton and stuffs it in the freezer. “I think you make her happy,” she says. Her back is to him and the hum of the refrigerator seems louder than usual, but he’s pretty sure that’s what she says. His face doesn’t even betray the fact that his heart kind of swelled in his chest a little, or something equally cliched that April would mock him for. “Leslie should be happy.”
“Wow,” Ben says. “That’s actually really sweet of you.”
April turns on her heel and glares at him. “Don’t tell anyone I said that or I’ll tell Oren the trick to jimmying your bedroom window.”
Ben laughs. Then he stops laughing. “Wait, what?”
April doesn’t answer him, which means he’s probably going to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if the lock on his window holds. She leans back against the fridge and crosses her arms over her chest. “If you like her then why don’t you ask her out?”
Ben sets his glass down on the counter. His relationship with Leslie sounds even worse out loud and he hasn’t actually really talked about it with anyone since Andy, so he feels his tongue sticking in his throat while he tries to figure out what to say. It’s like Crazy Ira and the Douche all over again, only maybe more intimidating. “April, I’d love to,” he finally says, his words all running together. “But Chris has rules about these things, and even if Leslie does like me--”
“She does,” April interrupts.
“Okay,” Ben says. He takes a deep breath, acts like his heart didn’t just fall out of his body. “But there are rules. And so we just, we don’t talk about it. We can’t.”
“Wow.” April pushes herself off the fridge and sets her dirty spoon down on the counter. “That’s, like, the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m friends with Oren.” She walks past him back toward her room and he grabs her spoon and sets it in the sink.
She’s just about to open the door when he pokes his head out of the kitchen and asks, “You were joking about the window, right?”
She doesn’t answer, just smiles sweetly and waves goodnight. It’s the April version of giving him the finger.
Awesome.
--
When Ben wakes up the next morning, April and Andy are already in the kitchen. She’s cracking eggs into a bowl of pancake mix while he tries to figure out exactly how many chocolate chips to add to “achieve maximum delicious.”
When he sees Ben, Andy points at him and asks, “Ben! How into chocolate are you? Like, on a scale of 1 to that fat kid from Willy Wonka.”
Ben smiles and thinks a second before saying, “I don’t know. Like, five?”
“Awesome. Then we’ll just add the whole bag!” He leans over and pours the chips into the batter. Ben sees April roll her eyes, but she’s smiling.
Ben pours a cup of coffee and sits down on one of the lawn chairs. They’ve gotten a couch and an entertainment center, but a table and chairs are next on the list. He half reads the paper, half watches them fuss over the batter. Andy pours it in graphic and inappropriate shapes and April make the shapes even dirtier and they laugh and high-five and when Andy smears batter on her cheek, she flicks the spatula at him. They’re making a mess and Ben should care more, but he doesn’t.
Dammit, he thinks. It is cute.
“Leslie eats breakfast at JJ’s on Saturdays,” April says. He hadn’t noticed, but she’s standing right in front of him. Andy’s trying to flip pancakes without a spatula, which basically means he’s going to hurt either himself or everyone, but April doesn’t seem all that concerned. “It’s, like, ten. She’s probably there right now.”
Ben looks back down at the paper. There are a few garage sales over by the high school and the Mayor’s dog might have a cold.
“I don’t normally get involved because … I don’t care,” April says, and Ben knows enough now to know that’s not even almost the truth, “but you should go accidentally run into her and accidentally be creepishly turned on by how into whipped cream she is.”
Ben keeps his eyes on the crossword puzzle while he weighs his options, tries to rationalize going against the possible repercussions, mentally makes a pros and cons list in the ten seconds he has before April throws a fork at him. It hits him in the arm and he looks up at her. “Either stop being a pussy or stay here and eat Andy’s pancake penises. Your choice.”
Even though he fundamentally disagrees with most of April and Andy’s life decisions, he can’t deny that they work. They balance each other out, in a way that shouldn’t make any sense but it does. It’s been a long time (17 years, actually) since Ben let himself make a rash decision, but he watches them at the stove and thinks maybe there’s something to be said for not looking before you leap. Ben smiles and pushes himself out of the chair. “Well, when you put it like that.”
He dresses quickly, throws on jeans and a baseball cap, hustles past Andy and April (“Oh my god,” she says, “you’re not wearing plaid”) and makes the short drive to JJ’s. Maybe Leslie will be there. Maybe they’ll split an extra order of home fries. Maybe afterward, they’ll go to one of the garage sales he read about and she can help pick out their dining room furniture.
Maybe moving in with April and Andy is going to work out just fine.
Pairing: Ben/Leslie, April/Andy
Fandom: Parks & Recreation
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3200
Notes: Man, I got bit by the P&R bug BUT GOOD. And these two, I literally cannot even. It's been awhile since I've written fic for a sitcom (BBT isn't a sitcom, right? At least not a funny one?) so forgive any rough edges. juniperlane did her best to smooth them out, and fujiidom gets props for being a cheerleader and crack dealer, since she's probably to blame for how much I love this show. Title from Neko Case (obsessed), "I'm an Animal." Anything of quality is purely coincidental.
Summary: Fuck, Ben thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well.
----
When Ben wakes up in the morning and manages not to trip over any trash on his way to the kitchen, he thinks things are looking up. The house didn’t catch fire in the night because Andy made a midnight snack and forgot to turn the oven off, what minimal furniture they have seems to still be in the same place it was when he went to bed, and there’s no new writing on the walls. All good signs, he thinks.
But when he steps into the bathroom to shower, he sees a piece of paper stuck to the mirror. (It might be held up by a piece of gum. He’s not going to check.)
“Ask out Leslie.” That’s all it says. The writing’s far too legible to belong to Andy and Ben’s pretty sure it was done in lipstick. He hangs his head. Fuck, he thinks. Andy told April. This isn’t going to go well. He tears down the paper (there’s definitely gum on the back) and throws it in the newly purchased trash can, then spends the whole morning trying to figure out how to make this go away.
--
Ben’s stuck in budget meetings until noon, but when they finally let out he heads straight for the shoeshine stand. Sure enough, April’s sitting in one of the seats and Andy’s behind the counter. When they see him coming, April gets this look on her face that’s equal parts superior and indifferent. It’s pretty much how her face always looks when she sees him.
Ben checks to make sure no one important is in the hallway when he walks up to them. He scans quickly for the cameras but they must be in Leslie’s office or following Ann. “Hey guys,” he says. The way April’s looking at him is even more unsettling than usual and he clears his throat and rocks kind of awkwardly on his heels, then climbs up into the seat next to her. “So about that note on the mirror this morning. I need you to not ever say that again, okay?”
“Andy didn’t say anything about you liking Leslie.” April picks at a thread on her jeans and Andy flips through a course catalog for the community college and won’t look Ben in the eyes. Ben rubs a hand over his face. April looks up at him, eyes as blank as always. “I’m lying, he told me. Ask her out.”
Ben sighs, that deep, long-suffering sigh that seems to have only gotten long-suffering-er since he got to Pawnee. He likes this town, he really does, but it is honestly filled with the craziest, strangest people he’s ever met. And he’s from Minnesota.
Ben checks the hallway again (this is usually the time when Leslie heads to the commissary for lunch, not that he’s all that familiar with her schedule or anything, and not that he tries to time his lunch with hers so they can sit in the courtyard and talk about politics or city projects or the weather) and then turns in his seat. “April, I’m serious. You cannot say anything. I know you’re just here because you don’t have anything better to do, but this is my career.” He tries to be stern; fatherly or brotherly or whatever, but judging by the look she’s giving him, he just sounds kind of pathetic. No wonder Andy brought home a marshmallow gun; she’s got weird powers, fueled by apathy and silent hostility and big, cute eyes. This isn’t going very well.
“I won’t say anything,” she says, “but it doesn’t matter. You always look at her like you’re about to ask her to prom. It’s weird.”
“I don’t,” Ben starts, but really, if he’s being honest with himself, he’s probably not doing a very good job of hiding his feelings. Not that he should have to, he thinks, and he wishes again that Chris could be just a little less Chris about some things and lighten up. So what if it’s a huge conflict of interest and could potentially tarnish both of their future politic careers? Small potatoes compared to the tight feeling he gets in his chest whenever she walks in a room. Chris noticed once and prescribed wheat germ and fish oil or something equally dubious-sounding, but Ben blamed it on the burrito he’d had for lunch and Chris didn’t mention it again.
He ends up just sighing and running his hand through his hair. He’s almost got a rebuttal on the tip of his tongue when Andy calls out, “Leslie!”
Ben looks up and Leslie’s walking down the hallway toward them, cameras in tow. He glances at April and she’s looking right at him, eyes set and unwavering, and his heart starts beating really quickly. Then again, that might be because Leslie’s got three pencils holding her hair up and the wisps of blonde frame her face in a way that Ben finds professionally adorable.
“Hi, Leslie,” April calls out. She’s suddenly way too chipper and Ben jumps down from the chair, tries to win control of this potentially disastrous situation.
“Lunch?” he asks. “I hear the commissary’s serving turkey chili.” Leslie smiles and nods, waves hello and goodbye to April and Andy, and they take off down the hallway. Ben looks over his shoulder at April and she’s still sitting in the shoeshine chair, eyes deadlocked onto his.
Fuck, he thinks again.
--
It goes on like this for two weeks. He keeps finding notes stuck all over the house: in the silverware drawer, taped to the fridge. She pastes photos of Leslie’s face all over his steering wheel and he seriously considers moving out (for the tenth, hundredth, thousandth time).
He gets home from work one day and Andy’s sitting on the couch, his guitar in his lap, halfway through a verse that sounds suspiciously like, “Ben, Ben just ask her out, she’s cool and blonde and good with math.”
“Andy, what the hell?” Ben tries to focus less on the fact that Andy’s writing songs about him and Leslie and more on the fact that he’s finally using a coaster, but it doesn’t work.
“Sorry, dude,” Andy answers. He moves his guitar onto the couch and stands up. For a grown man, he looks like a kid caught sneaking into the candy jar way too often. “I usually just write what I know, and April’s been complaining about you and Leslie a lot lately, and I guess it just got into my head. But I’ll write about something else!” Andy looks eagerly around the room. “Hey, what rhymes with the word carpet?”
Ben just sighs and runs his hand over his face and prays to god Mouse Rat doesn’t get booked for any live shows in the foreseeable future.
--
For being a nonessential department, Parks and Recreation has more meetings than anyone else in Pawnee’s city government, which probably has less to do with additional projects and more to do with Leslie’s love of color-coding and organization and hearing the sound of her own voice. In a way that Ben finds (totally inappropriately) cute.
“So we’ll be taking names of volunteers for the Ramsett Park clean-up day. You guys can sign up in shifts, and don’t worry: I’ve already made snack packs for everyone.” Leslie’s walking back and forth in front of the table, talking with her hands while everyone else doodles on their packets. Jerry’s staring out the window. Ben’s trying to look interested but it must come off as something else (something like I’d like to make out with you or at least buy you dinner) because when he looks across the table, April’s looking back and forth between him and Leslie, rolling her eyes and smirking. He clenches his jaw and puts on his best “I’m a responsible adult” face, but when Leslie dismisses the meeting, she heads right toward him.
“I thought I’d sign you up for a mid-morning shift? Mornings in Ramsett Park are beautiful, and there are a lot of moms there with their kids. Push a few swings, smile a lot, you’ll get plenty of sign-ups. It’ll be great.” She’s talking really quickly all of a sudden, it’s like she just ate a NutriYum bar. Ben’s always been pretty bad at reading signals, so she either likes him or snuck a few treats while making their snack packs. Knowing Leslie, it might even be both.
Ben smiles and gathers up his padfolio. “Definitely,” he says. “I will, yes, that’ll be, sure.” He sees April watching them from across the room where Tom’s showing her something on the computer that’s probably not work-appropriate. He looks back at Leslie and says, “Umm, will you be there?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Sunday mornings I lead a kids’ exploration troop in the forest preserve across town. This weekend, we’re studying coniferous trees!”
She’s way too excited in the way she’s always way too excited and Ben can’t help the way his mouth splits open into a huge grin. “Okay,” he says. “Well, I’ll do my best.”
On his way out of the office, April bumps into him and he doesn’t notice until he gets back upstairs that she slipped a piece of paper in his pocket. It’s a far more graphic depiction of Jerry’s painting (he’s had enough trouble getting over the sight of her tastefully painted half-naked self, he’s not ready to deal with the things April’s drawn), and scrawled across the bottom in April’s now familiar hand are the words, “Quit being a bitch.”
He stuffs the paper in his pocket and goes about his day. Disposing of it on government property would just be irresponsible.
--
Ben wakes up in the middle of the night because there’s something (probably a raccoon, possibly a Yeti) rooting through the trash outside. He lays there for a long time, staring at the shadows on the ceiling before he decides to get up and get something to drink.
When he gets to the kitchen, April’s sitting on the counter in an over-sized Mouse Rat t-shirt eating ice cream out of the carton. For a second he feels self-conscious, standing there in just his boxers and a t-shirt (he’s her boss, or her boss’ boss, but they’re roommates and it’s not weird and maybe he didn’t think this all the way through before he moved in), but she kicks her legs back and forth against the counter and goes back to her ice cream like there’s nothing strange about meeting her boss’ boss in the kitchen at 3 am while he’s just wearing his underwear.
“Hey,” he says. He gets a glass from the cabinet (they’d bought sets of glassware like he’d told them to, but there are four different cups from, like, 4 different sets in there: Andy set up a Beatles vs. Stones war last night, using the Muppets cups as refs) and fills it with water from the fridge. April just licks ice cream off the underside of the spoon and kicks her feet back and forth again.
They don’t say anything for awhile. Ben leans back against the counter and drains his glass of water and April’s heels thud hollowly against the cabinet door. He finally opens his mouth to speak but April interrupts him.
“Ask out Leslie.” She’s said it to him a thousand times, it seems: under her breath when they’re in a Parks Department meeting, when she sees him in the hallway at City Hall, when he’s making breakfast in the morning and she comes in to get her first of a hundred cups of coffee. It sounds different now, more sincere, and that’s not a word he uses to describe April all that often, so he doesn’t tell her to shut up, or act like an adult. He doesn’t say anything.
April jumps down from the counter and sets the carton of ice cream next to the microwave. “Leslie’s awesome,” she says. She kind of toes at the floor and Ben remembers how young she is, how ridiculous this whole marriage is, how much he’s secretly hoping she and Andy last forever and never, ever become as cynical as he’s been these past few years. He was at their wedding and usually he forgets about that great big smile on her face when she said “I do” (or “fine” or “whatever” or however she and Andy ended their vows), but it’s times like these when he remembers.
He purses his lips and nods his head. “I know,” he says. And he does. She is awesome, and April’s not the first person to tell him so, but he’s glad that she did, that April cares about Leslie. Ben thinks everyone should. It’s only fair, since Leslie cares about everybody else.
April drums her fingers on the counter and looks out the window over the sink, shrugs her shoulders like it’s no big deal, she’s just trying to give him life-changing advice. She did get married after three weeks of dating Andy, so. It’s all relative. “She likes you, you know. It’s totally obvious. And confusing, because you’re a huge dork.”
“Thanks,” Ben answers. He’s getting better at reading April after all these weeks (his accuracy varies day to day) but he’s pretty sure she’s not actually insulting him.
April puts the lid back on the ice cream carton and stuffs it in the freezer. “I think you make her happy,” she says. Her back is to him and the hum of the refrigerator seems louder than usual, but he’s pretty sure that’s what she says. His face doesn’t even betray the fact that his heart kind of swelled in his chest a little, or something equally cliched that April would mock him for. “Leslie should be happy.”
“Wow,” Ben says. “That’s actually really sweet of you.”
April turns on her heel and glares at him. “Don’t tell anyone I said that or I’ll tell Oren the trick to jimmying your bedroom window.”
Ben laughs. Then he stops laughing. “Wait, what?”
April doesn’t answer him, which means he’s probably going to spend the rest of the night trying to figure out if the lock on his window holds. She leans back against the fridge and crosses her arms over her chest. “If you like her then why don’t you ask her out?”
Ben sets his glass down on the counter. His relationship with Leslie sounds even worse out loud and he hasn’t actually really talked about it with anyone since Andy, so he feels his tongue sticking in his throat while he tries to figure out what to say. It’s like Crazy Ira and the Douche all over again, only maybe more intimidating. “April, I’d love to,” he finally says, his words all running together. “But Chris has rules about these things, and even if Leslie does like me--”
“She does,” April interrupts.
“Okay,” Ben says. He takes a deep breath, acts like his heart didn’t just fall out of his body. “But there are rules. And so we just, we don’t talk about it. We can’t.”
“Wow.” April pushes herself off the fridge and sets her dirty spoon down on the counter. “That’s, like, the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard. And I’m friends with Oren.” She walks past him back toward her room and he grabs her spoon and sets it in the sink.
She’s just about to open the door when he pokes his head out of the kitchen and asks, “You were joking about the window, right?”
She doesn’t answer, just smiles sweetly and waves goodnight. It’s the April version of giving him the finger.
Awesome.
--
When Ben wakes up the next morning, April and Andy are already in the kitchen. She’s cracking eggs into a bowl of pancake mix while he tries to figure out exactly how many chocolate chips to add to “achieve maximum delicious.”
When he sees Ben, Andy points at him and asks, “Ben! How into chocolate are you? Like, on a scale of 1 to that fat kid from Willy Wonka.”
Ben smiles and thinks a second before saying, “I don’t know. Like, five?”
“Awesome. Then we’ll just add the whole bag!” He leans over and pours the chips into the batter. Ben sees April roll her eyes, but she’s smiling.
Ben pours a cup of coffee and sits down on one of the lawn chairs. They’ve gotten a couch and an entertainment center, but a table and chairs are next on the list. He half reads the paper, half watches them fuss over the batter. Andy pours it in graphic and inappropriate shapes and April make the shapes even dirtier and they laugh and high-five and when Andy smears batter on her cheek, she flicks the spatula at him. They’re making a mess and Ben should care more, but he doesn’t.
Dammit, he thinks. It is cute.
“Leslie eats breakfast at JJ’s on Saturdays,” April says. He hadn’t noticed, but she’s standing right in front of him. Andy’s trying to flip pancakes without a spatula, which basically means he’s going to hurt either himself or everyone, but April doesn’t seem all that concerned. “It’s, like, ten. She’s probably there right now.”
Ben looks back down at the paper. There are a few garage sales over by the high school and the Mayor’s dog might have a cold.
“I don’t normally get involved because … I don’t care,” April says, and Ben knows enough now to know that’s not even almost the truth, “but you should go accidentally run into her and accidentally be creepishly turned on by how into whipped cream she is.”
Ben keeps his eyes on the crossword puzzle while he weighs his options, tries to rationalize going against the possible repercussions, mentally makes a pros and cons list in the ten seconds he has before April throws a fork at him. It hits him in the arm and he looks up at her. “Either stop being a pussy or stay here and eat Andy’s pancake penises. Your choice.”
Even though he fundamentally disagrees with most of April and Andy’s life decisions, he can’t deny that they work. They balance each other out, in a way that shouldn’t make any sense but it does. It’s been a long time (17 years, actually) since Ben let himself make a rash decision, but he watches them at the stove and thinks maybe there’s something to be said for not looking before you leap. Ben smiles and pushes himself out of the chair. “Well, when you put it like that.”
He dresses quickly, throws on jeans and a baseball cap, hustles past Andy and April (“Oh my god,” she says, “you’re not wearing plaid”) and makes the short drive to JJ’s. Maybe Leslie will be there. Maybe they’ll split an extra order of home fries. Maybe afterward, they’ll go to one of the garage sales he read about and she can help pick out their dining room furniture.
Maybe moving in with April and Andy is going to work out just fine.