Page 64 of Levi

At the bottom, underlined twice, in handwriting Sheila has clearly rehearsed.

All items at market price.

No numbers anywhere on the page. The market is whatever she woke up feeling like.

I know exactly what this is. This is about the sweet tea. I knew I’d pay for that incident eventually.

The bar is so quiet I can hear Big Bertha ticking through the back door. Down at the far end Levi has both lips rolled in like a man biting down on his own laugh. Tex is leaned back beside him, a spectator at a fight he arranged. From somewhere behind me Benji whispers over my shoulder, loud enough to carry, “Oh, Sheila’s an artist. I’m impressed.”

The bar’s watching me and waiting to see if I flinch.

I never flinch. I write in a huge tip, set my card on top of the receipts, and slide the tray back. “Charge me whatever the market’s doing today, Sheila. And the tip was part of the deal Levi made with me.”

Sheila’s mouth twitches. She wanted a show. I don’t give shows either. The room lets out its breath and goes back to its drinks, a little let down. She takes the card, rings the register like a bell, and leans in close on her way past. “He ate good tonight. Cleaned every plate. Everything’s good, baby.”

That’s the intelligence I actually came for, and she knows it.

Days ago, I stood in this bar and told all of them I didn’t want Levi here. A few nights ago, I had him by the collar, swearing he’d never come near here again. This morning I drove him to the door myself and called it a good deal.

Now the Roadhouse has him. I put it away and find the opposite end of the bar.

I take a stool with a view of the room and drink a bourbon I earned after a day of floors and flowers. The house is staged, dead-perfect, locked. Tomorrow isn’t here yet.

Somewhere in the back half of the bourbon I notice I’ve stopped running the list. No tomorrow. Just the jukebox playing classic rock, Tex rolling on, Levi cracking up beside him.

Sheila brings Levi his third beer, the last of the three we settled on. He takes it with a nod and doesn’t push for more, and he’s nowhere near drunk. He’s not the man I scraped off a sectional a week ago.

I gather up Levi to leave before midnight. Benji’s down the bar with a hand on the back of Mickey’s chair. He catches my arm as I pass. “Hey! You good for tomorrow?”

“Better than good,” I say. “The house is perfect.”

“Call me if you need me,” he says. “I’m sleeping with the phone in the bed.”

“No, you’re not,” Mickey says without looking up.

The house is finished and locked behind me, so there’s nothing to drive back and check tonight. Levi spends the drive to the apartment loose against the door, window cracked, not talking. I keep catching the vibe coming off him. Almost contentment. I drive a little under the limit and don’t ask myself why.

At a traffic light, I get a clean look at him, and what keeps snagging me is how much better he looks. The hollows under his eyes have started filling in, and there’s actual color on him under the beard now, sun instead of hangover. Whatever’s putting the color back is working. He looks good, is the plain truth of it — sun-brown, fed, easy in his own body for once — and I let myself know that for exactly the length of one red light. We’re both good at not saying things.

We go inside my apartment and instead of going straight to bed, I turn on the cheap TV. I should be tired. Maybe I’m too wired up about tomorrow. There’s a baseball game still going on the West Coast, and I put it on.

Levi looks at the TV, then at me. “You watch baseball?”

“Yeah, used to play when I was younger. This is the tail end of this one.”

He doesn’t go to the second bedroom. Instead, he drops onto the other end of the couch to watch the game with me. I notice he’s paying closer attention than he lets on. I clock it and say nothing, because I’m too busy being surprised by how easy it is to have him at the other end of my couch.

He’s got one arm stretched along the back cushions, sleeve shoved up, and the lamp is doing things to that forearm that I keep catching in my peripheral vision.

“My father had a game on every night of my childhood,” I say. “He’d sit in his chair with the paper and pretend the game was just background, and then someone would botch a double play and he’d be up out of it yelling at a man in California who couldn’t hear a word. My abuela shouting from the kitchen for him to sit down. My tía Rosa telling my abuela not to shout. The house arguing over a call none of them saw.”

“Sounds loud,” Levi says.

“It was. Still is. Cuban house, three generations under one roof, everyone with an opinion and no one ever wrong. You didn’t get a word in unless you fought for it.” I don’t know why I’m telling him all this.

On the screen a runner takes a long lead off first, and Levi shifts, just slightly.

“He’s going,” he says, mostly to himself.