Dante smiles at me. “I walked into the bar downstairs and introduced myself to Sheila,” he says. “I told her I was Benji’s best friend from Miami and I was here to see Mickey. She looked me up and down for about three seconds and said ‘you’re the real estate one’ and pointed me to the elevator.”
“Sheila let you up without asking me first?”
“Apparently, because here I am,” he says with a shrug. “Sheila said, ‘anyone who keeps Benji from burning down a wedding venue is welcome in this building.’ I assume she was talking about the ongoing flaming lantern situation.” He holds up the bag. “I also brought you donuts. The woman at thecounter asked if I was visiting and I said I was scouting the area and she said ‘you’re not from around here, are you’ and I said ‘what gave it away’ and she said ‘honey, everything.’”
“Thanks, but what are you doing here besides bringing me donuts? In Panama City?”
“I’ve been looking at properties on 30A all day. I drove over here because I was twenty minutes away and need to talk to you. I’d rather do it in person than on the phone.” His face changes and the charm drops.
“You’re here about Benji,” I say.
“Of course. Why else would I be here?”
“Sit down.”
He sets the donut bag on the counter, pulls out a stool and sits. “I’m here because my best friend is planning to move his entire life to the Florida Panhandle. Not visiting. Moving. He’s researching wedding venues on 30A. He’s got a business plan on his laptop. He’s talking to photographers about partnerships. He sent me up here to scout 30A real estate, which I’m doing, because when Benji builds, I build with him. That’s what we do.” He pauses. “But Benji builds fast. He builds before he thinks. He’s already rearranging his calendar around your therapy schedule and planning a future with a very specific zip code. I need to know that you’re building at the same speed he is. Because if he moves up here and you’re not where he is, it’ll destroy him. And I’m not being dramatic. I can’t stand by and watch it happen.”
Every word lands. He’s not angry. He’s protecting his person. I respect it and would do the same.
“That’s fair,” I say.
“I’m not asking for fair,” Dante says. “I’m asking for honest. Are you in this with him?”
“I’m in this.”
“In this how?” he asks. “In this for now, while you’re recovering, while the attention feels good and someone is showing up and the loneliness has a cure? Or in this for the version where Benji moves his life to a town where he knows four people and his entire career is a bet on a coastline he’s been visiting for three months?”
“You think he’s really going to move here?”
“I think he’s already moving here in his head. He just hasn’t said it out loud yet because Benji doesn’t say the biggest things out loud until he’s already decided them. He’s researching the Panhandle wedding market at midnight when he should be sleeping. I know this because he sends me emails and texts at all hours of the night.”
Benji is further along than I thought. The stakes of what I say next just went up.
“I’m in this for the version where Benji moves his life,” I say. “I’m in this for whatever he wants. I’ve never had anyone show up for me the way Benji shows up. I’m not going to waste this chance with him. I’m not going to take it for granted. And I’m not going to go cold on him.”
“You went cold on him once,” Dante says. “From Jacksonville. The texts got shorter. The warmth dropped. He felt it.”
“I know he felt it. He told me. And I told him I won’t do it again.”
“Are you sure about that?” Dante asks.
“Yes.”
Dante holds my gaze. He knows something I don’t. I can see it.
“There’s a difference between going cold and going invisible,” Dante says. “Cold is pulling away. Invisible is standing right next to someone and acting like they’re not there. One is a retreat. The other is an erasure. And erasure is worse, Mickey, because the person being erased has to stand there and smile through it.”
He’s not guessing now. He’s talking about something that already happened.
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“I’m talking about a man who makes everywhere more beautiful than it was before he got there. Who shows up with his whole heart on his face. Who has never hidden a single thing about himself in his entire life. And I’m asking you whether that man, that very visible, unapologetic man, is someone you’re proud to stand next to. Not just the private places. In the public places too.”
“Of course I’m proud to be with him,” I say. And I mean it. But proud doesn’t keep him safe. In a room full of strangers, the best I can do is sit next to him and hope nobody decides that’s a problem. Because if they do, I’m in a chair. Benji is the bravest person I’ve ever met because bravery in a wheelchairis one thing but bravery in eyeliner in Bay County, Florida is something else entirely.
“Then make sure you show it to him,” Dante says. “In every room. Not just the ones with a lock on the door.”
Dante takes a donut out of the bag and bites into it. The powdered sugar falls on the linen shirt and he doesn’t notice or doesn’t care.
