Page 134 of Levi

My body spends the bright afternoon being Lee Streeter. The rest of me is somewhere it can breathe.

The day breaks up when the sun drops. The boats start making a single file line going back to the Destin Harbor. Engines turning over, the bachelorettes peeling off, the gold light making everything beautiful.

The footage left hours ago, frame after frame, the performance gone out where it can’t be called back. I’m sure it’s already found him.

Madison shoulders her bag, and gives me a two-finger salute. “Good working with you,” she says.

“You too,” I say back.

I peel the wet label off a warm beer I never finished.

A year ago a day like this would’ve just been the job. Today I can barely keep the grin plastered on. Every hour I spend being Lee Streeter with a beer and a blonde is an hour I’m not Levi.

The distance between the two is getting too wide to keep jumping across and I don’t have a clue how to fix it.

Chapter 52: Dante

At noon Benji starts sending texts every fifteen minutes. I’ve answered one.

The footage started midmorning and hasn’t let up. Lee Streeter at Crab Island, beer up, a blonde folded under his arm, grinning at a thousand phones. It’s on every feed.

I watched it twice. Plenty enough time to understand the setup. The girl’s a plant. The boat’s staged, down to the beer in his hand. Freddie pouring concrete over a question no one has asked yet.

She’s nothing. Jealousy isn’t a problem because I know it isn’t real. What’s got my gut tied up is the terms I’ve temporarily accepted. Being in this means I watch the lie get built in real time, all day, on every screen, with no move I’m allowed to make.

Benji’s texts come in a stack.

Benji: Are you okay?

Benji: Talk to me.

Benji: Answer me or I am driving to your apartment.

Benji: Come to the Roadhouse. Get out of your own head!

Benji: I’m coming to you. I’m bringing snacks. And alcohol. I will not leave. These are all promises!

I head to the Roadhouse before Benji shows up at my place with Sheila’s margarita machine, tequila, and salt. I wouldn’t put it past him.

The place is still riding the video. The lot is full of license plates from four states, the deck packed, Tex working the smoker. Benji’s got a loaded tray on one arm and a bar towel over his shoulder, running food to the rail because the place is slammed and Benji does not spectate. He would rather be working for free than sitting there doing nothing.

He clocks me across the room and points his chin at the corner booth, where his laptop and a binder are holding the table, two iced teas already sweating.

“You look like hell,” he says, landing across from me two tables of empties later. “We do the house first, because I respect the work. Then we do you.”

He spins the laptop around. He’s marked the floor plan in three colors. “Tomorrow, eight a.m., while your buyer’s still asleep in Atlanta. Cleaners first, then me. By noon, everything Levi’s done to that house is gone. The terrace dressed like the sunset’s a permanent fixture. My orchid woman in Destin is holding fourteen phalaenopsis for pickup at nine, which cost me two favors. Do not ask the dollar figure. It would upset you and you’re fragile today.” He taps the great room. “The buyer is a freshly single rich woman who wants to walk into a finished life and never think about a contractor again. Saturday, she stands at that glass with a glass of champagne in her hand, and she’s already telling her sister she bought it.”

Watching him work is the first solid ground I’ve stood on all day. Sheila yells his name. He goes, comes back after clearing two tables, not one hair out of place.

We get through it fast, in the gaps between his runs. Then he returns, shuts the laptop, and sits all the way down for the first time since I walked in. Folds his hands on top of it, looks at me.

“Now let’s talk about you,” he says.

“I’m fine.”

“You watched a man you’ve fallen for put his arm around a swimsuit model on a loop for nine hours, and you texted me back like a hostage blinking in code.” He doesn’t raise his voice. “Do not ‘I’m fine’ me, Dante. I know you. One time, I told you my ribs were fine while you were folding me into a rental car, and you didn’t buy it from me either. You know exactly how much of your ‘fine’ I’m buying right now.”

“Benji—”