Chapter 26 Benji #5
“Yeah,” he says. “But I wasn’t going to let you see that.”
“I saw it anyway. When you reached for my face. Your fingers were trembling.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m glad they were. It means all this scares you too.”
“It scares the hell out of me.”
“That’s good actually,” I say. “If you were calm about this, I’d be worried. Calm means casual. This isn’t casual to me. This is the day I kissed you for the first time.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know how to do this, Benji,” he says. “The distance. You in Miami. Me here. Then me in Panama City and you still in Miami. That’s a lot of hours in a car.”
“It’s only five to Miami,” I say. “That’s nothing.
I can leave in the middle of the night and be here by breakfast. I’ll drive through the night if that’s what it takes.
Mickey, I just kissed you for the first time and I can still feel your mouth on mine.
Do you think five hours of highway is going to stop me? ”
“I’m being realistic, Benji.”
“I know you’re being realistic. That’s your job.
We balance each other out.” I lean closer.
“Here’s what I know. I’m going to get in my car tomorrow morning and drive south.
I’m going to walk into my apartment in Miami and it’ll feel wrong because you’re not in it.
I’ll lie in my bed tomorrow night and reach for my phone and call you because hearing your voice is the closest I can get to being in this room.
That’s what I know. The rest of it — the distance, the schedule — we’ll figure it out.
I don’t need a plan for everything. I just need to know I’m a part of your life.
That’s all. I can figure everything else out.
As long as I know you’re here in this with me. ”
“I’ll be here,” he says. “I’m not going anywhere. I mean that literally too. I live in a rehab facility.”
I let out a shaky laugh. “And when you’re not in a rehab facility,” I say. “When you’re home. In the loft above the bar. I’ll come there too.”
“You’ll come back to Panama City Beach to visit?”
“I’ll come anywhere you are. That’s what I’m telling you. What matters is this.” I press his hand flat over my heart. “This is yours now. The distance doesn’t change it. You’re stuck with me. I’m a hard person to try to get rid of. Ask Dante. He’s been trying for years.”
“I would never try to get rid of you,” he says. “How soon can you come back?”
“Soon. I’ve got weddings stacked through the month, but I’ll find a window. I’ll make one if I need to.”
“Don’t cancel your work for me, Benji.”
“I’m not canceling. I’m rearranging. There’s a difference.
I’m very good at rearranging. It’s literally my job.
I want you to call me every night. I don’t care if it’s midnight.
I don’t care if you’re exhausted from therapy.
Pick up the phone and let me hear your voice.
Even if only for two minutes. Don’t disappear on me, Mickey. I couldn’t take it.”
He squeezes my hand. “I’m not going to disappear.”
“I can’t stand the thought of leaving you.” I’m fighting back tears. “I’m trying not to be emotional about it. It’s hard though.”
“Don’t cry, Benji. We don’t have a choice. I need to stay here and work hard to get better. And you need to get back to your work in Miami. We’ll be okay.”
“But you’re here all alone and I’ll be way off down there.”
“It won’t be forever,” Mickey says. “I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
“I liked pretending I was taking care of you. I know that in reality I didn’t do much, but I tried.” I wipe at my eyes with the back of my hand.
“You were the best,” he says. “I can’t tell you what your visits meant to me.”
The dreaded knock at the door comes and a nurse pokes her head in. “Visiting hours are over,” she says. “Time to wrap up.”
I stand with my bag on my shoulder and look at him one more time. His mouth is still a little swollen and the sight of it makes my stomach flip. Leaning down, I slide my hand around the back of his neck and lay another long kiss on him.
“Goodnight, Officer Weaver.”
“Goodnight, Benji. Drive safe tomorrow.”
“Always.”
I barely make it to the car before my phone buzzes.
Mickey: I’ll be thinking about you tonight. And every night. Drive safe tomorrow.
I read it three times. I press my fingers to the stubble burn on my neck.
Benji: I can still feel your stubble on my neck. I looked in the rearview mirror and there’s a red mark below my ear. You marked me, Officer Weaver.
Mickey: Good.
One word. My stomach drops to the floorboard.
Benji: Good??? That’s all you have to say? You leave a mark on my neck like a man with something to prove and all I get is GOOD?
Mickey: Drive to the hotel. Text me when you’re in the room. I’m not having this conversation while you’re behind the wheel.
Benji: Sir yes sir.
Mickey: Don’t start with me.
Benji: Starting. Already started. Can’t be stopped. Driving now. Talk soon.
I put the phone in the cupholder and pull out of the parking lot smiling like an idiot. The drive to the hotel takes six minutes, and I white-knuckle the steering wheel the entire way because my hands are shaking.
I let myself into the room, kick off my shoes, fall onto the bed, and text him.
Benji: I’m in the room. I’m lying on top of the covers fully clothed and I smell like you.
The cream is on my hands and your skin is on my shirt and lying here smelling like both of those things at once is doing things to me that the Holiday Inn is not equipped to handle. You know what I keep thinking about?
Mickey: No idea. Tell me.
Benji: Your arms around me in the wheelchair. You held me like you’d been planning that.
Mickey: I had.
Benji: How long?
Mickey: Since the thirst trap this morning.
When you sent that photo with the sheets, I decided that the next time I was close enough to touch you, I was holding you in my arms. One way or the other.
I spent the whole day thinking about it.
Every therapy session. I was thinking about wrapping my arms around you.
Benji: Stop. I’m going to die in this hotel and they’re going to find me clutching my phone and the cause of death is going to be “sexted to death by a cop in a wheelchair” and it’s going to be on the news and my mother will never recover.
Mickey: Go to sleep, Benji.
Benji: HOW am I supposed to sleep after that?? I’m lying here in a hotel that smells like you and you’re telling me to sleep?
Mickey: I’m telling you to sleep because if you keep texting me right now, I’m going to say things I want to say to your face. Not to your phone.
Benji: Promise?
Mickey: I don’t make promises I can’t keep. You know that about me by now.
Benji: Goodnight, Mickey.
Mickey: Goodnight, Benji. Set an alarm. You’ve got a long drive tomorrow and I need you on the road awake. Not half-asleep thinking about my arms.
Benji: Too late for that. I’ll be thinking about your arms the whole way and there’s nothing you can do about it. So there! Goodnight.
I pull my shirt off and hold it against my face for a second. Cream, his skin, the warm cedar of whatever he puts on after showers. I set it on the pillow next to mine so the smell stays close.
Early the next morning I check out of the hotel before daylight. I text him from the first rest area.
Benji: Heading south. George better not die while I’m gone. Water him twice a week. Don’t let the nurses overwater him. Overwatering is the number one killer of fiddle-leaf figs and I will not lose him to negligence.
Mickey: George is in good hands. I’ll talk to him every morning and tell him his leaves look great. That’s how you keep a plant alive, right?
Benji: That is exactly how you keep a plant alive. You’re a natural.
The interstate stretches south through Florida, the flat highway rolling past palm trees and rest stops and the occasional billboard for personal injury lawyers.
I drive with the windows cracked and the air gets warmer the further south I go. At the halfway point, I stop for gas. While the pump runs, I lean against the car and check my phone.
Mickey: How’s the drive?
Benji: Boring. Flat. I miss your face. I miss your neck. I miss your hands. In that order. Actually no. Hands first. Then neck. Then face. No wait. Actually face first. I can’t rank you. All of you. I miss all of you. What are you doing right now?
Mickey: Just finished with Jason. Arms session. Push-ups. Bars.
Benji: How do your arms look right now?
Mickey: Like arms.
Benji: Mickey. You know what I’m asking.
Mickey: I’m sweating and my shirt is sticking to me and I need a shower. Is that what you’re asking?
Benji: Yes. That is exactly what I was asking. Thank you for the visual. Can I get a photo? You know I’m obsessed now.
Mickey: No. I’m going to shower. Drive safe. No texting until you’re stopped somewhere.
Benji: You and your rules.
Mickey: My rules keep you alive. Text me from the next stop.
An hour later I pull into a rest stop. I buy a bottle of water from the vending machine and sit on a bench under a palm tree and text him.
Benji: Rest stop. Alive. Hydrated. Still thinking about your arms. And your VEINS!
Mickey: You need new material.
Benji: Never. Your arms are the only material. I’m going to be eighty years old in a retirement home and someone is going to ask me what I’m thinking about and the answer is going to be Mickey Weaver’s arms in a sweaty T-shirt after push-ups. I will take this to my grave.
Mickey: Get back on the road.
Benji: Fine. Driving now. But this conversation isn’t over.
Mickey: It never is with you.
My mind keeps drifting back to the bathroom. The sound he made when my lips found his neck. The first slide of his tongue against mine. How he said give me this.
Miami is still two hours away. My apartment, my bed, my life — the one that existed before I walked into a biker bar and ordered a drink.
Before a man I’d never spoken to stepped between me and a bullet without hesitating. Without knowing my name.
He knows my name now.