Page 89 of Levi

Then Freddie’s remark. What are you, a fanboy? He thought I was a Lee Streeter fanboy. One of the millions who already knew his face.

And then there’s the jail. Two in the morning, drunk tank at county lockup. I drove out in the middle of the night and signed out a stranger. I didn’t demand answers from him.

He has a team of people whose job is making that kind of thing disappear. Lawyers. An unlimited checkbook. And he asked me to come get him out of a cell like he was a guy with not a single soul to call. I made him a soft bed on my floor. I sat in my car in ninety-five degrees and set up a burner phone for him because I was worried about him not having a phone to call 911.

And the worst thing of all. I brought him here to my people and asked them to feed him.

My face is on fire. I can feel it. The anger comes up fast and hot, and it’s almost a relief. Anger I can hold. Anger has somewhere to stand.

Sheila looked after him for me. Tex gave him a seat and welcomed him in. Stormy wrote up a special tasting menu for him. They gave him their time and their care. They took Levi for a stray that washed up needing them. They spent an entire evening on him. For me.

We were all kind to a man who was slumming. It happened in the wide open, in this bar, where everybody saw.

I’ll never forgive Levi for this.

I can’t. There’s no way.

Benji’s watching me. He knows me better than anyone. Whatever I decide, he’ll back me all the way. He’s watching to see which way I go.

I go cold.

I feel it happen. The heat drains off. The shaking stops. The businessman comes up over all of it, level.

An hour ago, I had Freddie against a wall with my hand in his collar. A legal charge one inch away. The license, the listing, everything I’ve worked for, one swung fist from gone. For a stranger who’d been lying to me from the first day.

I almost set fire to everything I am over a guy I never even knew. That’s not happening twice. It terrifies me how close I came to losing everything over him.

There’s exactly one place where I’m still the man I was this morning. The work. The house listing is mine. The one that puts my name on this coast for good. It has nothing to do with him.

That’s what I’ll do. I’ll sell the house. I’ll be flawless. The buyer comes back soon and I’ll close her.

Levi goes back to the stranger he should’ve stayed, before I made him more than that. A tenant in a listing.

I’ll feel nothing. Feeling things is what just made me the biggest fool in my family’s bar.

“Dante,” Benji says, and I hear the fear in it. “Dante, please. Say something.” He knows me too well. He knows what it means that I’ve gone this still. “Okay. I’m going to say some things now, and the first one you’re going to hate, so get ready for it.”

“Benji—”

“You’re doing the closing voice. On me. In this loft. I know that voice, Dante. I have stood next to you while you used it on buyers who wasted three of your Saturdays and then insulted you at the table. You stayed level and pleasant the entire way through, and it is the most frightening thing I’ve ever watched you do to another human being, because it means the person in front of you has stopped being a person. That voice is for strangers at a table. I’m not letting you point it at yourself in a room I’m standing in.”

“I’m fine.” My voice comes out closing-table level just like he said. “It’s a listing. He’s a tenant. I’ve got a buyer coming back again.”

“Listen to yourself. I watched you. He got to you and I’m sorry.” He stops. Everything goes out of him, and what’s left is just Benji, hurting for me. “I can’t fix this. I’m not going to stand here and pretend I’ve got a plan. But tomorrow a field full of people is going to scream that man’s name at a concert right down the road, and you’re not spending that day alone. I’m coming over. I’m bringing food. I’m bringing drinks. I’m driving you to open houses or whatever. You can talk to me about houses from eight in the morning until the last encore if that’s what holds you upright. I will sit in your kitchen or your car and take it, because you’ve carried me through bad situations and it’s finally my turn.”

I stand up. My hands have stopped shaking. “Benji, I’m fine. I should pull the packet together for Jonathan.”

“Okay, but expect to hear from me tomorrow. I’m serious.”

He doesn’t try to stop me from leaving. I check my phone in the car, because work never stops. It lights up with the past hour of Benji calling constantly. Then, under all of Benji, one text from Levi’s burner phone.

Levi: Please don’t decide anything yet. Give me one day. Let me tell you in person. Please.

An hour ago that would’ve stopped my heart. Before I knew the truth. I turn the phone face-down on the seat.

Tomorrow a field of people is going to scream a name I never once heard him say and I’m not going to feel one thing about any of it.

Chapter 33: Levi