We take the elevator down. Mickey wheels through the bar and I walk beside him. Sheila glances up as we pass, reading the situation, and she gives one small nod. The nod says, I’m here if you need me.
The hallway is to the right. Twelve feet long, bathroom doors at the end, a light fixture overhead that’s bright and new. The dimensions are the same. The width is the same. Everything on the surfaces is different.
Mickey wheels to the entrance and stops. He doesn’t go in first. He waits for me.
I step into the hallway. One step. Then another. Mickey wheels in beside me, his chair rolling smooth on the new composite floor, and we move together until we’re in the middle. At the spot. I don’t know the exact coordinates because the floor is different and the landmarks are gone but my body knows. The skin on my back tightens. My pulse jumps.
Mickey parks his chair. He reaches for my hand and I give it to him. He holds it, his rough palm against mine, and we sit in the place where everything started.
I was on this floor. My back on the concrete and then the heaviest thing I’d ever felt landing on top of me. Mickey’sblood everywhere. On my shirt, my jeans, my hands, in the spaces between my fingers.
I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know anything about him except that he was bleeding and heavy. I held on to him because I didn’t know what else to do.
Now his warm hand is in mine and he’s sitting beside me in a wheelchair because of what happened here.
“This is where I fell on you,” Mickey says.
“You were so heavy,” I say. “That’s what I remember most. Not the blood. Not the gun. How heavy you were.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Don’t you dare apologize for falling on me. You fell on me because you jumped in front of a bullet. You don’t get to apologize for saving my life. You get to hold my hand in this hallway and let me say thank you.”
His grip tightens and his thumb moves across my knuckles.
“It’s just a hallway, Mickey,” I say.
“That’s all it is,” he agrees.
We go back upstairs to watch the sun go down. We’re on the deck, side by side, and the Gulf turns from blue to gold to copper. I kick off my shoes and put my bare feet on the warm planking. Eventually the stars come out, all at once, like someone hit a switch. No city light to compete with. Just the sky and the water and the glow from the bar below.
The jukebox downstairs is playing something slow with a steel guitar, the bass line bleeding up through the floor.
“It’s beautiful here,” I say. “I’ve been in a lot of beautiful rooms, Mickey. I build beautiful rooms for a living. I’ve never been anywhere that felt like this.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Like you.”
He reaches for my hand. His fingers lace through mine, the calluses familiar, the grip warm and certain.
“Benji. Stay with me tonight.”
“Of course, I’m staying tonight,” I say with a laugh. “That’s why you bought me a plane ticket. That’s why I packed a bag. Where do you think I’m staying? Another Holiday Inn?”
“That’s not what I mean.”
I glance over at him. The deck is dark except for the light coming through the sliding door. His face is half in shadow and his eyes are steady and serious.
“I mean stay with me,” he says. “In my bed. I’m asking you to stay with me tonight the way I’ve wanted to ask you every time you walked out of a hospital room and I watched you wave from the doorway. I want you in my bed tonight.”
My hand tightens on his. “Are you sure?”
“You said you wanted our first time to be here in a real bed. Both of us. No clock or nurses to run you out.” His voice drops lower. “I don’t want to wait anymore.”
“Oh, my God, me either,” I say. “Show me your bed, Mickey.”
He pulls my hand to his mouth. His lips press against my knuckles and then he doesn’t let go. He holds my hand and wheels toward the sliding door and I follow him inside.
