Legacy | Benny watts

Three

Kelly helped herself to yet another free drink, courtesy of the tournament organizers, and noticed Benny looked at her with disapproval.

"What is it?" She asked.

They had stuck around the bar, playing anyone who dared challenge them, and were now engaged in a weird couples' game against two brothers from Nebraska. She made her move, and Benny would be making their next one.

"You've had a fair few of those." He told her, pointing at the old fashioned glass in her hand. It was filled with an orange liquid and had two candied cherries in it. "It's barely six PM."

She could see the younger brother snicker at his statement. "I haven't even started! You'll have to carry me upstairs when we're done here." The boy laughed out loud. From that moment on, Kelly was determined to play drunk and mess with Benny as much as humanly possible.

Kelly did anything that could catch Benny off guard, every single thing that he wouldn't expect her to even imagine doing while sober. She sat with her legs crossed and let one of them rest on Benny's thighs. She spoke louder than usual, laughed more than usual. The drinks kept coming, until she'd had at least ten of them.

It didn't matter what she did here, most of the chess people were gone already. When Benny made the final move that granted them victory over the brothers, she allowed herself to cheer loudly and plant a kiss on his cheek.

"I think we should get going now," he said as he got up from his seat and pulled Kelly away with him, "you got a bit carried away with the drinks, Kelly." She made a show of pushing him away and trying to go back to her seat, but he grabbed her arm to keep her where they stood.

"But I wanna stay!"

"Come on, you're drunk, let's go."

"You go, I'm having fun here." She really enjoyed watching Benny do a double take as her drunken demeanor melted away in just a second. A mischievous smile appeared on her face as if to say yeah, I tricked you. What can you do about it?

The one thing Kelly hadn't expected was the heartfelt laughter that escaped Benny's mouth.

"You have a really nice laugh," she said right before walking to the bartender because, despite his confident attitude, it looked like he could use a compliment. She realized now, he wasn't the same Benny she remembered. Kelly returned by his side carrying a half full bottle of vodka and two cloudy shot glasses.

"I thought you were so drunk." He kept laughing as he closed the elevator door behind her. "I was actually worried for you."

"Well, I don't drink before seven." Kelly looked down at her little wrist watch and smiled. "It looks like I could start right now, too bad these glasses need washing first."

Kelly downed her second shot without making a face, and Benny stared at her in mock disbelief. They were sitting on his bed, no chess board between them this time.

"Isn't that strong enough for you?" Benny was on his third, and he'd grimaced every time. Kelly just laughed. "So, how'd you learn to play chess?" They were allowed to ask each other questions after each shot. It was stupid, sure, but they were celebrating and so they didn't care.

"My uncle taught me, he was so good at it. Much better than my father and definitely my brother." She took a second to accept the irony of the situation and drank her next shot, "then he drank himself to death. Were you and Beth Harmon a thing?" Benny's face fell.

"I guess she liked the bottle better than she liked me. I moved on."

Kelly didn't like to see Benny in such a way. Slumped shoulders, sad eyes, and that stupid drunk people thing where they try to drink more and shove the glass into their teeth without realizing.

"That's pretty dumb of her, you're easy to like." She tried to pour another shot and found the bottle was empty. Maybe they'd been drinking larger shots than they thought, you know, by volume. "You know what? We don't need booze to have fun."

Kelly turned on the radio and danced to song after song while Benny sat on the couch and egged her on. Just a couple times she managed to talk him into dancing with her, but they were both tired soon after and thought about getting ready for bed. They dragged Kelly's suitcase back to his room, and she started going through it.

"My robe's not here." She fumbled with many pieces of clothing trying to find it.

"Are you sure you packed it?"

"Yes, and I'm missing underwear too."

"What's it look like?" Okay, maybe they were still a little drunk.

Kelly pulled out some lacy red panties and dangled them in the air. "Like these ones, but black!" They both started laughing again. Benny grabbed his kimono from under the bed and threw it in her face. "Thanks? Don't look." He turned around so Kelly could change into his clothes.

"You look great." She probably did, in just her underwear and Benny's robe. "I'm going back to New York tomorrow, how about you?" The tournament would happen in New York, but Kelly had her motel room booked until the day before it started. It wasn't a bad plan, her father couldn't find her and bully her in the middle of nowhere, but now there was no way she'd stay all alone with Daniel the night clerk manning the front desk.

"I was going to stay here..." she hesitated. She really didn't want to stay, and Benny could see that.

Kelly laid down on the crusty old couch and let her hair flow over the armrest. Well, not that much. It was on the shorter side, after all. She was finally having a sugar crash after all the orange juice in cocktail glasses she'd had earlier.

"Come to New York with me." Yeah, that must be a sugar hallucination. He didn't just ask me to- "I wouldn't mind the company."

Now, really considering all the choices available, staying with Benny wasn't even close to the worst one. Kelly's father could never find out- but at least she'd be safe with him. She could have fun.

"You know what? Let's do it."