Page 54 of Levi

“You lowball, I highball, we meet in the sensible middle, everybody drives home telling their people they won.” I spread my hands. “This is supposed to be the fun part. Has anybody ever told you you’re no fun?”

“Three drinks,” he says. “That’s a hard limit for me. Game’s over. No more than three. You order a fourth, the bartender calls me and I’ll be there before you can drink it.”

That stops me. Because I hear what the number actually is. Three isn’t a bar tab. Three is the line he’s drawn between a night out and the night he already lived through one time before.

“The bartender calls you at four drinks?” I turn it over. “You’re close with her? The woman behind the bar? Sheila? You know her personally?”

“Yes,” he says.

He’s not telling me everything. There’s something about the Roadhouse he doesn’t want me knowing.

“You know the big man personally too?”

“Yes, everyone, so if you misbehave, they’re calling me.”

“Three drinks, seriously? You’re driving a hard bargain for a man begging me to leave his house.”

“I’m not begging. I’m running a deadline. You’ve clearly never had one.”

“Oh, I’ve had deadlines. Big deadlines. Bigger than yours. I just always had somebody sweating them for me.”

“Do we have a deal?” He’s getting tired of me now and that’s not a place I want Dante to go. “I’ll come for you at sunset to drop you off at the Roadhouse. I’ll need to stay here at the house working until it’s perfect. It might be late before we’re finished. And I’d rather you stay at the apartment tonight than here if you’re agreeable to that. Once the house is staged it has to hold exactly the way we leave it, and it can’t do that with a man sleeping in it.”

I fight to keep my face straight so my eyes don’t light up. A night at his place. Where the pillow smells like him turned down to a quarter. And he’ll be there, sleeping down the hallway, with the door open. Same as before. He might even make me one of those tiny little cups of coffee. If I behave. I want that damn cup of coffee this time.

“Yeah, sure,” I say as if it’s no big deal. “If it helps the crew.”

“It will,” he says.

“To be sure we’re clear.” I count it off on my fingers, because making him stand here is half the fun. “You take me to the Roadhouse. Three drinks. All the food I want. And a big tip for the bartender lady, Sheila. A real one, not your kind of tip.”

I don’t know what his kind of tip is. But I could guess.

“I tip twenty-five percent,” he says. “On the pre-tax total.”

“What the hell is a pre-tax total? I knew that’s how you’d tip. Correct to the decimal, and joyless. Tonight you tip like the money embarrasses you. Sheila should figure a high roller wandered in, not a tax auditor doing his rounds.”

“Anything else?”

“Do all that, and I’ll sleep at your place tonight and let your crew have their house back.”

“Deal,” he says. “Get your stuff and let’s go. We’re wasting time.”

I’m already packed. A week in this house and my life stayed in the duffel bag, like I might have to evacuate the building. Old habit.

The phone I leave. It stays here tonight. I’m leaving my alibi on the couch and walking out the door. It’s almost funny. The most reliable version of me is a phone in a cushion.

Dante drives me to the apartment. This time there’s no script about making myself at home or not smoking inside. He pulls into the lot with the dumpster by the door. The gap between Dante and this building has stopped being a question I wonder about.

The other night rides along with us though. Him, gripping that rail, ready to search the beach looking for me. Neither of us mentions it, but I haven’t forgotten it.

He puts the car in park and holds out the key. Same worn brass, same ring with nothing else on it.

“I’ll come for you at sunset,” he says. “Be ready. I won’t have time to wait around on you.”

“I’m always ready.” I take the key. Our hands don’t touch. I’ve noticed he’s careful about that. Like he’s scared something bad will happen if my finger happens to brush his for a half-second.

Inside, the apartment’s the same as always. I head down the little hall to the second bedroom. The gap back there between the signs and the wall is the only place I’ve slept right since I crossed into this state.