"When this is over, that shirt goes in a fire."
"Absolutely not. I can't make that promise. That shirt is going in a frame on the wall behind the bar."
"Tex."
"Right next to my dad's photo. He would've loved this plan."
"Your father would've loved his son's boyfriend wearing a hot pink shirt to provoke a stalker into a confrontation at his bar?"
"Absolutely! Dad would've loved everything about you. The shirt would have been a bonus."
The laugh ends up winning. It pushes past the fear and comes out of me in a sound that surprises us both. Tex's face lights up the way it always does when he makes me laugh, like he's won a major prize.
Tex calls Mickey to tell him the plan. I can hear Mickey's voice through the phone, the measured cop voice, not arguing, not agreeing, just asking questions that sound like concerns dressed as logistics. Tex answers them with "I know" and "just be close tonight" and hangs up.
He calls Denny. That conversation is different. Not as serious. The language of men who've known each other for years and communicate in shorthand.
"Tonight's the night, brother. Dinner's on the house for you and your crew. Come hungry and plan to stay awhile." A pause. "Appreciate that. More the merrier." Another pause. "Yeah. I know he might be. We'll be ready."
He hangs up and looks at me. "Denny is bringing his guys. Twelve, maybe fifteen. On top of whoever else shows up. Said they'll be there by seven. Denny also said, and I'm quoting here, 'I'm bringing Tiny.' Tiny is Denny's cousin. Tiny is six-seven and three hundred and ten pounds and got his nickname the same way you'd name a Great Dane 'Peanut.' Tiny once picked up a jukebox during a bar fight because someone scratched the Lynyrd Skynyrd record. Picked it up.The whole jukebox. Used it as a shield. Tiny is an asset, Stormy. Tiny is our nuclear option."
He calls Sheila. That conversation is shortest of all.
"Ron's in town. Tonight's the night. The plan we talked about."
I can hear Sheila's voice through the phone. One sentence. I can't make out the words but I can hear the tone. Steel wrapped in sweet tea.
Tex hangs up and looks at me. "Sheila says she's wearing her good shoes tonight. The ones she can run in."
"She runs? I didn't know that."
"Sheila was a track star in high school. She doesn't talk about it because she says running is undignified, but I've seen her cover the length of this bar in about three seconds when someone pulled a knife. She'll come ready for speed."
Everyone's ready. Mickey. Denny and his crew, eating free tonight. Sheila. The bikers who'll fill the lot without knowing exactly why tonight feels different but knowing that Tex asked them to come and that's enough.
Now I need to be ready too.
I go to our closet. My side is the left. His side is everything else, because Tex's clothes take up the same amount of space that Tex takes up, which is most of it.
The black sweatpants are on the top shelf. I pull them out and hold them up.FOLLOW THIS ASS TO BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSEacross the back in white block letters. They're soft from washing. Tex has no idea how much I love these pants. He gave them to me and I'll keep them forever.
The hot pink shirt is next. I know exactly where it is because I put it aside when I sorted the gift shop for Tex. I goback downstairs to the gift shop. The hot pink tank top is near the back of the rack. I pull it out and hold it up.
PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S.
White block letters on hot pink cotton. Cheap fabric, the kind that's thin enough to see skin through. A shirt designed for bachelorette parties and drunk women who think it's hilarious to wear someone else's name on their chest for a night.
Tonight, it might start a war.
I take it back upstairs and start getting ready in the bathroom. I almost don't recognize myself now. The hollows in my cheeks have filled in. The dark circles under my eyes are gone. My skin is tan from weeks of working the parking lot in the Florida sun. My hair has grown out, longer than I've worn it in years. It's sun-bleached at the ends, falling across my forehead.
I look like a different person. Someone who belongs on a beach. Maybe even a surfer dude, though it'll be a long time before I'm brave enough to get back into the water.
Wetting my hands, I work my fingers through my hair, pushing it back on the sides, leaving the top loose and full. Tex told me to fix my hair. No clue what he meant by that. The salt air and humidity gives it a texture that holds, a tousled messiness that'll have to do. Turning my head, I check the sides and the back.
Damn, I look pretty good for a change. Tonight, I need to look like someone who knows he looks good. Which is a foreign concept to me.
I tug on the black sweatpants. They're low on my hips, the way they've always sat because they're a size too big, andthe letters across the back are big enough to read from the road. Hope Ron can read it clearly if he drives by.
