Page 70 of Even If the Sky is Falling
Whoorl whoorl whoorl.
As the alarm continued to blare, their phones signaled an emergency notification.This is an official announcement—aerial debris detected. This is not a drill. Please find immediate shelter in an underground bunker or interior parts of a building away from windows. Remain sheltered and wait for an all-clear.
Whoorl whoorl whoorl.
Our eyes met, even while our bodies were frozen in place—him leaning against the wall, cocky, and me standing every inch of my five foot eight in heels with my stunning red dress. I imagined the look on my face matched the look on his as realization took hold. The time I’d spent applying the deep red lip color and perfecting the shape of my brow didn’t mean much now that Hale Edison III was the last person on earth I was ever going to see.
2
Hale
The alarm had finally stopped, the sudden silence jarring after fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes where Piper Drake and I communicated through shouting and hand gestures and managed to take shelter in an unlocked office. We’d done that before, the shouting and gesturing, anyway, but they were never productive hand gestures. The room we’d slipped into contained mismatched furniture with spots covered in duct tape and a couch that looked like it survived several decades. I knew this office. When Piper and I were teaching assistants, we’d shared a desk in this cramped space and it looked like the furniture might not have changed since then. I watched Piper rub a palm over her chest and my medical training kicked in before my long-standing desire to rub her chest myself. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” she said, absently looking around the room, pacing between the spot on the wall where she’d been leaning and the desk nearest where I was perched. “You?”
“Other than it being the end of the world?” I shrugged and nudged a chair toward her with my foot, trying to ignore the way the curls had fallen from her swept-up hair and framed her face. Instead, I motioned around the Spartan room. “I guess I thought I’d go out in nicer surroundings.”
She looked at the chair like it might be covered in hot fudge. It certainly wasn’t clean, but none of the stains looked fresh. She’d always been like that. I’d read it as pretension early on, but I’d decided it was her being more careful than the rest of us. Knowing what I knew as an adult, about how Black women were viewed and treated in society, she probably was right to be careful. Still. It was just a chair.
“Might as well have a seat. I think we’ll be here awhile.”
“My dress will wrinkle,” she said, sliding her palms down the front of her dress again and dammit, that was distracting.
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t matter.”
I thought she’d scowl, and it looked like she was starting to, but it fell from her face and she sat delicately in the chair. “Figures I would finally break down and buy a nice piece of clothing and this happens. I saved for months to buy this and you’re the only one who will see me wear it.”
“It’s a nice dress. I can look at you a lot if you’d like.” That was a joke. I’d never not looked at Piper Drake when we were in a room together. “I could randomly applaud if that would make you feel better.”
“It would,” she said, a tiny grin turning up her lips. “It’s really what you should have been doing this entire time, anyway.”
I let my gaze trail down her body. “You never dressed like this in college.” Not that I’d minded the tank tops and tight jeans she’d worn. “I would have applauded. You look hot in the dress, Drake.”
She snort-laughed. It was at the same time completely sexless and the sexiest sound that could have come from her mouth. “Were those the romantic lines you used to win over your wife?”
“They were the romantic lines I tried before she divorced me.” It had been a few years and so it wasn’t the mention of my divorce that caught my interest, but the fact that Piper Drake knew I’d been married. “Have you been keeping tabs on me? Casual social media surveillance?”
“It’s the end of the world and you’re concerned if I’ve spent time focused ontheHale Edison III? Might be thinking a little highly of yourself.”
Her words hit me somewhere primal, maybe because she was right. It was like Piper Drake had always known where to aim the arrow for maximum damage when it came to me and she hit the bull’s-eye more often than not. When I started college, I assumed everyone knew what they were doing better than me. They knew how to dress a little better, to talk to girls a little better, to make friends a little better. I knew how to do school, to be good at science, but that was it. I knew what an Edison was supposed to do and I tried my best, but standing next to Piper again, some of that old doubt crept in. No matter how confident I felt as college went on, when I was with Piper, I always felt like she saw through me, but in a way that made me feel naked. Almost like she preferred what was under the mask.
I didn’t tell her that, though. I just shrugged and smiled. “What better time to think highly of yourself?” I pulled my phone and keys from my pocket and tossed them on the desk. The device was a glorified paperweight now with no cell or internet service once the alarms sounded. “And I did agree to think highly of you, too, at least about you and how you look in your dress. Hell, I’m a generous guy—I’ll think highly about how you look out of the dress, too, if it makes you feel better.”
Piper shot me a withering look, but her cheeks tinted darker. “How do your patients not punch you in the throat?”
“I’m in obstetrics. Some of them have tried, but they usually aim for a father if there is one in the room.” I glanced at my phone again. There were ten patients I wanted to check on, there were emails I wanted to respond to and there were research findings I wanted to peruse, but I couldn’t and it probably wouldn’t matter even if I could. I tried my best to compartmentalize and shake off the thoughts. All of that sobered my response and I stood, pacing. “I’m sorry for what I said. This is serious. I will take it seriously. Are you sure you’re okay?”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip the way she’d done all those years ago when she was thinking, moving some big piece of information through her brain that always moved just a hair faster than mine at getting to the conclusion. She raised a hand and I worried it might be shaking, but instead she pointed one manicured finger at me. “There’s a sticky note stuck to your butt.”
I swiped at my backside and my hand brushed against Piper’s as she stretched across the small space to pluck it off and hold it up for my inspection. It read,Don’t touch this, Josh. It’s mine. —Brenda.We both stared at it, the loopy blue handwriting in sharp contrast against the light yellow slip of paper.
“Well,” I finally said. “Josh is gonna be disappointed.”
“Can’t fight dibs, though.” Piper tossed the note on a nearby desk. “Your butt belongs to Brenda.”
“Here I was hoping you’d fight for me.” I flashed her what I knew was a charming grin. My ex had said it was my best and worst feature because I knew it usually went a long way in getting what I wanted. Piper didn’t take the bait, though.
She laughed. Piper laughed hard. The giggle burst from her lips and grew into a belly laugh, the sound echoing off the concrete walls. It was so unexpected to hear her laugh like that and see her beautiful and strong features split into such a joyful look.
