Page 162 of Levi

Chapter 64: Dante

Sunday, they fly him out. I’ve known since Wednesday.

Levi texted me a few hours after Freddie left him.

Levi: Flying out Sunday morning. Car’s coming at some godawful hour. Back to Nashville. Studio Monday. Songs are already picked. I’ve got demos to learn on the plane. Man likes a full calendar.

Trying to joke about it.

The rental on the house runs through Tuesday. I know its calendar better than my own. They’re pulling him out two days before his own lease is up. I always knew he’d leave. I’d just let myself pretend it was far off in the distance.

I answered the only way I could without putting my hand on the scale, tipping it in my favor.

Dante: My place will be here. If you ever get a gap. A long weekend, an off week, whatever the schedule coughs up. Door’s open.

It was as close as I’ll come to asking.

His response still didn’t answer me.

Levi: Yeah. Maybe when it slows down.

It never slows down for him. He told me that himself. The job doesn’t idle. Maybe when it slows down is either the kindest ‘no’ I’ve ever been handed or a real maybe from a man who can’t see his own calendar past Sunday.

I’ve been holding that text since Wednesday and I still can’t tell which.

Not that I sat in the Panhandle holding it. Wednesday night I was on a plane to Miami. The lawyer who read Levi’s stack had one gap in her week, Thursday. A follow-up like mine doesn’t go in an email. Not with his name at the bottom of every page.

We spent most of Thursday over her conference table, her red pen against my two columns, and I flew back with a folder I haven’t put in front of him yet.

I won’t dress the trip up as noble. It was the only move I’m allowed. I can’t ask where I fit. But nothing stops me from working the other question, the one about who owns him. Whatever I turn out to be — the good few weeks, or the place he comes back to — he should get to decide it as a free man, with his own name in his own hands.

And if he decides to fly to Nashville and out of my life anyway, that’s what the folder bought. I’ll have to learn to call it enough.

Thursday took him away from the other end anyway. The run-through, the fitting, Freddie on him twice as hard since the night at Tex’s with the crew. Texts in the gaps and nothing else. Between my flight and his fittings, Wednesday and Thursday never stood a chance for us to meet.

Which left Friday. Friday night was supposed to be ours. The one special night before the plane. No festival, no phones, nowhere we had to be. I’d cleared the evening days ago, the way I clear a closing I’ve waited months for.

Then my phone buzzed a little after five. Levi again, on the burner. I can almost see him. Phone in one fist, pacing whatever backstage hallway they’ve got him in, hat pushed back, Tennessee drawl in every dropped comma.

Levi: I’m so sorry. They’ve got me up at the grounds till who knows when. Soundcheck’s a disaster. Tomorrow night’s finale is supposed to be a huge crowd.

Levi: I sent a stack of passes to Tex’s for you. VIP access. Grab Benji, grab Stormy, Sheila, anybody who wants to come.

Levi: Just promise me you’ll be down front tomorrow night. Front and center. I want to be able to find your face from up there.

I read all three twice, sitting on the edge of the bed, working out why the warm tone felt worse than cold. Cold I’d know what to do with. But this was him reaching for me. Pulling me in close for his last night in town, wanting my face down front where he could find it from the stage. And not one word about what comes after.

Dante: Wouldn’t miss it.

I didn’t ask what I wanted to ask. I can’t lay that question on him the night before he closes out a festival. He flies out Sunday no matter what I say. The only open term left in the deal is whether he’s flying back to visit me after or just flying back.

Now it’s Saturday afternoon, and I’m pushing through the door at Tex’s to collect Benji. The place is already loud. Barely four, and the festival’s last night has the county thinking about one long blowout. Every stool is taken. Sheila’s got both hands going behind the bar. Out back I can smell Tex working the smoker like he’s feeding an army. By tonight he will be.

Benji’s not ready yet. Benji is historically never ready. I wait up in the loft while he finishes whatever he’s doing to his face. Mickey’s parked by the window with the ballgame on.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us?” I ask.

He doesn’t look away from the screen. “Five hours, Dante.”