Patty watches me set up the two patient portal accounts simultaneously on a cracked iPhone screen with fingers the size of bratwursts and says, "You're pretty fast with that thing." And I say, "Ma'am, I run a bar. I can text, pour a beer, and break up a fight at the same time. This is nothing." She doesn't smile but I can tell she wants to. Patty and I have a connection. It's professional and it's based on mutual respect and the fact that she didn't judge me.
We walk out into the parking lot. The sun is brutal again today with August heat bouncing off the asphalt. I unlock the truck.
"One more stop," I say, when Stormy climbs in.
"Where?"
"You'll see."
I drive to the ice cream shop on Front Beach Road. It survived the hurricane with minimal damage and reopened two weeks ago. The line is out the door because it's August inFlorida, and everyone within a five-mile radius needs frozen sugar to survive.
Stormy looks at the shop and raises his eyebrows at me.
"When I was little," I say, "my mama used to take me for ice cream after I got my shots. Every time. Doctor's office, then Baskin-Robbins. I'd get a double scoop of mint chocolate chip and sit on the curb outside. I'd eat it and the shot didn't matter anymore because I had ice cream as a reward. It's a scientifically proven fact that ice cream neutralizes all medical procedures. You can look it up. I'm not going to tell you where because the source is my mama and her research methods were questionable, but the conclusion stands."
His eyes are doing the thing. The bright thing where they fill with tears, but they don't fall. I don't think he even realizes when it happens sometimes.
"I've never had that," he says quietly. "Someone taking me for ice cream after something bad."
"Well, now you do because I never miss an excuse for ice cream. Pick whatever you want. Double scoop, triple, banana split, I don't care. Sky's the limit. This is a medical situation that requires aggressive ice cream intervention."
We stand in line. The sun beats down on us, and I put my arm around his shoulders because I'm allowed to do that now. He leans into me and we shuffle forward in line like every other couple in Florida waiting for ice cream on a hot day. Two hot, sweaty gay guys with bandages on our arms.
He orders a double scoop. Mint chocolate chip and strawberry. I order a triple because I am a large man and I require volume. We sit on the bench outside the shop and we eat our ice cream. The heat is melting it faster than we cankeep up. There's chocolate on his chin and I wipe it off with my thumb.
"Three to five days before we get the results," he says, not looking at me.
"Yep, three to five days."
"And then we know."
I take a bite of my cone. "And whatever we find out, we deal with. And then we come back here for more ice cream because ice cream is also the scientifically proven best response to test results, good or bad."
"Your mama's research again?"
"Peer-reviewed and everything."
He leans against my shoulder. His ice cream is dripping down his hand and he doesn't notice.
On the drive back, he's quiet again. This is the soft quiet of someone who's been through hell and come out the other side and is resting in the aftermath.
I reach across the console and take his hand. He laces his fingers through mine without hesitation.
"Tex, I want to tell you everything," he says, tightening his grip on my fingers. "The whole story. But I think it's better if I write it down. I can't say all of it out loud. Not yet. I'm sorry, I just can't."
"Then write it down," I tell him. "Take as long as you need. I'll read every word. There's no rush."
He squeezes my hand. We drive home with our fingers locked on the console between us.
Three to five days. Whatever comes back, we handle it. Whatever he writes, I read it. Whatever comes next, we face it.
That's our deal.
Chapter 19: Stormy
It's after midnight and the bar closed three hours ago. Tex is asleep upstairs in our bed, which is what I call it now, our bed, because I haven't slept in the guest room since he saved my life.
I'm sitting at the bar. The one piece of the interior that's finished, the mahogany bar top that Tex's dad built twenty years ago, refinished and polished and glowing in the low light. I've got a pen and a stack of paper from the office supply run Sheila made last week. The neon beer signs on the wall cast colored shadows across the wood. It's quiet in a way that only empty bars are quiet, the ghost of noise hanging in the air like smoke after a fire.
