The Trouble with Physical Proximity (1/?)
Title: The Trouble with Physical Proximity (1/?)
Author: saucydiva
Word count: 4k this part
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: clearly I don’t own it or I would be paying models $100k to paint their nails
Timeline: Post- 4x01, AU after that
Summary: Ann yells at Chris; but what happens after that?
Author’s Note:
jncar prompted a fic for the ficathon
After another emotional "girls-night-out" with Leslie, where Ann spent most of the night listening to Leslie moaning about how much she misses Ben, Chris makes a move on Ann, suggesting they could try being more than friends again. Ann gets VERY angry and calls Chris out on his hypocrisy for thinking he can break his own stupid rule, and in the heat of the moment she spills the beans on Ben and Leslie's romantic history. Oops!
Even though I had no intentions of going past the prompt, I have terrible impulse control and the desire to bring in every character ever, and Rikyl has a terrible habit of encouraging these shenanigans, so this has started happening.
Ann waved goodbye to Leslie’s cab, and felt guilty for feeling good about doing so. It wasn’t that Leslie was a burden, exactly, but lately any and all conversation seemed to revolve around Ben. What was Ben doing since they broke up, was Ben going to see other people, what if Joan Callamezzo found out, should they move to Rome together, should she call Ben, do Italians even have parks departments, etc, etc, etc. Ann was supportive, but her metaphorical shoulder was starting to get soggy (to say nothing of her actual shoulder). And so, Ann sent a slightly-tipsy-maybe-drunk Leslie home and felt a sense of relief about it.
Ann decided to stay, so she ordered a screwdriver and sat at a table in the back of the Snakehole, giving herself some time to stare off into space and not think about Leslie’s problems. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she barely noticed when Chris takes a seat next to her. When she realized he had, she was annoyed but she decided to roll with it. Chris has many flaws-well, he has that flawlessness flaw-but at least he wouldn’t talk to her about Ben.
“Ann Perkins!” Chris grinned, and threw those finger guns at her. “What are you drinking tonight?”
They exchanged a few minutes of small talk, and then Chris leaned in to her. She could smell that expensive and subtle cologne he would always wear, Bvlgari, and she felt the strangest little rush. Like Pavlov’s dog, she thought, and shook her head, vowing to focus on whatever he was talking about.
“Ann, I just don’t know what to do about Ben Wyatt. I keep offering him vitamins and I rearranged his office and I invited him to my intramural basketball game, but he is literally the most depressed I have ever seen him.”
She sighed. Naturally. “Sometimes the changing season gets people down. I would just give it some time. Don’t try to force the conversation, and keep inviting him out. When he is ready he will be grateful for your caring.”
Chris looked thoughtfully at her. “I am so glad I ran into you. I just worry about Ben. He doesn’t even seem as interested in Harvest Fest as he was last year, and he was so excited about that.”
“Well, you know, he took Lil’ Sebastian’s death pretty hard.” She shook her head. This has to stop, she thought. “Let’s talk about something else?”
“I started a new cardio routine-“
“Actually, let’s not talk. Do you want to dance? Let’s dance.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of his seat, leaving their drinks on the table, and she led them both to the loudest part of the dance floor, right underneath the speakers.
There was something really nice about not thinking, just listening to the music and moving to the beat. Chris was right about one thing, Ann thought, and that was the importance of the endorphin rush.
She hadn’t touched him, not really, since their break-up, and dancing seemed like a safe way to play with those old feelings without having to act on them. It reminded her of how much she missed this, casually touching someone without worrying that it was sending a signal, getting to drape her arms around his shoulders and move in synch with someone without that awkwardness that comes from a new partner.
They really were phenomenal partners. Dance partners.
If she was really honest with herself, though, that wasn’t the only reason she enjoyed this. There was something sexy about dancing with him. It felt a little dangerous and a lot reckless. The physical proximity was making her a little dizzy, and she wished she could get a glass of water, but she also didn’t want to break away. He had his hands on her hips, and she could feel his heat through her jeans.
This was oxytocin brought on by close touching, and a corresponding decrease in cortisol levels. This was not anything more. She decided that if she focused on the science behind it she would not get stupid about it.
The club was filling up with dancers, and they were pushed even closer together. She looked into his face, and for a moment she considered doing something truly reckless-
This was too much. Too much touching, too many physical memories. She had to break away or she was going to fall back into old patterns.
She tore away from him and started walking towards the exit, slipping around dancing couples and flirting singles to get to the door, the fresh air, the better decisions.
And he followed her, and stepped out the door after her.
She started walking, and he followed her wordlessly. She walked east with no real destination in mind.
She ended up at the wiffle ball field at Lafayette Park. Chris followed dutifully; she hadn’t turned around once since she left the dance floor, but she heard his footsteps and his even breathing.
She sat on the bleachers.
Chris sat down next to her, and hesitated, but spoke. “Ann, I enjoyed that a lot, and I know I shouldn’t because I would never want to violate a rule I put in place, but I would deeply enjoy getting to know each other again on a more personal level.”
That is exactly the wrong thing to say, Ann thought, and stood up. “You can’t possibly… all my problems relate to that rule of yours, the one that says City Hall employees can’t date, and now you want to ignore it to get in my pants?”
“Technically I only expressed interest in the prospect. Wait, who are you dating at City Hall? Is it Tom Haverford? Because in case you didn’t know, Leslie Knope dated him last year and it is probably a bad idea to get involved with him because she is your friend.”
“What? I don’t even-No.” Ann felt the start of that confusion that always seemed to cloud her judgment when Chris blew into her orbit. “This isn’t about me, this is about you and your hypocrisy. And I haven’t slept in weeks because of you! Because I am getting 3am phone calls every night.”
Chris furrows his brow in confusion.
The way she couldn’t get her words out made her madder, so she stood up and stomped her foot. “Your stupid rule is ruining everything for my best friend and she can’t even date the first guy I really could see her settling down with because you made some stupid rule against parks department/assistant city manager romance!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt? Do you mean they are dating?”
“No, I mean they were dating, and now they can’t because you make these stupid rules.” At once, Ann realized she made a grave tactical error and slapped her hands over her mouth. “I mean… they aren’t dating. No. I was just being factious.”
Chris stood up, frowned, and walked away.
Ann sat back down. Oh no.
She took a moment to consider her options. That’s what Leslie would do, after all. And then she realized that she was not Leslie, and took off running.
She got to Leslie’s house in less than an hour, and as she rang the doorbell she stretched to cool down.
Leslie opened the door, sleepy and confused, and Ann brushed past her to finally get that water she needed. Still panting from exertion, she said, “Chris… Ben… this is bad.”
Leslie woke up almost immediately. “Ann, what happened? Did they get recalled back to Indianapolis? Did they get injured country line dancing? Did they get in a fistfight over golf?”
“What?”
“Ben is surprisingly good at golf, but apparently Chris told him once it’s mostly his caddy.”
“I don’t even… no. Leslie, I accidentally told Chris that you and Ben used to date.” Ann gulped her water, afraid to look Leslie in the eye.
“Oh Ann.” Leslie said, panic edging in her voice. “This is bad, really, really bad.” She pulled out her phone, and left Ben a voicemail. “Ben, something terrible has happened. Call me immediately. Also, I recorded a new documentary on ballot reform measures that I think you’ll like. Call me back.”
Ben didn’t call back, though, and Ann ended up falling asleep next to Leslie in her bed, still listening to Leslie list off potential solutions to her problem.
***
Ann stepped out of Leslie’s shower the next morning to find Leslie frantically looking through her closet.
“Ann, Chris called. We have to meet him in an hour at his place. He said we have to talk about this. Ann, I don’t want to do that, but if I have to I need to look respectable. Which blazer says ‘I never made out with Ben on the table in your office’?”
“Leslie, I worked at that table when we worked on the-never mind. It doesn’t matter. This is my fault for not carrying enough Purell. Leslie, sit. I am going to find something for you, and I am going to borrow something to wear myself.”
Ann leafed through Leslie’s closet, finding a bunch of her own clothes Leslie borrowed and never returned, which made getting herself dressed one less big stressful process, leaving her with only the stressful processes of “getting Leslie dressed,” “making Leslie eat something,” and “figuring out how to fix Leslie’s life problems.” At least Ann had jeans she knew fit her perfectly.
***
Ben and Leslie presented a united front on the couch, while Ann sat off to the side in the armchair. Chris paced in front of the glass coffee table, and then stopped. He clapped his hands together, looked down, and then looked steadily back and forth between Ben and Leslie.
“Ben, Leslie, I am very disappointed in you two. You both knew the rule. The rule was clear, was it not?”
Both of them murmured their agreement, not quite looking him in the eye, like honors students being reprimanded for the first time.
“The rule is in place for a reason. There are all sorts of ways that dating a supervisor can cause issues, not the least of which is that we are ultimately employees of the taxpayers, and as such, we are being entrusted with their money. You now not only violated my personal policy, you crossed ethical boundaries that could endanger our funding, the Harvest Festival, and Leslie’s campaign.”
Leslie wrote in her padfolio, while Ben clutched his to his chest like a talisman.
“And as we all know, Leslie has been the target recently of the local media, who smell blood in the water every time she opens her mouth. In light of that, fraternization outside the office is especially dangerous.”
Chris sat down on his exercise ball (active sitting maximizes the core) in front of them, hands on his knees. “And now I have to go to the city council to officially change policy, which is going to require a vote, but Howser owes me a favor. And then you are both going to have to avoid each other for at least a few months before officially approaching the council with your request to be able to date, which will involve changing reporting lines. In the meantime, Ben, you are unofficially recusing yourself from any and all Parks Department projects and paperwork, including the Harvest Festival, effective immediately.”
Ann was the only one who spoke in the wake of this. “What if Leslie gets elected?”
Chris took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. “We are going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Everyone sat for a moment. And then chaos broke out.
Leslie’s “I told you we should tell him” overlapped with Ben’s “You never change your mind on anything” which caused Chris to look hurt and point out, “I changed my mind on the burgers and on Ron Swanson’s desk and on Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday,” which caused Ben to add “Except in our office suite, where Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday has become Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday and Wednesday.” Ann was the only one who remained quiet, sitting back in her chair and breathing a sigh of relief.
She got up and went into the kitchen to get more agave juice. She paused in front of the fridge, where Chris had several dog-eared photographs that seemed at odds with the rest of his stylish-yet-orderly condo.
There was a picture that was presumably his mother, one of Chris fly fishing with Jerry, one of him-was he spinning yarn? apparently, one of him at a race with a medal around his neck. There was one, however, that really caught her attention. It was her, though it took Ann a moment to place when and where that picture had been taken. It was from that first night at the Snakehole Lounge, when she had first met him. She had no idea who had taken that picture, though she was almost positive Chris had gotten it from facebook. She touched the photo lightly; it was so strange to see herself there.
She walked back into the living room, where Ben and Chris were in the middle of a story about a town they worked that was so dysfunctional that Councilman Dexhart would have been an improvement. Chris saw her enter and shot her a million dollar smile, and he wrapped up the story quickly to get back to the topic at hand.
“We have to keep your out-of-sequence dating a secret. Clearly, Ann knew. Who else knows?”
Leslie starts ticking people off on her fingers. “My mother, who is trustworthy. Ron, who would never tell. And a maintenance worker who caught us nuzzling. On the face. He… he might hate me.”
“Andy might have figured it out too,” Ben said "He knew there were feelings and since I live with him and April they must have noticed that I wasn’t sleeping at home often.”
Chris sighed. “I have no idea how you two carried on for so long without my catching on.”
“We are great at being sneaky,” Leslie said.
“We always turn off our cell phones,” Ben added.
“We have code names for everything. You were ‘Chips.’”
Ben finished with, “And we certainly kept it off of City Hall grounds.”
Leslie finally asked the question that was clearly bothering her. “I don’t understand why you are doing all this, changing your policy.”
Chris blinked, apparently surprised at the question. “You two are my two favorite people in all of Pawnee,” he slid his eyes over to Ann, who looked away, “And I believe you avoided ethically troubling behavior. I would hate to make you choose between work and romance.”
Ann listened to this, and wondered. She wondered if she had to do with Chris’s change of heart; if he was smoothing the way for an attempt to seduce her; if he was being nice to her friend to get back with her. She turned it around and around in her head; he hadn’t attempted anything with her since their break-up, and she was the one that had asked him to dance. He was friendly and always had lovely compliments for her, but then again he had compliments for Jerry too, so that meant nothing. Still, there had been genuine heat between them when they were dancing, and he had had his face near hers and it was impossible to imagine she was the only one who had considered closing that gap.
Then she looked over at Chris, who gripped Ben’s face and told him how amazing he is and how he deserves happiness (Ben looked equal parts annoyed that his face was being touched and pleased that things were working out for him, without a hint of surprise that Chris would be doing that) and it occurred to her that one had to measure Chris with an entirely different metric than everyone else.
Leslie had relaxed into a genuine smile, and the looks she had thrown Ben during this discussion were some of the happiest Ann had seen, but it wasn’t long before she was hyperventilating at the thought of Ben not helping her on the Harvest Festival. Chris assured her that he would take over for Ben, and maybe Ann could help him. Which made Ann wonder again.
***
Ann and Chris ended up working on Harvest Festival together quite often. Leslie was still running the whole thing, but even her tireless devotion to the project was interrupted by her campaign. Ann didn’t mind, even though she had to cut back even more hours at the hospital, because planning this actually gave her a bit of a rush. Every time she and Chris worked together on the festival she was excited, and whether that had to do with sitting close to him or getting to come up with ways in incorporate Public Health initiatives into the festival or even joy at the corn maze, it might not matter.
That’s not to say everything was running along smoothly. There were all sorts of issues Leslie had that required Ann’s full and undivided attention; Ben was acting distant sometimes, campaigning was difficult, delegating important projects was difficult, Harvest Festival in particular was impossible to cede control on. With Ann’s help, Leslie continued to keep her plates spinning, and somehow Ann was the one feeling exhausted.
It didn’t help that she had sex on the brain since Leslie kept telling her each time she and Ben hooked up even though you are really supposed to be avoiding Ben, Leslie. Apparently, absence made the heart really want to screw in the janitor’s closet, and in Ben’s Saturn, and on Chris’s table again. It occurred to Ann in the middle of one of these massive texted missives that she has not been on a date since she started working at City Hall, and maybe she would be more sympathetic to her friend’s plight if she was going out regularly or at all.
She was going to see Chris for their meeting when she passed Ben in the hallway, and he gave her a sly smile. Right on cue, her pocket buzzed with what was sure to be the first of a dozen text messages from Leslie on why Ben’s hair was sticking up like that.It might be time to go back to landlines, she thought.
Everything changed at that meeting, the same day Ann saw Ben.
She gave in to temptation.
Oh, she and Chris didn’t kiss-that came later, to the shock of everyone who saw the tape-but that the first meeting they had had since they took over the project that things get less than professional. Ann could blame a lot of different things: Leslie’s text messages, Ben’s hair, or the way that Chris would just smile at her like she was the center of the universe. But she had had all those things in her life for a while now, and that wasn’t it.
It really started because of Jean-Ralphio.
Author: saucydiva
Word count: 4k this part
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: clearly I don’t own it or I would be paying models $100k to paint their nails
Timeline: Post- 4x01, AU after that
Summary: Ann yells at Chris; but what happens after that?
Author’s Note:
jncar prompted a fic for the ficathon
After another emotional "girls-night-out" with Leslie, where Ann spent most of the night listening to Leslie moaning about how much she misses Ben, Chris makes a move on Ann, suggesting they could try being more than friends again. Ann gets VERY angry and calls Chris out on his hypocrisy for thinking he can break his own stupid rule, and in the heat of the moment she spills the beans on Ben and Leslie's romantic history. Oops!
Even though I had no intentions of going past the prompt, I have terrible impulse control and the desire to bring in every character ever, and Rikyl has a terrible habit of encouraging these shenanigans, so this has started happening.
Ann waved goodbye to Leslie’s cab, and felt guilty for feeling good about doing so. It wasn’t that Leslie was a burden, exactly, but lately any and all conversation seemed to revolve around Ben. What was Ben doing since they broke up, was Ben going to see other people, what if Joan Callamezzo found out, should they move to Rome together, should she call Ben, do Italians even have parks departments, etc, etc, etc. Ann was supportive, but her metaphorical shoulder was starting to get soggy (to say nothing of her actual shoulder). And so, Ann sent a slightly-tipsy-maybe-drunk Leslie home and felt a sense of relief about it.
Ann decided to stay, so she ordered a screwdriver and sat at a table in the back of the Snakehole, giving herself some time to stare off into space and not think about Leslie’s problems. She was so lost in her own thoughts that she barely noticed when Chris takes a seat next to her. When she realized he had, she was annoyed but she decided to roll with it. Chris has many flaws-well, he has that flawlessness flaw-but at least he wouldn’t talk to her about Ben.
“Ann Perkins!” Chris grinned, and threw those finger guns at her. “What are you drinking tonight?”
They exchanged a few minutes of small talk, and then Chris leaned in to her. She could smell that expensive and subtle cologne he would always wear, Bvlgari, and she felt the strangest little rush. Like Pavlov’s dog, she thought, and shook her head, vowing to focus on whatever he was talking about.
“Ann, I just don’t know what to do about Ben Wyatt. I keep offering him vitamins and I rearranged his office and I invited him to my intramural basketball game, but he is literally the most depressed I have ever seen him.”
She sighed. Naturally. “Sometimes the changing season gets people down. I would just give it some time. Don’t try to force the conversation, and keep inviting him out. When he is ready he will be grateful for your caring.”
Chris looked thoughtfully at her. “I am so glad I ran into you. I just worry about Ben. He doesn’t even seem as interested in Harvest Fest as he was last year, and he was so excited about that.”
“Well, you know, he took Lil’ Sebastian’s death pretty hard.” She shook her head. This has to stop, she thought. “Let’s talk about something else?”
“I started a new cardio routine-“
“Actually, let’s not talk. Do you want to dance? Let’s dance.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of his seat, leaving their drinks on the table, and she led them both to the loudest part of the dance floor, right underneath the speakers.
There was something really nice about not thinking, just listening to the music and moving to the beat. Chris was right about one thing, Ann thought, and that was the importance of the endorphin rush.
She hadn’t touched him, not really, since their break-up, and dancing seemed like a safe way to play with those old feelings without having to act on them. It reminded her of how much she missed this, casually touching someone without worrying that it was sending a signal, getting to drape her arms around his shoulders and move in synch with someone without that awkwardness that comes from a new partner.
They really were phenomenal partners. Dance partners.
If she was really honest with herself, though, that wasn’t the only reason she enjoyed this. There was something sexy about dancing with him. It felt a little dangerous and a lot reckless. The physical proximity was making her a little dizzy, and she wished she could get a glass of water, but she also didn’t want to break away. He had his hands on her hips, and she could feel his heat through her jeans.
This was oxytocin brought on by close touching, and a corresponding decrease in cortisol levels. This was not anything more. She decided that if she focused on the science behind it she would not get stupid about it.
The club was filling up with dancers, and they were pushed even closer together. She looked into his face, and for a moment she considered doing something truly reckless-
This was too much. Too much touching, too many physical memories. She had to break away or she was going to fall back into old patterns.
She tore away from him and started walking towards the exit, slipping around dancing couples and flirting singles to get to the door, the fresh air, the better decisions.
And he followed her, and stepped out the door after her.
She started walking, and he followed her wordlessly. She walked east with no real destination in mind.
She ended up at the wiffle ball field at Lafayette Park. Chris followed dutifully; she hadn’t turned around once since she left the dance floor, but she heard his footsteps and his even breathing.
She sat on the bleachers.
Chris sat down next to her, and hesitated, but spoke. “Ann, I enjoyed that a lot, and I know I shouldn’t because I would never want to violate a rule I put in place, but I would deeply enjoy getting to know each other again on a more personal level.”
That is exactly the wrong thing to say, Ann thought, and stood up. “You can’t possibly… all my problems relate to that rule of yours, the one that says City Hall employees can’t date, and now you want to ignore it to get in my pants?”
“Technically I only expressed interest in the prospect. Wait, who are you dating at City Hall? Is it Tom Haverford? Because in case you didn’t know, Leslie Knope dated him last year and it is probably a bad idea to get involved with him because she is your friend.”
“What? I don’t even-No.” Ann felt the start of that confusion that always seemed to cloud her judgment when Chris blew into her orbit. “This isn’t about me, this is about you and your hypocrisy. And I haven’t slept in weeks because of you! Because I am getting 3am phone calls every night.”
Chris furrows his brow in confusion.
The way she couldn’t get her words out made her madder, so she stood up and stomped her foot. “Your stupid rule is ruining everything for my best friend and she can’t even date the first guy I really could see her settling down with because you made some stupid rule against parks department/assistant city manager romance!”
He raised an eyebrow. “Are you talking about Leslie Knope and Ben Wyatt? Do you mean they are dating?”
“No, I mean they were dating, and now they can’t because you make these stupid rules.” At once, Ann realized she made a grave tactical error and slapped her hands over her mouth. “I mean… they aren’t dating. No. I was just being factious.”
Chris stood up, frowned, and walked away.
Ann sat back down. Oh no.
She took a moment to consider her options. That’s what Leslie would do, after all. And then she realized that she was not Leslie, and took off running.
She got to Leslie’s house in less than an hour, and as she rang the doorbell she stretched to cool down.
Leslie opened the door, sleepy and confused, and Ann brushed past her to finally get that water she needed. Still panting from exertion, she said, “Chris… Ben… this is bad.”
Leslie woke up almost immediately. “Ann, what happened? Did they get recalled back to Indianapolis? Did they get injured country line dancing? Did they get in a fistfight over golf?”
“What?”
“Ben is surprisingly good at golf, but apparently Chris told him once it’s mostly his caddy.”
“I don’t even… no. Leslie, I accidentally told Chris that you and Ben used to date.” Ann gulped her water, afraid to look Leslie in the eye.
“Oh Ann.” Leslie said, panic edging in her voice. “This is bad, really, really bad.” She pulled out her phone, and left Ben a voicemail. “Ben, something terrible has happened. Call me immediately. Also, I recorded a new documentary on ballot reform measures that I think you’ll like. Call me back.”
Ben didn’t call back, though, and Ann ended up falling asleep next to Leslie in her bed, still listening to Leslie list off potential solutions to her problem.
***
Ann stepped out of Leslie’s shower the next morning to find Leslie frantically looking through her closet.
“Ann, Chris called. We have to meet him in an hour at his place. He said we have to talk about this. Ann, I don’t want to do that, but if I have to I need to look respectable. Which blazer says ‘I never made out with Ben on the table in your office’?”
“Leslie, I worked at that table when we worked on the-never mind. It doesn’t matter. This is my fault for not carrying enough Purell. Leslie, sit. I am going to find something for you, and I am going to borrow something to wear myself.”
Ann leafed through Leslie’s closet, finding a bunch of her own clothes Leslie borrowed and never returned, which made getting herself dressed one less big stressful process, leaving her with only the stressful processes of “getting Leslie dressed,” “making Leslie eat something,” and “figuring out how to fix Leslie’s life problems.” At least Ann had jeans she knew fit her perfectly.
***
Ben and Leslie presented a united front on the couch, while Ann sat off to the side in the armchair. Chris paced in front of the glass coffee table, and then stopped. He clapped his hands together, looked down, and then looked steadily back and forth between Ben and Leslie.
“Ben, Leslie, I am very disappointed in you two. You both knew the rule. The rule was clear, was it not?”
Both of them murmured their agreement, not quite looking him in the eye, like honors students being reprimanded for the first time.
“The rule is in place for a reason. There are all sorts of ways that dating a supervisor can cause issues, not the least of which is that we are ultimately employees of the taxpayers, and as such, we are being entrusted with their money. You now not only violated my personal policy, you crossed ethical boundaries that could endanger our funding, the Harvest Festival, and Leslie’s campaign.”
Leslie wrote in her padfolio, while Ben clutched his to his chest like a talisman.
“And as we all know, Leslie has been the target recently of the local media, who smell blood in the water every time she opens her mouth. In light of that, fraternization outside the office is especially dangerous.”
Chris sat down on his exercise ball (active sitting maximizes the core) in front of them, hands on his knees. “And now I have to go to the city council to officially change policy, which is going to require a vote, but Howser owes me a favor. And then you are both going to have to avoid each other for at least a few months before officially approaching the council with your request to be able to date, which will involve changing reporting lines. In the meantime, Ben, you are unofficially recusing yourself from any and all Parks Department projects and paperwork, including the Harvest Festival, effective immediately.”
Ann was the only one who spoke in the wake of this. “What if Leslie gets elected?”
Chris took a deep breath, and then exhaled slowly. “We are going to have to cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Everyone sat for a moment. And then chaos broke out.
Leslie’s “I told you we should tell him” overlapped with Ben’s “You never change your mind on anything” which caused Chris to look hurt and point out, “I changed my mind on the burgers and on Ron Swanson’s desk and on Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday,” which caused Ben to add “Except in our office suite, where Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday has become Mandatory Nature Sounds Tuesday and Wednesday.” Ann was the only one who remained quiet, sitting back in her chair and breathing a sigh of relief.
She got up and went into the kitchen to get more agave juice. She paused in front of the fridge, where Chris had several dog-eared photographs that seemed at odds with the rest of his stylish-yet-orderly condo.
There was a picture that was presumably his mother, one of Chris fly fishing with Jerry, one of him-was he spinning yarn? apparently, one of him at a race with a medal around his neck. There was one, however, that really caught her attention. It was her, though it took Ann a moment to place when and where that picture had been taken. It was from that first night at the Snakehole Lounge, when she had first met him. She had no idea who had taken that picture, though she was almost positive Chris had gotten it from facebook. She touched the photo lightly; it was so strange to see herself there.
She walked back into the living room, where Ben and Chris were in the middle of a story about a town they worked that was so dysfunctional that Councilman Dexhart would have been an improvement. Chris saw her enter and shot her a million dollar smile, and he wrapped up the story quickly to get back to the topic at hand.
“We have to keep your out-of-sequence dating a secret. Clearly, Ann knew. Who else knows?”
Leslie starts ticking people off on her fingers. “My mother, who is trustworthy. Ron, who would never tell. And a maintenance worker who caught us nuzzling. On the face. He… he might hate me.”
“Andy might have figured it out too,” Ben said "He knew there were feelings and since I live with him and April they must have noticed that I wasn’t sleeping at home often.”
Chris sighed. “I have no idea how you two carried on for so long without my catching on.”
“We are great at being sneaky,” Leslie said.
“We always turn off our cell phones,” Ben added.
“We have code names for everything. You were ‘Chips.’”
Ben finished with, “And we certainly kept it off of City Hall grounds.”
Leslie finally asked the question that was clearly bothering her. “I don’t understand why you are doing all this, changing your policy.”
Chris blinked, apparently surprised at the question. “You two are my two favorite people in all of Pawnee,” he slid his eyes over to Ann, who looked away, “And I believe you avoided ethically troubling behavior. I would hate to make you choose between work and romance.”
Ann listened to this, and wondered. She wondered if she had to do with Chris’s change of heart; if he was smoothing the way for an attempt to seduce her; if he was being nice to her friend to get back with her. She turned it around and around in her head; he hadn’t attempted anything with her since their break-up, and she was the one that had asked him to dance. He was friendly and always had lovely compliments for her, but then again he had compliments for Jerry too, so that meant nothing. Still, there had been genuine heat between them when they were dancing, and he had had his face near hers and it was impossible to imagine she was the only one who had considered closing that gap.
Then she looked over at Chris, who gripped Ben’s face and told him how amazing he is and how he deserves happiness (Ben looked equal parts annoyed that his face was being touched and pleased that things were working out for him, without a hint of surprise that Chris would be doing that) and it occurred to her that one had to measure Chris with an entirely different metric than everyone else.
Leslie had relaxed into a genuine smile, and the looks she had thrown Ben during this discussion were some of the happiest Ann had seen, but it wasn’t long before she was hyperventilating at the thought of Ben not helping her on the Harvest Festival. Chris assured her that he would take over for Ben, and maybe Ann could help him. Which made Ann wonder again.
***
Ann and Chris ended up working on Harvest Festival together quite often. Leslie was still running the whole thing, but even her tireless devotion to the project was interrupted by her campaign. Ann didn’t mind, even though she had to cut back even more hours at the hospital, because planning this actually gave her a bit of a rush. Every time she and Chris worked together on the festival she was excited, and whether that had to do with sitting close to him or getting to come up with ways in incorporate Public Health initiatives into the festival or even joy at the corn maze, it might not matter.
That’s not to say everything was running along smoothly. There were all sorts of issues Leslie had that required Ann’s full and undivided attention; Ben was acting distant sometimes, campaigning was difficult, delegating important projects was difficult, Harvest Festival in particular was impossible to cede control on. With Ann’s help, Leslie continued to keep her plates spinning, and somehow Ann was the one feeling exhausted.
It didn’t help that she had sex on the brain since Leslie kept telling her each time she and Ben hooked up even though you are really supposed to be avoiding Ben, Leslie. Apparently, absence made the heart really want to screw in the janitor’s closet, and in Ben’s Saturn, and on Chris’s table again. It occurred to Ann in the middle of one of these massive texted missives that she has not been on a date since she started working at City Hall, and maybe she would be more sympathetic to her friend’s plight if she was going out regularly or at all.
She was going to see Chris for their meeting when she passed Ben in the hallway, and he gave her a sly smile. Right on cue, her pocket buzzed with what was sure to be the first of a dozen text messages from Leslie on why Ben’s hair was sticking up like that.It might be time to go back to landlines, she thought.
Everything changed at that meeting, the same day Ann saw Ben.
She gave in to temptation.
Oh, she and Chris didn’t kiss-that came later, to the shock of everyone who saw the tape-but that the first meeting they had had since they took over the project that things get less than professional. Ann could blame a lot of different things: Leslie’s text messages, Ben’s hair, or the way that Chris would just smile at her like she was the center of the universe. But she had had all those things in her life for a while now, and that wasn’t it.
It really started because of Jean-Ralphio.