I walk back to the parking lot. Tex sees me coming and the smile starts before I'm even close, crinkling at the corners of his eyes, aimed at me like a spotlight.
I walk straight to him. I don't stop at the serving station. I don't detour to a table. I walk to the grill and I stand next to him, close, my shoulder against his arm, and I stay there.
"Hey," he says.
"Hey."
"You good? Because you're standing very close to me right now and I want you to know that I'm aware of it and I'm handling it very well. Extremely well. I'm the picture of composure. Please don't look at my hands because they're shaking but that's just the grill heat."
The light is reflected in his brown eyes. The smoke from the grill is curling around us. The parking lot is full of noise and people and life, and he's looking at me the way Sheila described, like I'm the only thing he sees.
"Yeah," I say. "I'm good, Tex. The best I've ever been."
"I'm going to put my arm around you now," he says quietly. "If that's not okay, just say the word and I'll pretend I was reaching around you for the tongs. The tongs are right there. It's a very believable cover story. I've thought it through carefully. Hold on, my arm is moving."
His arm moves. Slow, tentative, full of the same careful restraint he's shown since the day we met. It settles across myshoulders, light, barely there, giving me every chance to step away.
I lean into it. His arm tightens. Just a fraction. Just enough to pull me half an inch closer, close enough to feel him against my side, solid and mine.
We stand at the grill like that while the bikers drink and the music plays. His arm around my shoulders. My body against his side.
Neither of us moves.
Chapter 16: Tex
The last biker pulls out of the lot at midnight.
I've been watching the clock for two hours, willing it to move faster. I've never done this before. I love this bar and the nights. I love the noise and the smoke and the feeling of being at the center of it all. But tonight, for the first time, I want everyone to leave and go home.
Because Stormy is standing at the serving station wiping down the counter and the light is catching his hair. He keeps looking at me across the parking lot with those blue-green eyes and every time he does, my heart rate accelerates to a level that's not medically sound.
Everything changed today in a bed upstairs with his hand on my beard and his mouth on mine with his eyes open the entire time, watching me, choosing me. And then it changed again at the grill when he walked up behind me and put his hand on my lower back like it was the most natural thing in the world. And yet again when he walked to my side and leaned into my arm and stayed there, in front of everyone.
He's not afraid anymore. Or maybe he is, but he's choosing not to let it win. Watching that choice happen in real time, watching him override a lifetime of survival instincts to stand next to me has been the most incredible and agonizing experience of my life. Because I want to touch him so badly my hands ache with it and I will not rush a single second of this.
I told him we had all the time in the world and I meant it.
Sheila finishes counting the register and sets the cash box on the bar. "We had a good night," she says. "Better than last Friday. We're trending up." She looks at me and at Stormy. "I'm going home."
"Drive carefully, Mama Sheila."
"Always." She picks up her massive purse and walks past me. She says, very quietly, so only I can hear: "About damn time, baby. Take good care of him."
Then she's gone. Her truck rumbles out of the lot and the taillights disappear down the beach road and it's just us.
Stormy finishes wiping the counter. He folds the rag and sets it down. He stands there, looking at me across twenty feet of empty parking lot. The silence between us isn't the silence of two people who don't know what to say. It's the silence of two people who know exactly what's about to happen and are standing on the edge of it.
I walk over to him slowly. Giving him every second he needs to change his mind, to step back. He watches me come. His chin is up and his shoulders are back. He's the bravest person I've ever known.
"Are you tired?" I ask. "Ready to go up to bed?"
He nods. "Yes."
I open my arms to him. Wide. All the way.
This is the invitation I've been holding back since the first night, since the moment his eyes looked at me from under a motorcycle visor and my heart said so clearly, I can still hear it,oh,there you are.Where have you been all my life?
He crosses the distance between us in three quick steps and walks straight into my chest. I close my arms around him, and breathe.
