Work Text:
It’s safe to say when Devi was in high school, daydreaming about what her life would look like at twenty-six, it definitely didn’t look like this.
According to Devi, at twenty-six, she was supposed to be years into medical school, living in a dope apartment with her devoted boyfriend. During study breaks, he’d serve her grilled cheese and hot chocolate. He’d drop kisses into her frizz-free hair, talk about marriage and baby names. She’d still manage to be out every night, somehow balancing stability with the life of a twenty-something character in a television show set in New York.
Instead, the reality: She’s been single for years, definitively not enrolled in med school, and progressively becoming a homebody. She prefers being home by 7:30PM to getting blackout in the dive bars she wasted her early twenties in.
All this to say, this is why it’s a shock to her system to be out on a Tuesday night, crowded in a hole in the wall music venue in the East Village.
Fighting to find a spot where she could maintain an inch of personal space, she had already begun mentally cataloguing the events of the night for her “Most Cringe Moments” newsletter she sent out once a month to Fab and Eleanor: Lost her coworkers in the crowd; bumped into a twenty-year-old who proceeded to drop his beer down her satin shirt; checked her work emails twice.
Satan himself must’ve thought she could use more material — as if orchestrated, the crowd parted, revealing a familiar figure at the bar.
The options: Devi could leave now. She could run right past the bouncer, out the door, and abandon her coworkers. Tomorrow, when she’d message the Teams chat so sorry i left! i just had to get away from my ex!!, they’d spam her with understanding memes.
Or she could wait it out — she could stay, find her friends in the chaos, and hide amidst the many bodies. He’d likely never know they were occupying the same space for the first time in years.
But, instead, she chooses the third option. After all these years, the siren song to continue fucking up one of the most important relationships in her life is calling her name. Blame it on her flair for the dramatic or the conflicting desire of wanting something and being utterly terrified of being known by another person — but, even now, she wants to be so close to Ben Gross that he won’t let her go this time.
When she was seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, their strange brand of chemistry and her raging hormones had her convinced that Ben was comparatively attractive to Paxton Hall-Yoshida. In college, years after they’d broken up, she’d still wake up sweating from dreams of his arms. How his muscles fluttered when, out of exasperation, he’d throw up his hands.
At twenty-six, though, Ben is objectively hot and completely oblivious to his glow-up. He seems to be completely unaware that at least three people are checking him out, assessing if he’s a tech asshole or finance bro. The fact she has shamelessly, drunkenly cyberstalked him in the past year and can confirm he’s neither: makes him even hotter.
From far away, she can see how sharp his jawline cuts by his earlobes, how he jiggles his glass in one hand. She can’t give up the chance to see the changes up close – needs the proximity to assess her prey.
She barges through the crowd and manages to get the bartender’s attention. Once she’s prepared, drink in hand, she leans into Ben’s space.
“So,” she starts, crushing her toes into the fabric of her boots for leverage, “How much are you willing to wager that the lead singer makes a vague and confusing political statement halfway through the set?”
Since high school, Devi has learned the art of seducing men. She doesn’t flex the muscle often anymore, preferring to throw the extra energy into her work. But it remains in her back pocket for moments like these — when she wants to capture someone’s attention for a night of shameless flirting.
She thinks Ben will be shocked, leap out of his skin at the sight of her. Instead, his mouth twitches in recognition.
Devi sips delicately at the foam of her drink. According to her data, the best seduction requires little talking. Yet, something about being near him brings her back to old habits. Her bottom lip trembles in anticipation, biting back the urge to banter. Hoping to hide the movement, she lets the foam sit on her lip for a heartbeat too long, then licks it away.
When he barely seems to register her signature move, other than a microscopic twitch of his brow, she succumbs to speaking. “Not a betting man anymore? I hope you’re at least on track for world domination.”
“Well, I’m not sure if that’s the plan anymore, but I am in law school.” Ben’s smile looks like it’s been through the wash too many times. Usually, it’s not her flirting that tires men out. “It’s going well. My dad’s been talking about bringing me into the firm.”
She twists her ring around her finger, a nervous habit she picked up from college-induced imposter syndrome.
“Wow. That’s incredible, Gross.” She’s surprised by how genuine her words sound, how her hand rises on its own accord to land on his shoulder, “I’m proud of you.”
Ben is finally rattled — equally as shocked by her tone, eyes her hand with suspicion. Under her touch, his skin blooms with goosebumps. As she retracts, his mouth opens and closes. He looks around furtively, scanning the room for invisible spies, “Can I be honest with you?”
She blinks. “Yes.” When he looks tentative, her voice drops an octave warmer, kinder than she’s heard in a long time. “You can always be honest with me.”
“I think I hate law school,” he whispers. When he says it, his shoulders slacken. “I may despise it.”
She can’t help the laugh that tumbles out, but she still tries to catch it with her hands. He instinctively moves closer to her, as if hoping the proximity of their bodies will make the sound echo.
“I’m sorry for laughing,” Devi says, but the sound still rings in her inflection. “I just wasn’t expecting that.”
His smile twists the right way this time. He looks like her Ben again.
“I’m just relieved my pain still can bring you joy. It's good to know a few things stay the same.”
But things don’t feel quite the same to her. The discomfort manifests itself in her skin — an itch up her wrist to the center of her palm. Even at her big age, she hates that time alters people, that you can’t always go home. In retaliation against the concept, she gulps her drink down and wipes her mouth in a motion Nalini would deem unladylike.
He pulls at his collar, shoulders returning to a tense posture. She’s overcome with an impulsive urge to take him back to her tiny apartment (with a thankfully absent roommate) to relearn his edges. Seventeen-year-old Devi would be enraged that Ben Gross, of all people, would continue to make her feel this way. But seventeen-year-old Devi, of all people, would also understand why it feels like Midtown rush hour traffic in her chest when she’s around him.
Ben clears his throat, tightening his grip on his drink, “I hope you’re enjoying your life though. I assume you’re deep in med school now?”
Devi snorts, answering before she can pull out her usual script, “I am enjoying life. Probably because I’m not in med school.”
Ben smiles again, takes a sip from his glass, “I know. I don’t know why I pretended I didn’t.”
She wants to say I’ve looked you up too. Instead, she returns his expression, trying her hand at seduction again, “Keeping tabs on me, Gross?”
He continues to ignore the lilt in her tone, rolling his eyes, “You’re in health policy, right?”
Feedback cracks through the air, breaking the spell. Devi tilts her head at him, eyebrows rising in a silent question.
He raps his knuckles against the bar, four beats, before he asks, “Do you want to talk somewhere else?”
Devi should be a good friend, stay here.
“Yes,” she murmurs, quiet enough to make him come close. “I’d like that.”
As they weave out of the club, she aches to reach out to grab his hand. The part of her that still feels like a teenager is furious with her adult self’s self-restraint, but Adult Devi pretends this is just the beginning of a one-night stand. Unfortunately, as a serial monogamist, she’s still never had one, but she’s watched Sex in the City enough times to know the motions.
When they’re out in the fresh air and he’s hailing a cab, she asks, “Why exactly do you hate law school?”
“I thought we were going to start talking about you,” Ben says, stepping aside for the taxi to pull up. He opens the door for her, ushering her inside, “I want to know what prompted you to completely abandon your life plan.”
She shimmies in, sure to flash an appropriate amount of skin in the process. She finally gets a proper reaction from him — his eyes glaze over, his Adam’s apple bobs. “Nice try, Gross, but I asked you a question first.”
He follows behind her, cautiously, hands staying far enough to avoid contact (which causes her third mental break of that night), and rolls his eyes again.
“Are we in third grade?” To the taxi driver, he adds, “77th and 2nd, please.”
“The Upper East Side?” Devi scoffs. “Hit pause on my last question because I have to ask – who in their mid-twenties lives in the Upper East Side?”
He smiles at that, one that makes her heart feel like a runny egg, “Rich boys with daddy issues, I guess.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Gross. You’re also not horrendous looking.” She pretends to inspect him, “One could even say… decently attractive?”
His smile drops, opting for a serious tone, “I was going to say that you look extremely sexy tonight, but maybe I’ll hold off since I only got decently attractive.”
Devi already wants out of this taxi, but only so she can have her way with him right there on the sidewalk. When they finally dated, he knew her insides enough to know what to say to get them spinning. Now, having not seen him in years, his presence alone makes her feel out of body, delirious with lust and nostalgia, love-deprived. She feels so knocked off her feet that she can’t help but utter —
“Wow.”
His fingers finally start to crawl over to her side of the cab, millimeters away from her thigh. She may pass out from the delayed gratification — vows to tip the driver a few bucks for the aftermath of her oozing into the cracked leather of the back seat. But Ben never fully takes the plunge, keeping his fingers close enough to feel heat emanating from her like a radiator.
After a few moments, he starts to shift slightly and her body thrums with the probability (she estimates an 82% chance) that she gives in and jumps him in the back of this taxi.
But she’s done a lot more therapy now— loaded up with a “tool kit” for these high-intensity emotional situations. She patiently waits.
(In her boots, her toes tap a jig.)
The taxi halts abruptly at a red light, jolting her. He leans into her space, murmuring, “Do you want to walk the rest of the way?”
“Yes,” she says, too loudly. “Absolutely.”
Anything to get out of this cab and get closer to a surface where she can start to tear his clothes off would be preferable.
He raises an eyebrow at her, a trace of a smile in his eyes, and turns to the driver. “We’ll stop here if you don’t mind.”
Devi forgoes the extra tip, just leaps out of the car to breathe in the cool air of Manhattan, closing her eyes to calm herself. When she reopens them, she notices they’re on 61st.
“What is this?” she demands as the taxi takes off. “Why did we get out so early?”
Ben has the nerve to look surprised, “I thought you’d want to walk. It was getting stuffy in there.”
Devi huffs, “I thought we were a little bit closer. It’s a whole different microclimate over here.”
She adjusts her light jacket in a futile attempt to conserve her lust-fueled body heat, but the autumn air cools her quickly.
Ben shrugs off his jacket and slides it on top of her, “Here, take this.” When she snuggles into it, he adds, “I’m sorry.”
“Thank you for the jacket,” she concedes. “Now, let’s walk.”
They move swiftly without much conversation between them. In the cool air, she feels deprived of him, still babyishly wants him to hold her hand, and wonders if it’s concerning to still feel a decade younger than your age.
He stills by a liquor store on 75th, “Did you want anything? I don’t have much.”
To drink or not to drink? One bottle of two – how nervous is she going to get and will she take off her clothes immediately? Does she try to impress him with her newfound wine knowledge she picked up when she dated that winemaker for a few months three years ago?
She waves the anxiety off with a sweeping motion of her hand, “Whatever you have is fine.”
His eyebrows leap up again, “Are you sure?”
Annoyed, she huffs, “Yes, unless you were planning to abandon me here. Then you can just let me know and I’ll buy them out.”
He shakes his head with a smile, starts to walk, and stills again before taking her hand. Her iciness thaws at the gesture, wanting more and more until she worries she’s visibly vibrating with it.
They make it to a doorman building entrance and he adjusts his hand to lead her in by the small of her back, using the other to wave hello to the doorman.
Devi stage whispers, “A doorman building? It’s like you’re actively trying not to be relatable.”
“Unlike you,” Ben dead-pans, “I’ve never tried to be relatable.”
He has the audacity to pick up his mail, like she wasn’t seconds away from ripping off her shirt and begging him to have his way with her. The whole thing is starting to feel less like a one-night stand and more like someone showing an acquaintance their new place. She’s about to stomp her feet when he senses her ire and smiles in apology, “Force of habit.”
In the elevator, she contemplates calling this all off and calling a Lyft, chalking it up to some crazy homesick moment, when, suddenly, he’s crowding her against the wall. She can only release a squeak at the feeling of him against her, hands balling into fists in hopes of not being the instigator of whatever happens between them tonight.
He pins her with only his gaze, “I decided I’ll say it. You look extremely sexy tonight.”
The elevator dings before it lurches, a saving grace that keeps her from kissing him or making some sweeping declaration of undying love there on the spot. Not that she’s still in love with him, but the hot and cold act is making her consider scheduling an appointment with a cardiologist – no heart should be subjected to this much fluctuation in rhythm.
He peels himself away from her to lead her to their destination (finally!) and, when he opens the door, she’s struck by how absurdly beautiful his place is. She thought she wouldn’t trade her rent-stabilized second-floor apartment in the East Village for anything, even with the occasional mouse, but this apartment could change her mind. Balcony overlooking the street! Almost floor to ceiling windows! Devi’s bedroom window overlooks an alley that’s home to a gang of rats that host a fight club every night.
“Wow,” she says for the second time that night. She’s starting to sound like Kamala’s youngest, Nikhil, whom Devi devotedly FaceTimes every Sunday. Every time he appears on the phone screen, he says wow in the same shiny tone.
“Ben, this place is incredible.”
He actually looks sheepish when she turns back to him, hand placed at the nape of his neck, “I know it’s a lot, but my dad’s client called in a favor – it’s not that much.”
Nothing’s a mood killer like a realization you will never be this rich, so she claps her hands together and moves on. “Shall we give me the tour?”
Ben looks aghast, “Do you want a drink first?”
Devi would rather throw him on his boucle couch and pry off his belt buckle, but nods.
He’s methodical with his drink assembly, pulling out an actual jigger to measure. To anyone else, she would make some sort of cutting comment, but, with him, it seems familiar and sweet. When he’s satisfied with his concoction, garnishing it with a lime slice, he hands it to her.
Upon her quizzical look at the one drink, he explains, “I’m taking a sabbatical from drinking.”
She almost laughs, gesturing wildly to the bottle in front of him, “Then why do you have this?”
“Because other people drink,” he shrugs.
He unceremoniously dumps his dirty materials in the sink and strangely, it makes her miss him even though he’s right there.
He’s still behind the kitchen island, too far to initiate physical contact, but he’s clearly sending signals that he wants her too. It’s time for a decision. She sips on her drink, hums at the taste, and decides on her opening move.
“Do you want to fuck me?”
He chokes on air, grabs a bottle of water out of the fridge, and chugs. “Jesus Christ,” he says after regaining composure, “I forgot what you’re like.”
The sentiment hits her harder than expected. Two by two, old insecurities board the ark and she feels the pinpricks of tears behind her ears, in her nostrils. She can only imagine how it’s amplified on her face.
Shame, devastation, rage — right back to the first day of senior year, the fluorescent lights illuminating his crooked smile directed at someone else. The look on his face, the way his ears twitched, when he insinuated she would never make him feel safe. Later, when they finally got together, he tried to prove, over and over again, that it wasn’t true. But in the quiet moments, the words would come back. Doubt flooded her and, in return, everything felt like evidence towards his theory.
When he skipped another weekend, citing midterms. When he did come, his phone buzzing – new friends wondering why he wasn’t out. It took every ounce of her self-control not to spit, can I call you an Uber?
When she’d go to Columbia, it was no better. Their stolen moments were punctuated with drop-ins from his new friends – feigning interest and taking every opportunity to mock her. Jabs at her Princeton hoodies, little jokes about pumping gas. Over while, the comments began to feel like personal critiques.
And, at first, he didn’t laugh with them. He used to take hold of her hand, rubbing circles into the vein in her wrist. It felt like he was saying: I’m with you. I’m on your side.
But, somewhere along the way, he stopped reaching out for her — like it was too exhausting to keep defending the queen of too much.
Soon after she and Ben had ended in a whimper, she transferred to Cornell. When she landed in Ithaca, she could still hear his friends in her ears, taunting her for that choice too.
She thought she had grown out of it.
She grabs her purse from the chair, standing too quickly, tugging on her stupid lightweight jacket. “I should’ve realized this was a mistake. I’ll just go.”
“No, no, no. Devi, wait,” he pleads, coming around the island. He comes close – still too far away. “I’m just… I’m just scared.”
She wants to say, you don’t think I am too? You don’t think I feel like an idiot for wanting you still? For thinking about you during the rare times when I’m dating other people and thinking how they don’t challenge me like you did? For dreaming about you. For wishing we never ended. For wanting to go back to Malibu, to that moment where I could have always been yours.
Devi says nothing. Her phone vibrates in her pocket, a reminder of everything outside this room, but she ignores it. She stands immobile, suspended, watching him move.
“Life has been a shit show without you,” he admits, running his hands through his hair. “I thought, over the years, that it would get better – that I’d be so focused on other things that I wouldn’t think of you anymore. But law school is kicking my ass and I’m fully realizing again that I’ve locked myself into this dream of following my dad’s footsteps my entire life. And I feel so lost, which makes me think of you, and… I’m stuck in the fucking Upper East Side!”
She hates him. She wants to kill him. It feels criminal how easily he worms back under her skin and makes her softer than she is. She should tell him to fuck off and leave her alone forever. Instead, her therapy kicks in — deep breaths, human contact. Her hands gravitate to his, folding them into an embrace.
“You’ll figure it out,” she says, voice even, breath steady, “You always do. It’s a really annoying thing about you.”
So, she loves him – still. She always knew it. Her therapist had floated it as a possibility, but Devi had hoped it would fade with distance, with time. The mornings she wakes up well rested are the ones when she’s climbed out of a dream in which she passes Ben on the street, arms interlocked with someone else, and doesn’t even recognize him.
“Devi.” The determination in his voice lures her eyes to his. “I want you. But I don’t want to.”
“Oh.” Devi thinks for a moment, a finger to her chin. “I can understand that.”
He shakes his head, “I don’t want you to leave me behind. I don’t want my whole world to become you and me again.. just to have it disappear.”
“So why take me back here tonight?” she asks, without thinking. “Why not just say the pleasantries and shuffle off to some corner away from me?”
Ben looks at her as though she’s lost her mind, “Because it’s you, Devi. Every time, I lose my goddamn mind for you. Tonight, I thought, maybe it’s different now. Maybe we’re grown up. But I’m right back where I always go with you.”
“Ben,” she starts. Stops. Starts again, “I’m not the same person. I’ve grown up to be just as damaged and confused as everyone else. And you left me too. Maybe not as many times, but when it really mattered… you left me too.”
Wordlessly, they fall onto his couch. With so much space still between them, Devi wonders: okay, is this it? Not a one-night stand – closure. Hasn’t she been wanting this?
When he pulls her into himself, she remembers that closure is overrated. His kiss is catastrophic – one of those world-destroying, end of the world ones where you get lost enough to ignore the meteor hurtling toward you. She remembers why it’ll never end.
Objectively, they shouldn’t. Not after this conversation. She should go home, think, process. She should stay, spend the night talking through what this means.
But when he pulls back, breathless and red cheeked, she catches the relief in his eyes. They’re Ben and Devi. He tastes like mint, feels like missing the exit on the 101 because the music is too loud and you can’t hear the GPS. She throws logic out the window.
His hands plead: Don’t leave. Can I touch you here? There? I think I want to burn your fingertips into my flesh so, when you're gone, I can touch the scars and feel like I’m with you always.
They’re splayed across his bed, the room turning purple. She’s still catching her breath when he asks, “Is it too soon to say I love you? Asking for a friend.”
She snorts, “Too soon, eight years late.”
She turns over to face him, his face illuminated by storm clouds. She sees the boy she knows so well and the man she’s still learning — both scared. She grabs his hand, kisses his love line, prays whoever can read it will only see her name.
“But also, right now. Tomorrow and ten years from now,” she promises. “I’ll love you too.”