Fic: Outside the Window
Title: Outside the Window
Pairing: Ben/Leslie with a generous helping of Ann friendship times
Word Count: 8200
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Birthday fic!
Author’s Note: Extra special thanks to shornt for beta reading this. I greatly appreciate it!
Outside the Window
The morning of her 37th birthday began like every other one Leslie could remember: waking up in the dim gray light, cocooned under a myriad of blankets, and actually taking a long moment to enjoy it before rolling out of bed. In the first few minutes of the day, even though the chill outside the warmth of her bed told her otherwise, there was a moment of possibility that stretched endlessly outward, one that told her this day could be anything she liked. It made her feel decidedly childish, drawing her back to a time where she’d lie in bed imagining the world outside before jumping up and racing to the window, to have this prolonged moment to feel that sense of promise and hope, and each year she reveled in it a little longer. Just like always, though, eventually that ache to look outside grew too strong, and she climbed from the bed and shivered as she padded across the floor.
Like every other year, Leslie took a deep breath before she pushed aside the curtains and pressed her nose to the window, blinking at the world outside. The pane of glass was frigid and her breath quickly fogged up the window, but her eyes remained fixed on the blanket of white covering the front yard. Icicles clung to the tree branches, bright despite the unforgiving gray sky, and across the street a friendly snowman waved in her direction, but at this moment, it all felt bleak, as same and unchanging as all of her birthdays. She tipped her forehead against the glass and sighed.
There was little to be said in favor of irrational hope in a matter such as the weather. In other instances, Leslie had learned long ago that you had to have contingency plans, to never count on sun when there might be a possibility of rain, and she thought it might have been born on one of these mornings. A year, decades previously, when her mother had promised that yes, she could have her birthday party outside if it was warm and sunny and dry, but she better decide what to do if the weather refused to cooperate. By now, Leslie knew that she was never really going to wake up to a birthday that met those conditions, but it didn’t make her feel any less like she owed it to herself just to check.
Of course, today wasn’t exactly like her other birthdays, a fact she was reminded of when two warm hands found her waist, arms wrapping around her middle and pulling her away from the frozen outside world. Ben pressed a kiss to the back of her head, and after a hesitant beat-she wasn’t quite ready to be done wallowing-she leaned back against him. “Good morning, birthday girl,” he said, brushing her hair aside and kissing behind her ear and down her neck. When he reached her shoulder, he rested his chin against her skin for moment, ignoring how awkwardly he had to hunch to do so, and looked out the window with her. There was a small round spot on the pane where her nose had been, and Leslie reached out to press a matching circle next to it with her fingertip and then traced a curve underneath to make a smiley face. It grinned at them, a little mocking, and she turned in Ben’s arms so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
“Hi,” she sighed, falling into him as she gave him a tight hug. His hands fell lower on her back, rubbing at a patch of exposed skin between her pajama pants and her tank top, and she squirmed closer.
“What’s up?” His thumb brushed against her spine, rubbing a tiny circle there, and then he brought his hand up to her cheek, pulling back a bit and tipping her face up to look at her. “I thought you’d be bouncing off the walls this morning, but you seem kind of…”
“What?” She blinked, curious, because while she knew exactly what he meant, she found herself wondering how he’d describe it. This stupid, tight feeling in her stomach that made her feel like she was nine years old again and stomping her foot because there was no other way to express her frustration. Was there a word for that? For feeling all the childish parts of you that never really went away trying to burst out of you at once?
“I don’t know. I guess I’m just surprised. Last year, you were singing happy birthday to yourself when I got to work, and this year…”
“Last year we weren’t sleeping together,” she said without thinking, flinching a bit as Ben’s brow furrowed. “Not like that. Not-I just mean, you weren’t here in the morning. When I got out of bed. Because you weren’t in my bed, obviously, or else you’d already know about this. But now you do, so next year you won’t, you know, be so surprised-”
“Leslie.” He frowned, and she trailed off and took a deep breath like Ann always told her to when she started to ramble. “What are you talking about?”
“Just my whole, you know…birthday…thing.”
“Birthday thing?”
“It’s stupid.” He raised an eyebrow, inquiring, and she groaned, leaning forward so her forehead hit his chest. All she could see were his feet, long and narrow, and by its own accord, her right foot shuffled forward, toes brushing over his. She could feel his hand on the back of her neck, his thumb rubbing the base of her skull, and all of it created this comfortable intimacy that didn’t seem possible after only two months. Or two months and some change. However you measured a relationship split in half by a breakup
It was kind of weird, maybe, but looking at her foot entwined with his reminded her that she probably couldn’t say anything that would make him stop loving her like this. No matter how irrational or silly she knew it was.
“When I was a kid, my mom would ask me every year what I wanted to do for my birthday party,” she said, directing the words somewhere near his naval. For whatever reason, she couldn’t quite look up yet. “And I had some pretty good ones. A bowling party, an indoor camp out, ice skating…”
“Yeah?”
“But it wasn’t-I mean, it was January, right? Cold, snowy January, and so it always had to be an indoor party. And my best friend, Shannon, her birthday was in June, so she always got to have these big parties outside with piñatas and water balloon fights and pony rides and once there was this Hawaiian theme and we all got to wear grass skirts and learn how to hula dance, and-I don’t know. I just always wanted a party like that. So every year I would wake up and go to the window to see what the weather was like, kind of hoping that that would be the year I got to have a picnic in the park or something, but it was always just January, freezing and icy or at least wet, and definitely not picnic weather, right?” She’d raised her head as she started to ramble and looked at him now questioningly, kind of expecting a response, but he looked mostly bewildered and maybe a little bit amused, so she plowed on. “So it’s just, like, a thing. In the morning on my birthday. Because if you can’t feel a little bit like a kid on your birthday when can you? Christmas, maybe, or the Fourth of July or-Well, never mind. The point is I let myself think about the party I always wished I could have when I was a kid, just for a couple minutes, because it feels like I owe it to ten-year-old me. And then I let myself get excited. Because it is still my birthday, after all. Right? Ben?”
Ben blinked, obviously a little dazed. Not in a way that suggested he had tuned her out at some point, but more like he’d been bombarded. At least, she hoped so. “Sorry.” He rubbed a hand through his hair. “I’m just processing. That’s a lot of information.”
Leslie shrugged, nonplussed. “Just think of it as a birthday tradition,” she explained, latching onto the rationalization like an epiphany. “Like cake. Or presents. Or singing Happy Birthday. All of which you get to do no matter what time of year your birthday is, right?”
“Uh-”
“And I mean, the best part of your birthday is getting to be with all your friends and celebrating. And in thirty-seven years I’ve only had to postpone that four times because of snow and ice storms, so that’s a pretty good track record.” She clapped his shoulder, already feeling more cheerful, ready to put three decades of ungranted birthday morning wishes behind her and remember that there were far more important things to focus on. Like the fact that she was with Ben this year, and would almost certainly get to have birthday sex with him, which was a vast improvement over that awkward faux-punch on the arm she’d gotten last year. “This is gonna be great,” she said cheerfully. “Probably one of the best birthdays ever. Thanks, sweetie.” She pushed up on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek, mind already somewhere else and more than ready to start the day. “You always make me feel better.”
She was halfway out the door before he snapped out of his stupor enough to impart a weak, “Anytime.”
*****
Ben hadn’t thought of a birthday being an exciting venture since he was thirteen. Not his own and definitely not other people’s, a fact which he had always assumed was a natural part of growing up. Eventually your birthday became more a date on the calendar punctuated by cards and obligatory parental phone calls than any significant celebration.
Of course, that was before he came to Pawnee. Before his first day on the job was punctuated by a birthday party executed by one’s coworkers, the oddity of which seemed lost on everyone but him. Any rationalization-April had been twenty-one, after all; twenty-one was a pretty big birthday-was cut by the fact that the party was attended by her coworkers, most of whom were at least ten years her senior. It was one of many immediate signs that he’d fallen into the Twilight Zone and the first of many celebrations that year that would break his preconceived notions about birthdays. By the time Leslie’s birthday had rolled around, he’d almost been prepared-had at least known to spend more time agonizing about what to get her as a present than whether getting her anything at all would be too forward. When he’d bumped into her that day, she’d been more excited than most ten-year-olds were about their birthdays.
So of course, this year, when his relationship with her was finally settled and he felt like he’d been here long enough to understand that yes, birthdays really were a big deal, she’d thrown him another curveball. Whatever he’d expected-Leslie up before the sun, probably describing what constituted a birthday waffle-Leslie’s somewhat maudlin and contained so-called tradition was not it. Even more puzzling was how she’d let it go. The woman he was with now, the one wearing a rainbow-colored hat emblazoned with the words “Happy Birthday” and who was as giddy as he’d ever seen her, showed no trace of any of this morning’s childhood nostalgia. It felt weirdly like he’d dreamt the interaction, a contradiction that was not lost on him. Truly, moments like that-the ones where she opened up to him and wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable and he got to hold her-were more like the real relationship he’d always wanted with her than anything he’d ever imagined. As open as Leslie was to the world, it somehow only made the subtle shades of her more special, brilliant and lovely and, at times, aching to see.
This, Ben realized, leaning against the bar, watching Leslie and sipping his beer, was part of being so in love with her. A tailspin into sentimentality that he felt absolutely no desire to crush.
“Hey.” A hand waved into his line of vision, and he blinked, startled from some kind of trance. Ann stood next to him looking slightly concerned, but also smirking, and he felt the back of his neck flush. It was one thing to get caught up in his own thoughts about his girlfriend. It was another to get caught in the middle of it by someone else. “You should come dance with us,” said Ann. She leaned over the bar and ordered two more drinks, her fingers tapping along to the pounding beat of the music. “Everyone is too drunk to notice if you suck.”
“I’m not.”
Ann smiled, and to his surprise, when her drinks arrived, she let Leslie’s sit on the bar between them, picking up her own and mirroring Ben’s stance. Leslie didn’t seem to have noticed Ann’s absence, as her brand of drunken, excited dancing could apparently be executed as a solo act. He’d been worried this morning. Now, watching her laughing and dancing, eyes bright and looking so alive, it was hard to imagine her being any happier. Hard, but not impossible. He could still picture her as he’d saw her upon waking, nose pressed to the glass, her spirit smaller and quieter than usual. The images coalesced in his mind until wasn’t sure which was accurate.
“Hey,” he found himself saying before his brain caught up to his mouth; it was possible he was feeling the alcohol more than he thought. “Has Leslie ever said anything to you about her birthday?”
“You mean other than her usual exclamations of excitement?” Ann nodded in Leslie’s direction as if to prove her case.
“Yeah. She’s never said anything about being disappointed or something like that?”
Ann looked at him, face screwed up in confusion. “Is this some new kind of paranoia? Look at her. She’s having a great time.”
“Yeah, no, I know. It’s just this morning, she was kind of upset.”
“She was?”
Ben shrugged, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. Ann always seemed to know everything, and the idea that he might be privy to something that even Leslie’s best friend didn’t know was somehow unnerving and exhilarating at the same time. It also had the disarming ability to make him wish he’d never opened his mouth.
“What’s going on?” asked Ann, confusion now marred by concern. “Is it something with the campaign?”
“No. No, nothing like that.” Ann raised her eyebrows, and Ben sighed. It was probably too late to turn back from this; it wasn’t the sort of thing Ann was going to let drop now that it was out there. And it wasn’t as if he had any skill in bowing out gracefully from the truth. “She was telling me that she’d always wanted to have a big, outdoor birthday party. When she was a kid, I guess. I don’t know…It was a bit…confusing.”
“It’s January.”
“I know.”
For a few minutes, they stood silently, attention focused on the dance floor where Leslie was not so much dancing with April as she was bouncing around her in circles. It wasn’t so different from any other night they went out. Maybe a little more drunken, a little more exuberant, but did anything about this scream that it was Leslie’s birthday? Did that matter, when she was obviously having so much fun?
Beyond the fact that he couldn’t stop picturing her as a disappointed kid, unable to have her party in the sunny park, he wasn’t so sure.
“You’re thinking about it.”
He blinked, taking another drag of his beer and trying to act casual. “What?”
“You’re thinking about how to pull it off,” accused Ann. “Yeah. You’re already thinking about next year.”
“That’s…” Ben blew out a sigh, pulling his eyes from Leslie to Ann. She grinned at him like he was transparent. And maybe he was. He certainly couldn’t deny that the thought had been lingering in the back of his mind. The fact of the matter was, if the situation was reversed, Ben thought that Leslie would have been able to seamlessly execute a plan within a matter of hours. If he cared at all about his birthday or had an impossible birthday wish and Leslie found out, he imagined that she’d pull it off. Somehow
But that was the problem, wasn’t it? The somehow. He’d been marveling at Leslie’s ability to pull things together and adapt to curve balls since nearly the day he met her, and it wasn’t something just anyone could pull off. He’d spent most of the day with the thought in the back of his mind, waiting to be struck by a miraculous brainstorm and knowing all the while that it wasn’t going to come. Maybe if Leslie had told him this weeks ago, he could have…Well. He could have done something. But she hadn’t, and so he’d simply executed the agreed upon plan to go out to dinner and meet up with their friends later, even if it now seemed inadequate compared to what he wanted to give her.
Ann had pinpointed the consolation prize precisely, though. With three hundred and sixty-five-no, sixty-six; thank you, leap year-days to try to figure out the somehow, maybe he could pull it off. Maybe. Considering that his best solutions so far had been relocation or inventing a machine to control the weather, it might not be possible.
"Okay, yeah,” he admitted, throwing his reluctance to the wind. What was the point, anyway? “I’ve been thinking about it all day. It’d just be nice, you know. To surprise her for once.”
Ann nodded, giving him an oddly assessing smile that Ben couldn’t quite read. “Well I’ll help if you want,” she said, taking a sip of her drink and grabbing Leslie’s off of the bar. “But not tonight. You’ve got a whole year, Romeo. Worry about it when we’re not in the middle of a party.”
Then, seamlessly, she was gone, melting into a sea of dancers and finding Leslie, who immediately threw her arms around Ann’s neck, half-hugging her and half-dancing. Despite Ann’s orders, though, Ben just ordered another beer and continued to play the silent observer. It was nearly another half an hour before Chris bodily dragged him out onto the dance floor, engaging him in dance so foreign to the human eye that all Ben had to do was stand there until Leslie finally found him.
“Hiiiiiiiii,” she said, throwing her arms around his neck and pulling him down for a sloppy kiss. He followed her willingly, his hands finding her hips and tugging her closer, temporarily ignoring the fact that they were in a public place (and, in fact, that Chris was still dancing around them). When she finally pulled back from the kiss, she kept her arms around him, leaning back so far in his embrace that he had to move his hands to her back to keep her steady. “I thought I got lost.”
“You got lost?”
“Well no. You did. But I found you, so it’s okay.” She dipped all the way back like they were performing an elaborate tango, and then seemed unable to stand again until he pulled her upright. She fell forward, bumping into his chest, and giggled. “You know what we should do,” she shouted. “Ballroom dancing competition.”
“Uh-huh.”
Without warning, she attempted to rearrange them, making a poorly-aimed grab at his arm as she tried to assume some dance position he didn’t know. Inelegantly, she settled for letting him twirl her before falling back into his embrace. “We need to practice more maybe.”
“I’d say so.”
Leslie smiled wolfishly, moving one arm back to his neck and tugging him down so her lips were pressed to his ear. In what he assumed she thought was a whisper, but was actually louder than her normal tone of voice, she said, “You know what we’re really good at? The sex stuff. Maybe we should do that instead.”
Oh boy. “We can’t do that here,” he reasoned, trying to ignore everything about this moment that was telling him otherwise: the way she was pressed against him and the look in her eyes and the smell of her hair, already a bit matted with sweat.
“Why not?”
“There are people around.”
Leslie glanced around, as if she had forgotten they were surrounded by other people, and, catching sight of Chris, shrugged. “Chris doesn’t care anymore, remember? He won’t mind if we have sex. Right, Chris?”
Before Chris, who hadn’t been paying attention to their conversation but would certainly ask for clarification, could respond, Ben pulled Leslie from the dance floor, away from the throngs of people. She frowned, leaning into his body for more support than he’d realized she needed, and he pressed a kiss to the top of her head, belatedly wondering what had happened to her hat. “Why don’t we go home?” he suggested. “Or at least sit down for a little bit and get you some water.”
“Yes.”
Not sure what she was agreeing to, Ben was relieved when Donna materialized, throwing Leslie an amused look and then glancing at Ben. “Ann went to get her some water,” she said in lieu of a greeting. “Girl always goes overboard on her birthday.”
Leslie, who seemed to have just noticed Donna, gave her arm a rather awkward hug. “Hey, Donna! Did you know that today is my birthday?”
“Everyone in this bar knows that.”
“I think it’s the best one. My other best one was when I got to go roller skating and there was music and flashing lights and I managed to skate a whole lap backwards without falling, but this one is better because you’re here and Ann is here and Ben is here and I love you guys, you know?” She leaned up to give Ben another kiss, but missed entirely this time, her mouth swiping his chin instead. “I think I am very drunk.”
“I know you are.”
Leslie found this hilarious, laughing uncontrollably until Ann appeared with a bottle of water and the firm order to drink. Between the three of them, they managed to get Leslie out of the club and into a taxi, and despite a somewhat auspicious effort at continuing to make out with him, it wasn’t long before she slumped against his arm, half-asleep. By the time he got her home and into bed, she was only coherent enough to protest, “But I didn’t get my birthday sex.”
“Next year,” Ben promised, kissing her goodnight.
******
The thing about having a year to plan something was that a year tended to get away from you. Ben, who on January 19 had created a well hidden folder with Leslie’s 38th birthday party plan on his iPad, was soon sidetracked by the hundred other, more immediate things he needed to do. Leslie’s campaign flowed into the congressional campaign, which flowed into their engagement, which flowed into wedding plans, and before Ben knew it, it halfway through December and he hadn’t begun to figure out how to build a weather-controlling device. With the first snowfall of the year came the blinding thought that he’d wasted approximately three hundred and thirty of his planning days, and when he opened his birthday file, he encountered nothing more than discouragement. In his slightly hungover haze last year, the most he’d managed to do was write out a list of the specific things Leslie had managed to mention on that morning:
Water balloon fight
Piñata
Pony rides
Hula dancing???
Picnic
Basically, he reasoned, he was totally fucked.
“Are you okay, honey?” asked Leslie, coming up behind him as Ben scrambled to close his unhelpful list
“I’m fine,” he lied, grateful that when he turned to look at her, he found her decked head to toe in what appeared to be an elf costume. His confusion managed to alleviate a huge portion of his panic. “What are you wearing?”
“We’re exchanging gifts at work today,” she said, as if that explained anything. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look kind of pale.”
He nodded, resisting the urge to wipe his brow, and focused instead on his toast and coffee. Although she kept shooting him wary glances, Leslie didn’t push him further, and he made it through breakfast more stoically than he expected. By the time she left for work, he’d managed to downgrade his panic to the more practical frustration of having a deadline, and got to work, starting with a quick text to Ann to ask for help and then moving on to eliminate the impracticalities from his list. (Most admirably, he thought, he only wasted another ten minutes daydreaming about Leslie in a grass skirt and coconut bra.) In almost no time, he decided he could handle a piñata, and that if this was going to be outside-which it would, weather be damned-he might as well find a way for them to eat.
So. Two things decided. Only a hundred more to go.
Before Ben could let his particular brand of discouragement get to him, his phone buzzed, skittering across the table as he reached for it. “Hello?” he said, more than a little distracted.
“You’re determined to go through with this?” asked Ann, happily forgoing a greeting and getting straight to the point; her forthrightness was more than welcome. “Trying to plan an outdoor party in the middle of January?”
“Yeah. Yes. Absolutely.”
There was a brief stretch of silence on the other end of the phone. Ben could hear running water and a clatter of dishes, and then Ann’s pragmatic voice. “Okay.”
“Okay, you’ll help?”
“Of course I’ll help. I have absolutely no idea how we’re going to pull this off, but of course I’ll help. What do you need me to do?”
Ben glanced at his hapless list. “What do you know about piñatas?”
*****
An hour later, Ben found himself in the middle of a party supply store with Ann, who had the morning off before her shift at the hospital. Standing in the middle of a store that looked like it couldn’t decide between Christmas and New Year’s, Ben had the sinking realization that he’d never set foot in a place like this before. In fact, he’d never even planned a birthday party before. And it was with the return of that panic that he understood that this would be baptism by fire
“Okay,” said Ann, pushing a shopping cart toward him and pulling a piece of paper and a pen from her purse. “Where do you want to start?”
Ben glanced from a display of dancing Santas to a rack of paper plates with 2013 emblazoned on them in sparkles. “Um-“
“We’re going to need basics,” prodded Ann, apparently reading the confusion on his face, “whether this is indoors or outside. Plates, cups, utensils, napkins, balloons. Probably not streamers, but maybe a banner. Oh, and a piñata.” She raised an eyebrow, skeptically, and Ben managed to find his voice.
“Yes. Piñata. Let’s start there.”
“Okay.”
Ann meandered through the store with an ease that suggested that this wasn’t foreign to her, and Ben suddenly understood why Leslie had enlisted her help with their engagement party. It made sense that Leslie, who could plan a party with her eyes closed but needed someone to rein her in at times, would turn to someone practical. Whether she’d realized at the time that he had no skill in this arena or just knew he was spiraling into panic over his parents’ arrival, he had no idea, but he almost wished she’d thrown him into the deep end then. There was something intimidating about this entire venture, rooted in his desire to truly surprise her and give her something she’d always wanted, that overwhelmed him. And as ridiculous as this case of anxiety felt, he couldn’t quite shake his nerves.
Their arrival at the display of piñatas, differing in everything from size to shape to color, did nothing to steady him. And Ben was only mildly embarrassed when he groaned, leaning over the cart and resting his head on the back of his hands. “This was a bad idea,” he muttered, not taking much comfort when Ann gave him a friendly pat on the back.
“It’s a great idea,” she said. “I have no idea how you’re going to pull off the outside part, but even if that doesn’t work out, throwing Leslie a surprise party is an awesome idea. She’ll love that.”
Ben lifted his head, more from discomfort than any desire to look at those piñatas, and Ann smiled encouragingly. “You’re right,” he agreed. “I know you’re right. It’s just…I really want to…”
“What?”
He shrugged, self-deprecatingly, a bit reluctant to admit this to anyone. “I want to amaze her. I want to do something that she’ll never forget. To give her something she’s always wanted because she’s given me everything I ever wanted and I just-I want this to be perfect.”
Ann, whose concern seemed to grow exponentially as he rambled, shook her head. “Dude, you are putting way too much pressure on yourself. You need to relax.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do,” she said. “I mean, do you know how Leslie talks about you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Just…Look, this could be the best party ever, or it might just be a party, but either way, Leslie is going to have the same reaction. She’s going to be over the moon because you cared enough to do something nice for her. So stop freaking out. It’s making me nervous.”
“But what-“
“Seriously,” said Ann sharply. “She’s going to love it.”
“Yeah. Okay.” Ben let out a deep breath, managing to shoot Ann a small smile as some of the pressure seemed to ebb. She was right; he knew that. It didn’t really stop him from wanting to succeed in this, but it eased the tension he’d felt since the moment he saw those first snowflakes this morning. Planning a birthday party wasn’t an insurmountable task, even under the stressful conditions he’d placed on it. “Thanks.”
“Okay, so…Which piñata?”
Despite the trying decision this turned out to be-he and Ann finally agreed on one shaped like a rainbow after fifteen minutes of serious debate-Ben felt decidedly more cheerful by the time he and Ann were done shopping and had loaded their purchases into her car. With Ann’s help, he’d managed to create a reasonable to do list that he’d agreed to portion part of to her once he’d figured everything out, and control turned out to be the heart of quelling a panic attack. Even if they needed a miraculous bout of weather to really pull this off the way he wanted, everything else was in his hands.
“You know,” said Ann as she closed her trunk and dusted the snow off her gloves, “you could ask some other people to help out with this too. I mean, maybe not Tom, but I’m sure Andy and April wouldn’t mind helping.”
“Yeah,” agreed Ben, whose thoughts had been in a similar vein. “I was thinking of asking Ron if he might be able to grill-“
“No.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s a long story. You know what, don’t worry about it. I can talk to Ron about that if you want. Make sure that there’s no on-site animal slaughtering or anything. But we need to make sure we supply the other food.”
“Yeah, okay…”
Ann walked to the driver’s side of her car, opening the door and then pausing to look at him before she got in. “You know what the hardest part of this is going to be, don’t you?”
“Getting that piñata hung from a tree?”
“Keeping this from Leslie. Forget the weather and start worrying about your cover story.”
*****
As it turned out, thirty-three days turned out to be more than enough time to plan the party (excepting the creation of his weather machine, which he still felt was an unfailing backup plan). With Ann’s help, everything was in place by the night before Leslie’s birthday: decorations, food and cake stored safely at her house for him to pick up tomorrow to take to the park. He’d recruited Andy and April to help him decorate, Ann had convinced Ron to grill-though she still wouldn’t go into detail-and he’d figured out how to get Leslie there without raising her suspicion. Really, by the time he went to bed that night, there was nothing left to do but repeatedly check the weather and hope that the forecast of snow wasn’t detrimental.
True to Leslie’s word, on the morning of her birthday, Ben woke up to find her standing at the window staring outside, just like last year. It was a particularly cold morning; even under the covers, Ben could feel the frigidity in the air, and Leslie had a blanket wrapped around her like a cape. He lay in bed for a few minutes, content to remain still and watch her; the gray morning light played off her face, soft and lovely, and he had the irrationally romantic thought that he could stay here with her forever and never miss the outside world.
“It’s snowing,” said Leslie, apparently as aware of him as he was of her. Ben had to resist the urge to leap from the bed and see for himself-that would certainly raise suspicion-and settled for what he hoped was a merely inquisitive, “Oh?”
“It’s fine. I’d rather have snow than rain.” He couldn’t help but agree; the series of freezing rainstorms last week had left him worried. But he still wished she’d clue him in to whether they were facing a blizzard or mere flurries
Unburdened by his thoughts, Leslie came back to the bed, curling into his side and propping herself up with one arm on his chest, her other hand coming up to play with his hair. She looked intensely focused, but her eyes gave him a quiet smile before she leaned down to kiss him. Immediately, any concern for the weather vanished. “Hi,” she whispered.
“Hi.” She kissed him again and then she pulled back, hand falling from his hair down to his cheek where her fingers began a lazy exploration. “Happy birthday.”
Leslie smiled. “I like getting to hear that from you first.”
“I like getting to say it first.”
“Hmm,” she hummed, dropping her gaze for a second. When she met his eyes again, it was with a darker, warmer look. “What if we just stayed here today?”
“I wouldn’t have any complaints.” Party or no party, Ben couldn’t imagine turning down that request. Not that he could imagine her actually missing her birthday, either. “We can call it a snow day.”
“Yeah.” She leaned in to kiss him, but stopped abruptly, her brow furrowing. “Although, this is the last work day my birthday will be on for four years. That means three years of weekend birthdays, counting Martin Luther King Day, and-“
Ben grinned, rolling her onto her back and capturing her muffled protest with his lips. “I get it,” he said, kissing down her neck and then pulling back to look at her. “I’ll settle for making you late today.”
He started to tug at Leslie’s shirt, working to kick off the comforter as he did, ignoring the blast of cold air and focusing on how warm Leslie was beneath him. He took a great deal of pleasure in her contented sigh and complete lack of protest. Maybe she remembered as well as he did that they still had to make up for last year.
“Well, it is my birthday,” she murmured as he pressed kisses down her chest, hands slowly skimming down her sides. She shivered as his fingers brushed the sensitive skin above his hip. “And I think maybe it’s time we start a new tradition.”
Ben grinned, his smile hidden in the curve of her breast, and then smoothed his tongue down the valley between them. It was just as well. If things went the way he planned today, she’d need a new tradition anyway
*****
No one noticed that Leslie was late, which turned out to be as much because of Ben as because of the bad roads. In fact, only Ron beat her to the office, Donna and Tom showing up even later and Jerry stumbling in mid-morning muttering something about falling on the ice. By lunchtime, Andy and April still hadn’t shown up.
Leslie spent the morning torn between working diligently and throwing worried glances out the window. The snow was still falling: pretty, fat flakes that stuck to the ground and gave Leslie the sinking feeling that there’d be no outing tonight. At the rate it was going, she’d be lucky if she and Ben made their dinner reservations. So she was surprised when Ann turned up around noon, insistent about taking her to their usual birthday lunch.
“We can just eat here,” Leslie protested valiantly. She and Ann had their arms clasped as they walked to Ann’s car, using each other as leverage to keep from slipping. “What if it gets so bad that we can’t get back to work this afternoon?”
“Leslie, it’s your birthday. We’re going to enjoy it, snow or no snow.”
Leslie glanced up at the sky, blinking as a few snowflakes clung to her eyelashes, and sighed. Beautiful caribou Ann, whose sudden reckless dismissal of the weather was puzzling if admirable, was both right and wrong. If the snow was going to shut everything down later, she might as well enjoy what she could now. “Where are we going this year?” asked Leslie as they reached the car. Ann stopped her before she could open the door, digging into her pocket and pulling out a blindfold. “Ooh,” said Leslie, clapping her hands. “Is it a surprise? I love surprises!”
“It’s definitely a surprise,” agreed Ann, wrapping the blindfold around Leslie’s eyes and tying it on. “And no peeking. Promise.”
“Okay, okay. I promise.”
“Good.” She felt Ann reach around her to open the door and she helped her get into the car before making her way to the driver’s seat. Leslie felt overly excited, though she couldn’t imagine where Ann was taking her for lunch that would actually merit a surprise. Unless it was less about where they were going and more about who would be there. Quite suddenly, her worry over the derailment of her usual plans was replaced by the new, exquisite thought that maybe she’d be getting something even better.
“Can you see?” asked Ann. “Les?”
Leslie, who was almost trembling, had tucked her hands under her legs in an attempt to steady them. “No,” she breathed. “No, I can’t see. Are we there?”
“We’re not out of the parking lot yet.”
“Oh.” She bit her lip; how interminable was this going to be? What if Ann was going to drive all the way out of town? What if they were going to New Mexico? She couldn’t be expected to stay blindfolded for that long, could she? “How far is this, Ann?”
“Not far. I promise. Though we might have to go a little slower in the snow.”
Damn the snow! Well, not really. If she had to choose, she’d rather have pretty snow on her birthday than freezing rain or slush or something in between where the snow was half melted and you could see all the gross, muddy grass underneath. But it was better when it was already there, with freshly plowed streets and salted sidewalks, and god, this was taking forever. “Are we there now?”
“What? No, Leslie…” Ann let out a deep breath and then turned on the radio, filling the car with music. “Here. We should be there in about five songs.”
“Five? Like, five long ones or five commercial jingles because really-“
“Five normal songs.”
“Oh. Okay. Fine.”
Five songs turned out to be unbearably long. Possibly one of the longest times Leslie had ever had to sit still, actually, and that included the time she’d had to sit through a re-release of 2001: A Space Odyssey. But even though she wanted to ask how close they were after every song, she bit her tongue until the final one ended.
“Yeah,” said Ann, almost before Leslie got the words out. They were stopped, at their destination or a red light, Leslie wasn’t sure, but Ann sounded distracted. “We’re almost there. Five more minutes.”
“Five? Ann, that’s another song and a half!”
“I know. Sorry.”
Leslie groaned, so impatient and overeager that she didn’t notice they still weren’t moving for almost another whole song. “We’re stopped. Why are we stopped? Are we here?”
“Uh-Yes. But we have to wait a couple minutes, okay?”
“For what?”
“They’re…getting our table ready.”
“What? Well can’t we wait inside? I promise I won’t take the blindfold off and then-“
“Okay!” said Ann. “Yep, okay. You win. Let’s go.”
Leslie, feeling slightly chastised and victorious all at once, unbuckled her seatbelt and reached blindly for the door. She managed to open it and get out of the car herself, but waited for Ann to guide her toward the restaurant. They linked arms again, walking more slowly than ever, but to Leslie’s surprise, they stopped rather suddenly without going inside. “Okay,” said Ann. “You can take off the blindfold.”
However confused she was, Leslie didn’t need to be told twice, pulling the blindfold off and knocking her hat askew. Even under a cloudy sky, she still had to blink against the sudden brightness, and heard more than saw everyone as they shouted, “Surprise!"
“What-“ She blinked again, the world coming into focus, but her confusion no less addled. Her eyes took in the group first, Ben and Ann and all of her friends bundled to the nines-even Andy and April, who apparently weren’t sick or trapped in their house like she’d thought-and then she slowly realized they were in the park. The park, where a happy birthday banner was hung and balloons were tied to the trees and to one of the picnic tables, which was covered in a cheerful tablecloth and a box that she was certain held a cake, and was she still breathing--?
“Oh my god,” she said, her head swimming from an apparent lack of oxygen. Her eyes flew from Ann to Ben, who looked nervous and concerned, and she suddenly understood what was going on. “Oh my god, you guys…”
“Happy birthday,” said Ben, stepping toward her and taking her hand. She had the vague realization that she was still trembling
“What…?” she asked, unable to formulate her thoughts, let alone articulate them.
“It’s…Well, it’s your birthday party,” explained Ben tentatively. He seemed unable to read her reaction. “You said you always wanted to have one outside, so we’ve been planning and-I mean, it’s colder than I hoped, so it’s not, you know, perfect, but we’re all going to go sled riding, and Ron is going to grill and we brought blankets so we can stay warm enough to eat outside, and-“
Leslie was only half listening. Her eyes were darting all around her, from her friends to the decorations to the park, her voice finally coming back to her, interrupting Ben’s rambling explanation. “Is that a piñata?”
“Uh…Yes?”
“You got me a piñata. You got me a piñata and a happy birthday banner and balloons and is that a cake?”
“Yeah. It’s an ice cream cake, so-“
“Oh my god!” Leslie threw her arms around him, pulling him down and kissing him hard and fast, nearly bouncing on her toes in excitement. “I can’t believe this! This is perfect! You-You’re perfect!” She kissed him again, unable to contain her smile, and Ben couldn’t stop grinning either, even as her already cold nose pressed into his cheek. “God, I love you so much.”
“I love you, too,” he murmured, kissing her cheek and then lifting his eyes to their audience. Leslie, who’d half-forgotten they weren’t alone, managed to restrain herself from tackling him to the ground. “But it wasn’t all me. Everyone helped. Ann…Ann helped a lot.”
Leslie brushed her hand over his cheek and shook her head dazedly, turning to face everyone else. “This…” She took a deep breath and reached back for Ben’s hand, squeezing. “This is amazing, guys. Just the best birthday surprise in the history of the universe. Thank you.”
“Happy birthday, Leslie!” Ann swooped forward, pulling Leslie into a hug and grinning at Ben over her shoulder as everyone else echoed the sentiment. And yeah, some of her guests looked less than one thousand percent thrilled, and April was already visibly shivering, and Ron wasn’t paying attention to anything but the grill, but Leslie didn’t care in the slightest.
“You guys are the best,” she said, releasing Ann and glancing back at Ben, unable to keep the grin off of her face. “Now can we break open the piñata? Please?”
*****
Night had fallen by the time Ben and Leslie finally left the park. In the brisk twilight time, everyone else had fled, worried-just as Leslie had predicted-about the snow, and though they’d piled most of the party supplies back into the car and the roads were getting bad, Ben hadn’t refused her request to take another ride (or four) down the hill. It wasn’t until the snow really picked up and Leslie could no longer feel her feet that they called an end to the day, acquiescing quickly to the idea that it would be better to walk home. Ben had piled the cake and the bag of her few presents and depleted piñata candy onto their sled-one bunch of merry balloons that Leslie hadn’t been able to part with tied to the handle of the bag-and they took off hand-in-hand down the deserted, snow covered street.
Whatever else could be said about celebrating one’s birthday in January, Leslie didn’t think anyone could argue with this. As troublesome as the snow was at times, she didn’t think any other season could hold a candle to winter romantically. Under the streetlights, everything calm and still around them, the world felt like it belonged to them alone.
“Are you cold?” asked Ben. Somehow, even though his voice suddenly broke the silence around them, it didn’t startle the quiet, and Leslie couldn’t help but think that this was yet another in a long series of perfect moments he’d given her.
“Not really.” She nudged his arm with hers. “I’m not the one who’s been outside since this morning.”
“I’m secretly impervious to the cold.”
“Oh really?”
He looked down at her, eyes teasing, and smiled. “Not at all. I’m pretty sure it’s going to take a year for me to thaw out.”
His joke, instead of making her smile, caused her to pause, turning to him in the middle of the street and pulling him into a tight hug. He faltered for a minute before his arms came around her, and god, he probably really was freezing, but she needed this one moment. “Thank you,” she said. “For today. I can’t believe you did that.”
“Leslie-“
“Seriously.” She pulled back and looked up at him, unable to keep herself from smiling at how ridiculous he looked with a hat pulled over his ears, his nose and cheeks all rosy red. She was so impossibly in love with him, and only more overwhelmed by the continual reminder that he was just as impossibly in love with her. “Thank you.”
He shook his head and leaned down to give her the briefest kiss. “I’m glad you liked it,” he said, punctuating the thought with another quick press of his lips. “And I love you. And I’m really happy that you had a good birthday. But can we please go home before I’m frozen solid?”
“Yes,” she laughed, reaching up and tugging his hat down over his forehead
“Great,” he sighed, grabbing her hand again and entwining their fingers as they continued to make their way through the snow. She had to lengthen her stride to keep up. “Besides,” he teased, teeth only chattering a little, “your real present is the list of ways I came up with for us to get warm.”
Leslie grinned. “Happy birthday to me.”