"Sorry, I couldn't wait," Benny said.

"No," Micah said, immediately, when Benny got to his feet to approach. Micah abandoned the laundry idea to flee down the hall with Benny chasing after him. "I can't talk to you right now."

"You're my best friend! You can't expect me to just ignore you—"

"You are ignoring me!" Micah cried, voice cracking. When he turned, Benny was in his face and flinching away. "Every second you spent thinking about 'Oh, maybe he's different. Maybe it'll work this time. I'll ask him out on a date,' you spent it ignoring me."

"That—That isn't what I meant," Benny said, his eyes already flushing pink. "Micah—"

"I told you what I thought of him," Micah said, voice raising despite himself. He was breathing hard already. "How could you bring someone around me, expecting me to behave, when the very sight of him makes me want to bash his fucking face in."

"D-Don't say that. You know I love him, I—"

A full-body spasm took hold of Micah's spine. He covered his face, shaking with rage.

"And—! And the ring Alistair gave me, don't you think it isn't a coincidence? That I meet him again so soon after? It means something."

"So, what, next you're gonna fall in love with Donald Trump and expect me to be the best man at your wedding?"

"Okay, now you're just being cruel. You know I hate that guy too and I'd never ask you to be the best man in that case."

"Then you can't fucking ask me now," Micah cried. "I'd say no! I can't condone this!"

He realized then that Benny hadn't thought that far ahead, or considered that his best friend wouldn't be a part of his wedding at all.

"Benny," Micah said, slowly, as moisture glistened on Benny's lashes. When he blinked, one fell and streaked his cheek. "When you break up with someone, someone the people close to you hadn't liked or wanted around for so long. Bringing them back? That's the definition of torture for the people you love. It's selfish to expect me to participate in your self-flagellation."

"H-How could you say that?" Benny weeped. "I j-just want you two to get along. It's different this time, really. He's—He's—"

"I don't give a shit what he is," Micah seethed. "Leave me out of it."

"How can I leave you out of it when we live together."

"I'm looking for a new place." He hadn't been until the last two minutes.

Benny's face went ashen, all except for how red his eyes were. "No."

"I'm not expecting you to choose our friendship over him," Micah insisted, "because I know you'd pick him any day. You'd pick him over removing the valid discomfort from your friends' lives. That is why I can't be around you right now. You're a shitty fucking friend for doing this."

The second he backed away, tense and shaking with adrenaline, he was startled by the appearance of Erika from her bedroom door. She was staring at him like he'd just slaughtered an infant in front of her very eyes.

The moment she met his gaze, she exited the room, expression hardening. Her eyes, however, were wide with hurt. "Take it back," she spat at him. "Take it back and apologize."

"No," Micah said. She inhaled sharply. He pointed at Benny, who was now in full, silent tears staring at the floor between them. "He knew what I was going to say. I warned him after the first time they broke up exactly what I was gonna say."

"I don't care!" Erika shouted. "You can't just say shit like that to another person! What the fuck's wrong with you?"

"He pushed me," Micah hissed. "He didn't have to talk to me today but he did. I was—"

"Don't blame him for this!"

Micah didn't know how else to make it clearer. "Fine. Coddle him," Micah said, throwing his arms up. "Tell him love prevails and Hunter's the man of our dreams, oh my fucking God, he's fucking perfect. I always hoped they'd get back together."

"Stop!" Erika screamed. She was between them now, shoving Micah to the door. "Get out. Get out! And don't come back until you've calmed down."

"Wasn't planning on coming back anyway," he said with shakily feigned boredom. Erika slammed the door after him and locked it.

Stranded in the stairwell, Micah couldn't let himself stagnate without wanting to spontaneously burst into flames for what he'd done. He meant every word he'd said, but that didn't excuse saying it. Not only that, but he'd branded himself as a hypocrite—to know Benny was sensitive and to say such heinous things anyway?

Micah flew down the stairs and to the streets, frantic. He had his phone to his ear for the brisk walk to the subway. Luckily, Kennedy answered after the second ring.

"Yeeellow."

"Are you at your place right now?"

She hesitated. "Yes, why?"

"I need my spare clothes. And honestly anything extra you might have on hand for me. And a suitcase?"

"Are you fleeing the country or something? Do you need a passport, too?" she joked.

Micah lingered at the top of the stairs, a hand on the iron rail. Commuter traffic flowed up and onto the streets. "Do you think Presley would let me stay with him?"

He sensed Kennedy's alarm in the stark silence on the other end. No rustle, no shuffling. Shock. "Until...?"

"I don't know," he admitted. And then, feeling rather pathetic, he added, "Please?"

"Oh no," she said. "Did Benny kick you out? What did you say?"

"I kicked myself out for exactly what I said, and he knew I'd say it too," he said, lip wavering into a grimace. He pressed his thumb and forefinger over his brow and stretched it. "Presley. What do you think?"

"I can give him a heads up, but he'd probably need a few days to prepare. With the holidays, I think he already has some guests over."

"Fuck."

"When are you done with classes?"

The end of his week was riddled with final exams. "Friday. Why?"

"Just wondering. I'll call you back," she promised.

"Don't—" he started, only to hesitate. Maybe it was the cold, but his voice was shaking. "Don't call Benny or Erika until you set this up for me. I don't think you'd want to help me if you knew what I said to him."

She laughed a little. "Good to know you're a self-aware asshole."

"Yeah, which just so happens to be the worst kind of asshole. Thank you for helping me."

"Anything for my sweet little pet!"

He scoffed. They said their goodbyes and Micah went under the city to take the first train to Kennedy's flat. When he came out the other side, he had a missed call from Kennedy. Considering he was less than two minutes out from her flat, he didn't bother calling her back.

He rang her buzzer. Her brownstone apartment was fronted by wrought iron gates and a low glass roof looking in to a restaurant venue that gave him a fear of heights for no good reason. He kept himself to the opposite side of the railing as he waited for her to answer.

The lock on the door clicked and he entered. Like Benny's place, she didn't have an elevator, but her stairwell was spacious enough to fit the same couch that they'd had to abandon for the cushions years earlier.

Kennedy's door was unlocked, and he found Kennedy in her workout gear, hair tied back, and a scowl on her face. She squared up with her arms crossed and said, "So I talked to Erika."

Christ, Micah thought, sighing. "Save it. I know I fucked up but I'm not taking it back."

Kennedy's squint was made lethal. She tapped her only two short nails on her bicep and said, "You're on thin fucking ice."

He sighed, throat tight. He cleared it. "What'd Presley say?"

She nearly walked away—nearly—only to double back just to glare at him. She continued on to her room where a walk-in closet awaited them. Judging by the state of how she distributed things, she'd started by folding items into a suitcase and ended with stuffing them in a garbage bag.

Yeah, definitely called Erika while she was packing for me, he thought with a wince.

"He'll have a room ready for you by Saturday," she said.

Micah nearly screamed. It was only Tuesday, which meant he had four nights to account for. He'd take what he could get. "Cool, thanks. I know you regret it."

"I don't see why you do shit like this when you know the outcome."

"He knew the outcome and he still pushed me," Micah insisted. "You could be asking Benny the same thing."

"When someone threatens that they're going to nuke a four-year-long friendship that started with a threesome if they get back together with their ex, you tend to downplay it!" she cried, shoving the garbage bag into his arms.

"Whatever."

"No, not 'whatever'! I'm really very angry with you!" she insisted. Micah let himself be berated for the five minute duration it took to properly pack the suitcase. He swore Kennedy didn't take a single breath in between the various ways she bitched him out.

In the end, Kennedy was on the floor, head in her hands, and looking thoroughly defeated. Micah hesitated to get up from the ground as he watched her process and, likely, mentally catalogue every party she'd had planned with Micah involved.

She combed a hand through her hair and leant against it, elbow to her knee. Her bottom lip was red from worrying it between her teeth.

"I don't want to put you in an awkward position," Micah confessed. There was less heat in her eyes. "Benny needs you now more than I do."

She took a slow, deep breath and leant back, hands gripping her knees. After holding the air hostage, she released it in a quick, "I got us all tickets to the Bahamas."

Micah's brain short-circuited. "What."

"I got us all—"

"No, I heard you, but when was this supposed to happen?" It came as no surprise to him that Kennedy would plan a trip, but he'd never left the East Coast with her.

Her shoulders dropped. "It was supposed to be a Christmas thing, and then Alistair moved here and I wasn't sure if Benny wanted to spend Christmas with him so I invited him figuring you two could drink sex on the beach and have sex on the beach but he declined, and then you guys wanted to go to the BDSM New Years party, and then I had that talk with you about work being important and everything, and I know you guys work mostly on the weekends so I just kinda—"

"Kennedy, when."

She winced. "Monday."

Micah slapped his hand over his eyes.

"I mean, you can still come with us, right? You and Benny can work it out and—"

"Kennedy, we aren't working it out, and we'd have to ask off work. And Benny works weekdays on the holidays."

"I know he does, but it can't be that difficult to ask off work."

"Kennedy, it's the holidays. Everyone wants off work and everyone is short-staffed."

She wallowed in self-pity. "Fuck."

Micah sputtered all over again, ears hot. "Sex on the beach, are you kidding me? What, did you have it choreographed too?"

"No, but I already made a playlist. We'd play it loud enough in the beach house for you two to get it on to. But now that isn't happening because you ruined the world tour."

"Whatever."

"No, not whatever!"

He stood up, popped the suitcase handle up, and said, "Well, it wasn't gonna work anyway because we all work, so."

"Yeah, but you don't work on Christmas."

"So what, you teleport us over to Harbour Island for a day and then zap us back to New York by the first shift?"

"Mean! Get out of my apartment, brat!"

Micah left, chased out by Kennedy now being pissed about how he ruined her Bahama plans. He spent the entire walk down the stairs assessing his prospects on every dating app he owned. He was regretting deleting and unmatching every conversation he'd had that went past their printed expiration date of a one-night stand.

Still, he didn't want to lug a suitcase into a hookup's apartment. In New York, he always classified that as couch-surfing behavior or being in-between leases and not having the money for a bigger storage unit when everything went toward the deposit.

He scrubbed through his texts. He paused on James.

No, he told himself, shaking the idea from his head. Even if Benny was taken now, his brain had officially classified James as a potential brother-in-law. He couldn't risk soiling James' relationship with Benny should Hunter detonate Benny's self-esteem again.

And then, his thumb hovered over Alistair's name for far too long.

Slowly, he closed his eyes. He reached up, phone still in hand, to scratch his thumbnail between his brows. With a strained groan, he said, "Fuuuck," and scanned up and down the street for some other answer.

Thoroughly alone, Micah decided that if he was going to debase himself, it wasn't going to be with Benny's brother.

He pulled up the profile and pressed the call button. It rang for all of two seconds and was answered with a surprised but pleased, "Micah, hello."

"Hey," he said. He grimaced at the sound of his own voice. "How's the kitchen remodel?"