30 – He Said, She Said
"So what's with Porter?" Kurt asked, biting into a cheeseburger.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the way she stared at you in the car. The way she almost jumped in your lap. The fact that you were even with her. What's going on?"
Testily, Ben picked at his basket of onion rings. "She goes to UNY with me. We drove home together. Why do you care?"
"Come on, man. She was a spaz in high school. What, she good in bed or something?"
Ben glared at him. "She's my girlfriend, and you can back off."
"Really?" Kurt laughed aloud. "Way to go, Ben. Plotting the undiscovered country."
Ben rose out of his seat, gritting his teeth. He snatched the soda pitcher off the table. "I'm going up for a refill. Anyone want anything?" Eric and Jason shook their heads. Kurt just grinned at him. Fuming, Ben stalked away to the counter. He could have waited and flagged down a waitress, but if he'd sat there much longer he was sure he would have punched Kurt. Not a good way to start the summer.
What he did or didn't do with Felicity was his own business. He knew she'd been with a guy once, unsolicited information from her roommate Meghan when he stopped by the dorm and Felicity wasn't there. Some art student. Meghan said it just happened, that it didn't mean anything. He hadn't asked, but Meghan seemed happy to air the details of Felicity's love life, and Ben wasn't too proud to admit to himself that he was curious. He was kind of glad she hadn't stayed with the art student, and even more relieved that it hadn't been Noel. Just imagining the possibility that it could have been Noel did things to his insides that made him want to hit something. Noel was smart. He knew what he wanted to do with his life. He worked hard and got good grades.
And in spite of it all, Felicity had picked him over Noel. For whatever reason—he sure didn't know—Felicity wanted to be with him. That didn't mean he intended to tell Kurt anything about what they did together, if there'd been anything to tell.
Well, there were a few things, he thought with a smile, remembering the nights at the cabin. Especially that first night. She looked and smelled so good, he almost chucked it all out the window and went with the feelings surging through him. I need to get used to this, he'd told her. And that was the understatement of the century.
Not just getting used to caring about someone. Getting used to them caring back.No strings, no exceptions, just a promise that someone would be there, and mean it. Felicity had done some crazy things, messed with his life in ways that drove him mad. But she'd never even once let him down.
Kurt would never understand that.
With the pitcher refilled, Ben went back to the table.
"Give it here, man. I need to wash down this hockey puck," smirked Eric, waving at the charred burger on his plate.
Ben sat down and pushed the pitcher across the table with a look of distaste. "You're the one who still wants to come here, even though your ex-girlfriend's the cook. She only burns your orders to piss you off, you know."
"I just want to see if she's come off her high horse yet," Eric shrugged.
Ben shook his head. "Apparently not, by the looks of that hockey puck."
"Speaking of girlfriends," Kurt interjected, "I'm still having a hard time getting my head around you and Felicity Porter."
"You don't give up, do you?" sighed Ben.
Kurt made a show of nonchalance. "What, man? It's cool. I'm just, you know, having some trouble knowing if you slipped in the ranks or she got better."
"Look, will you just lay off Felicity? All you know about her is what you saw in high school. She's… She's just not who you thought she was."
Kurt leered. "Why don't you explain who she is, then?"
Disgusted, Ben got up from the table. "I'm going to use the phone."
"What, now? This was just getting interesting. What got your attention, Covington? Must be some kind of sex goddess hiding under all that hair."
Ben slammed his palms onto the table and loomed across it over Kurt, who sat back in surprise. "I don't want to have to knock you on your ass, Kurt, but you're pushing it." He jerked away and stalked across the restaurant toward the pay phone.
- - - - -
Shelly's cell phone chirped as they paused at a red light. She flipped it open and put it to her ear. "Hello?"
"I was looking for Felicity?"
Shelly recognized the voice as male, and immediately felt a surge of curiosity. "Felicity?"
Beside her in the passenger seat, Felicity held her hand out for the phone.
In the back seat, Amy leaned forward. "Who is it?"
Shelly waved them all off and twisted out of Felicity's reach. "Sorry, you said Felicity?"
"Yeah…Felicity Porter? Her mom gave me this number."
"Who is this?" Shelly demanded, still evading Felicity's attempts to get the phone. She shot her friend an evil look.
"Ben Covington."
"Holy crow!" Shelly dropped the phone on the floor. "Oh, damn! Just—arrrggh." The light turned green, and she yanked the steering wheel around to get to the nearest parking lot.
Beside her, Felicity gaped. "Did you just hang up on him?"
Shelly swatted Felicity's hands away from the driver's side floor and brought the car to a screeching halt in the lot of a grocery store. She bent forward and snatched the phone from the floor, gripping it to her chest and glaring at Felicity with the outrage of a friend who should be told everything to the last detail. "Ben Covington, and you didn't tell me?!"
Amy and Laura squeaked in unison from the back seat.
"I was going to over dinner," Felicity offered with a helpless shrug. "We go to UNY together."
Shelly put the phone back to her ear. "Are you still there?"
"Yeah. Listen, is Felicity there? I'm on a pay phone."
"Where are you?"
"Rudebaker's."
"We'll be right there." Shelly snapped her phone shut.
"Shelly! You just hung up on Ben!" Felicity cried.
Giving her friend another glare, Shelly said, "Oh, no. I don't settle for a phone call. I've been waiting four years for you to get with this guy. This I gotta see in person."
Felicity blushed.
"When did you two start dating?" Amy demanded with an excited grin.
"I don't know if you can say dating, exactly," Felicity confessed. "We are sort of going out, but it's kind of weird because it's only been us two for two weeks on this road trip, so—"
"Two weeks? You've been going out for two weeks?" Amy squeaked.
Felicity sighed. Part of her wanted to keep quiet about the road trip. The most she'd said to anyone so far was the little bit in her tape to Sally. The past two weeks had been so special that it seemed a shame to spill the details. She looked around to see Amy beaming at her. Laura was silent, staring at Felicity in something approaching awe. For the first time since high school, Felicity felt vindicated against every snotty comment Laura had ever made to her. Then she felt bad. Laura had just broken up with her boyfriend. Oh, how I wish I could rub this in. "Just a week, really. The first week we were sort of getting to know each other."
Amy leaned forward even more. "So, you had to stay at motels and stuff, right? Did you two—"
"I don't think that part's any of our business," Shelly interrupted. She put the car into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. With an air of mock injury, she added, "Although, some friends ought to be given some discreet details."
"I'm not telling you anything," giggled Felicity.
They arrived at Rudebaker's ten minutes later. Amy groaned as the girls entered the restaurant. "Kurt's here, too."
"He's Ben's friend. Be nice," Shelly ordered.
"He's never nice to us."
Felicity saw the boys sitting at a booth near the front window, and her heart skipped a beat when her gaze landed on Ben. The past few hours were the longest time she'd been without him since the beginning of their trip.
- - - - -
Ben poked at the ice cubes in his soda with the straw. The boys had been hounding him for several minutes to tell them how he'd wound up with Felicity Porter. He shrugged at last. "We had a really good time. She's fun."
"Fun, fun?" Jason laughed.
"Don't you start, too."
Jason marshaled his features into a sober mask. "Sorry, couldn't help it. Go on."
"When I first saw her during registration week at UNY… I gotta be serious, I thought she was crazy. She followed me to New York. She had this whole set plan on what she was going to do with her life, and she just threw it all out and came to New York. Because of me, whatever that means."
"Yeah, not much to go for," Eric jabbed.
"I still think you're nuts," Kurt said, crossing his arms in irritation. Clearly, he was still nettled by Ben's earlier threat. "I mean, she's this frizzy-haired freak, and her friends were just…weird. Why her? Especially when there's a whole meat market of women in Palo Alto this summer? You've got problems, man."
Ben heard someone clear their throat and looked up. A girl with medium-length brown hair pulled back into a ponytail crossed her arms and glared at all of them. Her glower fell on Kurt. "You are the worst excuse for a male in this entire state."
Behind the girl, Felicity stood staring at him with flushed cheeks. "N-Never mind." She spun around and headed toward the door.
"Where do you get off?" Kurt growled, rising out of his seat and towering over the indignant brunette.
"Sit down and shut up, Kurt," Ben snapped, getting up. He jogged across the restaurant, chasing Felicity through the door. "Felicity!"
She didn't turn around, striding purposefully toward a car at the edge of the crowded lot.
He grabbed for her elbow. "Will you wait, already?"
She rounded on him. "I should have known this was too good to be true."
"What are you talking about?"
"Your friends are just like they were in high school. Too good for the rest of us. They never let a second go by without letting us know it, and apparently nothing's changed." Her voice caught, and she fell into a silent glare of accusation.
"Don't be ridiculous. Come back inside and sit with—"
"I heard what Kurt said in there. I will not sit with someone who thinks me and my friends are beneath him."
"If you came inside, he'd see you're not what he thinks," Ben said, waving a hand at the building in frustration. Her friends were coming toward them across the parking lot.
Felicity scowled. "I'm not the one with something to prove. I'll see you later." When Shelly put an arm around her shoulders and urged her away, she went.
Ben watched the girls get into the car and drive away. Exhaling explosively, he turned on his heel and went back to the restaurant.