“Hey Stormy.”
“Hey.” He puts a glass on the shelf, then another, working while he talks. “How is Mickey?”
“He’s making it. Pretending he’s fine when he’s not.”
Stormy puts another glass up carefully. Then he says, without looking at me, “Mickey eats more when someone is sitting beside him. Especially when they’re eating too.”
“How do you know that?” I ask.
He shrugs without looking at me. “I’ve noticed when he sits at the bar. He doesn’t finish his whole plate when he’s sitting by himself. If the bar is busy and there’s other people sitting around him, he eats more. You need to eat too.”
“Thank you for telling me. That means a lot.” I smile at him. “I’ll make sure he eats good tonight.”
“Tell him I said hello.”
He gives me another quick smile, picks up the bin and disappears into the kitchen. That’s the whole conversation.
Sheila comes back carrying a small cooler, the kind with a handle and a zipper, packed tight. She sets it on the bar in front of me.
“Brisket,” she says. “Ribs. Coleslaw. Baked beans. Cornbread. Enough for two. There are ice packs in the bottom so it’ll stay cold for the drive. Tell him to keep the cooler and eat the leftovers tomorrow too. Hospital food might kill him.”
She packed enough for two. She didn’t say anything else about it and she didn’t have to.
“Sheila,” I say. “Thank you.”
She reaches across the bar and squeezes my hand. One squeeze, firm and brief. Her fingers are strong and she holds on for about two seconds. Then she lets go and picks up her towel and goes back to wiping the bar.
“Be careful driving, baby. Tell Mickey we love him.”
She called me baby. I didn’t know how badly I needed that until her fingers closed around mine.
I pick up the cooler and walk out into the lot. Big Tex’s Roadhouse is behind me. I made it through. I went in, I came out, and the world didn’t end.
I strap the cooler in carefully on the passenger seat and pull out my phone to send Mickey a photo of it.
Benji:On my way with valuable cargo.
Mickey:Want to talk on the way?
Benji:Will you arrest me if I’m driving and talking?
Mickey:Not if you don’t touch the phone. Call me.
I snap the phone into the cradle on my dashboard and hit his name. It rings once before the call connects through the car speakers, filling the car with the quiet, hospital-room silence of his end of the line. I pull out of the Big Tex parking lot and head for the highway.
“Okay, Officer Weaver,” I say, glancing at the road as I merge. “I’m on my way. Two hours and counting down. Tell me all about your day.”
Chapter 15: Mickey
Two hours later, Benji blasts through the door like a whirlwind, carrying Sheila’s cooler and talking before his body is fully in the room. He’s wearing jeans that fit him in a way I have no business noticing from a hospital bed. The silver chain’s back. It sits in the hollow of his throat and moves when he talks. I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of time in the last few days thinking about that chain, specifically wondering if he wears it to bed.
“The florist called me back and get this, she’s asking me if the clay pots should be glazed or unglazed and I swear on my life, Mickey, I’m going to lose my mind,” he says in one big breath. “Glazed or unglazed. I specified unglazed in the original order. I put it in writing. I emailed it. I texted it. I may have tattooed it on my body at some point. Unglazed, Kacie. Unglazed. The whole point of the rustic aesthetic is that it looks unfinished. Glazed pots defeat the purpose. Glazed pots are the enemy of everything we’re trying to accomplish. Glazed pots at a rustic wedding are like putting a chandelier in a fucking barn.”
He sets the cooler on the floor and drops into the chair like he always does. His hands are still going, conducting the story, punctuating every sentence with a gesture that takes up more space than his body does. He’s wearing a pale blue T-shirt that’s soft and fitted and his hair is pushed back off his forehead.
I’m watching all of this with my full attention that has nothing to do with interest in florists or clay pots.
His shirt brings out the blue in his eyes. I haven’t seen them in sunlight yet because I’ve only ever seen Benji inside. I’m dying to see what his eyes look like in sunlight.
