One of them is wearing coral swim trunks. Even from the second floor the color is bright against the white sand. His blonde hair is pushed back and his shoulders are bare. He’s lying on the towel with a plastic red cup in his hand.
The other man is Dante. Tanned, in great shape and shirtless in swim trunks.
“Son of a bitch,” I say.
Tex opens a beer. He pulls the armchair to the window, sits down, props his boots on the windowsill and settles in like someone who just found the best seat at a football game. Then, he rips open the big bag of pork rinds.
“He’s doing this on purpose,” I say.
“Yes, and this is a military style operation,” Tex says. “Benji has deployed himself and his considerable resources to a location of maximum visibility with clear sightlines to the target, which is you. I’m genuinely in awe of his skills.”
“This isn’t funny, Tex.”
“It’s a little funny.” He eats a pork rind and offers me one that I don’t take. “A man you love is lying on a beach with another man drinking out of a plastic cup and you’re sitting up here in a wheelchair watching him like a sad man in a tower. The whole thing is so dramatic it should have its own soundtrack. If this were a movie, the violins would be going right now. Big, sweeping violins. And the camera would be zooming in on your face and then cutting to him on the beach. The audience would be eating popcorn and saying ‘just go talk to him, dummy’ and throwing things at the screen.”
“How am I supposed to go talk to him? The sand isn’t accessible from this building. Even if it was, this chair wouldn’t roll on the sand.”
“I know that. Benji knows that. That’s the whole point. He picked the one spot you can see and can’t reach. This man planned a beach trip how he plans weddings. Every detail is intentional. The bright color of his trunks is intentional. The angle of the towel is intentional. The fact that he’s lying on his stomach with his chin on his arms, facing the water so you get the full view of his back and ass, is definitely intentional.”
“Damn it, Tex! Can you please stop analyzing my situation and help me fix it?”
“I’m doing both. I’m analyzing and helping. The analysis is the help. You need to understand what’s happening down there before you can fix it. What’s happening down there is someone who is showing you exactly what you lost. Benji’s not being mean about it. He’s not being vindictive. He’s being Benji. Benji doesn’t hide. Benji doesn’t go dark and sulk in an Airbnb, knocking back shots of tequila or eating ice cream. Benji puts on the brightest trunks he owns and goes to the most visible beach he can find. He lives his life at full volume and dares the world to have an opinion about it. That’s what you fell for. And that’s what you tried to dim at the party and what you can’t turn down because it’s not a light switch. It’s the sun. You can’t turn down the sun, Mickey. You can only decide whether you want to stand in it. Or not.”
He crunches loudly on another pork rind and shakes the bag at me.
“These are the jalapeno ones, by the way,” he says. “Stormy hides them from me behind the regular ones becausehe thinks jalapeno pork rinds are ‘unnecessarily aggressive.’ Apparently ‘aggressive’ is Stormy’s favorite word lately. Stormy won’t dare eat a jalapeno pork rind yet doesn’t think twice about carrying switchblades in both pockets. He draws the line at spicy snacks. I love him but I don’t understand his risk assessment rules.”
Dante stands up from the towel. He holds up a bottle of sunscreen and says something. Benji turns around on the towel, giving Dante his back.
Tex leans forward. “Oh, boy, here we go.”
Dante squeezes sunscreen into his palm and starts rubbing it across Benji’s shoulders. Slowly. His hands move down Benji’s back in long, even strokes, thumbs pressing along the spine, palms spreading across the shoulder blades. He’s not rushing. He’s being thorough to not miss any spots. His hands move down to the lower back, all the way down to his waistband, and he takes his time there too.
“He’s really working that sunscreen in good,” Tex observes.
“I can see that.”
“Both hands. Full palms. The man is applying sunscreen like he’s giving a massage at a resort. Guess he doesn’t want Benji to get sunburned.”
“I said I can see that.”
Dante finishes Benji’s back and moves to his arms, running his hands from shoulder to wrist, turning Benji’s arm over to get the inside of the forearm. Then he does his legs,hands running from thigh to ankle and back up again, and the whole production of it is taking fucking forever.
Then Benji stands up. He takes the bottle from Dante. Dante turns around and Benji starts rubbing sunscreen across Dante’s back. Same thing. Same pace. The same slow, unhurried hands. Benji’s palms press flat against Dante’s shoulder blades and slide down. He does the lower back. He does the sides. He squeezes more sunscreen and does Dante’s arms, one at a time, his fingers wrapping around Dante’s bicep and sliding down to the wrist.
“Is this what they do in Miami?” Tex asks. “Just rub each other down on public beaches?”
“How the hell would I know what they do in Miami? I’ve never been to Miami. I’ve never been anywhere with him. I introduced him as the goddamn help, and now he’s down there with someone who’s not afraid to touch him in public. That’s what I’m watching, Tex. That’s what this is.”
Tex goes quiet, then he crunches loudly on another pork rind. “Well,” he says. “It’s a hell of a show. People would pay good money for this. You could put this on OnlyFans. Two beautiful men rubbing lotion on each other in the sunshine. You’d make a fortune. You could retire from law enforcement and just livestream your boyfriend and his best friend applying SPF 50 to each other’s backs. ‘Subscribe now for the full sunscreen experience. Premium tier gets the legs.’”
“Tex, if you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to throw you out of here.”
“You can’t. I own the place.”
“You know what’s killing me?”
“Besides the sunscreen rubbing?”
