Page 163 of Levi

“Here we go again,” Benji calls out from the bathroom doorway.

“Five hours in the back of that medical transport to Jacksonville.” He turns his head now. “Nothing on the radio the entire drive but country music. One man crying about his truck. Then a second man crying about the first man’s truck. Then, I swear to God, a woman singing about how her truck understood her better than any man ever had.” He shakes his head. “I served my sentence and vowed never again would I willingly listen to another country music song. You two go enjoy yourselves. Leave me at home. Please, go on without me.”

“It’s the closing night,” I tell him. “Levi’s headlining. We would put you right up front.”

“Do you think I don’t know who’s headlining?” Mickey asks. “I’ve heard about nothing else for days. Dante, please, I’m begging you. Take him. You’re doing me a favor. Benji had a blast the last one you went to. You two go have fun while I sit here in peace with my ballgame.”

Mickey is exactly where he wants to be. If I thought for a second, he wanted to go, we would get him there.

Benji finally sweeps out of the bathroom in a cloud of cologne with glitter catching at the corners of his eyes. He’s wearing a sparkly emerald jacket that holds every light in the room.

Mickey looks him up and down and goes soft all over. “Oh wow,” he says. “Gorgeous as always. Come here and turn around so I can get a good look.”

“Will you be waiting up for me?” Benji teases.

“You bet, I will. And I’ll want to hear everything when you get back. Now go have fun. I love you.”

“Love you too.” Benji bends down to kiss him, and I look away.

Benji straightens up, turns the full beam on me and frowns.

“No,” he says, waving a hand at me. “Absolutely not. What is this? Is this what you’re wearing to Levi’s last night?”

“It’s one of my favorite shirts,” I say.

“It’s a gray shirt, Dante. You’re going to be at the rail of a lit stage in a dark field, front and center, and he’s going to look for you. Gray reads the same as gravel from ninety feet. I’m telling you stage wash loves white. You own twenty-one white shirts. I’ve counted them. And here you are in drab gray. What are you? An undertaker?”

“What do you want me to do, Benji? We’re at Tex’s. My closet is in the other direction. I don’t have time to go back.”

“Which is why I handled it three days ago, the same night I planned my outfit. Garment bag, back of the bathroom door. White shirt, your size, a collar you can live with. I wasn’t leaving you to chance tonight. Go.”

I change into the white shirt that fits me perfectly, and he rolls the sleeves himself, two turns each. Mickey watches the operation from the window, shaking his head silently.

Downstairs I offer Stormy the spare pass to come with us. He laughs at me with a keg on his shoulder. The place is already slammed, and he’s not leaving Tex and Sheila to drown on a busy night.

“Ask me again in January,” he says, grinning.

Benji barely gets the door shut before he starts talking and doesn’t stop.

“Okay. Do not say one word about my emerald jacket. I can feel you forming an opinion. The jacket is doing exactly the job I hired it to do, so we move on. It’s Levi’s last night, the coast is coming, and I’m not meeting that occasion in leather this time.”

“I didn’t say anything about the jacket.”

“Your face said plenty.” He flips the visor down, checks his eyeliner, flips it back up. “Anyway, about you and Levi.”

“Benji.”

“I need to hear the plan. Are we doing long distance? Because I looked it up. Nashville is seven and a half hours by car. That’s a good playlist and one barbecue stop. People drive farther than that for a mattress sale. When do you see him next? Do you have plans? Or you can fly. No different than flying back and forth to Miami. You’d be a man with a cute little overnight bag forever ‘running to the airport.’ I would adore that for you.”

Every question is a small clean cut he would never dream he’s making. He lays it all out. Visits, flights, next-times, a fun calendar of more time with Levi like it’s a done deal.

There is no plan. I can’t tell Benji. It would ruin his night. The future Benji’s been rooting for might be over when Levi’s plane leaves the ground.

I drive and make the interested noises that keep him going. And then the chatter cuts out.

“Hey. Dante. Where’d you just go?”

“Nowhere. I’m driving.”