Weak sunshine, spilling across the ceiling, making the room glow. My body, hot and sweaty under the covers, pajama top sticking to my chest, pinned under the heavy weight of —
Cole.Fuck.
Cole was twined around me like a snake, his head on my shoulder, arm draped possessively across my chest, one long leg tangled between mine. He was still fast asleep, long lashes brushing his cheek, his deep, even breathing tickling my collarbone, his hair a wild tangle around his face, so much smaller and softer than he was when he was awake. I had a mad urge to reachout, to brush my finger along his cheekbone, to tuck his hair behind his ear — but I clenched my hand into a fist, burying it beneath me to prevent myself from doing something stupid.
As I lay there, watching him sleep, I became increasingly aware of just howlittlewas separating us, of the threadbare flannel of my pajama pants, of his bare legs, clad only in a pair of shorts, of his thin shirt, riding halfway up his chest, his belly pressed into my side. He stirred in his sleep, clutching me tighter, and when he did, I became aware of something hard pressing against my hip, of my body responding, an answeringtwitchbelow my waistline, and I breathed in sharply —
“Whaaa?” Cole blinked sleepily, raising his head to look at me. Then his eyes widened, and he rolled away hastily, putting distance between us. He sat up, swinging his legs to the floor, and hunched over his lap, his arms drawn in and his back facing me. “Um,sorry. I should have warned you — I can be kind of an octopus when I sleep —”
“It’s okay.” The words squeaked out of me, high and unnatural. “Um — did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, once the wind died down — ohfuck.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “The fucking storm. We have to go down there and see what happened.”
“Should I — I mean, do you want the bathroom first?” I asked.
“Nah, you go ahead. I’m just going to sit here for a minute.”
I stood and crossed the room to my bag, making sure to keep my body angled away from Cole as I went. He rolled back down onto the mattress, burying his face in the pillows, and I thought I could hear a snort of laughter as I left the room.
What thefuck.
When we made it downstairs a few minutes later, Sharon was already in the kitchen, taking stock of the food in the pantry. Cole crossed the room immediately to give her a hug, but I hovered in the doorway.
“Where’s my dad?”
“He’s already back down at your house, dear. He wanted to check on things right away when he woke up, but we thought you boys might need the rest. Before he left, he took the plywood off this window so that we could have some light in here —”
“Oh shit, we should do the rest of those for you, Gram —” Cole cut in, but Sharon took him by the shoulders and sat him at the table.
“Eat first.” She plunked down a carton of butter pecan ice cream and handed us two spoons. “Dale already took some of our perishables down to the other house, since you two have a generator, but we weren’t able to save everything. So eat up and enjoy!”
Cole grinned at me, and we dug in. The ice cream was starting to soften, but it was still cold, and it feltright somehow, just one of many strange things in what was sure to be a strange day.
As we ate, Cole turned to Sharon. “Have you heard from Mom and Dad at all?”
“The land line isn’t working, dear,” Sharon replied. “You could try them on your phone.”
Cole pulled out his iPhone and turned it on. “No signal. I’ll have to try again later.”
After breakfast, we made quick work of uncovering the windows, and then I gathered my things to head back down to my house. I was a little surprised when Cole slipped on his jacket to walk with me.
“I mean, there’s not much else to do,” he shrugged. “Unless you’d rather —”
“No, it’s okay,” I said quickly.
We hadn’t gone very far down the road at all when we passed our first downed tree, a gnarled oak ripped clear out of the ground, burying a parked car. There were more fallen trees as we passed, along with pieces of patio furniture, sections of fencing, garbage cans and refuse strewn every which way by the strong winds. All around us, the people who had stayed to weather the storm were emerging from their homes, assessing the damage, some of them waving and calling out to us as we passed. The sun was shining, but something felt off, and as I thought about it, I realized why.
“You know, I’ve lived here my whole life, and this is the first time — there are no shore birds,” I ventured,turning to Cole. “I don’t think I’ve ever come out here without hearing at least a couple of gulls.”
“Whoa, you’re right.” Cole cocked his head, squinting up at the sky. “They must have all gone somewhere to hide.”
Thankfully, my house was still standing, and appeared to be undamaged. Dad was standing in the front yard, puzzling over a white picnic table that definitely didn’t belong to us, blown into our yard and lodged against our fence.
“Maybe if we leave it here, the people who own it will come back for it?” he called as we approached, as if we were already engaged in an intense discussion with him.
“And if not, free table?” Cole suggested, and Dad laughed. We helped him to move it away from the fence and set it upright. When we were done, he looked us both over, hands on his hips.
“There isn’t much to do here right now,” he told us. “The house seems to be fine, and I have the generator running, but I want to conserve it to power the refrigerator and charge phones and power tools. I have a few gallons of gas, but the neighbors are saying that most of the state is without power, and I think this might go on for a while. So we need to be smart and conserve while we can.”
