“Soonish. He’s coming from the dentist. You’re stuck with me until then.”
“Fantastic,” Samantha says as she loops her arm with mine and we begin our stroll through Central Park. “So things are going well with him?”
“I think so?” I feel a little stupid talking about Mario with Samantha and Dylan. There’s no confusion about their relationship. Whereas Mario and I are more like a question mark paired with an exclamation point—there’s uncertainty and excitement.
“We need to figure out your couple name,” Dylan says. “I think ‘Bario’ has a nice ring to it, though ‘Men’ is chef’s-kiss perfection. Because you’re both dudes and—”
“How was dinner?” I interrupt, turning to Samantha.
“Good save,” she says. “It was fun. Thanks for asking. I think we bounced back from Christmas.”
Samantha’s parents really love Dylan, but when the O’Malleys found out during the winter break that their daughter was sharing a room with him in Chicago, shit hit the fan.
“Dylan was on his best . . . well, better than usual behavior,” Samantha says. “I’m sorry again we had to cancel on the escape room.”
“Don’t worry about it. We have all summer.”
Dylan wraps his arms around my shoulders. “Big Ben, we know the escape room is your big ploy to get locked in a room with me for an hour. You don’t need excuses, okay?”
“Dude, your girlfriend is right here.”
“Oh, please, get him off me for an hour,” she says.
Dylan winks. “See, the missus is cool with it.”
I stop at a pretzel cart because all I’ve eaten this morning was a bite of a toasted bagel with jelly that Ma made for me on my way out of the apartment. In true Ben Alejo fashion, I dropped it on the subway tracks while taking that selfie for Mario, and a rat ran off with it; if I gave a single damn about TikTok, I probably could’ve gone viral.
“Do you guys want one?” I ask.
“I filled up on fruit,” Samantha says. “Dylan had leftover duck for breakfast.”
“Shhh,” Dylan says. “There are ducks in the park.”
“Do you think the ducks are going to attack?”
“A good old-fashioned quack attack, yes.”
Samantha shakes her head. “Why do I . . . why do I anything with you?”
“Because the D Machine is too irresistible.”
“Gross, man,” I say.
“Oh, that just stands for the Dylan Machine. I call my friend downstairs the—”
Samantha claps her hand over his mouth. A true hero of our times.
“D—uh, Dylan, do you want coffee?”
Dylan looks around. “From where?”
I gesture at the pretzel cart.
“Very cute, Ben. You know I’m not drinking that bastard coffee.” Dylan turns to the vendor. “I mean no offense to you, good sir, and great offense to the clowns who loaded your fine cart with that mess.”
The vendor stares at Dylan as if he’s speaking another language.
“You’re hyper enough anyway,” I say.
“We pregamed with a Dream & Bean double espresso.”
“Duck and coffee for breakfast. Figures.”
“Stop acting like this is day one of knowing me.”
It’s definitely not day one. We’ve been best friends since elementary school, though ever since Dylan left for college, the distance has had an impact on us.
“You better not have a caffeine crash before lunch with Patrick,” Samantha says.
“Patrick,” Dylan says and spits on the ground. “Get better best friends, babe. Do you see Ben going on and on and on and on and on and on about how he’s swimming with dolphins and hugging monkeys?”
“I’m not doing those things,” I say.
“Neither is Patrick,” Samantha says with a side-eye. “Patrick took a gap year to travel with his cousin.”
A gap year sounds great. Gap years sound even better.
“Join us for lunch, Ben. You’ll see how extra this guy is.”
“Are you really calling someone extra, D?”
“That should give you a sense of how extra-extra this guy is!”
“I can’t. I have work in a couple hours.”
“Tell your boss that royalty is in town.”
“You know I can’t.”
My boss is my father. Pa got promoted to manager at Duane Reade during the holiday season. He hired me in April to work the cash registers and help out with stocking the shelves. Beginning work right before finals only made classes harder, but I didn’t get a ton of sympathy from my parents, who worked full-time during college.