Page 18 of The Tex Hex (Bitches With Stitches #3)

MANDY

Fuck me.

The second I open the door and see Rhett’s grin, I know I’m doomed.

He doesn’t even say hi, just raises a six-pack of root beer and a tub of nuclear-looking nacho dip with a label that says Not Responsible for Internal Bleeding .

“Code Black,” he says solemnly. “I brought the goods.”

Behind him, the rest of the goddamn Bitches brigade rolls in like it’s a military op. No hesitation. No mercy.

Brandt follows him, holding up a Top Gun DVD like he’s raided the sacred vault at Paramount. “You need homoerotic camaraderie, brooding, and aircraft. This movie has all three.”

I try to shut the door in their smiling faces, but Rhett blocks it with his boot. “Too late. You texted the distress signal.”

“I didn’t text anything.”

“You sighed in the group chat,” Nash explains, slipping in past me like a ghost with a vengeance. “You used a period at the end. That’s how we know.”

“Jesus Christ,” I mutter.

Then McCormick shows up with a dish that might be legally classified as a biological hazard. It’s worse than Rhett’s nacho dip. He sets it on my counter like it’s the cure for heartbreak and not just refrigerator leftovers molded into an FDA violation.

“It’s a casserole,” he says proudly. “From my cookbook. Hot dogs, mac ‘n’ cheese, and… something green.”

“Something green?” I ask, staring at it like it might sprout legs.

“It was in the crisper drawer. Could’ve been spinach, could’ve been basil, but we don’t live in the past.”

Behind him, Stiles shakes his head like a warning, telling me to skip it.

Done. I’m not going near his dish.

By the time they all settle on my couch like they pay rent here—feet up, snacks out, Top Gun menu screen looping—I’m hanging onto my last thread of sanity.

And then Rhett says something about Goose’s mustache looking like a walrus on leave, and I just… crack.

“I fucked up.”

Silence. The kind that makes your ears ring. I don’t even look at them. Just stare at the TV like Goose might throw me a life vest.

“The gala was fine. More than fine. He showed up looking like sex and sunshine in a suit, and I… I couldn’t stop staring. He smelled like soap, not tacos and chicken. And he smiled at me like I was the best thing he’d seen all week.”

I swallow and try to ignore the heat rising to my face. Admitting this shit to your buddies is fucking humiliating.

“I took him. We danced. He laid his head on my shoulder like it was home. And when he leaned in at the end of the night, I froze.”

The memory hits like a fist to the ribs. I press my hands together, knuckles white.

“I told him to go. Told him I couldn’t breathe. And he left. Fast. Didn’t even look back.”

Brandt exhales like I’ve just confessed to a murder. “Shit,” he murmurs.

“I knew it,” Nash adds, sitting forward. “You got that look. That ‘I’ve done something emotionally devastating’ look.”

Rhett tosses a pillow at me. “You’re an idiot.”

I catch it without protest. “Yeah.” Clearly, the largest of the idiots assembled here, which is saying something I’m not proud of.

“But,” Rhett adds, “you’re our idiot. So now we help you unfuck it.”

“Yeah?” I ask, voice rough. Hope blooms carefully in my chest.

Brandt raises his DVD case like a toast. “Yeah. Operation Win Tex Back. Phase One: emotional excavation and Top Gun.”

Nash groans and hands me a box of tissues. “Here. For your nose. Or your shattered dignity.”

The laugh that escapes me cracks at the edges. “I’m afraid to ask what step two is.”

Brandt grins because he clearly has an answer I don’t wanna hear. “Step two is shirtless volleyball inspiration. Step three: grovel.”

“I’m not groveling.”

“You’re definitely groveling,” Nash insists, nodding.

And God help me, I might. Because somewhere out there, Tex is hurting. And all I can think about is his face before he left, the way he looked at me like I’d reached inside and turned off the sun.

I’ll fix it.

Assuming I’m not back in the hospital from eating Rhett’s dip and McCormick’s radioactive casserole.

I think about texting Tex probably fifty times that night.

Phone in hand, thumbs hovering. A few times I even type something. Hey, can we talk? or I’m sorry. I want to explain. But I delete every version. Backspace is getting more action than the rest of my screen combined.

Because what would I say? That I panicked? That when he leaned in, full of trust and sweetness and sunshine, I cracked like cheap tile under pressure? That I’ve never wanted anything more, and never felt more unworthy of it?

I’m days away from surgery. Again.

Riggs says I’ve gotta get on board because this one will help. Something about loosening the thick scar tissue pulling at my lip, correcting the way I speak, improving sensation inside my cheek with a microsurgery that sounds made-up and medieval all at once.

It means pain. Recovery. Looking worse before better. It means being raw, swollen, and stitched up. It means, maybe, one step closer to feeling normal again.

Or maybe just less monstrous.

But what kind of idiot tries to win back the heart of a beautiful guy while actively scheduling time to become uglier, more broken, and more exhausted than ever?

I can’t think straight when I look in the mirror and see what’s already there.

The thought of showing up in Tex’s life like this —puffy and stitched and dragging half a face numb with nerve damage—makes me want to crawl into bed and sleep until the VA loses my file and cancels the whole thing.

He deserves someone who lights up a room. Who spins in their damn suit and makes jokes about taco ties. Who doesn’t flinch when they catch their reflection.

He deserves… Not me.

I’ve got good intentions, hell, great ones. But right now, they’re buried under layers of dread, pain, and that old familiar voice in my head that says, Don’t reach for something beautiful when all you’ve ever been is the damage left behind.

So instead of texting, I shove my phone under the couch cushion and go sit on the floor with a half-knit purple sock in my lap.

I can’t fix this. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

But I can keep knitting.

Pork rinds crunch between my teeth like heartbreak, and my mouth is so dry from salt and grief that even the Skittles can’t save me. They taste like shame and fake fruit, like regret in lime form.

On the speaker, Whitney Houston belts out “I Will Always Love You” while I butcher the chorus with my own cracked, off-key mumble.

It’s pitiful.

I’m pitiful.

Socks abandoned, candy wrappers strewn like confetti across my coffee table, the place looks like a war zone, as if I went to battle against heartache and lost.

The music cuts out for a second as my phone rings. Liza. I ignore it, but she texts instead:

Liza:

You okay?

I lie:

Peachy

Fifteen minutes later, someone bangs on my door.

I groan, peeling myself off the couch with the grace of a melted snowman. When I crack the door open, Rhett stands there holding a six-pack of grape soda and a giant bag of Doritos.

“Twice in one day, huh?” he says, stepping inside without waiting for an invite. “Damn, Mandy. That’s bad, even for you.”

He pauses mid-step, grimacing as the strains of Air Supply filter through the apartment.

“What the hell is this shit?” he asks, horrified. “Nope. No way. Hell no. We are not doing this sad boomer music bullshit. This is like...Riggs’s music.” He sets the snacks down and kicks off his boots. “We need some Miley Cyrus, Party in the USA or something.”

I curl back into the blanket pile on the couch, and whisper, “I don’t feel like partying.”

He rolls his eyes, tossing a pillow at me. “You don’t party, you hermit. But you do spiral, and I refuse to watch you cry-sing Dolly Parton like a divorcee in a Waffle House parking lot.”

Damn, I could go for some waffles right now, but instead, I sigh. “I’m just tired, man. I feel like giving up. Maybe I was wrong. About everything.”

His face softens, just a little, and he lowers himself onto the couch beside me, blanket automatically pulled into his lap like he’s done this a hundred times.

“Okay. Fine. We won’t party,” he agrees. “But if you’re gonna cry, we’re doing it my way.”

Two minutes later, “Torn” by Natalie Imbruglia is blaring from the Bluetooth speaker, and we’re both howling the lyrics like wounded wolves. I don’t even remember the second verse, but Rhett does. The man knows every word.

We pass the grape soda back and forth like it’s a bottle of emotional support vodka, finishing off the Skittles and making a serious dent in the pork rinds.

When “Someone Like You” by Adele comes on, I think he’s gonna change it, but he doesn’t. He just grabs the TV remote like a mic, tosses it to me, and says, “Your solo, drama queen.”

I croak my way through the chorus, trying to stay lighthearted about it—trying to grin and lean into the joke of it all—but every word feels like it was written for me and bleeds out of me like a confession.

I think about Tex, about the way he smiled at me at the gala like I hung the stars, like I was something worthy.

I think about how I ran, again, and how I saw his face crumble and couldn’t undo it.

I picture him curled up somewhere, feeling like unwanted leftovers because of how I treated him.

Feeling like meatloaf .

The open wound in my chest bleeds with the lyrics.

Never mind, I’ll find someone like you…

Except I won’t. Because there isn’t anyone like him. There never was.

After we’ve completely shredded both our dignity and vocal cords, we fall quiet, nestled under the same blanket. The sugar crash hits hard, leaving me hollowed out and shaking, my stomach queasy from too many pork rinds and too many regrets.

Rhett shifts beside me, but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t need to. The silence between us is comfortable, forgiving. Like maybe he knows I’m breaking in a way that can’t be teased or patched up with dumb jokes and candy.

“You really love him, huh?” Rhett finally asks.

I don’t answer right away. I just stare at the empty Skittles bag.

“Obviously,” I murmur. “But I’m broken. I’ve got surgery in three days. My face is already fucked and now they’re gonna make it worse before it gets better. And what if… what if he doesn’t come back?”

Rhett leans his head back against the couch, looking up at the ceiling.

“Then we hunt him down like a dumbass romcom and make him listen to this playlist until he forgives you,” he says.

“But also? Maybe stop assuming he’s gonna run.

You keep saying you’re the broken one, but that guy’s been to hell and back, too.

Maybe he’s not looking for perfect. Maybe he’s just looking for you. ”

My eyes sting. I blame the pork rind dust. “Thanks,” I say quietly.

He pats my knee. “Shut up and pass the Doritos.”

I don’t know how much time passes, but Rhett stays with me, like a battle buddy, protecting my six when I’m down and wounded.

I stare at the muted glow of the TV screen, watching some mindless romantic movie play out like it isn’t a knife in my ribs.

The lead gets the guy in the end. They always do.

He says some perfect line and the music swells, and they kiss in the rain or under fireworks or whatever bullshit someone wrote in a room with good lighting and no scars.

I swallow hard, my throat tight.

“I don’t think he knows,” I whisper.

Rhett glances at me. “Knows what?”

“That he’s the best thing that ever happened to me.” My voice cracks on the word best. “That when I’m near him, I don’t think about pain. Or surgeries. Or how many goddamn pieces I’ve been broken into. I just… feel alive. Like I could be more than all the shit I survived.”

Rhett puts a hand on my shoulder, warm and steady.

I shake my head, tears burning the backs of my eyes. “But I keep running from him. I keep messing it up because I’m terrified he’ll see what I see. That I’m too far gone. Too ruined to love.”

And the thing I can’t say out loud, not even to my best friend… What if the whispers and looks and hurtful things others say in public taint Tex’s image of me being some standup guy? What if he starts to see me like they do? Like I’m someone to pity rather than to respect or love.

“Mandy… he already sees you. That’s the part you don’t get.

He sees you. And he stayed. He knows who you are, and he leaned in anyway, wanting your mouth on his.

” Rhett reaches out to poke the scar on my upper lip.

“This mouth, with the scar that’s about to be restitched.

He wanted to feel it on his. Maybe he thinks it can help heal his scars, the ones we can’t see. ”

My chest caves in, just a little. Enough to let the tears fall, hot and silent. I’m too tired and hollow to fight them back.

I cry like I haven’t in years.

Not the rough, ragged, hide-it-in-your-pillow kind of tears. These are different. These are honest . These are the kind that come from somewhere deep in the bones, where sorrow has been sleeping so long it forgot it had a voice.

Rhett doesn’t try to fix it. Doesn’t crack a joke or hand me a tissue. He just stays. Lets my shoulder shake under his palm. Lets me break without words.

And that… that feels like a kind of miracle.

“I’m so tired, Rhett,” I manage, wiping at my face with the sleeve of my hoodie. “I’m tired of pretending I don’t want him. That I’m better off alone. That this fear in my chest isn’t eating me alive.”

He doesn’t say anything. Just shifts a little, pulling the blanket tighter around us. Like if he could, he’d stitch me back together himself.

I keep talking, maybe because if I stop, I’ll fall apart completely.

“I want to be the man he thinks I am. Brave. Solid. Worth it. But all I see in the mirror is stitches and skin that doesn’t fit right. A mouth that doesn’t move the way it used to. I’m afraid I’ll let him down. That he’ll wake up one day and realize he’s in love with someone broken beyond repair.”

Silence smothers the conversation until Rhett says quietly, “What if he already knows all that, and loves you because of it?”

I turn my face into the couch cushion, ashamed of the wreck I’ve become. But his hand stays on my back, steady and sure, and somehow that holds me together better than any words ever could.

Eventually, the silence wraps around us again, soft and complete. My tears dry against the fabric. My breathing slows. And for just a moment, I let myself believe that maybe… just maybe… I’m not unlovable.

Not to the people who matter.

Not to Tex.