Let's eat some things!
The hurricane wasn't really a hurricane. I mean, it was, but... you know just some rain and some wind for the North Shore. There were a few downed trees at Tufts but otherwise it was just a day off from work, watching the entire first season of Doctor Who, which I LOVE by the way. marcasite has been telling me for years and I've just not been listening.
My birthday is on Sunday! For once, I'm not dreading it. Twenty-six isn't a particularly important year, but I feel like it holds more promise than twenty-five. Twenty-five is just with strange limbo in your twenties that feels rather void of anything. Anyway, I have some fun things planned, pizza, bowling, ice cream, Red Sox, more pizza. You know, that sort of deal.
Oh, hey, hogwarts_elite sorted me into Gryffindor. I have to say, whenever I do a sorting meme I'm always sorted into Gryffindor. I guess that means I've wound up where I belong? (But I love Hufflepuff so!) I'll do my best to make my new house proud!
AND I STILL DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO POTTERMORE! Whatever.
TV things: I think I've figured out why Entourage has been much better this season, and it's really strange to me. Jerry Ferrara has been writing a lot of the episodes. It feels weird even saying that. I don't...
Oh hey, Walter White, in the words of Saul Goodman, "That's what the kids call epic fail! Breaking Bad,
Anything But Perfect, pg
Ben/Leslie
2500 words
Spoilers: Nothing for the upcoming season! Read on!
Thanks: fairytiger, for the stuff and the things.
“Alright, I want something revealing, but not too revealing. Something tight but not sausage casing tight, I want something pretty but not mom-pretty, I want-”
“Mom-pretty?” Ann asks (not bothering asking about her definition of ‘sausage casing tight’), sorting through a rack of chiffon tops. “What constitutes ‘mom top’?”
Leslie holds up a pair of jeans an examines the hem. “You know... with a... motherly neckline.”
Well that helps... not at all. It doesn’t help at all. Ann picks up another top and examines the neckline. “So... no cowls, or...?”
Leslie shrugs, “No lace, no trim, no velvet or silk and nothing polyblend.”
“So you basically want a plain cotton shirt?” Ann asks, slinging a red tee shirt on her pinkie and holding it up.
Leslie glances at it. “Okay, we start with that and we build on it!”
“We build on a plain, red, scoop neck tee shirt?” She looks at the shirt; aside from the stitching along the scoop, there’s nothing really special about it; certainly nothing that makes it worth fifty-four ninety-five.
Leslie grins, “You’re a miracle worker, Ann! You can help me make anything work!”
Leslie whizzes by her, bringing the jeans into the dressing room. Ann wonders when she became a fashion miracle worker and wonders if she’s been thrust into the middle of something that’s going to become chaotic.
Probably. Definitely probably.
Leslie’s first date with Ben and she’s totally over thinking it. Of course.
Then again, it’s Ann’s duty as ‘the most beautiful, best friend and nurse in the world’ to talk Leslie through these sorts of situations. It always has been; in many ways, Ann knows what she was getting herself into, has accepted it, will try her best to fulfill her newest role as miracle worker.
So she goes into the dressing room and tells her friend how awesome her butt looks in those jeans.
---
They decide on a dark turquoise quarter-length shirt with a vee-neck that shows the slightest hint of cleavage. Ann tells her that it’ll “leave him wanting more” And Leslie slides seamlessly into a freak out about what more he could possibly want from a first date.
It takes Ann the better part of an hour to talk her down off of that particular ledge. The battle ends when Ann reminds her that they have to find a belt to match with her tight-but-not-too-tight pants. Though, that turns into another battle because Ann has many skinny belts and many thick belts but no belts that are in between because she can’t wear the small or the large because they’ll attract attention to her hips.
“What? Leslie! There’s nothing wrong with your hips!” Ann says, her exasperation finally seeping to the surface.
Leslie looks at herself in mirror and pokes at a love handle. “My hips are weird, I look like I have scoliosis in these pants and-”
“Deep breaths,” Ann soothes, stifling a yawn. They’ve been at this for three hours and her patience is wearing thin, her desire to watch a Kortney and Kim Take New Yorkmarathon on E! warring with her desire to be a good friend.
Leslie sighs and flings herself face down on Ann’s bed. “This is a nightmare!”
“Yeah, this is weird. You’ve never freaked out this much about a guy before. Why now?” She knows the whole story, knows how much Leslie cares for Ben and vice versa, can’t exactly see the reason Leslie’s becoming so unhinged over this, especially since he’d laid one on her in their boss’s office. “I mean, he obviously digs you, a lot from what you’ve told me.”
Her voice is muffled when she speaks and for a moment Ann worries that she’ll get lip gloss all over her new duvet. “‘s it Ann, if this goes wrong...”
“What could go wrong?”
She knows the moment that it’s out of her mouth it’s the wrong thing to say. Leslie flips over onto her back, mouth moving a mile a minute. “Ann, I’ve thought about it all, already, right? Okay, so we go on a first date and then a second, and then one of us has to make a sacrifice and we do and it’s good and we fall in love and we get married and have two kids and maybe a dog but probably a cat because we won’t have time to take care of a dog and I’m thinking about all of this stuff before our first date and I’m neurotic and what if I screw this up!?”
Leslie is breathing heavily.
Ann feels as though she’s just been tossed around by a verbal tornado and stands there at a loss for words. “But... you... I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but honey, don’t over think this.”
Leslie huffs. “I know, but I’m probably going to anyway.”
Ann sits next to her on the bed, places a reassuring hand on Leslie’s knee. “Look, I think the fact that you already know Ben likes you is a really good thing. You guys are friends and you already know a lot about each other so you don’t have to have any of those weird, first date questions. Hey! At least you don’t have to talk about what your favorite movie is and get upset when he says he doesn’t like Anthony Hopkins!”
“...Ben does love Anthony Hopkins...”
“Exactly! And you already know that! “ Ann smiles and pats her knee. “Everything is going to be fine. Really. Really, really.” She pauses. “I promise.”
“You’re right Ann. You’re so wise,” Leslie stands and smooths out her pants and walks out of the room, voice trailing behind her, “This is going to be perfect!”
“No!” Ann withers, “Not perfect...”
---
Ben picks her up at seven, even after Leslie promised him that they could meet at the restaurant, that it would be safer. But since they agreed that he would pick her up at Ann’s house, Leslie couldn’t really argue.
Couldn’t really reveal the reason she wanted them to take separate cars: because the only thing more awkward than first date talk over dinner is first date talk in the car on the way to dinner.
Leslie fluffs her hair one last time and opens the door for him, Ann locking herself away in her bedroom, allowing them some privacy. “Hey,” he says, stepping over the threshold into Ann’s home. “This is weird, gotta say, picking you up here.”
“It’s safer that way,” Leslie says quickly, tampering the urge to pull at the hem off her shirt.
Ben smiles at her warmly, “Well, I love what Ann’s done with the place?” Leslie cracks a smile, a small laugh that is bitten back when he hands her a small bouquet, three daisies and one lily. “I know, it’s not... I went by the community plot and paid a guy to... anyway, I didn’t pick them myself, but I picked them out. And... watched while he cut them.”
“They’re...” Leslie glances down at the flowers and then back up at Ben. “Nice.”
“Okay, nice is better than awful,” he assures himself with an awkward smile.
She smiles back at him; it’s also awkward.
They stand there for a moment in silence, looking everywhere but at each other. Leslie wonders when things changed, when they went from being friends and goofing on one another to this, this limbo. She feels as though she can’t remember what it felt like being around him before now, can’t fathom what it will feel like after this moment.
It’s terrible, really terrible being in her own head in the moment.
But then he makes it better, takes his hands out of his pockets, says, “Fuck it,” and presses his lips to hers suddenly.
Their second kiss.
It’s fantastic, it really is. It effectively wipes her mind clean, makes a thrill run down her spine but most importantly, it breaks the overwhelming tension that had settled between them in the moment. When Ben pulls away, leaning his forehead against hers for the briefest moment, he says, “This doesn’t have to be weird, we’re making it weird, we’re... both pretty bad at this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m awesome at this,” she says, hoping he won’t notice the flush that is surely creeping up her neck. “No big deal or whatever, I’m just super experienced and-”
But he kisses her again, longer and slower this time. Also with slightly more tongue which isn’t unwelcome in the slightest. It’s quite nice. Just as she’s sliding her hand around to the nape of his neck, he pulls back.
“So whenever you start freaking out, I’m just going to do that.”
Leslie stares dazedly at him, “Okay so I’m just going to freak out, like, all the time.”
Ben laughs and opens the door for her. “I would love to say that that’s fine, but we have a reservation to get to.” He ushers her outside with a hand at the small of her back. It feels lovely; she worries about his hand slipping lower, if she’d stop him, if he’ll try, wants to say all of these things out loud so he’ll kiss her again. But she can’t.
She keeps it together, “Reservations, huh? Faaaaancy!”
“Not really, IHOP gets busy on a Friday night, you know?”
---
They don’t go to IHOP. Not that that would be a dealbreaker, she’d just feel like she was cheating on J.J. They end up at a small restaurant in a strip mall, sandwiched between a Lenscrafters and a Subway. She’s hesitant as he opens the door for her, but once inside, her stomach is nearly audible for how loud it growls. A wall of delicious scent hits her and she almost forgets she’s on a date for wanting to eat so badly.
“Best Indian food in... well... anywhere I’ve ever been,” Ben assures her, leaning around her to give his name to the hostess. He can’t be lying, because all of the tables in sight are filled with groups and couples, tables piled with food.
Leslie thinks this is how the tables at Hogwarts must look during feasts-hardly any room for cutlery for the amount of grub-and then grins at herself for making the comparison. Once they’re led to their seats, she leans over to Ben and voices her thoughts.
“You know, that always bugged me. They’re wizards but they only eat standard, British fare? No macaroni and cheese? No ham sandwiches?” He smooths his napkin out on his lap. “I mean, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to eat hot dogs while at Hogwarts? I’d definitely think twice about going to that wizarding school.”
She blinks at him, watches as he watches her and then laughs. Really laughs, a deep, relieved laugh because yeah, he’s bugged by that. It’s such an insane thing to be bugged by, an insane thing to think about really, but the fact that he thinks about these things is so wonderful. It’s wonderful that he’s so idiosyncratic and fantastic-for-her.
“I’m glad I’m...” she begins and he pauses, opening his menu.
Tilting his head to the side, Ben regards her with an amused smile. “What?”
“I’m glad you kissed me in Chris’s office. I’m glad you kissed me because... Because”
“Me too.” Ben reaches across the table and takes her hand, hesitates for only a moment because people might be watching. “Let’s order.”
---
“This is the best Indian food on the planet,” she moans as she shoved a bite of chicken biriyani into her mouth. “Ohhhh, good god.”
“Right? I mean, I’ve had good Indian, but this... this is better than I had in London.” Ben takes a sip of his wine and reconsiders, “I mean, I’ve never been to India but the food in London-”
“You’ve been to London?” Leslie asks, pausing with a piece of naan halfway to her mouth.
He finishes chewing, “Yeah, yeah, I spent a semester there my junior year. I was a wuss, wanted to go to Germany but couldn’t really speak German so I figured... England or Ireland and I could get a scholarship to LSE and-”
“Wait, you went to the London School of Economics on a scholarship?” Her jaw feels as though it’s hanging embarrassingly open; she snaps it promptly shut.
When Ben blushes, it’s really, really cute. “Just for a semester, yeah. Double major in economics and accounting, and they had this program there for juniors and seniors to study overseas banking trends and, yeah, boring I know-”
“That’s amazing!” It is, she’s amazed by it. Amazed that he’s done things like this, wants to know more, wants to know everything. In that moment, she wants to know everything that Ben Wyatt has ever done with his life.
Leslie tells him that she never studied abroad, has never been out of the United States but wants so badly to visit Paris. “It’s cliche, I know, but I like bread and I like cheese and come on, I have to go to Paris, right?”
The way he says it, his head down, looking at her through his eyelashes, makes her heart leap, “Yes, you have to go to Paris.” He settles himself further back into the booth. “Bread and cheese and wine.”
“Yes! And wine!” she agrees.
“And speaking of wine, we need more,” he says.
They order more wine and to both of their surprise, more food and talk for hours. About her, about him but they never really broach the subject of “them.”
---
As it happens, the subject of ‘them’ is best discussed while slightly tipsy, eating a banana split on a park bench in downtown Eagleton.
“So,” she says around a mouthful of banana and ice cream. “Someone could see us here,” she keeps her voice in check, doesn’t hyperventilate as she says it, even though she knows that this is a situation that would totally call for hyperventilation.
Ben takes a lick at the back of his spoon. “They could, but they probably won’t, right?”
“Probably not,” she sighs but doesn’t but it at all. “But just the mere fact that they could is...”
Ben nods and digs in for another bite. “Yeah, we should... I want to talk about it I just don’t want to ruin... this night.” Looking at her, his eyes soften and her stomach flutters. She can smell summer on the breeze and loves his eyes and doesn’t want to think about the word perfect. “Because it’s kind of perfect,” he says, breaking eye contact, “If I do say so myself.”
She doesn’t have to think about the word perfect because he says it and then she really doesn’t want to think about it because she doesn’t want to jinx it. Jinx this, jinx any of this that has happened between them.
“Yeah, it’s been pretty great,” she agrees a little more forcefully than she means.
“So we can talk about this later, then,” he says quietly, his voice trembling, just a tiny bit.
“Yeah, yeah, later.”
“Like second of third date, later,” he quickly follows with.
“Third date?”
“Would fourth date be better?” he laughs.
“I’m just kinda... that we’re going to have a third date and you’re saying we are and-”
“Leslie...”
Leslie whispers, “I’m kind of freaking out about this.”
“Guess I’ll have to kiss you, then,” he says with a saucy smirk.
He tastes like whipped cream, bananas and promise. She’s really going to try not to over think this too much.
She’s really, really not going to think about how perfect any of this just might be.
My birthday is on Sunday! For once, I'm not dreading it. Twenty-six isn't a particularly important year, but I feel like it holds more promise than twenty-five. Twenty-five is just with strange limbo in your twenties that feels rather void of anything. Anyway, I have some fun things planned, pizza, bowling, ice cream, Red Sox, more pizza. You know, that sort of deal.
Oh, hey, hogwarts_elite sorted me into Gryffindor. I have to say, whenever I do a sorting meme I'm always sorted into Gryffindor. I guess that means I've wound up where I belong? (But I love Hufflepuff so!) I'll do my best to make my new house proud!
AND I STILL DON'T HAVE ACCESS TO POTTERMORE! Whatever.
TV things: I think I've figured out why Entourage has been much better this season, and it's really strange to me. Jerry Ferrara has been writing a lot of the episodes. It feels weird even saying that. I don't...
Oh hey, Walter White, in the words of Saul Goodman, "That's what the kids call epic fail! Breaking Bad,
Anything But Perfect, pg
Ben/Leslie
2500 words
Spoilers: Nothing for the upcoming season! Read on!
Thanks: fairytiger, for the stuff and the things.
“Alright, I want something revealing, but not too revealing. Something tight but not sausage casing tight, I want something pretty but not mom-pretty, I want-”
“Mom-pretty?” Ann asks (not bothering asking about her definition of ‘sausage casing tight’), sorting through a rack of chiffon tops. “What constitutes ‘mom top’?”
Leslie holds up a pair of jeans an examines the hem. “You know... with a... motherly neckline.”
Well that helps... not at all. It doesn’t help at all. Ann picks up another top and examines the neckline. “So... no cowls, or...?”
Leslie shrugs, “No lace, no trim, no velvet or silk and nothing polyblend.”
“So you basically want a plain cotton shirt?” Ann asks, slinging a red tee shirt on her pinkie and holding it up.
Leslie glances at it. “Okay, we start with that and we build on it!”
“We build on a plain, red, scoop neck tee shirt?” She looks at the shirt; aside from the stitching along the scoop, there’s nothing really special about it; certainly nothing that makes it worth fifty-four ninety-five.
Leslie grins, “You’re a miracle worker, Ann! You can help me make anything work!”
Leslie whizzes by her, bringing the jeans into the dressing room. Ann wonders when she became a fashion miracle worker and wonders if she’s been thrust into the middle of something that’s going to become chaotic.
Probably. Definitely probably.
Leslie’s first date with Ben and she’s totally over thinking it. Of course.
Then again, it’s Ann’s duty as ‘the most beautiful, best friend and nurse in the world’ to talk Leslie through these sorts of situations. It always has been; in many ways, Ann knows what she was getting herself into, has accepted it, will try her best to fulfill her newest role as miracle worker.
So she goes into the dressing room and tells her friend how awesome her butt looks in those jeans.
---
They decide on a dark turquoise quarter-length shirt with a vee-neck that shows the slightest hint of cleavage. Ann tells her that it’ll “leave him wanting more” And Leslie slides seamlessly into a freak out about what more he could possibly want from a first date.
It takes Ann the better part of an hour to talk her down off of that particular ledge. The battle ends when Ann reminds her that they have to find a belt to match with her tight-but-not-too-tight pants. Though, that turns into another battle because Ann has many skinny belts and many thick belts but no belts that are in between because she can’t wear the small or the large because they’ll attract attention to her hips.
“What? Leslie! There’s nothing wrong with your hips!” Ann says, her exasperation finally seeping to the surface.
Leslie looks at herself in mirror and pokes at a love handle. “My hips are weird, I look like I have scoliosis in these pants and-”
“Deep breaths,” Ann soothes, stifling a yawn. They’ve been at this for three hours and her patience is wearing thin, her desire to watch a Kortney and Kim Take New Yorkmarathon on E! warring with her desire to be a good friend.
Leslie sighs and flings herself face down on Ann’s bed. “This is a nightmare!”
“Yeah, this is weird. You’ve never freaked out this much about a guy before. Why now?” She knows the whole story, knows how much Leslie cares for Ben and vice versa, can’t exactly see the reason Leslie’s becoming so unhinged over this, especially since he’d laid one on her in their boss’s office. “I mean, he obviously digs you, a lot from what you’ve told me.”
Her voice is muffled when she speaks and for a moment Ann worries that she’ll get lip gloss all over her new duvet. “‘s it Ann, if this goes wrong...”
“What could go wrong?”
She knows the moment that it’s out of her mouth it’s the wrong thing to say. Leslie flips over onto her back, mouth moving a mile a minute. “Ann, I’ve thought about it all, already, right? Okay, so we go on a first date and then a second, and then one of us has to make a sacrifice and we do and it’s good and we fall in love and we get married and have two kids and maybe a dog but probably a cat because we won’t have time to take care of a dog and I’m thinking about all of this stuff before our first date and I’m neurotic and what if I screw this up!?”
Leslie is breathing heavily.
Ann feels as though she’s just been tossed around by a verbal tornado and stands there at a loss for words. “But... you... I know I’ve said it a thousand times, but honey, don’t over think this.”
Leslie huffs. “I know, but I’m probably going to anyway.”
Ann sits next to her on the bed, places a reassuring hand on Leslie’s knee. “Look, I think the fact that you already know Ben likes you is a really good thing. You guys are friends and you already know a lot about each other so you don’t have to have any of those weird, first date questions. Hey! At least you don’t have to talk about what your favorite movie is and get upset when he says he doesn’t like Anthony Hopkins!”
“...Ben does love Anthony Hopkins...”
“Exactly! And you already know that! “ Ann smiles and pats her knee. “Everything is going to be fine. Really. Really, really.” She pauses. “I promise.”
“You’re right Ann. You’re so wise,” Leslie stands and smooths out her pants and walks out of the room, voice trailing behind her, “This is going to be perfect!”
“No!” Ann withers, “Not perfect...”
---
Ben picks her up at seven, even after Leslie promised him that they could meet at the restaurant, that it would be safer. But since they agreed that he would pick her up at Ann’s house, Leslie couldn’t really argue.
Couldn’t really reveal the reason she wanted them to take separate cars: because the only thing more awkward than first date talk over dinner is first date talk in the car on the way to dinner.
Leslie fluffs her hair one last time and opens the door for him, Ann locking herself away in her bedroom, allowing them some privacy. “Hey,” he says, stepping over the threshold into Ann’s home. “This is weird, gotta say, picking you up here.”
“It’s safer that way,” Leslie says quickly, tampering the urge to pull at the hem off her shirt.
Ben smiles at her warmly, “Well, I love what Ann’s done with the place?” Leslie cracks a smile, a small laugh that is bitten back when he hands her a small bouquet, three daisies and one lily. “I know, it’s not... I went by the community plot and paid a guy to... anyway, I didn’t pick them myself, but I picked them out. And... watched while he cut them.”
“They’re...” Leslie glances down at the flowers and then back up at Ben. “Nice.”
“Okay, nice is better than awful,” he assures himself with an awkward smile.
She smiles back at him; it’s also awkward.
They stand there for a moment in silence, looking everywhere but at each other. Leslie wonders when things changed, when they went from being friends and goofing on one another to this, this limbo. She feels as though she can’t remember what it felt like being around him before now, can’t fathom what it will feel like after this moment.
It’s terrible, really terrible being in her own head in the moment.
But then he makes it better, takes his hands out of his pockets, says, “Fuck it,” and presses his lips to hers suddenly.
Their second kiss.
It’s fantastic, it really is. It effectively wipes her mind clean, makes a thrill run down her spine but most importantly, it breaks the overwhelming tension that had settled between them in the moment. When Ben pulls away, leaning his forehead against hers for the briefest moment, he says, “This doesn’t have to be weird, we’re making it weird, we’re... both pretty bad at this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m awesome at this,” she says, hoping he won’t notice the flush that is surely creeping up her neck. “No big deal or whatever, I’m just super experienced and-”
But he kisses her again, longer and slower this time. Also with slightly more tongue which isn’t unwelcome in the slightest. It’s quite nice. Just as she’s sliding her hand around to the nape of his neck, he pulls back.
“So whenever you start freaking out, I’m just going to do that.”
Leslie stares dazedly at him, “Okay so I’m just going to freak out, like, all the time.”
Ben laughs and opens the door for her. “I would love to say that that’s fine, but we have a reservation to get to.” He ushers her outside with a hand at the small of her back. It feels lovely; she worries about his hand slipping lower, if she’d stop him, if he’ll try, wants to say all of these things out loud so he’ll kiss her again. But she can’t.
She keeps it together, “Reservations, huh? Faaaaancy!”
“Not really, IHOP gets busy on a Friday night, you know?”
---
They don’t go to IHOP. Not that that would be a dealbreaker, she’d just feel like she was cheating on J.J. They end up at a small restaurant in a strip mall, sandwiched between a Lenscrafters and a Subway. She’s hesitant as he opens the door for her, but once inside, her stomach is nearly audible for how loud it growls. A wall of delicious scent hits her and she almost forgets she’s on a date for wanting to eat so badly.
“Best Indian food in... well... anywhere I’ve ever been,” Ben assures her, leaning around her to give his name to the hostess. He can’t be lying, because all of the tables in sight are filled with groups and couples, tables piled with food.
Leslie thinks this is how the tables at Hogwarts must look during feasts-hardly any room for cutlery for the amount of grub-and then grins at herself for making the comparison. Once they’re led to their seats, she leans over to Ben and voices her thoughts.
“You know, that always bugged me. They’re wizards but they only eat standard, British fare? No macaroni and cheese? No ham sandwiches?” He smooths his napkin out on his lap. “I mean, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to eat hot dogs while at Hogwarts? I’d definitely think twice about going to that wizarding school.”
She blinks at him, watches as he watches her and then laughs. Really laughs, a deep, relieved laugh because yeah, he’s bugged by that. It’s such an insane thing to be bugged by, an insane thing to think about really, but the fact that he thinks about these things is so wonderful. It’s wonderful that he’s so idiosyncratic and fantastic-for-her.
“I’m glad I’m...” she begins and he pauses, opening his menu.
Tilting his head to the side, Ben regards her with an amused smile. “What?”
“I’m glad you kissed me in Chris’s office. I’m glad you kissed me because... Because”
“Me too.” Ben reaches across the table and takes her hand, hesitates for only a moment because people might be watching. “Let’s order.”
---
“This is the best Indian food on the planet,” she moans as she shoved a bite of chicken biriyani into her mouth. “Ohhhh, good god.”
“Right? I mean, I’ve had good Indian, but this... this is better than I had in London.” Ben takes a sip of his wine and reconsiders, “I mean, I’ve never been to India but the food in London-”
“You’ve been to London?” Leslie asks, pausing with a piece of naan halfway to her mouth.
He finishes chewing, “Yeah, yeah, I spent a semester there my junior year. I was a wuss, wanted to go to Germany but couldn’t really speak German so I figured... England or Ireland and I could get a scholarship to LSE and-”
“Wait, you went to the London School of Economics on a scholarship?” Her jaw feels as though it’s hanging embarrassingly open; she snaps it promptly shut.
When Ben blushes, it’s really, really cute. “Just for a semester, yeah. Double major in economics and accounting, and they had this program there for juniors and seniors to study overseas banking trends and, yeah, boring I know-”
“That’s amazing!” It is, she’s amazed by it. Amazed that he’s done things like this, wants to know more, wants to know everything. In that moment, she wants to know everything that Ben Wyatt has ever done with his life.
Leslie tells him that she never studied abroad, has never been out of the United States but wants so badly to visit Paris. “It’s cliche, I know, but I like bread and I like cheese and come on, I have to go to Paris, right?”
The way he says it, his head down, looking at her through his eyelashes, makes her heart leap, “Yes, you have to go to Paris.” He settles himself further back into the booth. “Bread and cheese and wine.”
“Yes! And wine!” she agrees.
“And speaking of wine, we need more,” he says.
They order more wine and to both of their surprise, more food and talk for hours. About her, about him but they never really broach the subject of “them.”
---
As it happens, the subject of ‘them’ is best discussed while slightly tipsy, eating a banana split on a park bench in downtown Eagleton.
“So,” she says around a mouthful of banana and ice cream. “Someone could see us here,” she keeps her voice in check, doesn’t hyperventilate as she says it, even though she knows that this is a situation that would totally call for hyperventilation.
Ben takes a lick at the back of his spoon. “They could, but they probably won’t, right?”
“Probably not,” she sighs but doesn’t but it at all. “But just the mere fact that they could is...”
Ben nods and digs in for another bite. “Yeah, we should... I want to talk about it I just don’t want to ruin... this night.” Looking at her, his eyes soften and her stomach flutters. She can smell summer on the breeze and loves his eyes and doesn’t want to think about the word perfect. “Because it’s kind of perfect,” he says, breaking eye contact, “If I do say so myself.”
She doesn’t have to think about the word perfect because he says it and then she really doesn’t want to think about it because she doesn’t want to jinx it. Jinx this, jinx any of this that has happened between them.
“Yeah, it’s been pretty great,” she agrees a little more forcefully than she means.
“So we can talk about this later, then,” he says quietly, his voice trembling, just a tiny bit.
“Yeah, yeah, later.”
“Like second of third date, later,” he quickly follows with.
“Third date?”
“Would fourth date be better?” he laughs.
“I’m just kinda... that we’re going to have a third date and you’re saying we are and-”
“Leslie...”
Leslie whispers, “I’m kind of freaking out about this.”
“Guess I’ll have to kiss you, then,” he says with a saucy smirk.
He tastes like whipped cream, bananas and promise. She’s really going to try not to over think this too much.
She’s really, really not going to think about how perfect any of this just might be.