Benji (Big Tex’s Roadhouse #2)

Chapter 1 Benji

The beach house is worth thirty-two million dollars and the bride wants a rustic elegance theme for her wedding. In a house with forty-foot ceilings and an infinity pool that wraps around three sides of the house like a moat.

“I love it,” I tell her. “Rustic elegance is going to be stunning against these sight lines. The Gulf of Mexico as the backdrop, the natural wood and burlap grounding the whole thing so it doesn’t feel sterile. I see your vision for the wedding. I completely see it.”

I don’t see it.

What I see is a multi-million-dollar white stucco house in a luxury gated community fighting for its life against mason jars.

But I’m a professional wedding planner and it’s my job to make the client’s vision happen, not to make the client’s vision good.

Those are completely different skill sets.

I’m excellent at both but today I am only being paid for one.

The bride’s name is Callie. She’s twenty-six, thin, with straight, long blonde hair. Her father bought her this house as a wedding present. A mansion sitting on the most pristine stretch of beach in the Florida Panhandle, and Callie has been inside it twice.

“What about the table settings?” I ask. “Have you finalized the linens?”

“We were thinking maybe a natural linen? Like an oatmeal color? With wildflowers in small clay pots as centerpieces. Very organic. Very unproduced.”

Unproduced.

She’s paying me an outrageous fee to produce an event that looks unproduced. I plan love for other people and I make it look like it happened by accident.

“Oatmeal linens, wildflower centerpieces, clay pots,” I say, typing into my iPad. “Absolutely.”

We walk the property for two hours. The house is extraordinary.

The architecture is all clean white lines and floor-to-ceiling glass.

Every room faces the water. The terrace is three thousand square feet of polished concrete that steps down to a private boardwalk that leads to the whitest sand I’ve ever seen, and I live in Miami, so that’s not nothing.

But the community is almost aggressive in its blankness. Every building and wall is white. You admire it and you speak in a voice that’s two notches below your real one.

It’s the opposite of me in every possible way.

Callie leaves at four. She has a dinner reservation with Connor and his parents and she needs to “decompress” before it, which probably means a nap and a glass of rosé. I don’t judge. I would love to do the same.

I lock up the house and stand on the front steps. It’s four-thirty in the afternoon, I’m starving and I need a cocktail. And I want to watch the sunset over the Gulf because I’ve never seen it from this coast. And there is nowhere nearby to do any of those things at the same time.

I pull out my phone and do what every lonely person in an unfamiliar town does. I search for somewhere interesting to go.

Bars near me with Gulf view.

The first three results are wine bars with craft cocktails and small plates. Nothing directly on the beach. The fourth result is ten miles down the road.

Big Tex’s Roadhouse. 4.3 stars. 1,247 reviews.

I tap it. The photos show a concrete building right on the water.

Neon signs and motorcycles in the parking lot.

A bearded giant man holding a rack of ribs next to a massive smoker.

The menu is burgers, brisket, coleslaw and fried everything else.

The reviews say things like “best food in PCB” and “amazing views from the deck” and “don’t wear nice shoes. ”

One review catches my eye:

“This is the real Florida Panhandle. Not the tourist version. The people are genuine, the food is incredible, and if you sit on the deck you’ll never want to leave. Just don’t start trouble. The owner is the size of a refrigerator.”

I’m sold.

Every smart instinct I have is telling me to go back to my rental condo, order pizza, eat on the couch, and go to bed early. Tomorrow I have vendor calls starting at eight. The florist in Panama City hasn’t returned my last two emails and I need to finalize the arch design by Friday.

But I’ve been in this town for three days and I’m going stir-crazy. I’m a social animal who thrives on people and noise. Three days here has me starved for human contact.

I’m going to Big Tex’s Roadhouse.

I drive back to the rental, which is a second-floor condo in a complex called Seaview Estates that does not, in fact, have a view of any water.

It has a view of a parking lot and, if you lean over the balcony railing and crane your neck to the left, a sliver of blue between two buildings that might be the Gulf or might be the roof of a pool supply store.

The condo is clean and furnished. It’s mine for two weeks and I’ll make the best of it.

I shower quickly under water pressure that’s barely a suggestion, the lukewarm stream flattening my hair against my skull. The bathroom smells like generic soap and mildew.

After digging through every outfit I packed, I choose my favorite white jeans.

Fitted, sitting low. A silk button-down in a blue so pale it’s almost silver, open two buttons past appropriate.

Silver chain at my throat. Rings on my fingers.

I push back my white-blonde hair off my forehead and let it fall in ways that make people’s eyes follow it.

I take one last look in the bathroom mirror. The face looking back at me is good. Eyes that photograph well. I’m five-eight and toned. Pilates and the occasional burst of vanity-driven weight work. I’m not big, but I know how to carry what I’ve got like it’s the most valuable thing in any room.

I learned young that looking good made people ask fewer questions. Every morning I put on the chain, the rings, the eyeliner, fix my hair, and hope nobody looks too closely past the surface.

I video call my best friend Dante while I’m doing my eyeliner.

He picks up on the second ring. He’s in his high-rise condo in Miami, shirtless, eating out of a takeout container.

His dark hair is wet from a shower and there’s a baseball game on the TV behind him.

He takes one look at my face on his screen and raises his eyebrows.

“Where are you going dressed like that?” he asks.

“Out.”

“Out where? You’re in, what is it, Panama City? Where is there for a gay man to go in Panama City?”

“There’s a biker bar on the beach fifteen minutes from here. It has a deck right on the water and the reviews say the brisket there is life-changing. I’m starving, I’ve had a rough day, and I need a decent cocktail with a sunset.”

“A biker bar.” Dante puts his fork down. “What the hell are you thinking, Benji? A biker bar in the Florida Panhandle? With you looking like that?”

“Like what?”

“An example of a potential hate crime statistic. For fuck’s sake, Benji. I love you, and I’m asking you with all my love and affection. Don’t go there or anywhere in Panama City dressed like that.”

“Dante, you’re overreacting as usual. It’ll be fine. It’s not even late. I’ll be back by eight o’clock before all the crazies get too drunk.”

“No, don’t do it. Please, order food and stay in. I’ll keep you company on video. We’ll watch something. I’ll eat, you’ll eat, it’ll be like we’re in the same room.”

“I’m going, Dante. I’ve been here three days and I’m going crazy. I need people and life. I need a drink that I don’t pour myself in a kitchen the size of a closet. God… I miss Miami so much already. I wish we were at a club right now. This town sucks.”

“Promise me you’ll be very careful,” he says. “Text me while you’re there. Keep me informed while you’re watching your sunset. Then leave and get your ass out of there.”

“I’m always careful. You know that.”

“You’re never careful,” he says. “You’re the opposite of careful.

You’re a man who is putting on makeup before walking into a biker bar in a county that voted seventy-three percent red.

The reason I know that statistic is because you told me so I know it’s true.

And I know you’re going anyway because that’s what you do. ”

“I’ll text you when I get there,” I say. “And when I leave. And if anything happens in between.”

I hang up and slide the phone in my back pocket. I spritz cologne on my wrists and the base of my throat. Dante’s warning sits in the back of my head, but I’ve walked into rooms where I wasn’t supposed to be my whole life.

The world is full of rooms that weren’t built for me and I’ve never once let that stop me. I’m sure as hell not starting tonight.

I walk out the front door and get into my little car that I drove from Miami. I could’ve flown to save time, but then I would’ve had to deal with a rental car.

The air here is nothing like Miami. In Miami, the night is heavy and electric, full of bass. Here the air is thick with salt and a breeze blowing in off the water.

Sunset is in forty-five minutes. If I leave now, I’ll make it.

The drive to Big Tex’s Roadhouse takes twelve minutes.

I pull into a lot that’s almost full of big trucks.

Old trucks. Trucks with things painted on the tailgates.

And between the trucks, the cars. Dozens of classic muscle cars gleaming under the lights.

Camaros, Chevelles, Mustangs, GTOs. All polished to a mirror shine, all surrounded by men in jeans and baseball caps holding beers.

Oh God, I forgot about the classic car show being in town.

The condo property manager mentioned it when I picked up the keys.

“Big weekend,” she said. “Car guys from all over. Gets a little rowdy.” Oh well, I’m not here to hang around and talk about cars I know nothing about. I’m here for a drink and a view.

Big Tex’s Roadhouse is three stories of concrete with a huge sign out front.

The building sits right on the beach. The Gulf of Mexico spreads out beyond it, the water catching the last of the sunlight.

Music pours through the open windows, mixing with the crack of pool balls. The bar sounds busy and full.

I straighten my shirt and button nothing. Then I walk through the front door.

The inside of Big Tex’s hits me in the nose before my eyes adjust. Hickory smoke, spilled beer, and underneath it the hot grease of deep-fried food that my arteries are already objecting to.

It’s packed. Wall to wall. The car show crowd fills every booth and every table.

Bodies are crammed into the standing room between the bar and the pool tables in the back.

The music coming from the speakers is classic rock from two decades ago, and it’s competing with a hundred conversations happening at full volume.

There are beer signs on the walls, Christmas lights strung along the ceiling even though it’s June, and a long mahogany bar top that’s the nicest thing in the building by a long shot. Behind the bar, a woman with silver hair pinned up is pouring drinks like she’s fighting fires.

I find the one empty stool at the far end of the bar and sit down. Through the windows behind the bar, a large deck opens up to the wide beach. The sun is already halfway down and the sky is going orange and gold, the horizon melting into the water.

It’s better than I imagined. Much better than the sunsets in Miami. It would hurt Dante’s feelings if I told him, so I won’t.

The silver-haired woman appears in front of me in about four seconds. “What can I get you?” she asks.

“Do you have a cocktail menu?”

She blinks at me. Behind her, the shelves hold whiskey, bourbon, vodka, tequila, rum, and about thirty varieties of beer on tap.

“Honey,” she says, leaning closer. “This is a biker bar. I can pour liquor into a glass and I can open a beer. Pick one. The concept of a cocktail menu has never entered this building. What will it be?”

“Vodka soda with a lime.”

She nods. “I can do vodka soda. The lime situation is questionable. Let me check.” She turns, opens a small fridge under the bar, and produces a wilted lime. She cuts a wedge off it, drops it in the glass, and slides the drink across to me. “That’ll be six dollars.”

I’ve paid more for bottled water in South Beach. I put a twenty on the bar.

“Keep it,” I say.

She looks at the twenty, then back at me. Her chin lifts a fraction and her eyes narrow. “Are you visiting?”

“In town for work. I’m a wedding planner. Doing a wedding on 30A in a couple weeks.”

“Oh, one of those fancy places.”

“The house is right on the beach and the bride wants rustic elegance.”

She winks at me. “Give them what they want, honey, and don’t argue with them.”

I grin back at her. I like her immediately.

“I’m Sheila,” she says.

“Benji.”

“Well, Benji. Welcome to Big Tex’s. The sunset’s better from the deck if you want to grab a spot out there. The food menu’s on the chalkboard. The brisket is legendary.”

“I’ll stay right here, if that’s okay. I like a good bar.”

She looks me over carefully, taking in how I’m dressed and the way I’m sitting on this stool with my legs crossed, back straight. I’m taking up exactly as much space as I want to take up, which is all of it.

“You need anything,” she says, “you holler at me.”

She moves down the bar to the next customer. I sit there with my six-dollar vodka soda and a spectacular sunset.

Okay, Florida Panhandle.

Maybe you’re not so bad after all.