"Coming, Mama Sheila!" I call back.
We go inside, start the coals and open the bar. And at midnight, after the last bike rumbles out of the lot, Denny Briggs backs a covered trailer up to the service bay. Two of his guys carry the Sportster down the back stairs and load it without a word. Denny shakes my hand. In return, I hand him a platter of ribs wrapped in foil and a cooler full of side dishes to go with it. The trailer pulls out of the lot and disappears down the dark road.
The Sportster is gone.
Just like that. Gone. Like it was never here.
Stormy is standing in the doorway watching the taillights disappear. I come up behind him, wrap my arms around his waist and pull his back against my chest.
"It's done," I say.
One less weapon in Ron Jackson's hands.
Chapter 27: Stormy
We're in bed and I can't stop talking.
This is new. Tex is the talker, never me. Tex is the one who fills every silence and narrates his own life. I'm the quiet one who has learned to speak again. I'm the one who says what needs to be said in as few words as possible because words were never safe for me.
But tonight, I can't stop.
We're lying in bed after closing, still dressed, still smelling like smoke and barbecue. Tex is on his back and I'm on my side facing him, my hand on his chest, and I'm talking. I'm telling him things I've never said out loud, things I've been carrying in the quiet parts of myself for weeks, and they're coming out now like water through a crack in a dam.
"The first day in the truck, I was terrified of you."
He turns his head on the pillow. His brown eyes find mine in the dark. "I know you were. I'm sorry."
"Not just because you were a stranger. Because of your size. You filled that whole truck. The seat, the space, the air. Your shoulders were wider than the headrest and your hands on the steering wheel were the biggest hands I'd ever seen and all I could think was if this man wants to hurt me, I can't stop him. There's no way out of this truck at sixty miles an hour. I'm trapped in a metal box with the biggest man I've ever met."
"I'm sorry I was so big and scary looking. I knew you were scared and all I wanted to do was make you feel safe."
The muscle in his neck tightens and I put my hand on his face.
"Don't be sad about it," I say. "I'm telling you because of what came after."
"What was that, baby? I hope it was something good. Because if this story has a sad ending, don't tell me. I cry at sad endings. Or anything with animals."
"I couldn't stop watching you. At first it was survival. I was watching you the way I always watch men, looking for the signs, reading your body language, waiting for the shift. The moment the voice changes or the hands get faster or the eyes go flat. I was watching for danger."
"And what did you see?"
"There wasn't any of that. Never. You just kept being you. Loud and kind and ridiculous. Talking to yourself, singing off-key, making terrible jokes. And I kept watching because I didn't know what to do with a man who wasn't dangerous."
I trace the line of his collarbone through his shirt. My fingers move across his chest, slow, feeling the shape of him.
"At first, I watched you for safety reasons. And then somewhere in the watching, it stopped being about safety. You'd be out in the parking lot working with your shirt off and the sweat would be running down your back. It ran down between your shoulder blades, down that line in the center of your spine, and I'd be standing there with a stack of plates in my hands not moving. Unable to move or take my eyes off you. I would stand there just watching. Watching the way your muscles moved when you lifted things. The way your arms looked when you carried the kegs, the veins standing out, the size of your forearms. I'd tell myself I was assessing threat. Determining what your arms could do to me if they wanted to."
"My God, Stormy."
"But that's not what I was doing. Not really. I was looking at you. All the time. I couldn't take my eyes off you.The way a person looks at someone they want. I didn't have a name for it because wanting had never been mine before. It was always someone else's wanting, pointed at me. I was the object. I'd never been the one doing the wanting. I've never wanted anyone before you."
He's quiet. His hand finds mine, wrapping around my fingers and holding.
"Then Sheila came," I say. "And you ran out the door and you picked her up. You hugged her. You wrapped your arms around her and lifted her off the ground. Your face looked like a kid's face, pure and happy, and I stood in the doorway watching and I thought..." I pause to remember. The memory is still vivid. The sunlight. The parking lot. His laugh. "I thought I want to know what that feels like. To be held by your arms. Not grabbed. Not pinned. Held. The way you held her. Like being inside your arms was the only place I wanted to be."
"You could have asked. Or given me the slightest hint of any kind. Any time. I would have—"
"I know that now. I knew it then, somewhere underneath all the fear. That's what made it worse. Knowing that if I asked, you'd do it. That you were waiting. That you would have held me any time, any day, for any reason. All I had to do was walk across six feet of parking lot and you would have opened your arms the way you opened them for her."
