𝑪𝒉𝒆𝒄𝒌𝒎𝒂𝒕𝒆: 𝑩𝒆𝒏𝒏𝒚 𝑾𝒂𝒕𝒕𝒔 𝒙 𝑶𝑪

Last Resort

"Why do you have all of your things here?"

"Well," Emilie took a step toward Benny, "My dear, dear uh friend. I have no money," She smiled as sweetly as she could and put a hand on his shoulder. "I have been kicked out of my hotel room, and I would stay with Harry but there is not even enough space in his hotel room to lay down a towel,"

"I can just give you money if you need," Benny said, grabbing her hand to move off of him.

Harry decided this was the perfect time to chime in, "Well we thought- I thought it seemed like you had some things you need to deal with so what better way than living in close quarters?" Harry ended his statement with an awkward smile that showed off his very expensive teeth.

"Is this your last resort?" Benny said, turning to Emilie. She nodded as innocently as she could, she was really trying to not end up having to share a bed with Harry.

"Okay fine, you can use the same air mattress that Beth used,"

"Oh thank god!" she said, about to go for a hug but stopping before she actually did. "It's just for another week,"

"You're still keeping all of this a secret from Beth?" Harry popped in again to ask.

"Mhm, I want it to be a surprise. Make it special. She hasn't been having the easiest time lately."

Harry nodded.

"Speaking of this, there's less of us again so I was thinking I should call the twins,"

"The twins?" Benny asked.

"Yeah, you're probably too high ranking to have noticed or cared about them but Mike and Matt were there at Beth's first tournament. They sort of stayed friends, occasionally seeing each other at tournaments and stuff,"

"I thought they stopped competing," Harry interjected.

"Well they did but they still were pretty damn good and we need all the help we can get," Harry nodded again in agreement.

"Do you mind if I...?" Emilie gestured to the phone.

"Well of course go ahead make yourself right at home," he said passive-aggressively. Benny had noticed the little insult she threw at him before she asked to use the phone, and after he agreed to let her live with him for a bit, for free.

As Emilie was on the phone, Benny and Harry just sat in silence. Harry gave Benny a thumbs up, which made Benny respond with a look that said what the hell without needing to say a word. Harry then gestured to Emilie then repeated the thumbs-up gesture which made Benny give him a look that said what the fuck.

"Ok, so they're in Kentucky right now so it's gonna take them a couple of days to make it up here,"

"Sounds good," Harry commented quickly, now avoiding Benny's glare. "Are the boys coming today?"

"The boys?" Benny asked, not because he didn't know who he was talking about but rather because of the way he said it. Harry turned into a frat boy in the middle of the sentence for some reason.

"Yeah, the boys! Arthur, and the other one,"

"They aren't coming today," Benny clarified with another confused look.

"Oh ok."

-

They got more work done that day than they had the others, mostly because with just them, it was a lot less fun. At the end of the day, there came a point where Harry had to go back to his room. He took a long time saying his goodbyes, more for Emilie's benefit than his own.

Emilie had to change into pajamas so he went inside his room to give her some privacy, telling her to just knock on the door to let him know she was decent.

She changed into a bright pink pair. It had frills and was something that she wore as a teenager. It just happened to be one of her favorite pairs so she brought it with her. As she looked through her clothes, she found something in her bag she had forgotten she had brought. A pile of old letters was shoved back down to the bottom of her suitcase.

She knocked on the door and when Benny opened it from the other side, he started laughing.

"What?"

"I'm sorry it's just-" he couldn't finish his sentence without laughing more.

"Ugh. You are such a boy,"

"Sorry, it's just those are very nice pajamas for someone with two dollars to her name,"

"Shut up, I am going to go to sleep," She said trying to pump up the air mattress more.

"Hope you don't drown in all of the hot pink fabric,"

"You seem more shocked by this than when you saw me naked!"

"Well see that wasn't a hot pink mess, maybe still a hot mess but at least it wasn't pink,"

"Jackass," Emilie said quietly as she went under the covers to ignore him in rebellion.

"Goodnight Emmy," was the last thing Benny said as he turned off the lights and closed the door to his room.

Emilie was left feeling cold. A little mentally but most physically.