“Spencer?”
“Yeah?”
“Don’t, uh, peek out of the blankets for a sec, will you? I’ve got to use the facilities and, well….”
Spencer found himself tickled beyond measure. “You have to piss off the porch into a flood?”
“Yeah,” Theo said, laughing too. “And I don’t want you to watch.”
Spencer chuckled some more. “No worries about that, Woodchuck. Your virtue is safe with me.”
There was a pause, and then Theo said, “I hope not. I was really just hoping to keep my dignity.”
Spencer thought about all the couples he knew, about the way Glen Echo and Cash Harper looked at each other with unashamed hearts in their eyes. About the way shy banker Mallory Armstrong regarded unapologetic extrovert Tevyn Moore from under his eyelashes. About how Josh made sure Elsie had flowers waiting on the table anytime she was gone for more than three days, and Damien and Preston—who didn’t do a lot of public affection—would simply hug, long and hard, when one of them had worried the other.
“I’ve got bad news for you, Woodchuck,” he said, his voice sinking as Theo slipped back under the overhanging foil wrapper. “I think once you care about someone, your dignity is a thing of the past.”
“Mm,” Theo said, snuggling in next to him. “I suspect you’re right about that. You need to make plans to say goodbye to yours now. Just saying.”
“If you’re lucky, I’ll die first, and you can hang on to yours,” Spencer warned him, tongue firmly planted in his cheek. He was not prepared for Theo to smack his arm. “Hey!”
“Don’t be an asshole,” Theo snapped. “I’m cold and I’m wet and I’m scared, and you’ve got a fever like the surface of the sun. This is no time to even joke about that.”
“Woodchuck, this here is the only time to joke,” Spencer mumbled. He was suddenly exhausted. It took the last of his strength to stretch out his arm and tuck Theo back in against his shoulder. “When shit’s dire, you joke about it so you know shit could always be worse.”
“I don’t see how shit could be—”
“Don’t say it!” Oh Lord, of all the dumbass rookie moves.
“Superstitious much?” Theo prodded.
Spencer shook his head, eyes closed. “Theo, please believe me. When you are taking a miracle of steel a thousand feet into the air on faith, superstition does not even cover it. Don’t tempt fate. It’s a real fucking thing.”
“All right,” Theo said, and his pat on Spencer’s chest, far above the wound in his side, gave Spencer some hope. “Okay. You’re right. I shouldn’t mess with fate. I’ve tied a couple of the foil blankets to the rails that look out from under the trees. They’re flapping in the wind, so hopefully that makes us easier to spot.”
“Good thinking,” Spencer murmured. “How many of those things did you bring?”
Theo let out a strangled laugh. “Enough to keep a soccer team from freezing to death in case our bus broke down. My father was a former Marine, and he taught me not to mess around when it came to being prepared.”
And for some reason this tickled Spencer too, but he was too tired to do more than smile as his eyes closed and he nodded gently off.
Stupid
THEO couldn’t believe he nodded off. But then it really had been something of a day.
Warm—or as warm as he could get under the blankets—and tucked against Spencer’s chest, soothed by the patter of the rain on the foil blankets, he rested his head on Spencer’s shoulder and felt as safe as he’d ever felt in his life.
He woke up to the dark and the sound of a vicious animal promising death and mayhem.
He struggled to sit up and get his bearings. The raft strained against the garden hose and bumped against the trees, and water still rushed underneath the slats. He and Spencer Helmsley were still on a tiny ex-porch in the middle of a big flood; that hadn’t changed.
“How you doing, Spence?” he asked softly.
Spencer’s breathing was getting a little ragged—fast and hard—and Theo could hear congestion in his lungs already. God. Spencer seemed to have all the faith in the world in his friends. Theo really hoped they would come through!
“Spencer?” Theo prodded again, and Spencer took another rough breath and swallowed painfully. “Here, do you need some Gatorade?”
“Yeah,” Spencer rasped. “I mean, it sounds like dog poo, but it’ll probably be good for me.”
“Wow, that’s almost emotionally mature,” Theo chided, hoping Spencer would give some back.
“Don’t count on it,” Spencer said weakly. “Too much bone-deep stupid here for that.”
Theo suddenly shoved up, barely remembering to keep Spencer covered. Night had fallen since he’d sat down, and he wagered if he checked his phone, he’d find it was after six o’clock. He hadn’t had any bars at Thelma’s—he never did, unless he was close to town. The cell tower was next to the community center, and if Imelda had been clearing out when she’d called Theo, he imagined he still wouldn’t have coverage.
But that’s not why he was scrabbling for his phone now. Through the plastic bag he pushed the emergency flashlight button and leaned against the railing, shining the light in the direction of the cluster of trees they were anchored to.
“C’mon, Stupid,” he muttered. “I know you’re out there.”
“I’m right here,” Spencer muttered from the little fort next to him.
“You’re not who I’m talking to!” Theo said excitedly. The water under his flashlight looked mysterious, like mist, constantly moving, never solid, but Theo knew better. “Here kitty, kitty,” he called in his best cat voice. “C’mon, you stupid sonuvaduckmuffin, come to Daddy.”
“Who in the fuck are you talking to?” Spencer said very clearly from under the blankets.
“Oh!” Theo could see him now, in… a bucket? Had that cat been floating all day in a bucket? No—that wasn’t a bucket—that was… “Oh Jesus, is that Thelma’s plastic wheelbarrow?”
“They make those things out of plastic?” Spencer asked, puzzled. The blankets started to move and Theo thumped the top of them.
“Stay still,” he said. “I got this. And they do make plastic wheelbarrows, with big plastic wheels, for little old people who don’t need to be hauling the steel ones around. And apparently they’ve got just enough drag on the bottom to keep her twenty-pound cat safe for this entire gawdawful miserable pusbucket of a day.”
“Wait a minute,” Spencer warned before breaking into a wet, painful cough that sounded like it was ripping up his entire body. Great. And like that, infection had set in. Theo could say it. Fuck. Fuck this storm, this flood that had taken his home, this weird chaotic day, and fuck that the guy who’d fallen out of a helicopter to rescue him was getting sicker by the minute and there wasn’t a thing Theo could do to help him. Fuck this shit.
Theo was helpless. As helpless as he’d ever been in his life, and he’d been there for Big John’s heart attack and for Kimberly’s quiet passing with Annie on her chest. Those deaths he’d felt were in the order of things—there’d been warning. His parents had made the most of their time. But this, floating down the damned valley on Thelma Andreas’s porch with a guy who made his heart ache was all kinds of chaos and all kinds of wrong, and right now, as dark set in, the one thing Theo felt like he could do, the one thing Theo felt like he could control, was rescuing poor Stupid from a cold and lonely death in a plastic wheelbarrow.