“You’re going to wear the good swimming trunks,” he says. “You look fantastic in those.”
“Yes, I’ll wear the coral trunks that match the shirt.”
“Perfect.”
“And I’m going to swim with my best friend. In the Gulf. In front of God and the public and anyone who happens to be looking out their second-floor window at the water. Because I’m not a man who hides, Dante. I’m not a man who stays in the back room or the back table or hidden behind the push handle of a wheelchair. I’m going to be exactly who I am in the most visible place I can find. If that happens to be forty feet from the building where the man I love decided I wasn’t worth introducing, then the architecture of this town is not my damn problem.”
Dante picks up his sandwich and takes another bite. “I’m just going to say one thing,” he says. “Before this gets out of hand.”
“Say it.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little cruel to tease a man in a wheelchair? He can see you but he can’t get down to the beach. The sand isn’t accessible. He’s stuck up there watching.”
I look at Dante and I think about what he said for exactly three seconds.
“Mickey never wanted me to feel sorry for him or treat him differently because of the wheelchair,” I say. “He told me that. Multiple times. And I never did. Because the wheelchair has never been a factor for me. Not one time. So no, I don’t think it’s cruel. I think it’s simply two men going swimming at a public beach. While looking absolutely fabulous.”
He wipes his hands and carefully folds the napkin. “Okay, I’m in,” he says with a grin. “But we’re doing this right. If we’re going to the beach, we’re giving it the full beach day treatment.”
We stop at the cottage first where we both change into swim trunks. Then we stop at the grocery store and Dante walks the aisles with the focus of a man provisioning a military campaign. A cooler and a bag of ice. A bottle of rosé. Dante doesn’t go to a beach without rosé. Two sandwiches from the deli counter. A bag of chips. A container of fruit. Sunscreen, SPF 50. Dante doesn’t burn and I burn like a lobster in a pot and neither of us is going home with sun damage.
“This is a siege,” I say, watching him load the cooler in the parking lot.
“This is a beach day. Beach days require infrastructure. You of all people should understand this.”
We drive to Panama City and Dante pulls into the public beach access parking near Big Tex’s Roadhouse.
The beach is thirty feet from the building. The water is flat and calm. It’s a perfect yellow flag day.
The second-floor windows of the Roadhouse are visible from the beach. The wall of glass that looks out over the Gulf, the windows where Mickey sits every evening watching the water go gold.
I can’t see into the loft from here. The glass catches the afternoon glare and reflects the sky. But he can see out. If he’s up there, he can see the beach. He can see the water. He can see two men hauling a cooler and towels and a bag of supplies down the sand toward the surf line.
Dante spreads the towels. He positions the cooler between them like a centerpiece. He opens the rosé.
I stand on the sand and look up at the second-floor windows. The glass gives me nothing. Just sky and clouds reflected back. But I know that loft. I know exactly how much of this beach is visible from the place where he sits every evening.
I settle onto the towel, take the cup Dante hands me, and face the water.
Showtime.
Chapter 42: Mickey
I didn’t sleep.
I sat at the window until three in the morning staring at the stars. My phone shows the text I sent at midnight. Delivered. Not read.
Morning comes and I do the regular routine. Transfer. Bathroom. Coffee. I don’t make eggs because they remind me of the times I made them for Benji. Instead, I drink three cups of coffee that taste like acid.
Tex opens the elevator doors at one-thirty in the afternoon and strolls into the loft like he owns it. Which he does. He’s carrying two beers and a large bag of pork rinds.Spectator supplies. Like he’s come to watch an event.
“Look out your window,” he says.
I shake my head at him. “Tex, no offense, but I’m not up to one of your motivational speeches today about what a beautiful day it is. I’m not in the mood.”
He waves his hand at the window again. “Just go over and look. I won’t say a word.”
I wheel to the window. The water is perfectly flat without a ripple and the beach is full with the weekend crowd. And there, directly below me, thirty feet from the building, on the stretch of sand that I’ve been looking at from this window every day since I moved in, are two men on towels with a cooler between them.
