I’ve spent my career seeing people at their worst. Domestic calls at two AM. Accident scenes. Hospital rooms. I’ve never once wished I could see someone in better light. But I want to see Benji in sunlight. He deserves better light than this. He deserves better than hospital fluorescents and a man who can’t stand up to turn on a lamp for him.
While I’m thinking all this, he’s still talking.
“Andthen,” he says, leaning forward in the chair. When he leans closer, I catch his smell. Not cologne today, something simpler, shampoo and the warm clean scent of skin that’s been in a car for two hours with the windows cracked.
Everything above my waist responds to it. My fingers grip the blanket. My throat goes dry. My dick is dead at the moment but everything else isn’t. That exact thought goes through my head while Benji is ranting about glazed clay pots, and the thought is so sharp I almost laugh at the absurdity of it. Benji is telling me about pottery and my body is losing its mind from the waist up because he smells like fresh air.
“And then she says, ‘Well, we could do a semi-glaze,’” Benji continues, his hands making a shape in the air that I think is supposed to represent a clay pot but looks more like he’s strangling something invisible. “A semi-glaze. What the fuck is a semi-glaze, Kacie? That’s like being semi-pregnant. You’re either glazed or you’re not. There is no middle ground on glaze. I told her unglazed, I told her it three times in three different formats, and she’s out there trying to invent a newcategory of pottery that doesn’t exist to cover the fact that she probably already ordered the wrong ones.”
“Did she order the wrong ones?” I ask while trying my best to pretend I’m following the story when I’m losing it.
“She absolutely ordered the wrong ones. I can hear it in her voice. She’s got the voice of a woman who knows she’s wrong and is hoping that if she talks long enough about semi-glaze, I’ll forget what I originally asked for. I’m not going to forget. Because I never forget anything, Mickey. Nothing. I have the memory of an elephant. And I have the email. I have the text. I have receipts. Physical and digital receipts. She’s dealing with the wrong gay man on the wrong day.”
Benji’s magnificent when he’s angry.Sexy as fuck. I know I’m not supposed to be thinking that. I know there’s a list of reasons why thinking that is a bad idea, and the list is long, and at the top in bold letters is the fact that I can’t feel my dick. But watching Benji rant about clay pots with his hands flying and his eyes lit with righteous fury is doing something to me that I can’t control.
“Anyway,” he says, jumping up and unzipping the cooler. “Enough about fucking pots. Let’s get you fed.”
The smell of Tex’s brisket fills the room and pushes everything else out. Hickory smoke and pepper rub and the specific magic of meat that’s been on a smoker for fourteen hours. My eyes sting, not from the spice but from the smell of home for the second time today.
“Sheila fixed this for you,” Benji says, unpacking containers onto the tray table. “She said to keep the cooler and eat the leftovers tomorrow.”
He’s arranging the food with the containers lined up, lids off, napkins folded beside them. I watch his fingers and I remember how they felt on my skin. The wanting still hums in my chest, the same as it has since the night he put his head on my bed.
“How was it?” I ask. “The bar?”
He pauses with a container of coleslaw in his hand. Doesn’t look at me right away. Finishes setting it down, adjusts it by a quarter inch, and then looks up.
“It was okay,” he says, quieter now. “Sheila was there. We talked.”
He doesn’t give me details, and I don’t push. Whatever happened between Benji and Sheila in that bar belongs to them. I sent him there knowing it needed to happen and that’s enough.
“Stormy was there too,” Benji says, and his face softens. “I like him. He’s a gentle soul. Every time I see him, I want to wrap him in a big bear hug.”
“I need to warn you. He might not like that. He’s not fond of being touched.”
“I noticed,” Benji says. “That’s why I’m not doing it. I might one day though, when he’s ready.”
I dig into the food and the brisket is everything, tender and smoky and falling apart. Benji eats too, more than I’ve seen him eat before.
“You’re eating more today than you usually do.” I point at the plate in his lap. “Did you forget to eat today again?”
Benji smiles at me. “No, I’m just really hungry tonight. Keep eating.”
He’s licking brisket sauce off his thumb when I decide to tell him. I’ve been holding the news since this morning, waiting for him to be in the room because this isn’t something you text. “Benji. I need to tell you something.”
He looks up from his plate. He hears the shift from eating to something heavier, and his hand stops moving.
“What’s wrong?” he asks.
“Nothing’s wrong. The doctor was here this morning. Before Tex. She stayed for a while.”
“What did she say?”
“They’ve done everything they can do here. The next phase is rehab at a dedicated spinal cord facility. Multiple hours a day of physical therapy. She said this is where the recovery actually starts.”
“Okay,” Benji says slowly. “Okay, that’s good, right? That means they’re moving forward. That means there’s a plan.”
“Yes, there’s a definite plan. The top program in the state is in Jacksonville. They specialize in spinal cord injuries. The doctor says they give me the best shot.”
