“The casualness of it. This is just what they do. This is a regular day for them. Two men on a beach touching each other because they’ve been doing it so long, they don’t even think about it. Dante didn’t ask ‘do you want sunscreen?’ He held up the bottle like a statement. Benji turned around like an answer. It was automatic.”
“Like breathing,” Tex says.
“Yeah.”
Benji walks to the water’s edge. He lets the water wash over his feet. He stands there for a moment, waist-deep in the sun, the coral trunks bright against the blue-green water. Then he dives.
The dive is clean. No splash, no flailing, just a body cutting into the water like it belongs there. He surfaces ten feet out, and his face tilts up to the sun, and the water runs off his shoulders. His hair is slicked back and he looks like something out of a magazine spread about beautiful men in clear water.
“Goddammit,” I mutter.
Dante stands up from the towel, walks to the water, and dives in after him. His dive is just as clean. They surface near each other and then they’re both floating on their backs, side by side, faces to the sky, the two of them drifting in the Gulf like they were placed there by a drone photographer.
“Look at them,” I say. “They look like gods.”
“They look like two men who go to the gym,” Tex says. “Same thing in Miami, apparently.”
“He’s right below me and I can’t reach him. I can’t get down there.”
“Yeah, I know. We just talked about that, remember?”
“Is he going to stay down there all afternoon and I’m supposed to sit up here and watch?”
“That appears to be the arrangement, yes. It’s like one of those nature documentaries where the predator is high on the cliff watching the prey in the valley. David Attenborough would narrate the hell out of this. ‘The sheriff’s deputy watches from his elevated position, unable to descend to the mating grounds below. The wedding planner, sensing his advantage, applies more sunscreen.’”
“I can’t believe you’re actually enjoying this.”
“No, I’m documenting this. There’s a difference.”
They swim back in and stretch out on the towels. Benji lies on his back and Dante is rubbing sunscreen on Benji’s arms.Again. Benji says something and Dante puts his forehead on Benji’s shoulder for a second while he laughs and the contact is so natural and easy. It’s just how they are. Two men who touch each other constantly because touch is their language.
Then Benji’s laugh hits. It comes up through the window, loud and unmistakable, the laugh I first heard in a hospital room, the laugh that fills my heart and a whole fucking beach. The sound carries across the sand and up the side of the building and through the glass like it was aimed.
“Jesus! Can you hear that?” I ask.
“His laugh? Yeah. I can hear it from up here.”
“Benji knows exactly how sound carries across open space. He’s been managing outdoor events for years. He knows the acoustics of every venue he’s ever worked. That laugh isn’t an accident. That volume isn’t an accident. He wants me to hear him having a good time.”
“And you’re hearing it.”
“Every damn note.”
Another laugh. Higher this time. Dante leans closer and Benji throws his head back. The sound of it comes through the window like a bell. The laugh is beautiful. It has always been beautiful.
“You know what’s bugging me?”
“What now?” Tex asks.
“Dante,” I say.
Tex chuckles. “No shit. What about Dante?”
“I wanted to hate him. I really did. When Benji first started talking about Dante every five minutes, Dante this, Dante that, Dante’s flying in, Dante says. The way Benji says his name. Like the name itself is a comfort object Benji drags around. I wanted that guy to show up and be a dick. I wanted him to be shallow or rude or possessive or just slightly off in some way that I could point to and say ‘see, your best friend is an asshole.’ That would’ve made my life so much easier.”
“But?”
“He came with Benji to see me in the hospital. He sat in a plastic chair. He looked me in the eye and shook my hand. The handshake was firm. He didn’t squeeze too hard or holdtoo long. His handshake told me everything I needed to know about him. He reads a room the same way I do. He assessed me in three seconds and decided I was worth Benji’s time. He didn’t have to decide that. He could’ve hated me. Dante had every right to walk into that hospital and look at me like the man who’s ruining his best friend’s life. Instead, he handed me his business card and told me to call him if there was ever trouble with Benji.”
