"Hey!" I shout. I'm walking toward him and he's just standing there, visor down, hands at his sides. He's smaller up close. A lot smaller. The bike beside him looks too big for him, though I know better than to judge a rider by their size. "Hey, brother. What the hell are you doing out here in the middle of a damn hurricane?"
He doesn't answer right away. His helmet turns toward me, just the visor, that dark reflective shield hiding everything, and I can't read him at all. Then he lifts the visor.
And I see his eyes.
Holy shit.
They're blue-green. Not blue, not green, but that specific impossible color that the Gulf of Mexico turns right before a big storm rolls in, when the water goes dark and electric at the same time, when the light hits it sideways and you can't tell if it's beautiful or dangerous.
I can't look away.
He doesn't answer. He just stands there, visor up, those eyes looking at me and then looking away, and the silence says everything his mouth won't. His throat moves like he's trying to swallow a pill that won't go down.
"I hope you're not hoping to wait it out," I say. "Son, did you know they've issued a mandatory evacuation for this whole area? There's a Category 4 hurricane. Probably higher before it's done. About twelve hours from putting its foot through the front door of everything within miles of thisbeach. You can't sit here and wait this out. This isn't a summer thunderstorm that'll get better anytime soon."
The visor is still up. Those eyes go wider. He didn't know. He genuinely didn't know.
Jesus Christ.
His head shakes. Small, barely a movement. He looks out toward the road, then back at me, and there's a flicker of panic on his face. Not the productive kind, not the kind that makes you move. The frozen kind. The kind that comes when every option is bad and you know it.
"What about a shelter?" I ask, trying to make my voice less like a foghorn, which is hard because God gave me a voice that carries across parking lots whether I want it to or not. "They're opening shelters inland. I can give you directions—"
His whole body pulls back half an inch. His hands tighten at his sides and his head shakes. Not a polite no-thank-you shake, a flinch. A recoil. The kind of no that comes from somewhere deeper than manners. Shelters aren't an option, and the reason why is written in the way he can't even form the word. He doesn't say anything. He just shakes his head again and drops his eyes to the ground.
He's soaked, he's shaking, and he's got no plan and nowhere to go, and Hurricane Peter doesn't care about any of it.
I look at him, at the bike and at my truck, currently loaded down with enough plywood to fortify a small country.
"Alright," I say. "Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to put a couple of these planks down as a ramp and we're going to roll your bike up into the back of my truck. Then you're going to get in the cab and come with me. I've got a bar about ten minutes from here, a three-story building, concreteand steel. It survived Hurricane Michael when half this beach didn't. You can ride out the storm there."
He takes a half step back, shaking his head, his hands coming up in front of his chest — palms out, fingers spread — the universal gesture of a person who doesn't know how to accept a gift and is afraid of what it costs.
"I'm not going to accept no for an answer." I'm already moving. I pull two long planks from the truck bed and angle them against the tailgate, making a ramp. It's not elegant, but I've loaded bikes before. "Come on, let's get this Sportster up and out of the weather before it gets any worse out here."
He stands there. The rain is hammering now, gusting sideways under the overhang, and his jacket is a lost cause. He's looking at me and I recognize that look. It's the look of someone trying to figure out what the catch is.
"There's no catch," I say, because apparently, I can read minds now, or maybe he's just that transparent. "I've got a spare room and more food than one man can eat before it all goes bad in a power outage. You'd be doing me a favor keeping me company. I hate riding out storms alone."
That's not entirely true. I've never minded being alone during a storm. But I mind the idea of this kid standing under this overhang when the storm surge comes in, and I mind it enough to stretch the truth.
A change shifts in him. I see it happen in real time. Not trust, we're a long way from trust, but the calculation of a person who knows their options have run out. He moves toward the bike.
We don't talk while we work. He helps me guide the Sportster up the planks and into the truck bed. He's careful with it, gentle, the way riders are with their machines. I strap itdown tight and toss a tarp over it. He climbs into the passenger seat of the cab without a word. He sets his small, soaked duffel bag on the floor between his feet and holds it there with both hands like someone might take it.
I pull back onto the road and head for the Roadhouse. The rain is coming in sideways sheets now, the wipers barely keeping up. I glance over at him. He's taken the helmet off and set it in his lap, and I can get a good look at him.
He's young. Mid-twenties maybe, but he looks younger than that. Shaggy blonde hair, wet and stuck to his forehead. Cheekbones a little too sharp, like he hasn't been eating the way he should. And those eyes, staring straight ahead through the windshield at the storm, looking like the Gulf of Mexico itself decided to sit in my passenger seat.
He's beautiful.
I'm going to ignore that.
"So," I say, because silence makes me twitchy and I have never in my life met a quiet moment I didn't try to fill. "I should tell you where I'm taking you so you don't think I'm some kind of serial killer, although I realize a serial killer would also say that, so take it for what it's worth. My place is called Big Tex's Roadhouse. My daddy started it thirty years ago. He was the original Big Tex. Best biker bar on the panhandle. Maybe the best on the Gulf Coast, but I'm biased. We've got the best burgers in Panama City, the coldest beer, and we do a brisket on the weekends that has made grown men weep openly in my parking lot. I'm not exaggerating. I've seen tears. Actual tears from a man in leather chaps."
He doesn't say anything. His hands are still folded tight over his duffel bag.
"We get all kinds in there. Bikers, mostly, but also tourists, locals, the occasional church group that takes a wrong turn and stays for the onion rings. Had a guy last summer ride in on a bicycle with the little basket on front, wearing full leathers, head to toe, insisted he was in a biker club. I didn't have the heart to argue with him. Gave him a beer and let him park in the bike rack out front. He tipped well. Can't ask for more than that."
