Page 72 of Levi

“Did you sell it? How did it go?”

He holds on me one more second, like he’s deciding whether to take the answer. Then he takes it.

“It’s not sold yet.” But the corner of his mouth gives him up. “It’s going to sell.”

“Alright! Knew you had it in you.”

He looks at me a second too long, like he’s deciding whether he should tell me the story, and then decides not to. He can’t work out how to say a normal thing to me across his own kitchen. Whatever happened on that balcony knocked him off his script too. You’d think that would make me feel less alone in it. It doesn’t.

“The buyer was serious,” he says. “Air was clean. I’ll spare you the dull broker talk.” He grabs his keys off the counter where he set them five seconds ago. “Come on. House is yours again. I’ll run you back.”

House is yours again.

Said in a kind voice. He’s taking me back like a tool that got borrowed for a job that’s done. He’s already halfway out the door, key ready, and God, the speed of it. Dante can’t get me out of his apartment fast enough.

This is the part where I should follow him down, and let him drive me back. Instead, I do the bravest stupid thing I’ve done.

“Hey.” It’s out of my mouth before I can lose my nerve. He stops, half-turned in the doorway with the light behind him, and I have to look at the floor to get the rest out. “You doing anything tonight?”

“Tonight,” he says, puzzled. “Why?”

“Second night of the series is on.” I lift my head and make myself look at him. “There’s a TV in that house the size of a barn door. Figured, if you got no place to be, you could come watch it. I’ll order in. Whatever you want, all the pizza a man can hold. It’s covered. You’ve fed me all week — ribs, the circus at the bar. Let me get a turn for once.”

That’s the part I can say. Pizza and a ballgame, take it or leave it. The part riding under it, the part he’d have to be deaf not to hear, is I want you there.

First time I’ve held that out to anybody, and my hands are steadier on a live microphone in front of thousands of people than they are right now. I stand there with the offer out in front of me, waiting.

And Dante freezes.

Oh, damn, I know what that means and it’s not good.

He stops with his keys in his hand and his mouth half open, like I caught him by surprise.

“That’s a good offer,” he says, giving me a polite smile. “I can’t tonight.”

“Yeah. No. Of course.” I’m already reeling it back in fast.

“I’ve got a stack of calls to run down before tomorrow,” he says, every word of it probably true. “Half my clients fly in for the weekends, and a Saturday like today, you ride the momentum or you lose it. It’s just part of the work.” A small shrug. “You know how it is.”

“Sure.” I find a grin somewhere and put it on. “Strike while the iron’s hot. Forget I mentioned it.”

And that’s the end of it. We go down the metal stairs into the heat, and I do what I do. Take the hit, go still, wait for it to be over.

I wasn’t one bit wrong on the balcony about what he was feeling.

I was early.

The ice was first aid. The floor was Dante doing right by an emergency in his own home. And just now I held the door open a crack. One night, one ballgame, the smallest thing there is, and he found a reason not to walk through it before I finished asking.

And the worst of it isn’t even being turned down. I can’t trust my own judgment now. And if I can’t trust my judgment, then I’ve got nothing between myself and the world at all.

We get in the SUV and he pulls out. I put my arm on the windowsill and my eyes on the scenery going by and I don’t let one piece of it onto my face. I’m good at this. You can take my insides apart, and as long as my face holds, nobody collects on it.

“You went quiet,” he says, when we hit 30A.

“Just worn out.” I keep it light, keep it out the window. “Didn’t sleep much.” And then I hear what I said, closer to the night than I meant to get, and I watch it land on him sideways. His hands tighten on the wheel and neither of us picks it up.

The big white houses go by, all of them empty. He pulls into the cul-de-sac and puts it in park. There’s a moment where the engine’s running, neither of us has moved and the week is sitting in the car with us.