"Go cool off," she says to me. Low, firm. "I've got Stormy. Go."
"I'm fine."
"Tex. Go."
I know that tone. It means she's not asking. I look at Stormy. He's standing next to Sheila now and she's got her hand on his back, light, and he's letting her, and his color is starting to come back.
"I'll be upstairs," I say. "Five minutes."
I go inside and up the stairs. To the second floor, out the balcony door. The night air hits me and I grab the railing to lean on it and breathe.
My hands are shaking. Big, useless, shaking hands that wanted to do something much worse than lean over a table and use a scary voice. I wanted to break that man's fingers off Stormy's arm one at a time. I wanted to drag him out of his chair and show him what it feels like when someone grabs you and you can't get free. I wanted to put myself between Stormy and every hand in the world that might reach for him. I wanted to do it with violence.
That scares me. Not the anger. I know what to do with anger. What scares me is the size of it. The speed of it. The way it came from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, a fury so complete and so immediate that I crossed a parking lot without conscious thought.
That's not a normal reaction to someone grabbing an employee's arm. That's not professional concern. And I know what it is. I'm standing on a balcony gripping a railing because I need to get a handle on it before I go back down there.
But more than the anger, more than whatever I'm feeling about Stormy, what terrifies me is the thought that I just made it worse. That he watched Big Tex come unhinged over a grabbed arm and what he saw wasn't protection. What he saw was another big man turning violent. Another big man showing how fast the switch can flip. Another reason to keep the knife close and the chair against the door.
That thought makes me physically ill.
I hear the balcony door open behind me. Footsteps, light and quiet. Not Sheila. Sheila's footsteps are brisk andsound like a woman with places to be. These are careful. The footsteps of someone who is choosing to be here and isn't sure about the choice.
I don't turn around. I keep my hands on the railing, my eyes on the dark water and I wait.
Stormy comes up beside me. Looking out at the same water stretching to the horizon under a sky full of stars.
Then he touches me.
His hand lands on my arm. My forearm, just above the wrist, right where I'm gripping the railing. His fingers are light and tentative, like he's never consciously touched another person before. The contact is so gentle I almost can't feel it.
But I feel it.
I feel it the way you feel a change in temperature, the way you feel the first drop of rain before the storm. Every nerve in my arm fires at once. He's never touched me before.
"I wanted to thank you," he says.
I look at his hand on my arm. His fingers are thin and pale against my skin, and they're trembling slightly, and I realize what this is costing him. He walked up here, voluntarily, and put his hand on me.
"You don't have to thank me," I say. "Are you okay? Let me see your arm."
He holds out the arm the biker grabbed. I don't touch it. I lean in and look. There's a red mark where the man's fingers pressed, not bad, not bruising, just the imprint of a grip on skin that marks easily. It'll fade in an hour.
"You're okay," I say in relief.
"I'm okay." His hand is still on my arm. He hasn't taken it away. "Nobody's ever done that before."
"Done what?"
"Stood up for me. Stepped in like that." He's looking at the water, not at me. "Nobody's ever... I've never had anyone get between me and somebody else. I didn't know that was a real thing people did."
The words land one at a time. Nobody's ever stood up for him. Nobody's ever stepped in. He's been grabbed and worse, grabbed in ways that were nothing like tonight, and every time, he was alone. Every time, there was nobody between him and whatever was happening to him.
"Stormy." I turn toward him. His hand stays on my arm because I haven't moved my arm. I will not move my arm. I will stand on this balcony until I turn to concrete before I break this contact that he chose to make. "Listen to me. I need you to hear this."
He looks at me. Those blue-green eyes, the color of the water before a storm, dark and deep and full of things I can't see the bottom of.
"I will never let anyone put their hands on you. Not in the bar, not in the parking lot, not anywhere. As long as I am breathing, nobody touches you. Not unless you want them to." I hold his gaze. I don't blink. I don't soften it. I need him to see that I mean this. "I need you to feel safe here. With me. I need you to know that you are safe with me more than anything. And if it takes me the rest of my life to prove that to you, that's fine. I've got time. I've got all the time in this world. I swear, I will prove that to you."
