Page 9 of The Tex Hex (Bitches With Stitches #3)

MANDY

The waiting room is too bright. Too sterile. The fluorescent lights hum overhead threateningly, and the plastic chairs squeak every time I shift. My palms are slick, my throat is tight, and it’s all I can do to stay seated instead of bolting for the exit.

God, I hate being here. Doctors make me feel like I’m still burning. Still strapped to the gurney. Still smelling melted skin and feeling hands, so many hands, belonging to strangers, touching and poking at me, and I brace for it, not knowing what comes next.

My knee bounces uncontrollably, and I can feel myself sweating beneath my Henley.

Then the automatic doors slide open, and I exhale without meaning to. The tension in my chest gives just a little.

Tex walks in like sunshine breaking through storm clouds, popping his gum with all the confidence in the world. He’s wearing a crop top that reads Do You Wanna Taste My Tacos? paired with cutoff denim shorts that barely qualify as pants and, of course, his beat-to-shit cowboy boots.

I blink. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He grins. “None of your big, scary ball buddies could make it, so they called in reinforcements.” He waves a hand. “I was working at Nacho’s taco truck, but we hit a flat, so—voilà. I’m yours for the afternoon.”

He scans the room and lands on the seat next to me, currently occupied by some guy thumbing through a sports magazine.

Tex leans down and says, deadpan, “You know, the guy sitting in that chair before you had a nasty skin rash. Oozing. Possibly contagious.”

The man recoils, mutters something, and stands up in disgust. Tex wipes his hands dramatically on his shorts and plops down beside me.

“So,” he says brightly, “where were we?”

I stare at him, not knowing where to start. He’s like a tornado, blowing into town and wreaking havoc, knocking down all my defenses. “Are you telling me I’ve got three reliable ball buddies and not one of them could make it?”

Tex starts counting on his fingers. “West and Brandt are in the building next door getting West’s prosthetic adjusted. Rhett’s working. Nash had to take Valor to the vet. Poor thing swatted a bee and got stung.”

“And you just… volunteered?”

Tex shrugs like it’s no big deal. “Told Nash not to reschedule. I was free.” His voice is casual, but his eyes are steady, waiting.

And I hate it.

Hate that he’s here, that he might see me unravel. I don’t want him seeing me like this, shaking, sweating, and on the verge of losing my shit in a damn waiting room. I know how this goes. I get quiet. Closed off. Maybe I cry. Maybe I don’t. But Tex seeing any of it? Abso-fucking-lutely not.

“No,” I say flatly. “You can’t be here.”

He blinks. “Excuse-a-moi?”

“I don’t want you here, Tex. Just go.”

His expression tightens. “Wow. Okay.” He lets out a laugh, bitter at the edges. “You’ve got some nerve, Mandy. If the tables were turned, you’d be up my ass like a goddamn dingleberry, and I wouldn’t be able to shake you off.”

“Tex—”

“No! You don’t want me here because I’m not scarred enough, right?

Not missing a limb? Not strong enough for Big Bad Mandy Cahill?

” His voice cracks, but he pushes through.

“I served four years. Same as you. And maybe I don’t wear my damage like a badge of honor, but it’s there.

Inside. I know what pain is. I know what shame feels like.

And I promise , I’m strong enough to carry you if you ever need to lean on me. ”

People are staring. I feel like I’m going to be sick.

“You don’t get it,” I manage, my throat closing up. “It’s not that. I just—just leave.”

Tex folds his arms. “No. Not if every horse in Texas tried to drag me out.”

My eyes sting. My jaw clenches.

He lowers his voice. “I know you’re scared. That’s why I’m here. And it’s okay, Mandy.”

“It’s not.”

I’m about to explain, to say all the ugly, broken things I’ve never spoken aloud when the nurse calls out, “Armando Cahill?”

Tex jumps to his feet. “That’s us.”

“Just—just wait out here,” I say.

He levels me with a look. “Hell. Fucking. No. Where you go, I go.”

In the exam room, Tex immediately starts poking around like a child in a museum.

He grabs a tongue depressor, sticks it in his mouth, and pretends to gag. “These things are just medical popsicle sticks of doom.”

I glare.

Then he shoves cotton balls up his nose. “Halloween costume idea: relapsed coke addict.”

I sigh, still glaring.

“Fine,” he huffs, “that sounded funnier in my head.” Unfazed, he snatches a blue latex glove, blows it up, and holds it against his crotch like it’s groping him. “This is what a handjob from Aladdin probably feels like.”

I blink.

Then the doctor walks in. Tex yelps, letting go of the balloon glove, which zips wildly around the room, deflating with a fart-like squeal before smacking into the cabinets.

Tex watches it solemnly. “I hate when it does that.”

I finally laugh. Loud and helpless. And for the first time since I walked through the doors, I can breathe.

West usually tortures me with Mad Libs, always the raunchy kind, and always at top volume.

Nash scrolls through his phone and makes me look at endless pictures of his cat, Valor, in ridiculous outfits: little aviator goggles, a shark hoodie, once even a tutu.

Rhett won’t shut up about flying and planes, and ends up oversharing things about Riggs that I’m pretty sure he would get punched for.

But Tex…

Tex makes me forget where I am.

He doesn’t distract me with noise or force conversation to keep my mind off the pain.

He disarms me completely, just by being himself.

By walking into this sterile, godawful place in a taco crop top and cowboy boots, acting like it’s the most natural thing in the world to sit beside a man falling apart and offer nothing but laughter and presence.

Tex doesn’t try to fix me. He just shows up. Fully. Loudly. Unapologetically. And God help me, I think that might be what I needed all along.

He smells like refried beans and gardenias, and all I can think is how badly I want to kiss him, just to see if his mouth tastes like cinnamon from his gum.

The doctor pulls up a chair and clicks through images on his tablet like he's reading off a damn lunch menu. As if the things he's about to say don’t live inside me like landmines.

“I’d like to talk about your lip,” he says. “The scar tissue’s pulling at the corner, which affects symmetry and your ability to articulate certain sounds. We can minimize that.”

I stare straight ahead, jaw locked.

He keeps going. “There’s also a microsurgical procedure we could try inside your cheek. Reconnecting some of the smaller blood vessels, maybe even some nerve endings. There’s a chance we could restore partial sensation.”

“No,” I say flatly.

Tex turns toward me like I’ve thrown ice water in his face. “What do you mean, no?”

“I mean no,” I repeat, this time sharper.

The doctor tries to smooth the edge. “There’s no rush to decide today, but if the hesitation is about discomfort or fear?—”

“I said no.”

Tex leans forward, voice softer but insistent. “Why not, Mandy? This could help. You could eat easier. Talk easier. Maybe even feel your face again.”

I cut him a look. “So I can be less of a freak? Less broken?”

“That’s not what I said.”

“But it’s what you meant.” It’s not. I know it’s not. This is about my fear, but I refuse to admit that to him.

The air’s gone thick. My pulse thuds in my ears. I can feel myself unraveling, cell by cell, and I hate that Tex is here to see it.

The doctor clears his throat. “For the cheek reconstruction, we’d need a tissue graft from a cadaver donor. It’s standard, and we would?—”

Tex flinches.

It’s subtle. Just the smallest jerk of his shoulders, a flicker in his expression, but I see it. Feel it like a kick to the nuts.

And there it is. The thing I’ve always known, deep down.

No matter how many times he laughs with me, hugs me, climbs into my oversized sweatpants, and makes stupid balloon jokes… he’ll never really see past this. Past me. Not all the way.

I stare down at my hands. Burned, healed, marbled like melted wax. The lip, the cheek, the skin grafts. The parts that weren’t mine. The pieces I’ve borrowed from corpses just to resemble something human again. My shoulder is covered in swatches of skin from my ass and thighs.

I’m not a man anymore. I’m a patchwork job. A fucking charity case.

A monster made from scraps.

And no matter how brightly Tex shines, he’ll never be able to touch the parts of me I keep stitched together by sheer force of will.

Not without flinching.

Goddamn, for once in my miserable life, I just want to feel loved without feeling like I’m begging for it. Is that too much to ask?

I don’t say anything after that.

The room goes quiet, except for the soft whir of the computer and the crinkle of paper under my clenched fists. I can feel Tex looking at me, feel his confusion, maybe guilt, maybe none of those things. Maybe he’s just trying to figure out how fast he can get out of here without making a scene.

But I don’t give him the chance.

I push up from the chair so hard it squeals against the tile. “I need some air,” I mutter, not waiting for a response.

The doctor starts to say something—probably his routine reassurance, something like “take your time” or “we’ll revisit later”—but I’m already moving.

Out into the hallway. Down past the receptionist with the overly bright smile.

Out through the sliding glass doors that suck the breath from your lungs as they whoosh open.

I hit the sidewalk like I’m crossing a finish line.

The sunlight’s too bright. It slices through the clouds and right into my skull, and I hate how it feels. Exposed, raw, like it’s trying to scrub me clean when all I want is to disappear.

Making a beeline for the bench in the shade, I sit hunched forward with my elbows on my knees.

Breathe. In. Out. In.

But it doesn’t help. Not really. I hear the doors behind me open again, followed by slow footsteps. It’s Tex. Of course.

I keep my eyes straight ahead, hoping I can ignore him until he goes away.

“Hey,” he says gently. “You okay?”

I nod once. A lie.

“Want me to sit?”

I shrug. Another lie.

He lingers a second longer, then settles into the far end of the bench, keeping silent.

The space between us feels miles wide, and for once, I’m grateful.

Because if he touched me now—if he tried to fix it with a joke or a smile or some damn spark of hope—I might break in ways I don’t know how to come back from.

Then, softly, he says, “You know what my toxic trait is?”

I almost roll my eyes, because only Tex would start with a line like that right now. But I don’t stop him.

“I stuff all my pain down until I’m dying inside and just hope someone loves me enough to notice.”

My chest tightens. I fucking love you enough to notice!

He shifts beside me, not closer, not farther. Just there.

“You sometimes think you want to disappear,” he says, voice barely above a whisper, “but all you really want is to be found.”

That breaks something in me.

Not with a crack or a scream, just… a quiet undoing. Like a seam splitting open without anyone noticing until the whole damn thing unravels.

“I’m not trying to fix you,” he says. “I just… I wanted to show up. That’s all. You don’t have to want me here. But I needed you to know I wanted to be.”

My throat burns. I swallow hard and still can’t find the words. So I just nod, once, small and slow. And this time, Tex doesn’t say anything else. He just sits with me, letting the silence be what it is.

Enough.

I stare at the cracks in the pavement, tracing one with my eyes like it might give me answers.

Tex’s words keep echoing in my head. You think you want to disappear, but all you really want is to be found. Goddamn him.

Because he’s right.

And because he sees me. Not the scars, not the damage, not just the hard shell I walk around in so people won’t see how hollow it is underneath.

He sees all of it, or wants to, and I don’t know if I’m grateful or terrified.

My throat is so tight it hurts to swallow. There’s a raw, churning cloud in my chest, clawing to get out, but I keep it down like I always do. Old habits. Survival instincts. Call it whatever the hell you want, it’s all the same.

I want to tell him I’m scared.

That the exam room makes my skin crawl.

That every time they talk about slicing and stitching and dead donor tissue, I feel like I’m disappearing a little more, piece by piece, until maybe there won’t be anything left of the man I was.

And that matters, because even if I’m not that man anymore, I still want to be worth something.

I still want to be someone he could want.

Tex is… Tex is a rainbow of light in my dark world. He’s… magnificent… exceptional… extraordinary.

And I—I’m all rough edges. Scar tissue. Caution tape.

He deserves better. But I can’t stop watching him like he’s the only piece of color left in a world still burned black.

But I don’t say any of that. I just sit there, burning alive behind my ribs, while he stays beside me without pushing.

Eventually, I say the only thing I can manage. “You should’ve left.”

Tex doesn’t flinch. “But I didn’t.”

Silence stretches again, but this time it feels different. Not tense or empty. It feels like the start of something else. Something I’m not sure I’m ready for, but maybe ready enough to stop pushing away.

I drag in a shaky breath and finally glance at him. He’s watching me, but not with pity. Not even with worry. Just with that quiet, steady kind of care that makes it really fucking hard to pretend I don’t need it.

And maybe I don’t say thank you. Maybe I don’t say anything at all. But I don’t ask him to leave again either.

And that’s something.