Chapter 36 Stormy #2
I'm not sure I can do this. "Do you think he'll drive by and see me?"
"He's been here for a day. He checked the bike shops yesterday.
The bike isn't anywhere. The tracker is at an impound lot that doesn't have his motorcycle.
His charm hasn't worked on me. He's running out of moves and the one move he has left is this bar.
He's going to drive past tonight. Maybe twice.
Maybe three times. And when he does, I want him to spot you right out front working the parking lot. "
"In a hot pink shirt that says I'm your property?"
"That says you chose me with free will." He says it without the joke.
Just the words, flat and true. "Not the way he means property.
The way people belong to each other when they choose it.
You chose me just like I chose you. You chose this bar.
You chose to stop running. That shirt is the most ridiculous, loudest, most obnoxious way to say what's already true.
You're home and you're mine and he can't fucking have you. End of story."
"And when he sees it and loses his mind? Then what's the plan? He comes to the bar?"
"I sure hope so. I hope he walks into a lot full of bikers who know his name and what he is.
Mickey is ten minutes away. Sheila's behind the bar with her phone.
Denny and his crew will be in the lot. Every piece we have is on the board.
Tonight. On our terms. In our house. It's now or never.
Let's push him tonight and try to end this. "
I sit with the plan. I turn it over, carefully, examining every angle. Ron seeing me in that shirt. Ron reading those words. PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S. Not property of Ron Jackson. Not the thing he built and broke and rode every day. I'm someone else's now. I'm claimed. Branded as Big Tex's.
Ron's brain won't be able to process it.
He will lose his shit. The patience will evaporate.
The polite man who walks the legal line will be replaced by the other Ron.
The real Ron. The one I know well. The one who kicks and beats and abuses.
The one who can't stand the idea that his property has someone else's name on it.
"It's a honey trap," I say.
"Think of it as a special invitation for him to show the world who he really is, because the only thing protecting Ron Jackson is the mask.
The smile. The performance. Take that away and he's just a man with fists in a room full of people who are bigger and have been waiting for him. Do you trust me?"
"You know I do. With my life."
"Then trust me tonight. Wear the shirt. Work the lot.
Be visible. Let me and Mickey and Sheila and the bikers handle the rest. If Ron Jackson drives past this bar and sees you in that parking lot and decides that tonight is the night he's going to come take back what's his—let him.
Let him walk into this bar. Lure him inside.
Let him show the world the man behind the smile.
And we will end this. Tonight. It's a solid plan. "
"Okay, it sounds bat shit crazy, but I'll do it. I'll put on the hot pink shirt and start a war if you think it'll work. The sweatpants too?"
The grin breaks across his face like sunrise over the Gulf.
"Darling, the sweatpants are non-negotiable. We've talked about those pants before."
I almost laugh. It's sitting right there in my chest, pressing against the fear, trying to get past it. The fear is still there—it's always there, it'll probably always be there in some form—but the laugh is there too, and the laugh is winning at his ridiculous idea.
"Fine," I say. "But if I'm wearing a hot pink shirt that says Property of Big Tex's, you have to make me a promise."
"Anything, name it."
"When this is over, that shirt goes in a fire."
"Absolutely not. I can't make that promise. That shirt is going in a frame on the wall behind the bar."
"Tex."
"Right next to my dad's photo. He would've loved this plan."
"Your father would've loved his son's boyfriend wearing a hot pink shirt to provoke a stalker into a confrontation at his bar?"
"Absolutely! Dad would've loved everything about you. The shirt would have been a bonus."
The laugh ends up winning. It pushes past the fear and comes out of me in a sound that surprises us both. Tex's face lights up the way it always does when he makes me laugh, like he's won a major prize.
Tex calls Mickey to tell him the plan. I can hear Mickey's voice through the phone, the measured cop voice, not arguing, not agreeing, just asking questions that sound like concerns dressed as logistics. Tex answers them with "I know" and "just be close tonight" and hangs up.
He calls Denny. That conversation is different. Not as serious. The language of men who've known each other for years and communicate in shorthand.
"Tonight's the night, brother. Dinner's on the house for you and your crew. Come hungry and plan to stay awhile." A pause. "Appreciate that. More the merrier." Another pause. "Yeah. I know he might be. We'll be ready."
He hangs up and looks at me. "Denny is bringing his guys.
Twelve, maybe fifteen. On top of whoever else shows up.
Said they'll be there by seven. Denny also said, and I'm quoting here, 'I'm bringing Tiny.
' Tiny is Denny's cousin. Tiny is six-seven and three hundred and ten pounds and got his nickname the same way you'd name a Great Dane 'Peanut.
' Tiny once picked up a jukebox during a bar fight because someone scratched the Lynyrd Skynyrd record.
Picked it up. The whole jukebox. Used it as a shield.
Tiny is an asset, Stormy. Tiny is our nuclear option. "
He calls Sheila. That conversation is shortest of all.
"Ron's in town. Tonight's the night. The plan we talked about."
I can hear Sheila's voice through the phone. One sentence. I can't make out the words but I can hear the tone. Steel wrapped in sweet tea.
Tex hangs up and looks at me. "Sheila says she's wearing her good shoes tonight. The ones she can run in."
"She runs? I didn't know that."
"Sheila was a track star in high school. She doesn't talk about it because she says running is undignified, but I've seen her cover the length of this bar in about three seconds when someone pulled a knife. She'll come ready for speed."
Everyone's ready. Mickey. Denny and his crew, eating free tonight. Sheila. The bikers who'll fill the lot without knowing exactly why tonight feels different but knowing that Tex asked them to come and that's enough.
Now I need to be ready too.
I go to our closet. My side is the left. His side is everything else, because Tex's clothes take up the same amount of space that Tex takes up, which is most of it.
The black sweatpants are on the top shelf. I pull them out and hold them up. FOLLOW THIS ASS TO BIG TEX'S ROADHOUSE across the back in white block letters. They're soft from washing. Tex has no idea how much I love these pants. He gave them to me and I'll keep them forever.
The hot pink shirt is next. I know exactly where it is because I put it aside when I sorted the gift shop for Tex. I go back downstairs to the gift shop. The hot pink tank top is near the back of the rack. I pull it out and hold it up.
PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S.
White block letters on hot pink cotton. Cheap fabric, the kind that's thin enough to see skin through. A shirt designed for bachelorette parties and drunk women who think it's hilarious to wear someone else's name on their chest for a night.
Tonight, it might start a war.
I take it back upstairs and start getting ready in the bathroom.
I almost don't recognize myself now. The hollows in my cheeks have filled in.
The dark circles under my eyes are gone.
My skin is tan from weeks of working the parking lot in the Florida sun.
My hair has grown out, longer than I've worn it in years.
It's sun-bleached at the ends, falling across my forehead.
I look like a different person. Someone who belongs on a beach. Maybe even a surfer dude, though it'll be a long time before I'm brave enough to get back into the water.
Wetting my hands, I work my fingers through my hair, pushing it back on the sides, leaving the top loose and full.
Tex told me to fix my hair. No clue what he meant by that.
The salt air and humidity gives it a texture that holds, a tousled messiness that'll have to do.
Turning my head, I check the sides and the back.
Damn, I look pretty good for a change. Tonight, I need to look like someone who knows he looks good. Which is a foreign concept to me.
I tug on the black sweatpants. They're low on my hips, the way they've always sat because they're a size too big, and the letters across the back are big enough to read from the road. Hope Ron can read it clearly if he drives by.
I roll the waistband once like Tex told me to. Not because it makes them fit better. Because it shows the strip of tan skin above the hip. Tonight, every detail is a weapon.
The hot pink tank top is tight. The thin cotton stretches across my chest and shoulders. PROPERTY OF BIG TEX'S sits right across my chest in letters you could read from fifty feet away.
I look ridiculous, like a spring break tourist who lost a bet. Sheila is going to raise both eyebrows and say "baby, what in the world are you wearing?"
But I also look like someone Ron Jackson has never seen before. Someone new. Someone who is wearing another man's name on his chest because he loves him. Because he wants to. Because the name on this shirt belongs to the man who loves him back.