“Enough to try to figure out how to make things work with him, if I can.”
“Have you kissed him yet?” he asks.
“Is that any of your damn business?”
“Damn right it is. Kissing is important.”
“Yes, it is,” I say. “No argument there, but I’ve kissed other men who weren’t important so there’s that to consider.”
“Alright, excellent point.” Tex is quiet for about three seconds, which is three seconds longer than his usual thinking time. “And the physical stuff? Below the waist? Is anything...”
“Things are happening.”
“Can you be more specific? I’m not asking to be nosy. I’m asking because I care about you and also because I satthrough seventeen minutes of Doug’s video and I feel like I’ve earned some level of disclosure.”
I let out a heavy sigh. “Sensation is coming back. Slowly. Not everything. Not all the time. It’s not what it used to be. But it’s improving. It’s better than it was a month ago.”
“Mickey, that’s a huge development. Okay, enough about your sex life. Let’s talk about your heart. Do you care about him?”
“Tex. I just said that I did.”
“That’s good because I like Benji. You talk different when you talk about him. Your voice goes somewhere it doesn’t usually go. You don’t even know you’re doing it. The last time you talked soft about a man was never. You’ve been careful and distant your whole life and this little wedding planner has made you cuddly. Now you don’t know what to do with it.”
“Benji is the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” I say. “Besides you and Stormy and Sheila. He’s the best thing.”
“Then treat him like it. All the time. You can’t go wrong doing that.”
“I’m planning to,” I say.
“Stormy’s looking forward to seeing Benji again. He likes him.”
“Has Stormy ever had a friend before? A good friend?”
Tex goes quiet. His hands are on the wheel and his eyes are on the road but the part of him that’s always producing sound just stops.
Four seconds. Five. Six. For Tex, six seconds of silence is an eternity.
“Not that he’s ever mentioned,” Tex says. His voice has dropped into the low tone it goes to when he’s talking about Stormy’s past. The tone that doesn’t have any jokes in it. “None, besides you, me and Sheila. And you’re my friend, so that’s different. You came with the package. Sheila came with the bar. The regulars came with the territory. None of those are people Stormy chose himself. They’re people who were already here when he arrived.”
He adjusts his grip on the wheel.
“Benji is the first person Stormy picked on his own. The first person he reached out to without me in the middle of it. He walked into the hallway in the ER the night you were shot and tried to comfort Benji. And then the day Benji swung by on his way to Jacksonville, I saw Stormy run out to the parking lot to catch him before he left. I’ve never seen Stormy run after anyone. Having a friend around will be good for him.” He clears his throat hard. “So, when I say I like Benji. When I say I want you to treat him right. It’s not just about you and it’s not just about him. It’s about Stormy too. Because if you mess things up with Benji and Benji stops coming around, Stormy loses the first friend he ever chose. And I will not watch him lose another thing. He’s lost enough.”
“I hear you,” I say.
“I know you do.”
“Benji’s flying in next weekend,” I say. “If that’s okay with you and Stormy.”
He glances over at me. “What do you mean? This will be your home too, Mickey. No need to ask us who can stay over. I’m not Mama Weaver. Of course it’s okay for Benji to come.”
“Thank you for all of it, Tex. For everything you’ve done for me. I can never repay you.”
He doesn’t look at me. He adjusts his grip on the wheel. He’s working to keep his face steady. “You’d do the same for me,” he says.
“Yes, I would.”
“That’s why I don’t need to be thanked for it. We would both do whatever the other needs us to do. That’s the deal. That’s been the deal since the day we met in seventh grade. And it’ll always be the deal.”
