“George is a rockstar. I knew it.”
We talk for an hour. He tells me about Jason’s session and the tilt table, which is a board that straps him in and tilts him toward vertical. He held at seventy degrees today. I tell him about the three weeks of mail mountain and how my condo smells like an abandoned building.
After we hang up, I lie on my bed with the phone on my chest and the sound of his voice still in my ear. After everything we’ve been through already, I’m confident we can do this long-distance thing.
The next morning, I meet Dante early for coffee. He lives two blocks away in a building that’s much nicer than mine. When I walk in, he hands me a cortado without asking and we sit on his balcony. The view from his place is the bay, flat and blue. It’s pretty, but not as pretty as the Gulf.
“You look different today,” he says. He’s leaning back in his chair with one ankle crossed over his knee, the espresso balanced on the armrest the way Dante balances everything, casually and without looking.
“How?”
“More rested. Less frazzled than when I left you in Panama City.” He sips his espresso and studies me over the rim.
“That place literally and figuratively beat the shit out of me. But yeah. I’m better now that I’m here.”
“How’s Mickey?”
“He’s good. He’s working hard. His arms are getting huge. He held seventy degrees on the tilt table yesterday and he told me about it like he’d summited Everest and honestly,for him, it is.” I wrap my hands around the cortado and let the warmth settle into my fingers. “We made out in his bathroom.”
“I assumed he couldn’t do that,” Dante says.
“Not everything. Not yet. But everything still works perfectly fine from the waist up. That’s enough.” I stop and look at the bay. The water is doing the flat glassy thing it does in the morning before the wind picks up. “He’s been lying in that hospital bed convincing himself that the bullet took everything away and now he knows it didn’t.”
Dante is quiet for a moment. “You’re already completely gone for him.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re a very sexual person. I’m not saying that as a negative, it’s just who you are. Who you’ve always been.” He uncrosses his ankle and leans forward with his elbows on his knees. “And for you to say it’s enough for you that things only work above his waist says everything.”
“Maybe it won’t be forever,” I say. “Maybe he’ll get some function back.”
Dante raises his eyebrows. “And if he doesn’t?”
“We’ll work it out.” I shrug. “Dicks are overrated.”
Dante bursts out laughing. “Says the gayest man in Miami. Are you straight now? I have to admit. That is one line I never thought I’d hear coming out of your mouth, Benji.”
“I know. I’m not trying to make a joke out of it because it’s serious.”
The laughter fades from his face. “Is there any real chance he can get better and regain some function?”
“Yeah, there is. These things take time and there’s no guarantee. And there’s also a chance nothing gets better too. Then he’ll need to learn how to function the way he is now.”
“And then what?” Dante asks. “Have you thought about it?”
“Where are you going with this? I thought you liked Mickey.”
“I do like him. What’s not to like? He seems like a decent, solid guy.” Dante turns to face me fully, one arm draped over the back of his chair. “But I have concerns.”
“What about?”
He takes a breath. “I don’t want to see you chip away pieces of yourself to fit into his life until there’s nothing left of you,” he says. “I want you to be happy and I’d love to see you with someone who made you feel that way. If Mickey makes you happy, then great. I can’t see that happening any time soon though if you’re having to put in ninety percent of the work to keep the relationship alive.”
“I’m not doing that.”
Dante tilts his head and lifts his brows at me. “You drive to him. You bring the food. You book the hotel. You rearranged your calendar.” He counts each one on his fingers. “What has Mickey done for you?”
My mouth opens and nothing comes out for a second. “He’s in a wheelchair, Dante. He’s injured. What exactly is he supposed to do?”
