[ b u t . i t ' s . t u e s d a y ]
by kHo

“She´s mad at me.”

Benny laughed, leaning back in the grass on his elbows. “What this time?”

Sam frowned, pushing down on his hat and covering his eyes more fully. He shrugged. “I´m not sure. Just one of those-- things, or something.”

Benny nodded. “Yeah.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, nodding and stretching out his legs, bumping his foot into Benny´s leg. “So how do I fix it?”

Benny laughed again. “Usually you just wait.”

Sam sighed, nodding. “I hate this.”

Benny nodded. “She can be pretty impossible to take sometimes.”

Sam nodded. “I just wish I knew what I did. How to fix it.”

Benny reached up and grabbed Sam´s elbow lightly, tugging on it. Sam smiled, lying down next to Benny. “Sam, sometimes you just have to ride it out,” Benny said softly. “Sometimes there´s no reason at all for her to get mad. Sometimes it´s just cause it´s a Sunday.”

Sam frowned. “But it´s Tuesday.”

Benny laughed. “I was using Sunday as a for instance.”

“Oh,” Sam said, looking at Benny before turning his gaze back to the skyline. “Okay.”

Benny reached over and plucked Sam´s flop hat off of his head, setting it over his face to block out the sun. “Where is she now?” he asked, laughing as his voice came out muffled.

“Ruthie´s.”

He took the hat off of his face and held it over his stomach. “Ruthie´s been a blessing hasn´t she?” He cringed as he felt Sam´s eyes looking over at him, boring into his skull. “For you and Joon.”

Sam nodded slowly, his eyes still trained on Benny´s face. “I´m sorry it didn´t work out between you two, Benny.”

Benny shrugged, tossing Sam´s hat back over to him. “Yeah. Those are the breaks kid. Sometimes it doesn´t.”

Sam nodded. “Still. You were happy with her.”

Benny nodded, closing his eyes. “Can we not--”

“Oh,” Sam said, and Benny smiled as he pictured the kid´s sorrowful expression. “Sure. I´m sorry.”

“It´s okay, Sam,” Benny said, opening an eye and peering at his profile. “You don´t have to apologize for everything you know. I just don´t want to talk about it.”

Sam nodded, swallowing and opening his mouth before shutting it. Laughing lightly he shook his head. “I almost apologized for apologizing too much.”

Benny laughed, sitting up and drawing up his knees as he looked at Sam´s relaxed form lying in the grass beside him. “You´re a good kid, Sam,” he said softly, reaching out and picking a leaf that had fallen on him off. “She´s lucky to have you.”

Sam frowned, scrunching his eyebrows together as he regarded Benny. “Am I? Because I don´t feel adequate sometimes.”

Benny nodded. “You´re more than adequate. You´re perfect.”

“No, I´m not,” Sam said, shaking his head. He sighed, sitting up. “I don´t think I´m good enough for her.”

Benny smiled, reaching out and clasping a hand behind Sam´s neck. “That´s exactly why you are.”

Sam fixed him with confused eyes and raised an eyebrow. “Huh?”

Benny laughed, patting him on the shoulder. “You don´t think you´re good enough for her, and that´s why you are.” He laughed again as Sam´s expression turned even more befuddled. “It makes you try harder to be the man you think she needs. And even though you already are the man she needs, the fact that you try to be better is just— phenomenal, Sam.” He shook his head. “There is no other person I´d rather Joon be with than you.”

Sam´s face lit up in a smile and Benny thought not for the first time that even if he was 27 years old, he was still 5 at heart. “Yeah?”

Benny nodded. “Yeah.”

Sam looked down, reaching out to pluck a blade of grass. “That means a lot to me, Benny,” he said softly. His mouth twisted in a frown before he looked back up at him. “Benny?”

Benny raised an amused eyebrow. “Yeah?

“I, uh--” Sam shrugged, his hand moving around in a circle as if it could convey the message his mouth couldn´t quite wrap around. “Benny, I love you.”

Benny´s right eyebrow rose to meet the other one. “You love me?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah,” he said with a smile. “The moment I met you, I knew you were…” He paused, again searching for the right words. “You were this great guy, with this really big heart. And you had all this stuff on your plate, and it would have been so easy for you to just be-- I don´t know. To be this big asshole. I mean, there had to be times when you just wanted to say screw it. I´m gonna be an asshole and not give a shit anymore. Right?”

Benny frowned, nodding. “I guess.”

Sam smiled, shrugging. “Except you weren´t. You´re not. I mean, you have your faults, and ya know, who doesn´t. But you´re about as far away from being an asshole as you can be.” He shrugged again, looking hesitantly at Benny. “I guess I just wanted you to know I admired that.”

Benny smiled, reaching out and squeezing Sam´s knee. “I love you too, Sammy.” Sam´s smile was even bigger this time, and Benny thought if there was one thing he liked second best to seeing his sister finally happy for once, it was that kid´s smile. “Come on,” he said, standing up and reaching out a hand to help Sam up. “Let´s go see if we can´t talk Joon down from the ledge.”

Sam´s eyes widened to saucers, his expression suddenly frightened. “She´s on a ledge? What ledge? Why is she on a ledge?!”

Benny laughed, throwing an arm around Sam´s shoulders and walking him to his car. “Metaphor, Sam. We´ve really got to work on your ability to recognize when I´m not being literal.”

“Oh,” Sam said, looking at him and smiling. “Sorry.”