Tidewoven Inc | Smoking is Hazardous for Your Health
Bennett leaned against the hood of Driftwood, watching the low clouds churn over the horizon as Micah stood silently beside him. Ignoring him, as usual. The wind cut through the gaps in the concrete, sharp enough to make him tug his jacket tighter around himself. “Do you ever wish you smoked?” he asked.
Micah blinked, clearly not expecting that. He’d braced for pity. Or the dreaded how’s it going, champ? head tilt. Maybe even a half-baked pep talk. Not a philosophical detour into lung damage. “No.”
Bennett huffed a quiet laugh. “I used to. When I was a kid. Quit after college.” He tipped his head back, staring up at the gray sky. “Some days I miss it. End of a long day… everything feels tight… and part of me still wants to light one up and let the world go fuzzy for a minute.”
Micah looked at him sideways, brow furrowing, not sure where this was going.
“It’s awful,” Bennett said, hands burying deeper in his pockets, “when the thing that makes you feel better is the same thing that can wreck you.”
He wasn’t talking about cigarettes anymore, and Micah knew it.
Bennett adjusted himself more comfortably against Micah’s car. “Sometimes the best thing for you is the thing you least want to do. Or not do.” He nodded toward the empty parking structure stretching around them, the whole top level dead quiet. “Like going to dinner with a friend instead of sitting alone in the cold pretending you’re just… taking a break.”
Micah’s breath hitched. Barely. But Bennett caught it.
He pushed off from the hood, giving Micah a little space. “I’m heading out,” he said, tone easy, casual, like he wasn’t walking a tightrope between giving support and giving pressure. “Just thought I’d check on you before I go.”
Micah kept his gaze forward. “I’m fine.”
“Yep,” Bennett said. “And I’m not asking you to stop pretending you are.”
Micah’s jaw tightened. The wind swept across the level, rattling a metal sign somewhere below.
Bennett took a step toward the stairs, then paused. “Look… you don’t have to talk. But you also don’t have to sit up here alone like you’re hiding from the world.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“Sure,” Bennett said, no challenge in it, just quiet certainty. “But if you were… I’d rather you didn’t hide from me.”
Micah looked down at his hands, knuckles white where they gripped the edge of the hood. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
Bennett nodded, accepting the silence for what it was, a cracked door, not a slammed one.
“I’m grabbing dinner at the place across the street,” Bennett said. “Something with actual protein. If you show up in the next twenty minutes, I’ll pretend we arrived at the same time so you don’t have to make it a thing.”
Micah huffed a tiny, involuntary laugh. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Yeah,” Bennett said, smiling. “Lucky for you.” He started walking, footsteps echoing in the empty garage. Behind him, after a few seconds, he heard the soft thump of Driftwood’s door opening. He didn’t turn around. He didn’t need to.
Micah was heeding the surgeon general’s warning.
Love this? Save it to Pinterest for later. 📌
