I'm not the boy behind the gas station anymore. I'm not the kid in the room above the shop, doing the math, choosing the least terrible option.
I'm Stormy now.
I work at Big Tex's Roadhouse. I have a job, my own stool at a bar counter, a woman who calls me baby and a man who loves me and promised to say so every morning.
Ron is coming.
The fear of that is real, and I won't pretend it isn't.
He's coming.
But I'm not running anymore.
Chapter 22: Tex
Sandy's Deli is a cinder block building with a hand-painted sign and the best Cuban sandwich in Bay County. It's two blocks from the police station, which means it's full of cops at lunch, which means it's a place where a conversation between a bar owner and a police officer doesn't draw attention.
Mickey is already there when I walk in. He's at a booth in the back, out of uniform, wearing jeans and a polo shirt that makes him look like a high school basketball coach instead of a cop. He's got a sweet tea in front of him and he's watching the door. When he sees me, his face grows serious. Mickey and I have been friends since we were fourteen. He can read me perfectly.
I slide into the booth across from him. A waitress comes. I order a Cuban sandwich and a water. I'm not hungry but I need something to do with my hands.
"You look like hell," Mickey says.
"Thank you. I've been working on that."
"Seriously, you look like you haven't slept in a week. And your shirt is buttoned wrong."
I look down. It's not buttoned wrong.
"Made you look," he says, grinning. "Now I know you're really messed up because you never fall for that. You just trust the shirt and go. What's going on, Tex?"
I lean back in the booth and look at him. Mickey Weaver. My best friend since middle school. Openly gay since we were seventeen, which in Panama City was not the easy road. He took his lumps and he took them standing up. He became a cop anyway because Mickey has never once in his life letsomeone else decide what he's allowed to be. I trust him with my life and now I'm about to trust him with Stormy's.
"I'm here to talk to my best friend," I say. "Not to a cop. I need that to be clear. This conversation is off the record. I'm not asking you to do anything official. I'm not putting you in a position where you have to act on a story you hear. I'm talking to Mickey, not Officer Weaver. Can you do that?"
He studies me for a long moment. Then he picks up his sweet tea and takes a sip and sets it down.
"I'm Mickey right now," he says. "Go ahead. Before you start, let me ask you. Is this about Stormy? Because if it's about Stormy, I want you to know that I've been waiting for you to come talk to me for weeks. I've been very patient. Sheila calls me every other day to give me updates I didn't ask for. She's like a one-woman intelligence agency. I know more about your love life than I know about my own, which admittedly isn't hard because my love life could fit on an index card with room left over for a grocery list."
"Yes and no," I say. "I need you to talk me out of killing someone."
He takes another sip of tea. "Well, that's not what I was expecting. I had twenty bucks on 'I need legal advice about a motorcycle' and ten bucks on 'Stormy and I are moving too fast.' Murder wasn't on my bingo card. But okay. Let's hear it."
"Hypothetically speaking," I begin, "let's say, there's a kid. Young man, early twenties, been on the streets since he was fifteen. No family, no support, nobody looking out for him. Hypothetically, this kid meets a man. A man in Alabama who runs a legitimate business. Salvage yard. Cars, bikes, parts. A man who's a deacon at a Baptist church. Sponsors the little league team. Goes to Sunday services. The kind of man people trust."
The waitress brings my sandwich. I don't touch it.
"Hypothetically, this man finds the kid behind a gas station on a cold night and offers him a hot meal. Takes him to a Waffle House. Buys him eggs and pancakes and sits across from him and talks about a job and a room. Tells him no strings attached. The kid has nothing. No money, no ID, no one to call. He goes with the man. Moves in. Works hard. The man tells him he's valuable. Tells him he's smart. Treats him well for about two weeks."
Mickey's expression tightens. He knows where this is going. He's a cop. He's heard this story before. Details change, but the story is always the same.
"Then the lock on the door stops mattering because the man has a key. And the man comes into the kid's room at night and sits on his bed. He puts his hand on him and explains the situation. This room or the gas station. This bed or the ground. The kid says no the first time. The man doesn't force it. He's patient. He comes back. The kid does the math and stops saying no."
I stop and take a breath. My hands are flat on the table and I'm pressing them down hard enough that my knuckles are white.
"Hypothetically," I continue, "this goes on for years. The man uses the kid whenever and however he wants. It isn't long before the hitting starts. Ribs, back, stomach, sides. Never the face. Smart about it. The kid tries to leave three times. First time, the man finds him in less than a day. Fifteen miles down the highway. Beats him so bad he can't walk. Second time, the kid gets on a bus to Tallahassee. Makes it to a shelter. One night. The man is in the parking lot the next morning. The kid has no idea how he was found. The beating puts him in bed for three days, pissing blood."
Mickey's face has gone very still. The cop face. The one that processes information without showing what it's doing to him underneath.
