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Sure enough, a few of them that had already been through the milker were lying down for the evening, unfazed.
Nicole wished she could do the same. But every second they stood there, hoping that the storm would pass, the light faded more and more, and a fork of lightning cracked across the sky.
“We run on the count of three?” asked Brendan, his wonder at the storm now vanished.
Nicole sighed. “Yeah. All right. One, two, three.”
Grimacing, they ran out from the shelter of the sheds in the direction of the house. It was only a few hundred yards, straight up the dirt drive, but it felt like a marathon. Nicole was instantly soaked through, hair plastered to her face and blinking away water trying to see where she was going. Rain wasn’t supposed to hurt, but the droplets felt like being pelted with tennis balls. At least it wasn’t hail… Now,thatwould have been fun.
They made it to the porch after what felt like a decade, literally dripping, with puddles forming at their feet. Brendan shook his head like a wet dog, but it didn’t do much to help.
“Oh, my God,” Nicole groaned, pulling off her boots which somehow were also filled up with water.
“Is this normal out here?” Brendan shouted over the racket.
“Not unheard of.”
“Well. That makes things more interesting.”
They shed their outer layers at the door and hobbled inside, still dripping like they’d been sprayed down by a fire hose. Nicole tried not to look at how Brendan’s shirt stuck to him, the wet fabric clinging to every surface. She could feel her face turning red, and with all this water she was surprised there wasn’t steam coming off of her. If Brendan asked, she would just blame the color of her face on the run to the house, claim plausible deniability or something. The last thing he needed to know was that she’d been staring at his chest…
“Dibs on the shower,” she said, making a beeline for the stairs before Brendan could even reply.
“Knock yourself out,” he drawled, catching her attention just enough that she peeked over his shoulder at him. “I’ll be trying to get dry, not more wet.”
With that he twisted the hem of his shirt between his hands, wringing out water onto the already saturated floor. Wrenching her eyes away andrefusingto look at the small flash of skin that had been revealed, Nicole turned and sped up the stairs to the bathroom.
Under different circumstances she would have had a cold shower to try and shock some sense into herself, but after getting caught in all that rain, a cold shower was a surefire way to get pneumonia. Instead, Nicole was fast, blasting herself with hot water and scrubbing herself clean in record time until her skin glowed pink. Back in clean jeans and a fresh shirt, warm socks and her hair brushed back, she was in control again. At least she liked to think so… She would go downstairs, make herself some dinner, maybe even make some for Brendan, to be nice — she could benice— and pretty much keep herself occupied as much as possible so that more thoughts about wet T-shirts didn’t come sneaking into her brain unwanted.
“Oh, God,” Nicole blurted as she left her room and ran, quite literally, face-first into Brendan as he was leaving his, silent on bare feet.
“Sorry,” he laughed, taking a step back, a towel wrapped around his neck, his hair only half dry with curls sticking out in multiple directions.
“It’s okay,” Nicole said, maybe a little too brightly, a little too flustered, to come off as natural. Unfortunately, Brendan caught it as he raked his long fingers through his hair, tilting his head to look at her.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah!” she insisted, feeling more idiotic by the second. “Fine. It’s just been—”
There was a rumble of thunder so loud that the house itself shook, and a split second after came a flash of lightning that turned the windows white with the brightness of it. With that, and a mildly concerning sizzling sound, all the power shut off and the house went dark.
“A long day,” Nicole sighed, wanting to spin back around and crawl into bed. At least she could no longer see Brendan, even though he was standing so close to her, so maybe her face would stop burning red like some hormone-addled teenage girl. She’d been living on her own for far too long, clearly.
Brendan fumbled around in his pocket and pulled out his phone, flicking on the flashlight, which shone directly into Nicole’s eyes.
“Dude!” she said, blinking rapidly to clear the spots as he turned the light onto the floor.
“Sorry,” he said. “Sorry…”
“It’s fine. Just try not to blind me. We’ll get some candles and do this the old-fashioned way.”
Her vision was coming back, only a few little lights dancing around the edges now, as Brendan kept the phone pointed firmly at the floor.
“Is this some crazy once-a-year thing, or should I be bracing myself for more of this in the future?” Brendan asked, following her down the hall, still having to raise his voice to be heard over the rain and wind lashing at the walls and roof.
“Storms this crazy might be a bit out of the norm, but power cuts are pretty regular.”
Nicole descended the stairs, fingers barely brushing against the banister for guidance. She could walk through this whole house with her eyes closed and come out unscathed. She didn’t need a light. Brendan’s footsteps behind her, though, sounded shuffling and unsure as he followed, which flared up a spark of anger in her that quickly fizzled into sadness. She knew this house better than anyone except her brother, and having its new owner’s steps falter just felt kind of pitiful.
