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“So, it seems like you could use help. I guess the boxes need to go inside the house?”
“Yeah, that’s the general idea.”
I feel defeated. My life’s drowning on my parents’ lawn. Game over. Pathetic. It’s the perfect moment to have a dramatic episode. O jogs to one of the nearest boxes and lifts it off the ground. The muscles in his arms are straining. They’re impressive muscles. And these impressive muscles are having a hard time lifting my heavy stuff. Somehow it justifies my struggles and calms me down.
“Jesus, what’s in here? Your work-out equipment?”
I give him my best scowl. Ha-ha, funny. If I’d had work-out equipment I could’ve lifted the damn things myself.
“No, they're my books.”
He looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
“All of the boxes are books?”
“Mostly,” I say as I’m a tad self-conscious. I try to give him my best smile. “I like big books and I cannot lie?”
He laughs out loud. It is a pretty, pretty sound and I’ve missed it. I didn’t know I was missing it, but hearing it makes me realise I did all the same. In that moment I decide I’m definitely going to write about it in one of my books.
“Let’s get these boxes inside as quickly as possible. I don’t think books are waterproof.”
All I can do is nod. O drops one of the boxes on the porch and that would have to suffice for now. They are out of the rain on the porch and that’s all that matters at the moment. O jogs over to the side of the house and leans over the fence. “Guys! Get out, come help!” he yells to some guys I can’t see, but apparently are there somewhere.
I find a box that isn’t that heavy and start lifting it to the porch. When I turn around after putting it down, I bump into something big, and warm, and sturdy. So sturdy it hurts a little when I touch into it. Into him, it turns out. Top-knot is standing on my porch with a box in his hands and I try not to stare at him as he puts it down, but fail miserably. He looks at me with playful blue eyes.
“Thanks,” is all I say as he leaves me standing there, looking like some kind of fool. He grins and walks back to get another box, so there’s that.
Another guy drops a box down on my porch. I don’t know where these heroes are coming from, but I’m not complaining. His brown hair’s a little on the longer side and already dripping wet. It’s stuck to his forehead in little strands, and it looks so sexy it makes me want to climb him like Allie does with Noah in The Notebook.
“Hey Mor,” he says with a certain familiarity. It takes a while for it to click that I do know this hero that has come to save my books. Jonah has been O’s best friend since the dawn of time and lived with O since he was twelve. There are no naked butt pictures of us together, but I still considered him one of my best friends at one point in time.
“You’re my hero Jonah!” I answer and I get rewarded with a chuckle as he goes back to work.
O is the next one to drop off a box on the porch that starts to look like an actual war zone.
“Did you live in a library before moving back home?”
I chuckle. “Looks like it.”
“Do they know you took all these books? Is there an empty library in California now? You do know you only get to check out ten books at a time, right?”
I punch his arm while still laughing. “Just get my babies to safety.”
He mock salutes me and runs back into the rain to get another one of my boxes. I kind of give up in that moment on trying to help them. They work like a well-oiled machine and lift the boxes like it is nothing and they don’t weigh a ton. Top-knot is wearing a white t-shirt that’s now soaked through and I catch myself staring. I realise it’s rude to stare at a stranger who is working his butt off to save my books, but then again, not staring would be equally rude. So I just go along with it, and I stare some more at the hard-working butt as well, just for good measurement.
O walks over and drops the last box on the porch. He sits down on one of the three steps that leads to the porch, and combs a hand through his wet hair while he lays his hazel eyes on me.
“So, welcome home I guess?”
Before I can answer him, I see raindrops are no longer falling out of the sky. I hang over the porch and look up, seeing the clouds break open.
“Really?” I yell. “It only rains while my boxes are splattered all over the lawn? Now that they’re safe, you just stop raining? Fuck you, sky! Sadistic bastard!”
I raise my fist to the sky. I’m pretty sure it’s something I had seen old Austin do a time or two when kids were harassing the old man. Like you saw the guys in the movies do, cussing out those darn kids. It doesn't matter that I’ve lived in a big city for the last eight years; you can’t take small town mannerism out of a girl. Not even back a day, and I’m already acting like an old fart in a tiny town. A blush rushes to my cheeks when I turn to the three men that have just helped me and are now seeing me yell at the sky. Yeah, I’m absolutely winning this day.
“Yes, well, thank you. I couldn’t have done it without you.” I choose to ignore talking about the crazy behaviour I’ve just been showing, hoping that not talking about it’ll make them forget how I just acted.
“We didn’t do it for you,” Top-knot says with a wide grin and a twinkle in his blue eyes. “We couldn’t let the books drown, now could we? It’s like we’re good Samaritans and shit.”
