“Take care, Melody.” Shane storms past us, bumping shoulders with Parker, and stalks through the living room to the front door, slamming it shut.
I brave a peek up at Parker, trying to read him, trying to make sense of what that was, but he just lets out a sigh, his eyes closed, then traipses back into the kitchen.
Giving chase, I call out, “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You know exactly what I’m talking about,” I reply to his flexing shoulder blades, molded into his wet shirt. “Why were you just standing there smoldering?”
Parker finally pauses his escape attempt and turns toward me, the power drill tapping against his thigh. His eyebrows arch with bemusement. “I don’t smolder.”
“You absolutely smolder.”
I swear his cheeks twitch with the hint of a smile. “I was telling your douche-canoe of a friend to back the fuck down,” Parker replies. He presses the finger-trigger on the drill, and it buzzes to life. “Points for subtlety?”
My mouth goes dry, like I swallowed sand, but I try to downplay the dust storm funneling inside of me. “That wasn’t subtle, Parker. Zero points… actually, negative points.”
“Then why did you ask me if you already knew?”
“I…” Shock, disbelief, denial. Swallowing down more grit, I reply in a whispered breath, “I thought you hated me.”
Parker frowns slightly, glancing away before meeting my confused stare. “Who says I hate you?”
“I got the impression you hated everyone.”
His eyes flick over me like jade flames, drinking me in from toes to top as his jaw clenches, the tendons in his neck straining when he makes his way back up to my face. “Not you.”
And then he spins back around and trudges toward the ladder, leaving me dazed and dumbstruck as I watch him retreat.
“I’m pretty sure a cow just flew past my window.”
There’s a resounding chill dwelling inside my bones as I watch the storm die out through the pane of glass, replaced by an eerie sky, painted dark and green. Only the howl of the wind can be heard while everything else seems to go still. A shiver sweeps through me.
The calm before the storm.
Parker plods back down the ladder, the soles of his feet against the metal rungs causing me to blink myself back to reality. I glance at him over my shoulder, his hair dusted with specks of white drywall.
“If you need to get home, you should probably leave now,” I encourage him, hugging myself to repel the chill. “It looks like Judgment Day out there.”
“And leave you here alone to be all scared and shit?” He musses his hair, the sheetrock scattering. “Kind of a dick move.”
Nibbling my lip, I look back out the window. “I’ve been through worse.” When I feel him approaching me, I twist in place, facing him, noting the way he fidgets with the bandage on his index finger. “How’s your finger?”
“Still attached.”
“You should change the dressing,” I tell him, pacing forward. I reach for his hand, not asking for permission, but he dodges me. “Let me see.”
“It’s fine, Melody.”
The sound of my name on his tongue sends a blast of heat through me, settling deep. I’ve only heard him say my name twice, which makes it feel so… intimate. “Can I see?” My request is gentle, laced with sweetness and delicacy, as I slowly extend my arm towards him and brush my fingertips against his hand.
But the moment I make contact, the sirens go off.
Loud, shrieking tornado sirens.
Oh, no.
We glance at each other as my heart picks up speed, and I lower my arm, spinning back around and rushing to the window.
“Jesus, you’re not supposed to stand in front of a window,” Parker scolds me, and before I know it, he’s taking me by the wrist and dragging me away. “Basement?”
Sirens, wind, black skies, and him.
I’m incapacitated by equal parts terror and thrill.
“Y-Yes… that’s the door,” I point, my finger trembling. “Hold on, let me grab my phone from the kitchen.”
I pull free from his grip and race to the kitchen island, quickly pulling up my Hangouts app.
Me: The tornado sirens are going off. Are you safe?
He answers right away, and I let out a relieved breath.
Zephyr: I’m safe. Are you?
Me: Yes.
Zephyr: Are you alone?
Me: No… I’m not alone.
Zephyr: Good. Check back in soon.
As I shoot off a group text to my parents, West, and Leah, letting them know I’m taking cover, I join Parker by the basement door just as he’s slipping his phone into his back pocket. When our eyes clinch, something passes between us, something akin to allegiance—like we’re heading into war together, not knowing if we’ll make it out alive.
Which is silly, honestly. We’ve had tornado scares before… it’s the Midwest. It will probably pass over us, and everything will be fine.
But maybe it’s not about if we’ll make it out, but about how we’ll make it out.
Somehow, I feel like everything is about to change.
Taking the lead, I pull open the door to the finished basement and head down the stairsteps with Parker on my heels. While the primary space has narrow windows along the far wall, there’s a little, windowless den we can hole up in until the threat passes. “Follow me,” I say over my shoulder. “We can hang out in here.”
Whistles and howls sound on the other side of the basement wall, making me tremble, and just as we reach the old wooden door to the den, the lights flicker out.
Shit.
Out of instinct, I reach for Parker, pulling him into the now pitch-black room and latching the door behind me. When I turn around, he’s right there—flush against me, my nose grazing the front of his chest, inhaling his earthy scent. I swear I feel him shudder as I let out an unsteady breath, clenching my fingers into fists at my sides in an attempt to keep them from reaching for him. From holding onto him for dear life. “We lost power. That can’t be good,” I state the obvious, murmuring against his t-shirt, all breathy and weak.
I hear him swallow as he stands there motionless, and the only soundtrack to our heavy breathing and rapidly beating hearts is the sirens sounding in the distance, mingling with the angry wind. Parker hesitates before he grits out, “You all right?”
God, his question does something to me. There’s a cyclone headed our way, but it’s my insides that are all twisted up and pinwheeling.
Feeling nearly dizzy from his proximity, I lean in closer, just an inch, until my forehead presses against the hard planes of his chest and my hands lift on their own accord, despite my resistance, despite my fear. They raise up and rest along his hips, dipping just beneath the hem of his t-shirt and grazing the leather belt that encircles his waist. One of my fingers slides through the beltloop as I let out another drawn-out breath and hold him to me. “I’m okay. Are you?”
Parker remains rigid, but I feel his breathing quicken. I hear his heartbeat pulsing in my ears, louder than the warning sirens.