Real Quidditch — that was good, and Ben found himself latching onto it. Maybe that would make all the difference. Maybe Art would be too busy, or maybe he cared too much about his team and his upcoming season to risk things (though if his wife and child hadn't had that preventative power to keep him away from gambling, it was unlikely a group of men he worked with would, either). Maybe Quidditch itself could stand in as a replacement. Ben's own career in the industry had been short-lived, but there was a rush of being in a stadium when people were cheering. For Ben, at least, it was similar to the rush when you unexpectedly won some money at a card table (though Art had ruined his whole life once before, and he'd been playing Quidditch then, too).

Honestly, Ben just wanted to latch on to something. Even though he knew there was no reason to expect this would fix everything, he wanted to believe it would. If Quidditch fixed everything, that meant it wasn't Ben's responsibility to do it. It meant things could be fine and Ben could go back to focusing on his own deeply Fucked Up life, without worrying that Art was about to fuck up his life even worse, somehow.

"That's great," he said, with too much enthusiasm. "That's good. It'll be good to have people in the stands again. I'll come cheer for you," he added, though he had not run that one by Melody, whom he was sure wouldn't want him to go — after their last Quidditch match together, he couldn't really say he blamed her.