Yes (Parks and Recreation Fanfic)

Part 14 - Ben

I walk into the restaurant and am immediately overwhelmed by the smell of grilled vegetables. I should never let Chris choose where we go to meet up. Not only did I have to drive for an hour to get here, but I also have to eat health-nut food?
"Ben!" I hear from a booth across the restaurant. I see Chris at the booth and walk over.
"Hey, Chris! Sorry I'm a bit late. Traffic. Wait, you live in Pawnee too! How'd you get here so fast?"
"I rode my bike here!"
I laugh a little. That sounds exactly like something Chris would do. It's about 50 miles from here to Pawnee, on a highway with no bike lane.
"We haven't talked in weeks! It's been so odd!" Chris says, putting down his menu to talk to me.
"I know! It's been really strange not seeing you! Or seeing City Hall. It's just been strange."
"I know, right!" He smiles, looks down at the menu, nods his head, then puts it down again.
"It looks like you've been getting more sleep. The bags under your eyes are gone, you're more alert. Have you been sleeping better?"
"Uh, yeah! I have!"
"I was just thinking, you were awake thinking about that government employee you were interested in seeing, correct?"
"Yep. I was."
"You are no longer a government employee. You could date this woman."
Crap. I've been putting this off for too long. I need to tell him.
"Actually, Chris, I've been wanting to talk to you about this." I sigh. "I am dating her."
"Oh my gosh! Who is she?"
"Um... Leslie."
"Leslie Knope?" a giant smile spreads across his face. "Ben! That's amazing! How long have you two been dating for?"
A lump forms in my throat. I close my eyes and look down as I swallow it. No dancing around the subject now. It was going to have to come out at some point...
"Half a year."
I open my eyes to see Chris' face fall as he starts to put two and two together.
"You're saying that... you and Leslie were dating.... while you were Assistant City Manager?" I nod my head a little. He takes a long pause to process the information.
"I have to be honest," Chris says, staring at the wall behind me, "I am hurt that you would disobey city rules like that. And I am even more hurt that you didn't tell me until now." I sigh a little bit. Guilt crushes me like a wave.
"May I ask when you started dating, exactly?"
"Do you remember when you sent us to Indianapolis on a trip to put in Pawnee's bid for the state little league championship?"
"Yes! Which you won!"
"That night at dinner, I told her I liked her. She said she liked me, then left for the bathroom. You came while she was gone."
"So if I hadn't come..."
"I'm guessing the night would've taken a very different turn. So anyways, we came home the next day. You know how you left early that day?"
"Yep! I went to go train for the Muncie Bike Race!"
"She came to drop off some receipts-"
"The last receipts from the Harvest Festival, yes?" He's making this story a lot harder with his footnotes.
"Yeah. Those. She came to give them to you. You were gone, so she gave them to me. And I made out with her."
We pause in an awkward moment of silence.
"I broke up with her the day after Lil' Sebastian's funeral, though. The real reason she was crying was because she let it slip that she had a scandal with me to her campaign managers and they decided that they couldn't run her campaign. When I was gone the next day, I went to go talk to them. They said that they would run her campaign if we broke up."
"All these events... they're all tying together. I was always curious why you had such an interest in the rule against office relationships." He says, dazed. "I noticed that, for a while, you were disappearing more and more for long periods of time. Were you...?"
I nod my head a little bit and look down at my lap.
"Wow." He says quietly. For minutes, we sit there. Chris is so talkative, it's weird having such a long pause in a conversation with him.
"Chris, I'm feeling so incredibly guilty right now. You're my best friend and hiding this from you was the hardest and worst thing I've ever done."
I'm surprised when he smiles and looks me in the eye.
"I believe you. And if it were any other girl, I might be extraordinarily angry. But now that I think about it, I can't see how I missed it. You and Leslie deserve each other. You are both amazing, dedicated, passionate people. To have two of my most trusted government employees break the rules to be together must mean that... you really care about each other."
"We do." I say. I've always heard the term "felt like the weight of the world was lifted off of my shoulders". I always thought that that was a ridiculous statement. I now know that it's not. I feel that way now.
"But she is not a tall brunette." He says. We both laugh.