Page 83 of Breakaway
"My bed is a six-three on a good day and we both know it."
He is doing his bit. I can hear it starting up the way an engine starts up after sitting cold, rough at first, catching, not smooth but running. The first time he’s rated something in weeks. The fact that it is starting while I’m still here is something I am going to hold.
We stay like that with my arms around him and his forehead against my shoulder and his hands are flat against my back fora while. Mouse threads between our feet and presses her head against my ankle.
"I'd be here next week if I could," I say against his hair.
"I know."
The ride is on time and he walks me to the door. I grab my bag, and he stands in the doorway with Mouse at his feet. I look at him, standing there in my shirt, in the apartment that’s cleaner when I arrived. I kiss him, and his hand comes up to my jaw, holding it there and I let it linger.
"Go," he says when he finally pulls away.
"I'm going.” I don’t make a move to leave even though we both know I need to.
"Go before I make it weird."
"You already made it weird. You rated my goodbye."
"I didn't rate your goodbye."
"You were about to."
"Fine. Seven-eight. Solid form. Slightly rushed on the dismount."
I lean in and kiss him one more time. "I love you, Luca."
"Love you too, Wes."
***
The apartment is the same apartment. The key turns and the door opens and the air inside is still and cool. I set the bag by the door. The kitchen counter is clean. The single mug on the rack. The coffeemaker with the carafe rinsed and turned upside down on the towel where I left it before the road trip.
I open the balcony door and the air comes in warm and heavy with salt and car exhaust. The ocean is flat tonight. I don’t see the green-blue line with the light fading. A boat sits on the water in the middle distance, motionless, its running lights just visible.
The phone buzzes in my pocket. Kevin.I'm outside. Buzz me up. I brought food.
I buzz him up. His footsteps in the hallway, the particular Kevin walk, unhurried, deliberate, the man arrives when the man arrives.
He comes through the door with a bag from the place on Calle Ocho. He sets it on the counter and looks at me.
"I thought you were bringing Thai?" I say.
"I lied about the Thai. It's Cuban. The Thai place was closed."
"You said you brought Thai."
"I brought food. The nationality of the food was aspirational."
He unpacks the containers. Black beans, rice, maduros, a pork thing I can smell from here. Two sets of plastic utensils that Kevin will not use because he will use my forks and leave the plastic ones on the counter where they will sit until I throw them away.
We eat at the table. The table I told him adults eat at, which he bought to shut me up, but this is my table in my apartment and we are eating at it because the table is where the food goes and Kevin is here because Kevin is always here when something has shifted and he can feel the shift from fifteen minutes away without being told what shifted.
"So," he says. He puts a forkful of pork in his mouth and chews. "Atlanta. What happened?"
“One of Luca’s teammates called me right after we got back from Aruba, worried about him. I started putting some stuff together that I saw when we were on vacation and I was worried."
"Like what?"
