There was a second, maybe half a second, before Riley burst in (damn his family and not knocking), that he thought he enjoyed kissing Josh. It was pretty different to any girl he'd ever kissed, and it was too rushed and short to really be better, and he was so busy aggressively deflecting Riley's judgment away from him that it wasn't until later that he realised he actually liked it.
He'd be lying if he said it wasn't something he'd ever thought about, because he had. Vigorously and repeatedly. Back when he was growing up, he used to think about kissing other boys, doing other stuff with them. He used to look at Danny's old hockey posters that practically wallpapered his room and (though he wouldn't admit it to anyone, ever) he liked what he saw. He always made it out to Danny that he was looking at the cheerleader, and sometimes he was, but sometimes he wasn't, and he was too busy living in denial to ever think too deeply about it.
Because he liked girls, right? He liked girls a lot, and he'd kissed girls and done lots of other stuff with girls and he enjoyed all of it (well, maybe not all of it- there had been some bad experiences in there), but he knew he was most definitely, one hundred percent no doubts whatsoever attracted to girls. Which meant that he wasn't gay, so no worries, right?
Except Josh had kissed him, and Ben had pulled away on instinct and then Riley had barged in and humiliated him, but if it weren't for that, Ben's not sure what would have actually happened. He replayed the moment in his head, except this time, instead of Riley coming in, he kissed Josh back. He knows he wouldn't have, not really, because he's with Riley and he would never cheat on Riley (despite whatever the thing she has going with Danny is).
He decides after a while that he liked the idea of kissing Josh back a little too much for a straight man.
He'd never actually considered that he might really be bi before, despite his long standing attraction to men. He'd only ever dated women, but that didn't necessarily make him straight, right?
He was a little bit lost, in all honesty.
Tucker and his mom get back and between her, him, and Riley, the gay jokes are coming hard and fast (he laughed internally at the innuendo). He bats them aside as easily as he always has, with reminders about how much he loves women, and takes Emma to bed so he can just sit in the dark with his kid and think for a while.
Riley had gone to rehearse lines with Danny. Ben wasn't really an obsessive boyfriend type (except he totally was, but he tried to tell himself he wasn't), but this was the second time today that Riley was choosing Danny over him and he couldn't help but feel like he was coming second to his own brother.
He came out to join Tucker and his mom in the discussion on how to illegally evict the guy Ben may or may not have a bit of a crush on (only a little- it's not like he actually wants to do anything about it), and he finds it hard to listen because he can see Riley and Danny on the fire escape acting like they're meant to be together and that feeling of second place swells in his chest again.
He tries to say something to Riley but she brings up the lease and then everything dissolves back into chaos and murder plans and fake funerals. He decides to use his patented problem solving method of ignoring it until it goes away, and just prays to God that it will go away.
It's all a bit of a whirlwind, but suddenly he's pretending that his mother is dead and then everything goes wrong (as per usual) and he has to explain why his mother is very much alive.
Ben tells Josh about wanting him to move out, and Josh makes an incredibly reasonable point about the fact that they could have just asked him, but it's all a little late for that now.
"Can I have my apartment back?" His mom eventually asks, because she doesn't have a subtle bone in her body and is pretty desperate for her old place.
"Honestly? I really want to say no." Josh says, and honestly Ben can't even find it in him to blame the guy, because he so would have done the same.
"But," Josh continued, even though Ben was pretty sure he was going to leave and never speak to any of them again, "I would really like to keep dating your son. So, I guess, sure."
Ben feels the world kind of collapse in on him, and he's suddenly finding it very hard to breath because he thinks we're dating.
"Yeah, about that..." Ben starts, and before he knows it, his mothers elbow is being stuck in his ribs and a giant fake smile is on her face.
"Oh, thank you! That's so nice! Isn't he nice, Benji?"
Ben smiles and nods and pretends not to have had the wind knocked out of him by his mother's elbow, but then Josh smiled and Ben's breath catches for an entirely different reason.
Josh leaves with a quick "see ya around" and Ben turns to his mom to start his onslaught of complaints, which she cuts off pretty quickly.
"Seriously, you can pretend to be gay for twenty minutes. Your father pretended to be straight for twenty years!"
He runs to tell Riley about the craziness that just went down, because she is his girlfriend and that is what good boyfriends do. He jokes about security and apologises for being so crazy about her and Danny, and for about thirty seconds, everything was great.
Danny's acting was finally good, and Ben was pretty impressed by it for a second until he figures out why. Danny says "I love you Riley", and Ben feels so goddamn betrayed that he can just about choke out a "nice coaching" before he walks away, hoping that Riley will chase him and tell him that it's all Danny, that it's one sided or a misunderstanding or that she doesn't love him, she loves Ben.
Riley doesn't chase him, and Ben walks home on his own feeling pretty terrible, because not only is he coming second to his own brother; he'd always known it, too.
They break up.
He's sulking on the fire escape and Riley comes out to explain and every single goddamn feeling he's ever had comes pouring out of his mouth. He sounds so broken and he hates it, and the "I can't do this" falls out of his mouth before he can help it, because it's bad that his girlfriend is in love with his brother, but what's worse is that she doesn't even seem to see it or she's in denial about it and that is hurting Ben harder than anything because it's there and she just refuses to acknowledge it.
He tells her about always feeling in second place, and she just tells him how unfair he's being and he just wants to scream at her because it's so goddamn obvious and he's the one that should be complaining about it not being fair.
They both cry, and then they break up, and then they both cry some more. Ben goes to bed and feels more lost than he's ever felt in his whole life, because he was so sure that Riley was the one and she was so beautiful and smart and funny and great and good with Emma, but he couldn't stay with her and watch her love his brother.
It was unfair, sure, but life's not fair. It hurt, but it would hurt less in the long run than them staying in a relationship they both knew Riley didn't want to be in.
Even if Riley didn't seem to know that.
Josh calls him at eleven o'clock the next morning while he's eating Ben & Jerry's in his pajamas with Emma in his lap, watching some cartoon with singing animals or toys or some other generic kid thing. Ben doesn't watch the show, he watches Emma watch the show, because his daughter is adorable and sometimes he just likes to watch her do things.
His cell phone rang and he answered it without really looking at the caller ID, because no one really calls him apart from his mom, Danny, Tucker, the occasional girl he'd give his number to (emphasis on "occasional"), and...
He was surprised to hear Josh on the other end of the line, but he was at least glad it distracted him a little from thinking about her.
He agreed to meet him for lunch at some cafe he's not heard of but was apparently close and was okay was young kids (since Ben wanted to keep Emma close right now. She was kind of his emotional blankie).
It didn't even occur to him that Josh thought they were dating until he arrived and saw him and he smiled this super bright, megawatt smile at him. Ben gave him a smile of his own (which he was pretty sure just looked a bit pathetic, but he was trying), and sat down opposite him, keeping Emma on his knee.
They started talking and before Ben knew it they started laughing and suddenly nothing seemed quite as bleak anymore. Everything else faded into the background as Ben was caught up in just how much he actually enjoyed the other man's company without the pressure of Tucker and his mother and talking into a freaking baby monitor. He didn't feel like he was lying to him anymore, and Josh was actually a really charming, funny, intelligent guy when Ben was actually listening to him because he could, not because he had to.
He asks Ben about him (Ben has a feeling he could tell something was up- he seems pretty good at reading people, the whole situation with his mothers apartment being excluded), and Ben tells him that he got out of a serious relationship really recently and it was just a little painful right now.
Ben's not sure how, but he ends up blurting out the entire story to Josh over coffee. He knows this isn't what any guy wants to hear on a date (he knows, he's been on the other side of this), but something about Josh just seems so damn understanding that once he starts he just can't stop. Josh doesn't seem bothered by the fact that Ben is bisexual, which made Ben feel infinitely better about telling someone. He doesn't mention the fact that all this happened yesterday, but he figures that's not really an important detail.
Josh listens intently, eyes focused on Ben in a way that made him feel like he was the only thing in the world Josh saw at that moment, and aside from the occasional gurgling noise from Emma, the moment remained uninterrupted in a way that made Ben feel like he could just talk to Josh forever because he wasn't judging him and he was so sick of being judged. Josh listened and talked and occasionally made silly faces at Emma, and Ben found it was the best date he'd been on in a long while.
He asked Josh what he did and Josh tells him that he's an artist, and Ben thinks that's pretty cool because he once tried to be an artist when he was a kid and his mom wouldn't even hang his six year old self's painting on their goddamn fridge.
Ben tells him that he's a bartender and is silently relieved when it didn't seem to get him the awkward "oh, well I'm sure you'll find something better soon" because he actually enjoys being a bartender, but Josh just smiles and asks him how long he's been doing that for.
"Not long. I started just before Emma was born." Ben answered, bouncing his little girl on his knee when she reacted to her name. He smiled down at her and looked up just in time to see Josh smiling at her too. I do love kids pops back into Ben's head from the other night, and he smiles a little more.
They talk for a while longer, about work, life, small things. It was nice. Ben felt like he could be himself in a way he never was before. He leaves the coffee shop later and Josh offers to walk him home, and Ben is kind of an asshole So he argues for a while that maybe he should be walking Josh home, but eventually relents because he can’t be dragging Emma all over the city and it’s actually kind of nice to feel like the one being taken care of for once in his life. At one point he feels like Josh is going to try and hold his hand, and even though he’s starting to think that he might genuinely like Josh, he’s not quite there yet and people might see them and oh god, people might see them.
They reach Ben’s building relatively quickly, and just as Ben is about to turn to Josh and let him down gently (well, as gently as Ben Wheeler was capable of, anyway), Josh turns him around and smiles a hundred watt smiles at him and suddenly the words die in Ben’s throat. He stutters out a goodbye that came out more awkward than smooth, but the look on Josh's face makes him feel like maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.
And if he leans into it when Josh kisses him in front of the door, that’s something he’ll think about later. Right now, he’s just enjoying maybe being okay with who he is.