Chapter 15 Mickey
Two hours later, Benji blasts through the door like a whirlwind, carrying Sheila’s cooler and talking before his body is fully in the room.
He’s wearing jeans that fit him in a way I have no business noticing from a hospital bed.
The silver chain’s back. It sits in the hollow of his throat and moves when he talks.
I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time in the last few days thinking about that chain, specifically wondering if he wears it to bed.
“The florist called me back and get this, she’s asking me if the clay pots should be glazed or unglazed and I swear on my life, Mickey, I’m going to lose my mind,” he says in one big breath.
“Glazed or unglazed. I specified unglazed in the original order. I put it in writing. I emailed it. I texted it. I may have tattooed it on my body at some point. Unglazed, Kacie. Unglazed. The whole point of the rustic aesthetic is that it looks unfinished. Glazed pots defeat the purpose. Glazed pots are the enemy of everything we’re trying to accomplish.
Glazed pots at a rustic wedding are like putting a chandelier in a fucking barn. ”
He sets the cooler on the floor and drops into the chair like he always does.
His hands are still going, conducting the story, punctuating every sentence with a gesture that takes up more space than his body does.
He’s wearing a pale blue T-shirt that’s soft and fitted and his hair is pushed back off his forehead.
I’m watching all of this with my full attention that has nothing to do with interest in florists or clay pots.
His shirt brings out the blue in his eyes. I haven’t seen them in sunlight yet because I’ve only ever seen Benji inside. I’m dying to see what his eyes look like in sunlight.
I’ve spent my career seeing people at their worst. Domestic calls at two AM.
Accident scenes. Hospital rooms. I’ve never once wished I could see someone in better light.
But I want to see Benji in sunlight. He deserves better light than this.
He deserves better than hospital fluorescents and a man who can’t stand up to turn on a lamp for him.
While I’m thinking all this, he’s still talking.
“And then,” he says, leaning forward in the chair. When he leans closer, I catch his smell. Not cologne today, something simpler, shampoo and the warm clean scent of skin that’s been in a car for two hours with the windows cracked.
Everything above my waist responds to it.
My fingers grip the blanket. My throat goes dry.
My dick is dead at the moment but everything else isn’t.
That exact thought goes through my head while Benji is ranting about glazed clay pots, and the thought is so sharp I almost laugh at the absurdity of it.
Benji is telling me about pottery and my body is losing its mind from the waist up because he smells like fresh air.
“And then she says, ‘Well, we could do a semi-glaze,’” Benji continues, his hands making a shape in the air that I think is supposed to represent a clay pot but looks more like he’s strangling something invisible.
“A semi-glaze. What the fuck is a semi-glaze, Kacie? That’s like being semi-pregnant.
You’re either glazed or you’re not. There is no middle ground on glaze.
I told her unglazed, I told her it three times in three different formats, and she’s out there trying to invent a new category of pottery that doesn’t exist to cover the fact that she probably already ordered the wrong ones. ”
“Did she order the wrong ones?” I ask while trying my best to pretend I’m following the story when I’m losing it.
“She absolutely ordered the wrong ones. I can hear it in her voice. She’s got the voice of a woman who knows she’s wrong and is hoping that if she talks long enough about semi-glaze, I’ll forget what I originally asked for.
I’m not going to forget. Because I never forget anything, Mickey.
Nothing. I have the memory of an elephant.
And I have the email. I have the text. I have receipts.
Physical and digital receipts. She’s dealing with the wrong gay man on the wrong day. ”
Benji’s magnificent when he’s angry. Sexy as fuck.
I know I’m not supposed to be thinking that.
I know there’s a list of reasons why thinking that is a bad idea, and the list is long, and at the top in bold letters is the fact that I can’t feel my dick.
But watching Benji rant about clay pots with his hands flying and his eyes lit with righteous fury is doing something to me that I can’t control.
“Anyway,” he says, jumping up and unzipping the cooler. “Enough about fucking pots. Let’s get you fed.”
The smell of Tex’s brisket fills the room and pushes everything else out. Hickory smoke and pepper rub and the specific magic of meat that’s been on a smoker for fourteen hours. My eyes sting, not from the spice but from the smell of home for the second time today.
“Sheila fixed this for you,” Benji says, unpacking containers onto the tray table. “She said to keep the cooler and eat the leftovers tomorrow.”
He’s arranging the food with the containers lined up, lids off, napkins folded beside them. I watch his fingers and I remember how they felt on my skin. The wanting still hums in my chest, the same as it has since the night he put his head on my bed.
“How was it?” I ask. “The bar?”
He pauses with a container of coleslaw in his hand. Doesn’t look at me right away. Finishes setting it down, adjusts it by a quarter inch, and then looks up.
“It was okay,” he says, quieter now. “Sheila was there. We talked.”
He doesn’t give me details, and I don’t push. Whatever happened between Benji and Sheila in that bar belongs to them. I sent him there knowing it needed to happen and that’s enough.
“Stormy was there too,” Benji says, and his face softens. “I like him. He’s a gentle soul. Every time I see him, I want to wrap him in a big bear hug.”
“I need to warn you. He might not like that. He’s not fond of being touched.”
“I noticed,” Benji says. “That’s why I’m not doing it. I might one day though, when he’s ready.”
I dig into the food and the brisket is everything, tender and smoky and falling apart. Benji eats too, more than I’ve seen him eat before.
“You’re eating more today than you usually do.” I point at the plate in his lap. “Did you forget to eat today again?”
Benji smiles at me. “No, I’m just really hungry tonight. Keep eating.”
He’s licking brisket sauce off his thumb when I decide to tell him. I’ve been holding the news since this morning, waiting for him to be in the room because this isn’t something you text. “Benji. I need to tell you something.”
He looks up from his plate. He hears the shift from eating to something heavier, and his hand stops moving.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing’s wrong. The doctor was here this morning. Before Tex. She stayed for a while.”
“What did she say?”
“They’ve done everything they can do here. The next phase is rehab at a dedicated spinal cord facility. Multiple hours a day of physical therapy. She said this is where the recovery actually starts.”
“Okay,” Benji says slowly. “Okay, that’s good, right? That means they’re moving forward. That means there’s a plan.”
“Yes, there’s a definite plan. The top program in the state is in Jacksonville. They specialize in spinal cord injuries. The doctor says they give me the best shot.”
“Wow, Jacksonville.”
He says it and I watch the calculations happen on his face, the same look that was on Tex’s face this morning. The distance and the time. What it means for the visits.
“How far is Jacksonville from Panama City?” he asks.
“About four and a half hours.”
“When are you being transferred?”
“Couple of days. As soon as they confirm a bed and work it out with my insurance.”
“How long will you be there?”
“Six to eight weeks. Depends on how I progress.”
“Okay. What’s the facility like? Is it decent? Have you looked it up? I’m looking it up right now.”
He pulls out his phone and his thumbs are moving before I can respond. He’s Googling and scrolling through results. I can see the furrow between his eyebrows deepening.
“This place looks legitimate,” he says, still scrolling. “Top rated. Specialized spinal cord program. Good reviews from patients.”
“That’s what the doctor said.”
“You need the best. If this is it, then this is where you go.” He’s nodding, talking himself into it, the same way I imagine he talks brides through last-minute changes. Then his thumbs keep moving and I see his screen shift to a map and I know what he’s doing before he says it.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Checking the drive time from Miami to Jacksonville.”
My heart speeds up. He just heard that I’m moving further away and his first move wasn’t to pull back. His first move was to figure out how to get to me.
“Five hours, forty minutes,” he says, looking up from his phone. “From my place in Miami to Jacksonville. That’s not bad. That’s very doable. I’ve driven further for rock concerts.”
“Benji, you’re not driving six hours to visit me in rehab.”
“I drove two hours to visit you in a hospital every day. Six hours is just two more hours plus two more hours. And then the reverse. Simple.”
“That’s not how time works,” I tell him.
“It’s how my time works. My time is creative and I make it work for me.”
He’s smiling but I can see he’s worried.
“The wedding is almost here,” I say. “Your friend Dante is coming. After the wedding you’re going back to Miami. You can’t keep running the road like you’re doing. You’re wearing out your car and you.”