"Everything. Menu planning, supplies, setup. I need a headcount on protein. Sixty riders plus crew plus whoever else shows up, we're looking at probably eighty to a hundred people. I need you to figure out what we need from the restaurant supply and get me a list by Thursday."
"I'll have it by tonight."
She gives me that look that sees through walls. "You okay, baby?"
"I'm good."
"Sure, you are."
She goes back to unpacking. She doesn't push. She just asks and accepts the answer and leaves the door open in case you want to walk through it later. It's the same thing Tex does. I wonder if he learned it from her or she learned it from him or if it's just what good people do.
Tex comes back downstairs around eleven. He's dressed nicer than usual. Clean jeans, a button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, boots that don't have paint on them. He looks good. Well, he always looks good, but today he's carrying himself with a focus, a purpose, that tells me today isn't just another day.
"I'm heading out for a bit," he says. "Meeting Mickey for lunch."
He says it casually. The way you mention grabbing gas or picking up supplies. But I hear what's underneath it. Mickey is a cop. Tex is meeting a cop for lunch the morning after reading a letter about a stolen motorcycle and a man named Ron Jackson.
We look at each other without saying a word. There's a conversation happening in the space between us. He's not sneaking off. He's telling me where he's going and who he's seeing and trusting me to understand why.
"Okay," I say. "See you when you get back."
"Need anything while I'm out?"
"No. Sheila's got me working on the supply list for Saturday when the Thunder Roads group is coming."
"Sixty riders! That's going to be a great day." He grabs his keys from the hook by the door. He crosses the room and he kisses me. Not a quick peck. A real kiss, his hand on theback of my neck, and when he pulls back his eyes are steady on mine.
"I'll be back by two," he says. "We'll talk about Saturday when I get back. I'm thinking brisket. A real brisket, low and slow. It's Big Bertha's time to shine."
"She's always shining."
He heads for his truck and I watch him go. He's going to tell Mickey about Ron. About the bike. About whatever he thinks needs to happen next. And I trust him to do it because I trust him, fully, completely, the way I've never trusted anyone.
If Tex trusts Mickey with this, then I trust Mickey too. It's that simple. I've never been able to hand off trust before. It was always mine to withhold, because withholding it was the only power I had. But Tex has earned my trust. He's earned the right to carry things for me, to bring other people into the circle if he thinks they can help.
I go back to the supply list. Protein for a hundred. Brisket, ribs, chicken, burgers. Sides. Buns. Coleslaw. Beans. I lose myself in the math of it, the quantities and the costs and the logistics, and for a while my brain is occupied.
But underneath the menu planning, Ron is still there. The way he's always there. A constant shadow at the edge of everything, a weight pushing me down that never fully lifts.
He'll find me. He'll come here.
Ron Jackson does not let things go. He doesn't write off losses. He doesn't shrug and move on. The Sportster is his and I am his. In his mind, both of those things are property, and Ron Jackson always comes for his property.
I don't know when.
I don't know how.
He found me in Tallahassee when I took a bus and covered my tracks and told no one where I was going. He found me like it was nothing. Like I was a dog with a leash he could see from miles away.
Maybe this time is different. I want to believe that. Because for the first time, I'm not alone. This time there's Tex and Sheila and Mickey. This time there are people between me and whatever's coming.
This time, if Ron Jackson comes through that door, he's going to find something he's never encountered before. A wall of muscle and fury who already knows his name and is already thinking three steps ahead.
Tex.
I finish the supply list and take it to Sheila. She reads it, nods, makes two corrections with her pen, and says "good work, baby."
I go outside to start setting up. The parking lot is empty in the midday heat, the concrete shimmering, the Gulf flat and blue beyond the beach. I think about the letter and the man who is sitting in a deli right now talking to a cop about how to protect me.
