Four words.
Four little words that land on me like the engine catching on a stolen motorcycle pointed south toward something better.
"I know you do, baby," I say, and my voice cracks. "I can feel it, the same way I know you can feel how much I love you. But I don't mind hearing it, any time you feel like reminding me. Ready for breakfast?"
He nods and hugs me again before climbing out of bed.
We make breakfast the way we always do. I cook while he sits on his stool. Eggs on the flat top, bacon in rows. The routine that has become the skeleton of our days, the thing we hang everything else on.
But it feels different this morning. Lighter. As if something that was taking up space just left the room and now there's more oxygen and life.
He eats. Not the panicked inhaling of a kid who thinks the plate might be taken away. He seems calmer, more at peace. He eats at a normal pace, and halfway through his bacon he looks up at me and says, "You're a great cook, Tex. I need to tell you more often."
"Thank you. It's a good thing since that's what I do for a living."
He smiles at me. I want to live in this moment. I want to set up camp right here in this kitchen and never leave.
But I can't.
There's a man in Alabama who doesn't know yet that the kid he broke found someone who put him back together.
I'll talk to Mickey at noon. I'll figure out what to do about the bike and whatever's coming for Stormy down the road.
Ron Jackson will be dealt with.
If it's the last thing I ever do.
Chapter 21: Stormy
The truth is out and the world didn't end.
I keep waiting for the moment Tex looks at me differently. The moment the knowing settles into his eyes and turns them from warm to another emotion. Pity, maybe. Or worse, that careful distance people put between themselves and damaged things. The way you step back from a dog that might bite because you can see the scars and you know what scars mean.
It doesn't come.
He made me coffee this morning and told me he loved me. He hasn't hovered or asked careful questions. He's just Tex. The same Tex he was yesterday, and the day before, and every day since the truck.
Except now he knows everything. Every room, every man, every hand in the dark.
He knows my real name is Matthew and he still calls me Stormy.
I'm staying busy sweeping the first floor. Not because it needs sweeping. It's been swept twice this week and the construction crews don't come again until Monday. I'm sweeping because moving helps. Working with my hands while my brain processes the new reality of being fully known by another person.
It feels like standing naked in a room with the lights on. Where every scar is visible and the person looking at you can see exactly what was done to you. There's no hiding now. The letter took the hiding away. And the part of me that's been hiding since I was ten years old doesn't know what to do without it.
But there's another feeling underneath the exposure.Relief.The story is out of me. And the world didn't end. I keep coming back to that. I told the truth and Tex didn't accuse me of making up stories.
Sheila comes through the door with a box of supplies.
"The Thunder Roads group confirmed for Saturday," she says, setting the box on the bar. "Sixty riders, maybe more. They're bringing tools, tarps, supplies. They want to spend the morning doing cleanup along the beach road and then come here for the afternoon. Food, drinks, music. I told them we'd feed everyone."
"Sixty people?" I confirm.
"Sixty bikers. That's different than regular customers. They're big guys, and they know how to eat."
She starts unpacking the box. Napkins, condiment bottles, plastic cups. "These rally groups do this every year. Thunder Roads, the PCB Bike Week crew, all of them. They ride in, they party, but they also give back. Sometimes after disasters, the bikers are the first ones out there clearing roads and hauling debris. Before FEMA, before the National Guard. Bikers with chainsaws and pickup trucks, just showing up."
"What do you need me to do?"
