No, don't think that.
I don't trust it. I'm not there yet. I may never be there.
But I stop fighting to stay upright.
Chapter 5: Tex
His head drops onto my shoulder a little after 2 AM.
I know the exact time because I've been checking my phone every few minutes, tracking the storm's progress through the emergency alerts that keep buzzing through even with the cell towers struggling.
The hurricane is raging outside. Power out, the first floor underwater, the wind shaking the walls like a dog with a chew toy. And this kid who won't let me within arm's reach just dropped his head on my shoulder and went still.
I don't move.
I don't breathe, at first. Then I breathe very carefully, shallow and slow, keeping my chest from rising too much because any movement, any shift, might wake him. I keep my arm pinned at my side even though it's going numb under the angle of his weight. My hand stays flat on the floor. I keep every single part of my body exactly where it is because this moment is made of glass and I will not be the one who breaks it.
He's light. That's the thing that gets me. His head on my shoulder feels like nothing. A little bird. He's too light for a grown man, too thin. The warmth of him through the t-shirt is the kind of warmth that comes from someone whose body doesn't have enough insulation to hold heat on its own.
I sit there and listen to him breathe. It's the first time I've heard him breathe without that tight, controlled quality, that careful rationing of air that he does when he's awake. In sleep, he breathes like a normal person. Slow and even and deep.
The storm roars outside. Something crashes against the building, a deep boom that shakes the floor, and I tense, waiting for him to jerk awake. He flinches. A small, full-body twitch that runs through him like a current. But he doesn't wake. His body settles. His head presses a little harder into my shoulder, like he's burrowing in instead of pulling away.
That does something to me. I'm not too proud to admit it. It's not romantic. It's not attraction. It's older than that, more fundamental. It's the feeling of someone small and scared choosing you to protect them. The instinct that says, 'I'll trust you.' Just for a minute.
My arm is completely numb now. I don't care. I would sit here until the sun comes up while my whole body goes dead if it means he gets one hour of sleep without being scared.
Someone hurt this kid. Badly. Repeatedly. The kind of hurt that rewires a person so that every interaction is filtered through one big question.
What does this person want from me, and what will they do to me to get it?
I don't know who. I don't know what. But I know the shape of it, the shadow it casts, because I've seen it before. Not in my own life, thank God, but in people who've come through my bar over the years. People with that same careful way of moving, that same radar for hands and exits and locked doors. People who learned the hard way that trust is a luxury they can't afford.
He makes a sound in his sleep. Not a word, just a small, soft sound in the back of his throat that could be the beginning of a dream. I hold still. He settles again.
The noise of the water below us is audible now. Not just the slap of surge against exterior walls, but the interior soundof water moving through the first floor, shifting furniture, pushing against doorframes. I can't see it from here but I can hear it, and I can picture it too. My dad's bar top going under, the hardwood floors flooding, the pool tables and the jukebox. Thirty years of my dad's legacy being swallowed by the damn Gulf of Mexico he loved so much.
I close my eyes and push it down. The bar top is bolted to the floor. The building is concrete and steel. Everything else can be replaced, rebuilt, refinished. I've done it before. I'll do it again. But knowing that doesn't stop the ache of hearing your dad's bar fill up with saltwater while you sit in the dark and can't do a damn thing about it.
The surge peaks around 4 AM. I can tell because the sounds have stabilized. The water stops rising and starts holding. The crashes against the exterior settle into a constant, rhythmic pressure instead of the escalating assault of the last few hours. It didn't reach the second floor. Not yet.
Thank fuck. It was close, though.
I can smell it. That brackish salt-and-mud smell of water mixed with everything it picked up on its way inland, and it's strong enough that I know the waterline isn't far below us. But the second floor stayed dry.
The foundation held. We're not floating down the beach road.
Thank you, Dad. You built a hell of a bar.
The wind eventually starts to drop. It's not sudden. It's a slow retreat, the roar declining by degrees until it's a howl, then a moan, then just rain. Heavy rain, coming down in buckets, but rain I can think through. Rain I can talk over. Normal rain.
Stormy shifts on my shoulder. His breathing changes, that slow, deep rhythm turning shallower, more conscious. He's waking up.
I stare straight ahead at the opposite wall. I don't look at him. I don't move my shoulder. I close my eyes and wait.
He lifts his head. There's a pause. A beat of stillness that lasts maybe two seconds but feels like ten, and I can sense the exact moment he realizes where he was. The air between us changes. Tightens.
He pulls back. Not fast, not panicked, but deliberate. Creating space.
