Chapter 18 Benji
I send Mickey a sunrise photo. I do this every morning now, and skipping it would feel criminal.
Thirty seconds later, Dante texts me that his flight is delayed two hours and there’s not a single rental car available at the Panama City airport. My brain immediately starts recalculating.
Dante: How is this possible? Where are the cars?
Benji: It’s the Panhandle in summer. I’m coming to get you. I’ll be there at noon.
Then I text Mickey again.
Benji: Gulf sunrise at 6:45. Cloud situation this morning is dramatic. Dante’s flight is delayed two hours and there are no rental cars at the airport so I’m picking him up at noon.
Mickey: No rental cars? In summer? In Panama City? I’m shocked. That has never happened before. That’s sarcasm in case the text doesn’t convey it.
Benji: Your sarcasm conveys beautifully through text. It’s a gift.
The morning is a blur of vendor calls and fires to put out. I order the bamboo poles, pick up LED candles from the party store, and talk Callie’s mother out of renaming every table after 30A beaches.
Dante comes through the arrivals gate at twelve-fifteen wearing tailored linen shorts and a fitted black T-shirt, a leather carry-on over one shoulder, sunglasses pushed up on his head.
As usual, he’s insanely beautiful. Every head in the terminal turns when he walks through the doors.
He sees me and his face cracks into the grin that has been making me feel safe since I was twenty-one.
“Benji.”
“Dante.”
He pulls me into a hug and I let him. He holds me at arm’s length and looks at me to assess the damage.
“You haven’t been sleeping,” he says.
“Thank you. You look like an ad on a Times Square billboard. It’s disgusting. Let’s go.”
I give him the full recap of everything while I drive. He listens carefully, already organizing what he can take over.
“I’ll handle the florist,” he says. “Give me her number. I’ll have the pots sorted by end of day. Unglazed. No semi-glaze. No artisanal clay treatment. No Pinterest. Just the pots you ordered.”
We get to the condo at one. Dante takes a three-minute survey that ends with him standing in the bathroom with his hands on his hips.
“This is the bathroom from the photo,” he says. “The photo with your back in it that you sent to Mickey.”
“We agreed we weren’t going to talk about that,” I say.
“We did not. The topic remains open.” He turns to me. “Benji. When are you going to admit that you have feelings for him?”
“I have feelings for the wedding we’re doing. Those are my only feelings right now.”
He puts his hand on my shoulder and his face goes serious.
“I flew up here to help you with a wedding. I’m also here because my best friend has been driving to a hospital every day to visit a man he barely knows, and crying on the phone about it.
I’m worried about you. Let me help with both things. ”
“We can talk about the Mickey thing later,” I say. “After the wedding. Right now, I need your brain on vendors and logistics.”
He sighs. “Okay, whatever you need. I’m here to help, not stress you out more.”
We go to the beach house and I walk him through the plan. Within an hour he’s on the phone with the florist. I can hear his voice from the terrace, calm and absolutely immovable, and I know the pots are going to be unglazed.
I’m standing on the terrace later when it hits me. It’s four o’clock. Tallahassee is two hours away, and visiting hours end at eight. But Dante just got here, he needs briefing on the rest of the timeline, the bamboo pickup is first thing tomorrow, and I have the only car.
I can’t go today.
For the first time since he went to Tallahassee, I’m not going to see Mickey.
I’m not going to sit in the chair or rub cream into his feet.
I put my hands on the terrace railing and breathe.
This is irrational. The wedding needs me here.
Mickey is in a hospital with doctors and nurses, and he’s not going to die if I miss one day.
Knowing all that does not help. My first thought is I need to tell him so he’ll eat whatever food they bring him for dinner.
Benji: I’m not going to be able to make it today. Dante’s flight was delayed and there were no rental cars so I had to pick him up. We’re at the beach house now and I can’t leave him without a car. I’m so sorry.
Mickey: Don’t worry about it. Seriously. Handle the wedding. I’m fine.
I’m fine. Mickey says he’s fine the way I say I don’t have feelings for him.
Benji: I’m bringing Dante tomorrow. We’ll be there. I promise.
Mickey: Looking forward to it. Go save the wedding.
The wedding details fill the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Dante handles vendor calls while I finalize the ceremony layout.
We end up on the rental condo’s sad little balcony with a bottle of grocery store wine, the breezy, hot night air, and the parking lot view.
It feels good to have my best friend beside me with cheap wine.
But I keep thinking about Mickey. What is he eating? What is he doing there all alone tonight? Does he miss our long talks on the phone there and back?
I text him.
Benji: I’m on the balcony with Dante. He survived his first day in the Panhandle. Barely.
Mickey: Tell Dante welcome to the Panhandle. Goodnight, Benji.
Benji: We’ll be there tomorrow, I swear.
Mickey: Looking forward to it.
Tomorrow, I’ll walk into his room with my best friend and introduce the two most important men in my life to each other.
Dante is going to take one look at my face when I walk into that room and know exactly how far gone I am.