Page 135 of Levi

“I’m not going to tell you to walk away. I would sooner die. I’d given up on you ever falling for someone. Then a closeted disaster in a cowboy hat trashes a listing, and you go under in the deep end. I’m watching you hurt over a person for the first time in my life. I can’t tell you how strange it is to be this happy and this terrified in the same body.”

He leans in. “And do not give me the Mickey thing. Oh, Benji survived, so you’ll survive too. No. You were there for mine, so I’m not retelling it. Half that story is Mickey’s, and it stays ours. All you need is the part you watched. I once hurt over that man so bad somebody had to scrape me off a floor. And mine was the small, kind version. It still took me apart and drove me to acts of spite involving swimwear.” He spreads his hands. “Yours is the same wound at a much bigger size. And no one’s coming to scrape you off your floor, because you’re the one and only Dante.” He sits back. “Who’s yours?”

“You’re my Benji,” I say. “It’s the same.”

He blinks up at the ceiling, fast. “Damn it, Dante. You’re messing up my eyeliner.”

“I watched the video,” I tell him. “Twice was plenty. The girl’s a plant. I don’t know what the future is with him. He might never get to say my name out loud, anywhere, ever.” I make myself finish it. “And I’m in the middle of it anyway. I don’t know how this can be resolved.”

Benji reaches across the table and puts his hand over mine. “Okay,” he says. “Then that’s where we are.” He squeezes once. “I’m not going to fix it, because I can’t. I didn’t want you sitting alone in a parking lot pretending you were working. The only thing worse than feeling hurt is feeling it by yourself. Someone wise and very handsome once flew up with my best clothes and taught me that.” He lets go of my hand.

My phone buzzes on the table. Benji’s eyes drop to it, then come back to me. “Is that him?”

I turn it over. Benji leans over to read it too.

Levi: Can’t stand this. Same lot as last time. Full dark. I’ll be waiting. Take me to your place. Let me have one night of taking care of you for a change. You’ve got one job tonight. Driving. I’ve got the rest.

Every meetup, I planned it. The burner, the dark lot, the cover, the plan. Tonight he’s running my own playbook back at me, down to my own words at the end of it. The man I’ve hauled around reached down and picked me up. My face must show it.

“Go, get out of here,” Benji says. “I’ll be at the house with orchids early tomorrow. Call if you need me before then.” He’s already up.

I pocket my phone and start to head out.

“Dante.” I look back at him. “He’s scared, he’s famous, he’s a thousand kinds of complicated. And tonight he wants to take care of you. Let him.” He flaps a hand at me. “Now go, before I cry in a biker bar.”

By the time I make it to the apartment, it’s already dusk. I shower and change quickly, then drive to him. He’s in the lot before me, deep in the shadow where I parked the first time, and he’s in the seat before I’ve fully stopped. Neither of us says much on the drive. At my door he takes the keys out of my hand and lets us in himself, like that’s his job tonight too.

Inside, under the one lamp, there’s no blonde, no beer held up for a lens, no grin aimed at anyone else. Just Levi, boots pulled off, barefoot on my floor inside of two minutes, looking at me.

Him being barefoot does something to me that nine hours of beach footage couldn’t. The staged version gets the cameras. I get this — bare feet on my carpet, hair messy, the day scrubbed off him — the version no lens will ever own.

“Hey,” he says.

“Hey.”

“You watched it. I’m sorry. I—”

“I don’t want the sorry.” I grab his belt loops with both hands and tug him to me. “I saw it. I’m not going to pretend it didn’t get to me. I’m sorry this is your life.”

“It’s my fault though.”

He kisses me first. That’s new. He takes my face in both hands, same as I’ve taken his before, walks me back into the edge of the counter, kisses me slowly. I let him take charge.

He pulls back. “I don’t want you to be mad at me,” he murmurs against my mouth. “I didn’t want to do all that today. Please don’t be mad.”

“I’m not mad at you, Levi.”

The hold I’ve kept clamped down since noon comes loose. I wrap my hands in his hair and kiss him with nothing held back. Then we’re moving down the hall.

In the bedroom he takes the rest of my clothes off. The buttons his fingers started in the hall. My belt. Everything after. He does it carefully, and I stand there and let him, which is not something I ever do. I’m always the one in control but this seems to be important to him. Tonight I keep my hands at my sides and let him take his time.

He walks me to the bed. I reach for him on instinct, to set the pace, and he closes his hand over both of mine.

“Let me this time, Dante,” he says. “Lie down.”

I do it, curious to see where he’s going with this.

His palm settles flat between my shoulder blades. He presses, not hard, turning me.