The first pancake is always burned. Always. Tex has a theory that the first pancake is a "test pancake" and doesn't count, which is a theory he invented to avoid admitting he never lets the pan heat long enough. Sheila told him this once. He said, "Sheila, I have been making pancakes for years." She said, "and burning the first one every single time." He pouted and didn't speak to her for an hour, which for Tex is a medical event.
Tex is trying his best to make it seem as if everything about this morning is the same as every other morning. And it is, except for the gun on the nightstand. And the fact that Ron Jackson is somewhere in this town right now, waking up in a motel room, making his own plans for today.
Tex sits across from me. His plate is empty except for syrup. He eats pancakes the way he does everything, fully and enthusiastically. But this morning, he's not reaching for more. He's sitting with his hands around his coffee mug, looking at me. This is the look that comes before a conversation he's been building in his head all night while I slept on his chest and the gun sat two feet from my face with the safety off.
"We need to talk about tonight," he says.
"I'm listening."
"He's in town. He didn't come here last night but he didn't leave town either. He's not going home empty-handed."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"We need to end this." He sets the mug down. The absence of a smile means he's operating from the place underneath. "We can't keep living like this, Stormy. I can't keep watching you check the parking lot every thirty seconds. I can't keep lying awake with a loaded gun on the nightstand with the safety off. This isn't a life. This is a siege. And sieges end one of two ways—the wall holds or the wall breaks. I'd rather choose when and how than wait for him to decide."
"What are our options?"
"Legally? Almost nothing." He says it the way you say things you've already been angry about and have moved past the anger into the cold territory on the other side. "Mickey laid it all out that day at the deli. Ron hasn't threatened you here. He hasn't touched you. He hasn't even spoken to you. He showed up at a public bar twice and asked about a motorcycle. That's not a crime. That's not stalking under Florida law, not in a way that any judge would act on. You can't get a restraining order against a man who hasn't contacted you directly. He's been careful about that. He's been careful about everything. That's how he operates."
"We can't legally go to the police?"
"Mickey is the police. Mickey's doing everything he can. But there's no crime to report. Not yet. And Ron knows that. He knows exactly where the line is because he's been walking it his entire life. He walks right up to the edge, he stays on the legal side and the system can't touch him."
"You have a plan, don't you? What is it?"
"We force his hand." Tex pauses and chooses his words. The fact that he's choosing means whatever comes next is going to hurt.
"There's something I haven't told you. About the last conversation with Ron at the grill."
And there it is.
I knew he was holding back something from me to protect me. The cold starts at the back of my neck and spreads downward, the familiar ice. "Tell me what he said."
"When he showed me the photo of the Sportster and I told him I'd never seen it, he didn't just talk about the bike. He talked about it the way—" Tex stops. His hands wrap around the mug so tight his knuckles go white. He's not looking at me. He's looking at the coffee. "He talked about building the bike. How he hand-picked every piece. How he shaped it exactly the way he wanted. How he rode it every day. Every single day. How he couldn't get enough. How it felt so good. So perfect. Like it was made for him."
The words settle into me one at a time, each one finding its place in the understanding that's building in my chest like pressure. I know Ron. I know what each of those words mean.
"He wasn't talking about the bike," I say.
"No."
"He was talking about me."
"Yeah, baby, he was. He was standing six feet from me describing what he did to you and smiling while he did it. He told me how much he enjoyed it. How he couldn't get enough. How he molded you into exactly what he wanted. And then he looked past my shoulder at the bar where you were working that day and he said there's nothing he won't do to get it back. Whatever the price. Because it's his, he owns it, and he would never let it go. He meant you."
My hands are in my lap and I'm looking at them. These small hands that have been held down and pried open andused for things I didn't want. I'm thinking about Ron Jackson standing in the sun describing what he did to me while wearing the smile that I saw every morning for years.
"Stormy—"
"I'm okay." I'm definitely not okay. But I'm not breaking. That's the difference between who I am now and who I was. The walls want to go up but I'm not letting them because there's a man across from me who carried this to protect me and the least I can do is carry it now.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because it's part of what makes the plan tonight work." Tex leans forward. His eyes find mine and hold. "Ron isn't just possessive of you. He's sexually possessive. What he said at the grill wasn't about ownership in the abstract. It was specific. It was graphic. As graphic as you can get while technically talking about a motorcycle instead of a person. He was telling me, plainly, that you're his sex toy and he's coming to take you back. And that's our ticket, right there. Our button to push. That's the thing that will break his patience faster than anything else. Sexual jealousy. The idea that someone else has what he considers his. That someone else is touching what he built for him alone."
I understand before he explains the rest. This time the strategy isn't survival, it's war.
"You want to make him see that I'm yours," I say. "That I belong to you."
