Chapter 36 Stormy
Tex is making pancakes for breakfast again.
Burns the first one, saves the second, and I eat both. I've learned that love means eating the burned pancake and telling the man who made it that it's perfect.
The first pancake is always burned. Always.
Tex has a theory that the first pancake is a "test pancake" and doesn't count, which is a theory he invented to avoid admitting he never lets the pan heat long enough.
Sheila told him this once. He said, "Sheila, I have been making pancakes for years.
" She said, "and burning the first one every single time.
" He pouted and didn't speak to her for an hour, which for Tex is a medical event.
Tex is trying his best to make it seem as if everything about this morning is the same as every other morning. And it is, except for the gun on the nightstand. And the fact that Ron Jackson is somewhere in this town right now, waking up in a motel room, making his own plans for today.
Tex sits across from me. His plate is empty except for syrup.
He eats pancakes the way he does everything, fully and enthusiastically.
But this morning, he's not reaching for more.
He's sitting with his hands around his coffee mug, looking at me.
This is the look that comes before a conversation he's been building in his head all night while I slept on his chest and the gun sat two feet from my face with the safety off.
"We need to talk about tonight," he says.
"I'm listening."
"He's in town. He didn't come here last night but he didn't leave town either. He's not going home empty-handed."
"That's what I'm afraid of."
"We need to end this." He sets the mug down.
The absence of a smile means he's operating from the place underneath.
"We can't keep living like this, Stormy.
I can't keep watching you check the parking lot every thirty seconds.
I can't keep lying awake with a loaded gun on the nightstand with the safety off.
This isn't a life. This is a siege. And sieges end one of two ways—the wall holds or the wall breaks.
I'd rather choose when and how than wait for him to decide. "
"What are our options?"
"Legally? Almost nothing." He says it the way you say things you've already been angry about and have moved past the anger into the cold territory on the other side.
"Mickey laid it all out that day at the deli.
Ron hasn't threatened you here. He hasn't touched you.
He hasn't even spoken to you. He showed up at a public bar twice and asked about a motorcycle.
That's not a crime. That's not stalking under Florida law, not in a way that any judge would act on.
You can't get a restraining order against a man who hasn't contacted you directly.
He's been careful about that. He's been careful about everything. That's how he operates."
"We can't legally go to the police?"
"Mickey is the police. Mickey's doing everything he can. But there's no crime to report. Not yet. And Ron knows that. He knows exactly where the line is because he's been walking it his entire life. He walks right up to the edge, he stays on the legal side and the system can't touch him."
"You have a plan, don't you? What is it?"
"We force his hand." Tex pauses and chooses his words. The fact that he's choosing means whatever comes next is going to hurt.
"There's something I haven't told you. About the last conversation with Ron at the grill."
And there it is.
I knew he was holding back something from me to protect me. The cold starts at the back of my neck and spreads downward, the familiar ice. "Tell me what he said."
"When he showed me the photo of the Sportster and I told him I'd never seen it, he didn't just talk about the bike.
He talked about it the way—" Tex stops. His hands wrap around the mug so tight his knuckles go white.
He's not looking at me. He's looking at the coffee.
"He talked about building the bike. How he hand-picked every piece.
How he shaped it exactly the way he wanted.
How he rode it every day. Every single day.
How he couldn't get enough. How it felt so good. So perfect. Like it was made for him."
The words settle into me one at a time, each one finding its place in the understanding that's building in my chest like pressure. I know Ron. I know what each of those words mean.
"He wasn't talking about the bike," I say.
"No."
"He was talking about me."
"Yeah, baby, he was. He was standing six feet from me describing what he did to you and smiling while he did it.
He told me how much he enjoyed it. How he couldn't get enough.
How he molded you into exactly what he wanted.
And then he looked past my shoulder at the bar where you were working that day and he said there's nothing he won't do to get it back.
Whatever the price. Because it's his, he owns it, and he would never let it go. He meant you."
My hands are in my lap and I'm looking at them. These small hands that have been held down and pried open and used for things I didn't want. I'm thinking about Ron Jackson standing in the sun describing what he did to me while wearing the smile that I saw every morning for years.
"Stormy—"
"I'm okay." I'm definitely not okay. But I'm not breaking. That's the difference between who I am now and who I was. The walls want to go up but I'm not letting them because there's a man across from me who carried this to protect me and the least I can do is carry it now.
"Why are you telling me this now?"
"Because it's part of what makes the plan tonight work.
" Tex leans forward. His eyes find mine and hold.
"Ron isn't just possessive of you. He's sexually possessive.
What he said at the grill wasn't about ownership in the abstract.
It was specific. It was graphic. As graphic as you can get while technically talking about a motorcycle instead of a person.
He was telling me, plainly, that you're his sex toy and he's coming to take you back.
And that's our ticket, right there. Our button to push.
That's the thing that will break his patience faster than anything else.
Sexual jealousy. The idea that someone else has what he considers his.
That someone else is touching what he built for him alone. "
I understand before he explains the rest. This time the strategy isn't survival, it's war.
"You want to make him see that I'm yours," I say. "That I belong to you."
"No, baby, I want to make him see that you are owned by no one.
That you made the choice. You chose me. That the thing he thinks he owns chose someone else.
And I want him to see it in the most visible, public, impossible-to-ignore way I can think of.
" Pure mischief glimmers in his eyes now, showing the part of Tex that believes the best way to handle a terrible situation is to do something so outrageous the situation doesn't know how to respond.
"Do you remember," he says slowly, "the first night I brought you here? After the truck. After the hurricane. You were soaking wet and I took you to the gift shop to find dry clothes."
"Of course I remember. There was a rack of tourist shirts, and a stack of sweatpants with sayings on the back of them. I was chilled to the bone, exhausted and terrified of you."
"You kept calling me sir," Tex says. "And I told you if you called me sir one more time, I was going to make you wear—"
"The pink shirt."
The memory surfaces sharp and clear. A hot pink tank top on a hanger, the kind of thing you'd buy as a gag gift at a beach shop, loud and ridiculous and impossible to ignore.
PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S across the chest in white block letters.
Tex had held it up and grinned and I'd almost smiled back at me, which at that point was a miracle because I hadn't smiled in forever.
"With Property of Big Tex's across the front," he says. "That shirt is still in the gift shop. And those black sweatpants you wore the first week—the ones that say 'follow this ass to Big Tex's Roadhouse' on the back—those are still in your closet, right?"
They're still in the closet because I would never part with them. They were warm and soft. They're folded on the shelf next to my other clothes.
"You want me to wear the sweatpants tonight?"
"You bet your sweet ass, I do. I want you right out front in that parking lot tonight where Ron can see you.
And I want him to see PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S across your chest and FOLLOW THIS ASS TO BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSE across your gorgeous ass.
I want him to watch you carry plates and work the crowd.
You need to be visible and confident. And mine.
Let's not forget that very important point.
Not his. Mine. Because you chose me. And baby, I am ever so grateful you did because I love you more every damn day. "
I shake my head at him. "You can't be serious about all this. This is a crazy plan."
"I'm dead serious. And I want you to fix your hair tonight.
" He reaches across the table and touches a strand that's fallen across my forehead.
"You've been in the Florida sun. You've got a tan now that makes you look like a California surfer.
You're hot, Stormy. You know that, right?
You're the best-looking person in any room you walk into and you have no idea because nobody ever told you.
And the people who noticed, used it against you.
You're sizzling hot sex-on-a-stick, baby.
I need you to know it. Tonight, I need you to own it and work it.
Fix your hair. Roll the waistband on those sweatpants.
Make them low. Walk into that parking lot like you belong there, because you do, and let Ron Jackson see exactly what he lost."