His response comes in forty seconds.
Mickey:You’re sending me shirtless photos this early? After last night. You know exactly what you’re doing.
Benji:No idea what you’re talking about. This is simply a coffee review with visual context. The shirtlessness is incidental. The lighting happened to be good. The sheets just happened to fall that way. Total coincidence.
Mickey:You staged the sheets.
Benji:I STAGED NOTHING. The sheets fell naturally. Gravity did that.
Mickey:Liar
Benji:Fine. Caught me. I staged the sheets. While I thought about your hand on my waist while I did it. And your chest muscles. Are you happy now? Is that what you wanted to hear?
Mickey:Yeah. Those are the words I wanted to hear.
Benji:I’ll be there at noon.
Mickey:Better be. Don’t make me chase you again.
Benji:Stop threatening me with a good time.
I put the phone down and lie on the hotel bed grinning like an idiot. He called me out on the sheets. I admitted it. He liked it. The exchange has the rhythm of two people who arefiguring out the language between them, and I save the whole thread to read it again tonight.
There’s a plant nursery six minutes from here. I find it on Google Maps while eating a granola bar and by nine-thirty I’m standing in the tropical section talking to a woman named Dolores about fiddle-leaf figs.
“They’re dramatic about light,” she says. “Too much direct sun and they burn. Not enough and they sulk.”
“Great,” I say. “They’re basically me in plant form. We’ll get along fine.”
Dolores looks at me over her glasses and decides she likes me. She picks out the best one, a two-footer with thick glossy leaves and a healthy root system. She wraps the pot in burlap and helps me carry it to the car. The plant takes the passenger seat. I buckle the seatbelt around the pot because I’m a responsible plant parent.
I name him George.
The Italian place for lunch is called Nonna’s and I find it by ignoring the apps and driving until I see a small sign with a full parking lot at eleven-thirty on a weekday. Nonna’s has seven cars and a woman at the counter who calls the meat sauce “gravy” and says it in a way that makes arguing with her inadvisable. I order rigatoni, penne with mushroom cream, garlic bread, and a salad that starts leaking through the container before I reach the car.
I knock on his door at noon carrying a fiddle-leaf fig, a tray of coffees, and a paper bag that smells like garlic and warm bread.
“Get in here,” he says.
“I’ve missed hearing you say those words. Where do you want George?”
“Who is George?”
“This big fellow. I told you this room needs a plant. George will transform this space. Within a week it’s going to feel like an actual human being lives here.”
I spend two full minutes positioning George in the corner, turning the pot so the best leaves face the room. Mickey watches from his wheelchair with a dubious expression. Then I unpack lunch on the tray table. The rigatoni is extraordinary, with slow-simmered sauce that coats the pasta perfectly.
Mickey eats focused and quiet when the food is good, with the slight nod he gives on the first bite. I always wait for that nod before I take mine.
The meal resets whatever tension is still humming between us from last night by replacing everything complicated with butter and carbs. When we finish, I put my fork down and sit up straighter.
“Okay,” I say. “I need to say something about yesterday and I need you to hear all of it before you respond.”
He turns to give me his full attention.
“I’m not going to apologize for being attracted to you. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. My body responded to your body and that response was honest. But I also know what the injury means for yours, Mickey. And I’m not going to show up every day acting like your rehab room is a strip club withmedical equipment here for my enjoyment. The cream ritual stays because that’s ours and I’m not giving it up. But outside of that, I’m going to try to sit in this chair like a gentleman. I will not pounce. I will not climb you. No matter how good your chest looks in a T-shirt.” I glance at him. “And it looks very good today. I’ve been trying not to mention that for ten minutes.”
He grins at me. “Strip club?” he says. “Is that how you see me now?”
