Mickey:For the record, I'm running that tag because I want to. Not because you asked. This is my choice. The way I see it, knowing who owns a motorcycle that might be connected to someone hurting people is just good citizenship. Also, the Destin guy just texted me "u up?" at one-thirty in the afternoon. On a weekday. WTH??? See you tonight.
Chapter 23: Stormy
Tex has been gone for a little over an hour and I'm already a wreck. The supply list is done. The serving station is restocked. I've run out of productive things to do with my hands, which means my brain has taken over, and my brain is not being productive. My brain is being the opposite of productive. My brain is running scenarios.
The dark kind.
If Tex finds Ron, Tex will hurt him. Or kill him.
I know this. Tex is the gentlest man I've ever met, but I've seen the other side of that gentleness. I saw it in the parking lot when the biker grabbed my arm. I saw the switch flip, the voice drop, the entire six-five frame aim itself like a weapon. That was over a stranger's careless hand on my wrist. What will he do when he's standing in front of the man who did everything else?
If Tex hurts Ron, Tex goes to jail.
If Tex goes to jail, I'm alone again.
The fact is devastating, and I can't stop thinking about it. Every version of the equation ends the same way. Tex in a cell. Me alone. The one good thing I've ever had, taken away not by Ron, but by Tex's own hands trying to protect me.
I can't let that happen. I won't survive it. I survived the streets, the shelters, Ron, and almost drowning, but I won't survive losing Tex to a prison sentence he earned defending me. That's the one scenario my heart can't take.
Telling Tex about Ron was a mistake. Now I'll lose him too because he won't be able to forget what Ron did to me. Writing that letter was so fucking stupid.
I'm wiping down the bar top for the third time when Sheila looks at me from across the room.
"You're going to wipe the finish off that wood, baby."
"It's still sticky."
"It's mahogany. The wood doesn't get sticky. You're nervous. Come and sit down."
I can't sit down. I move to the serving station and start reorganizing things that are already organized. Sheila watches me but doesn't push. She doesn't know the specifics but she knows something is up.
Tex has been gone almost two hours now. I think about what I wrote in the letter. Everything I gave Tex. I gave him enough to find Ron if he wanted to. What if he's already driving to Alabama to kill Ron?
Giving Tex the name was a mistake. The thought hits me again and I push it away. I promised Tex the truth, and the truth includes names. I will not regret telling the truth. I will not go back to the hiding.
But the fear is still there, coiled around the base of my spine. Telling me that the truth always has consequences.
Tex is not my mother. He's not going to close a door on me. But Tex might open the wrong one. The one that leads to Alabama and a man named Ron and a confrontation that ends with handcuffs on the wrong person.
The front door opens and Tex walks in. The afternoon light is behind him, framing him in the doorway, and he's smiling. The smile that almost makes me believe that everything is fine and nothing bad can possibly exist in the same space as his smile.
I can read him. The grin is real but it's working harder than usual. His shoulders are relaxed but the muscles aretense. His eyes find me immediately, checking that I'm here before he lets himself settle.
He's carrying a burden he's not going to put on me right now. He's doing what he always does. Absorbing the weight of bad things, so I don't have to carry them alone.
"Hey," he says. He crosses the room and kisses me quickly like a man coming home from an ordinary lunch on an ordinary day. "Miss me?"
"No," I tease him.
"Liar. Sheila, did he miss me?"
"He wiped the bar top three times," Sheila says without looking up.
"Three times. Sounds like love to me." He's moving behind the bar now, grabbing a glass of water, checking the cooler temps, doing the routine. "Mickey's going to swing by later tonight after the rush. He wants to check on some things."
He says it like it's nothing. A friend stopping by for a visit after work. But his eyes meet mine over the bar top and there's a conversation happening. The same silent language we've been speaking since the first week.
He talked to Mickey and he's coming to help. Things are being handled. I don't need to worry about the details right now.
