I want to tell Ben Amy will be fine. I want to tell him she's going to bounce back. I want to tell him that they'll date for years, and he's going to propose to her, and they'll have a zillion little rugrats, or something, whatever pleases them.

I want to assure him that Orion is going to be okay. I want to assure him I'm going to be okay. There's so much I want to tell this man who is breaking into pieces as I hold him. I want to have some sort of magic within me, a magic that would allow me to wave my hand and make all these things happen. Or even better, a magic that would allow me to just erase the accident, make it never happen.

I want to do all this but I can't, and I loathe and despise feeling helpless.

~

"It was really nice meeting Simon the other day."

"Trying to distract me?" Orion says, grin on his face.

We're in his basement, playing a video game. I, of course, am losing.

"What would be the point?" I ask, trying to get my character to do what I want it to. "You'd just win anyway."

"Aw come on, have more faith in yourself."

"No."

He laughs.

When we're done with the round (that he won, of course), I turn to him. "Have I ever told you about Arlene?"

Orion raises his eyebrow. He quickly crawls over to the system and shuts it off. When he comes back, he kneels on the backs of his legs. He smirks. "No. And, should I be jealous?"

I chuckle. "No."

"Also, is she sixty five?"

"Orion!"

"Seriously, what kind of name is Arlene? That's so old fashioned, right up there with Annette and Gretchen."

I frown at him, totally unamused. Slowly the smile slips away once he realizes he offended me. He glances down. "S-sorry..."

"Arlene is my best friend."

Orion raises his eyebrow again, now getting more comfortable and sitting cross legged.

"We met in vocational school during High School."

"Oh! So she's like my Jake and Ben."

Sigh. Jake. "Yes...precisely." Minus the sex.

"Cool!"

"So," I tell him, "since I have met all of your friends, I was wondering if you would be interested in meeting Arlene? I was thinking we could get lunch, or dinner, or coffee or something. She's in the area."

Orion grins immediately. "Of course! I'd love to."

That makes me grin and I pull out my phone to text her immediately. I haven't seen her in ages. I can't wait.

~

"Are you okay?"

We're waiting to be seated at the five-star restaurant Orion booked for us. I kept telling him he didn't have to do something so expensive, but he kept insisting he wanted to. Thus here we were, waiting to be seated, dressed in suits.

It was the fourth suit Orion had put on that night. I finally dragged him out to the limo before he could put on a fifth. I didn't get it--a black suit was a black suit was a black suit. I will never understand fashion.

Orion laughs his nervous girl-giggle. "Of course, why wouldn't I be?"

"Bauwens-Smith," the host announces before I can reply.

As we follow the host to our seat, I lean over and whisper into Orion's ear. "I like how that sounds..."

He looks at me. "What--our two names together?"

I grin and nod. He blushes slightly.

We're led to a round table with a white table cloth. As we walk, a couple people briefly glance at us, recognizing Orion. We ignore it though.

"Tristy!"

A tall black woman whose hair is streaked with teal and blonde gets to her feet. I grin but roll my eyes. I wrap my arm around her waist, and she gives me a peck on my cheek.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?" I scoff.

"As many times as you tell me not," she replies, a mischievous grin on her face. "You should know by now every time you tell me to not call you that it just makes me wanna do it more."

"Arlene," I tell the woman who has just as thick of a Texan accent as myself, "this is Orion. Orion, this is Arlene."

"H-hi," Orion says, extending his hand.

Arlene grins at him, giving him a firm handshake. "Hi!"

The three of us sit. I've literally never seen Arlene dressed how she is. She's wearing a fancy teal blue dress that shimmers when she moves. And she's wearing makeup. Arlene doesn't wear makeup.

"You look nice," I comment.

"Thanks, so do you," she replies with a giggle. "We clean up nice, eh?"

I laugh.

"S-so," Orion says. "What do you do, Arlene?"

"I'm a nuclear technician."

Orion's eyebrows shoot up. "Really?"

She grins. "Yup!"

"Woah. So like, do you work in power plants and stuff?"

"Yeah," she replies, "I'm on rotation. I fix and upgrade the plants. I also oversee the shutdown procedures when they have to be taken offline for maintenance."

Orion looks at me. "Is she serious?"

I laugh. "Yes, love."

"What's the craziest thing you've ever done?" Orion asks excitedly.

"Well, a lot of facilities are...well, outdated. One of the things I do is install equipment to meet safety protocols. So the craziest thing would have to be, one time, I had to climb up scaffolding, because there weren't ladders, and carefully walk across the spent fuel pool, fix something on the other end, then walk back over the spent fuel pool, and climb back down."

Orion's eyes are huge. "How high up was it?"

Arlene thinks. "Uhhhhh...probably sixty or seventy feet?"

"Did you have a safety harness?"

Arlene and I both laugh. Arlene jabs her thumb at Orion, looking at me. "Your boyfriend got jokes."

"No harness?!" Orion gasps.

"Nope."

"I would've shat--" he drops his voice, looking around himself. "I would've shat myself!"

"Oh going up wasn't bad," she says, "it was coming down that was bad. I was stuck up there for an hour. My teammates were on the ground, trying to coax me down. They were nice enough to stay and chat with me until I worked up the courage to climb back down."

"You're my new hero. Seriously."

Arlene grins. "Thanks!" She then looks over the menu and frowns, muttering. "I don't even know how to pronounce half this shit..."

Orion laughs. "Honestly, neither do I. But that--" he leans over, pointing at an item on the menu, "is really fucking good, and I highly suggest it."

"There's no prices on the menu--do I even wanna know?"

Orion grins at her, leaning back into his seat. "Probably not."

"So!" Arlene says. "Tristan talks non-stop about you."

Orion blushes, which makes her laugh. He deflects then. "So--how did you guys become friends?"

"Oh, well you know, it's every girls dream to have a gay best friend, so I just scooped him up like a Pokemon." She crinkles her nose. "Gotta catch 'em all!"

I roll my eyes into the way back of my head and cross my arms. Arlene laughs.

"Just kidding--I didn't even know he was gay for years."

Orion grins, and I see the jab coming from a mile away. "Even with all the dancing?"

"He hid that from me, the bastard!" she proclaims.

"Yeah well, don't feel bad. He hid that from me, too. I just found out recently."

"We were teamed up on an assignment," I cut in, deciding to put an end to their ridicule. I knew they would get along well. "Her and I hit it off immediately."

Just then a waiter comes over. He rattles off a bunch of things, things I'm pretty sure none of us actually care about. The history of the restaurant, who the owner is, what the specials are and where the food in those specials came from. It's one of those things I don't think I'll ever get used to, one of those things that makes me wonder if Orion is used to it, really used to it.

After the waiter leaves, it's like Orion has read my mind. He scratches the back of his head a moment, looking around himself, and sips some water. "Can I just say how weird it is to go from growing up in a trailer park to that?"

"So I didn't want to bring it up," Arlene tells him, her voice becoming faster as she speaks until she's stumbling over her words, "but I know who you are. I mean, of course I know who you are. But I just want you to know I don't care. I mean, I care, you're awesome, but I just mean that I want you to know I think you're a human being. I mean, of course you're a human being, what else would you be? Hahaha. I just mean I think of you as my best friend's boyfriend, not Orion Bauwens, Superstar." She does jazz hands for emphasis. "But I wasn't going to say anything, because I didn't want to make it awkward, but--wow, yeah, this is awkward, isn't it? I'll just, um, shut up now."

She downs the entirety of her water in one go. She then smiles awkwardly at Orion. Orion gives his nervous laugh, looking confused. I'm trying really, really hard to not bust out laughing. Arlene gets to her feet then.

"If you'll excuse me." She rushes away.

Once she's gone, looking lost, going every which way before cornering a waiter and asking where the restroom is, I look at Orion. He's tugging at his collar, drinking some more water. I grin. He narrows his eyes slightly.

"What?"

"The award for most nervous, goes to..."

Orion rolls his eyes.

"No, really," I continue, "I can't decide if it's you or Arlene."

He colors slightly. "She's nice. I like her."

"So then relax."

"Y-yeah..."

As we wait for her to return, we sit in silence. When she gets back, there's more small talk (she has a sister who is older and has a kid. Growing up she had a pet cat, but they had to get rid of it when they realized she was allergic. She shows off some of her tattoos that are on her legs). I remain silent, watching them. Arlene is clearly embarrassed still, and Orion continues to stutter, wipe his palms on his pants, and scratch the back of his head. It's pretty funny to me. Them being so...awkward around each other wasn't what I expected.

The food arrives. We briefly fall into silence, trying our food. I've been here once before with Orion. Orion goes here when he wants to be fancy--it's his favorite high-end place.

Arlene took his advice and ordered the same thing he did. With her first bite she moans very softly, and honestly looks like she's having an orgasm. I can't help myself--I laugh. When she's done with her mouthful, she points at the food on her plate with her fork, grinning.

"Oh man. So, I might not know where the ingredients came from, and I probably don't want to know how much this costs, but I get it now. This is literally the best food I've ever had in my entire life."

Orion grins at her.

"Thank you so much, Orion."

"S-sure. No problem, Arlene."

The rest of the evening goes fine. Arlene's valet comes first, and we hug goodbye. She opens her arms to Orion and he hugs her back. As we're waiting for our limo and Orion smokes, I hold his hand and give it a squeeze. He looks at me. I smile.

"Why were you so nervous?"

"I--it's nothing." He looks away.

"Please don't be like that."

"She's your best friend," Orion says, shrugging. "I just...I know she means a lot to you. So she means a lot to me. I didn't wanna fuck it up."

I draw him into my arms, giving him a huge hug, and I close my eyes. "I love you."

"I love you, too."