I start the car. This time, I don’t text Mickey or hit the call button to tell him I’m coming. If I tell him he’ll have time to prepare his speech. To tell me I didn’t need to come, that he’s fine.
I want to catch whatever his face does when he sees me without warning. His face will tell me everything the moment he sees me.
It takes me almost five hours to get there. The rehabilitation facility is surrounded by palms and manicured hedges. It doesn’t feel like a hospital. I park the car and walk inside.
“Hi,” I say to the woman at reception. “I’m here to see Mickey Weaver.”
“He’s done with sessions for the day. You’re welcome to go up. But,” she glances at her screen, “he’s not flagged as in his room. He might be in the courtyard. A lot of patients go outside after sessions. You can go up to check if you like.”
The door to Mickey’s room is open and the room is empty. The bed is made. A single chair sits by the window. My cream is the only item on the nightstand.
I set the cooler on the floor and follow the hallway through the back doors to the courtyard patio.
I spot him right away.
He’s sitting in a wheelchair, angled toward the sun, his face tilted up, eyes closed. He’s alone. The afternoon light is hot and he’s soaking it up like someone who’s been breathing recycled air for too long.
He’s wearing real clothes. A gray T-shirt that fits him well. Navy athletic shorts that end above his knees. His legs are still, positioned on the footrests, but they’re visible, not hidden under a hospital blanket. His skin has color now. He’s turning his face toward the light.
I’ve never seen Mickey in sunlight. Every version of Mickey I’ve known has been under fluorescent light, and thisversion, the one in the gray T-shirt with the sun on his face, is so different that my feet stop moving.
My God, he’s handsome.
I walk toward him. My sneakers are silent on the concrete. He doesn’t hear me. I can’t help smiling. I have about five more steps before he knows I’m here, and my heart is hammering so hard I’m surprised he hasn’t heard it yet.
Chapter 23: Mickey
I smell him before I hear him.
I’m sitting on the patio, doing the same thing I do every evening after sessions. The sun is warm on my forearms and my face and I’m not thinking about anything, which is the closest I get to peace in this place. I’ve spent the last couple of days practicing how to be alone again. I’d convinced myself that Tallahassee was a fever dream, and Jacksonville is the cold, hard reality.
Then the air changes. It carries a trace of the cream—the scent of Benji touching the parts of me I can’t feel. I don’t have to turn around to know the man who held my feet in his hands is standing right behind my chair.
Benji is here.
He didn’t text. He didn’t ask. He didn’t let the distance be the excuse I thought he’d take. Now he’s standing behind me, the warmth of his body close enough to feel, and my eyes are still closed. I’m terrified to open them. I’m terrified that if I look, the scent will vanish.
His hands land on my shoulders — both palms warm, settling through the T-shirt with a pressure that is familiar because these hands have been on my skin before.
“Guess who.”
His voice is close to my ear, low and warm, full of the grin I can hear without seeing.
And now he’s standing behind me, and the distance between us feels meaningless. My hand leaves the armrest. The second it lifts, my core balance shifts and I have to engage everything to hold steady. I let go of the chair to reach for him, which is the most reckless decision I’ve made all day.
My hand finds his on my shoulder and my fingers grip tight. My eyes are burning. I keep my face tilted toward the sun and I don’t turn around because if I do, he’ll see the tears. I blink hard. The sun helps because it gives the tears somewhere to hide.
“Benji.” His name comes out rough. I clear my throat and try again. “Benji.”
“Hi, handsome,” he says, leaning closer to my ear. “I’m here to deliver a food order to an Officer Mickey Weaver. Did you place an order from Big Tex’s Roadhouse in Panama City?”
The laugh breaks out of me like a cough, short and rough. “You drove all this way to bring me ribs?”
“And sweet tea. Tex’s recipe. Half a bag of sugar. Sheila packed it this morning. She says she loves you and to eat something. She called me baby again, which I hope means I’ve been officially adopted into whatever weird cult you people are running up there in the Panhandle.”
My thumb moves back and forth across his knuckles. I still don’t look at him. “You didn’t tell me you were coming,” I say.
“I know.”
