He steps into the bathroom and closes the door, and I hear the lock click. Not the soft click of habit. The deliberate, firm click of someone who needs a locked door between himself and me.
Yeah, he's scared of me.
I've known it since the truck. I've seen it in the way he tracks my hands and measures the distance between us and flinches when I get too close. But hearing that lock engage, hearing him seal himself behind the only working lock in this apartment, makes it land in a way that's heavier.
Something bad happened to this kid. The kind of bad that makes a grown man flinch at hands and lock a bathroom door against someone who's done nothing but help him.
I don't know what it was. I don't know who did it. But someone taught him that big men behind closed doors aredangerous. Now he's locked in my bathroom making sure I can't get in.
The thought could hurt, but I don't take it personally because I've seen the fear in him.
I go to my room and close the door quietly. I sit on the edge of my bed and listen to the water run through the wall and think about that flinch on the ladder. The way he pulled away from me like my hand was a threat. The way he watched Mickey's gun. How he said "I can clean" at five in the morning because he'd probably been awake all night, because he was afraid to close his eyes.
I don't know his name. I don't know what he's running from. But I know what scared looks like. I've seen it walk into my bar a thousand times, wearing a thousand different faces, and I've never been wrong about it.
This kid needs someone in his corner. He needs someone who isn't going to hurt him, and he needs time to figure out that person is me. The only way he's going to figure that out is if I don't push, don't do a single thing that gives him a reason to run.
So that's what I'll do. I'll give him space. I'll give him food and work. I'll talk enough for both of us and I won't ask questions.
The water shuts off. A few minutes later, the bathroom door opens and his footsteps pad softly down the hall. His bedroom door closes.
No lock on that one. I know because the push-button's been broken for months and I never fixed it. Damn, the poor kid might never get any sleep.
I shower and get into bed. I lie there listening to the wind build outside. The storm is coming whether we're ready or not.
Chapter 4: Stormy
I give up on sleep around 5 AM.
I've been lying in the dark for hours, hand on the knife, eyes on the door, running the same loop I ran last night. Listening for footsteps. Waiting for the knob to turn. Watching the chair I wedged under the handle and wondering if it would hold for three seconds or five.
He didn't come. Again. Two nights now. Two nights of nothing. No footsteps stopping at my door, no handle rattling, no weight pressing against the frame. Just the wind outside and the low rumble of his snoring through the wall, steady and even. The sound of a man sleeping without a single bad thing on his conscience.
I don't know what to do with that. My brain keeps trying to file it somewhere and there's no folder for it. There's a folder for men who come to your door and what to do when they get there. There's a folder for the sounds they make in the hallway and what each sound means. There's no folder for a man who hands you a towel, then goes to bed and stays there.
I pull the chair away from the door. My hand is cramped again from holding the knife all night, and I flex my fingers open one at a time.
The wind is different today. It's been building all night, shifting from that gusty, on-and-off pattern into a more constant pressure. Like the air itself is leaning against the building and not letting up.
I get up and go to the window. The sky is darker than it should be at this hour. The Gulf is out there somewhere, but I can't see it through the rain. I can hear it, though. Even over the wind, I can hear the water. It sounds angry and closer than yesterday.
I get dressed and go to the bathroom, then head downstairs. He's already in the bar kitchen. He's standing at the flat top in jeans and boots and a grease-stained t-shirt. He's got bacon going and eggs cracked. He's talking to himself, or maybe to the bacon, or maybe to Hurricane Peter. With Tex, it's hard to tell.
"Morning, Stormy," he says without turning around. "Grab a stool. We've got a big day and I refuse to face a hurricane on an empty stomach. A man's got to have standards. I've made a list of things I will not do during a hurricane. Number one: skip breakfast. Number two: die. Number three: let the bacon burn. Everything else is negotiable."
I sit on the prep stool near the door. My stool now, I realize. I've sat here twice now and it's becoming mine, which is dangerous because nothing has ever been mine. I need to remember that.
He plates breakfast and slides it across to me. Eggs, bacon, toast. More bacon than eggs. He's doing that thing again where my plate has more food than his, even though he's at least a hundred pounds heavier and he acts like he doesn't notice.
"So," he says, settling onto his stool across from me with his own plate. "Let's talk about what's coming tonight, because I want you to understand what we're dealing with. Not to scare you. Just so you know."
My fork stops moving.
"The wind is going to be bad. Category 4 means sustained winds around 145 miles per hour, with gusts higher than that. That's strong enough to peel roofs off houses and snap power poles like toothpicks. But this building is poured concrete and steel. We reinforced it after Michael. The wind is going to scream and it's going to sound like the end of the world, but the building can take it. The wind is not what I'm worried about."
He takes a bite of bacon and chews it slowly, as if he's choosing his next words.
"What I'm worried about is storm surge. You know what that is?"
