Mickey:How’s the drive?
Benji:Boring. Flat. I miss your face. I miss your neck. I miss your hands. In that order. Actually no. Hands first. Then neck. Then face. No wait. Actually face first. I can’t rank you. All of you. I miss all of you. What are you doing right now?
Mickey:Just finished with Jason. Arms session. Push-ups. Bars.
Benji:How do your arms look right now?
Mickey:Like arms.
Benji:Mickey. You know what I’m asking.
Mickey:I’m sweating and my shirt is sticking to me and I need a shower. Is that what you’re asking?
Benji:Yes. That is exactly what I was asking. Thank you for the visual. Can I get a photo? You know I’m obsessed now.
Mickey:No. I’m going to shower. Drive safe. No texting until you’re stopped somewhere.
Benji:You and your rules.
Mickey:My rules keep you alive. Text me from the next stop.
An hour later I pull into a rest stop. I buy a bottle of water from the vending machine and sit on a bench under a palm tree and text him.
Benji:Rest stop. Alive. Hydrated. Still thinking about your arms. And your VEINS!
Mickey:You need new material.
Benji:Never. Your arms are the only material. I’m going to be eighty years old in a retirement home and someone is going to ask me what I’m thinking about and the answer is going to be Mickey Weaver’s arms in a sweaty T-shirt after push-ups. I will take this to my grave.
Mickey:Get back on the road.
Benji:Fine. Driving now. But this conversation isn’t over.
Mickey:It never is with you.
My mind keeps drifting back to the bathroom. The sound he made when my lips found his neck. The first slide of his tongue against mine. How he saidgive me this.
Miami is still two hours away. My apartment, my bed, my life — the one that existed before I walked into a biker bar and ordered a drink.
Before a man I’d never spoken to stepped between me and a bullet without hesitating. Without knowing my name.
He knows my name now.
Chapter 27: Benji
My condo smells like a life on pause. It has that stale, sealed-up scent apartments get when the windows have stayed shut for three weeks and the AC has done nothing but cycle the same dead air through empty rooms. Standing in the living room after dropping my bags, I feel like a trespasser. The decor belongs to a version of me I used to know.
I head straight for my bathroom. My God, the bathroom. I signed this lease for the rainfall showerhead alone, and standing under it now for twenty minutes, the water pressure is a revelation. I can almost hear Mickey’s laugh. He’d probably tell me this much water is an indulgence.
I collapse into my own bed. My phone buzzes at six on the dot.
Mickey’s face fills the screen. He’s on the patio, the evening light behind him. Every time his face appears I have the same reaction, which is that a four-inch screen cannot do him justice.
“How’s Miami?” he asks.
“Deliciously wet. My shower has a rainfall head and I stood under it until I pruned. How’s George?”
“He’s thriving. Two nurses have asked about him. He’s the most popular resident on the second floor.”
