“Okay,” she says.
We walk the terrace together. I measure the arch placement for the third time because the mothers are not going to get within six inches of this layout and find something wrong. Not on my watch.
At three o’clock, I close up the beach house and get in my car. The rational part of my brain explains calmly that I don’t need to drive to Tallahassee again today. The other part of my brain puts on its seatbelt and starts the engine.
I stop at a Thai place near the hospital because Mickey mentioned last night that he missed real takeout food and I’m someone who listens. I knock on his room door and push it open as soon as I hear his “get in here.” When I walk in, his face lights up.
“I wish to make a formal complaint with the Sheriff’s Department,” I tell him, setting the bag on the tray table. “About the cops hiding in the median bushes on I-10. That should be illegal.”
He shoots me a worried look. “Why? Did you get caught speeding? How fast were you driving, Benji?”
“Would you get me out of a ticket if I did?”
“I’d try but Bay County doesn’t cover the whole drive. Not even half of it.”
“No, I didn’t and it’s only because now I know every little spot where those assholes hide.” As soon as I say that, I slap a hand over my mouth. “Oh, damn. Sorry! I don’t mean you, of course, because you’d never doanythinglike that, would you?”
He grins at me. “Never in a million years.”
“Liar,” I say. “Ready to eat? We’re having Thai food tonight. Pad Thai, green curry, spring rolls. If the nurses give you trouble about outside food, tell them your personal chef is very demanding and not above making a scene. Because I’m not. Try me. I can make a scene like you wouldn’t believe.”
“I believe it. I bet you could be a holy terror when you get mad.”
“Oh, Mickey. You have no idea.”
He opens the bag and the smell of basil, coconut and lime fills the room, pushing the antiseptic hospital smell out. The room smells like a restaurant now instead of a hospital, and his whole face changes in a way that makes my throat tight.
“This is the best part of my day every day,” he says. “Thank you. You’re saving me from ‘Death by Meatloaf.’”
After setting up his food, we settle down to eat. The pad Thai is good, not Miami good but decent, and the green curry has actual heat which surprises me because I assumed the Panhandle’s spice tolerance was calibrated to mayonnaise.
We’re almost finished when I set down my fork and hold out my hand.
“Give me your phone,” I say.
He looks up from the pad Thai. “What?”
“Your phone. Hand it over.”
He frowns. “Why?”
“Because I’ve been driving here to bring you food and I don’t have your phone number. Can you believe that? I’ve been here every day like your new BFF and I don’t have your number. That’s insane. What if I want to text you something stupid at two in the morning? What if I need to ask what you want for dinner tomorrow? What if I break down on the side of the road and the nearest cop is hiding in the bushes in the median? What if I want to send you a picture of the ugliest chairs in the state of Florida that are ruining my life? I need your phone number because you are the only friend I have inthis part of the state and damn it, Mickey, I might need to call a friend. Hand over your fucking phone.”
He stares at me. He’s trying not to smile and losing the battle. He reaches for his phone and hands it to me.
I type my number in and call myself so I have his. When I hand it back, our fingers brush during the exchange and I feel it run up my whole arm. Quick and warm, just the shock of his skin against mine, and I take a breath and keep talking. If I stop talking, I’ll have to think about the fact that touching his fingers just did that to me.
“There,” I say. “Now you’re going to get texts from me at inappropriate hours about inappropriate things. You have nobody to blame but yourself. Be forewarned.”
“I didn’t give you the phone voluntarily,” he says. “You demanded it. With profanity.”
“You’ll learn that I’m a demanding person. And a profane one. You should know this about me. Add it to the list.”
He shakes his head but he’s smiling bigger now.
When we finish eating, I clear the containers and stack them neatly on the tray table. While I’m cleaning up, I notice his arms. His forearms are resting on top of the blanket, bare below the pushed-up sleeves of the hospital gown, and the skin is rough and dry, cracking at the knuckles. A week of recycled air with nothing but hospital soap and whatever industrial lotion is sitting in a pump bottle at the nurses’ station.
“Oh, hell no,” I say, looking closer at his arms.
