Page 32 of Always a Roommate
I’d expected her to say something much more comforting to Tanner, but she seemed to be on a mission. I followed her back out into the store where wind and rain blew through the racks of clothing, the souvenirs.
Shot glasses proclaiming Gulf City to be the best beach town shattered as they hit the tile floor. Key chains clanged together before their hooks were ripped from the wall.
And Rae didn’t stop. She marched to the back of the store near the open window, walking over broken glass without a second thought.
“We have to get this window closed,” she yelled, her hair breaking free of its tie and whipping around her face.
“How do you expect to do that without plywood?”
She lifted up a wooden sign that looked like it was made of driftwood. There was a whole rack of them that Tanner sold to tourists. The first one read “This way to the beach.”
She grabbed a second that said “Life’s a beach.” And then, she ran for the door.
“You can’t go out there.” But my words were swallowed by the wind.
The moment she opened the door, it slammed inward, and she had to jump out of the way before running out into the deluge.
I went after her. I had to. I wasn’t sure what for. To help? To drag her back? Out of some kind of morbid curiosity? Who was this girl I’d known my whole life who’d run out into a hurricane?
Outside, the sky had turned to an angry red, and I’d never seen the waves so rough or the tide so high. It reached almost all the way to the Hut.
To my surprise, when I got to the window, Tanner was on the other side, handing more wood out. Someone found his courage. Good.
“Are you going to help me, Shane?” Rae struggled to hold the first sign against the window.
I jumped in, lending my strength as she nailed it to the outside of the Hut before moving on to the next one.
The rain crashing into me felt like it sliced through my skin, shredding me to bits.
I looked sideways just in time to see a giant palm leaf and a coconut racing for us. Without thinking, I grabbed Rae by the shoulders and hauled her away from the side of the building. We landed on the sand and water rushed up around us, trying to draw us with it. The sand underneath us disappeared as we scrambled to our feet.
We pushed against the wind to reach the Hut again. The chairs Rae and Tanner had tied up strained and rattled against their fraying straps, and I knew it was only a matter of time before they broke free and became projectiles aiming right for us.
We had to get back inside before that happened.
“One more,” Rae yelled.
I kept my eyes open despite the blinding rain hitting them with ferocity. The moment the last nail was in, I took Rae’s hand and yanked her toward the door. One of the straps around the furniture broke, and a chair went sailing down the waterlogged beach.
Rae was still watching it when I pushed her through the door. It took both of us and all our strength to close it against the wind.
She collapsed against it, her chest heaving.
I couldn’t move. Exhaustion weighed on me as I leaned against the door at her side and looked down at her. How was it that, not long ago, we’d spent our time avoiding each other, and now, all I could do was focus on the water dripping from her lips, the way her eyes darted around the wrecked interior of the Hut wildly?
Her hair was a mess, sticking to her cheeks in limp strands. Her cheeks were flush with our near-death experience. And her lips… they curved up? The woman was smiling.
After all that, she was smiling. And I wanted nothing more than to kiss the smile from her lips, to make sure she knew how serious that just was.
The urge surprised me, made me pull back. I’d known Rae since she was a kid, ingratiating herself with my family. I wasn’t sure when exactly it was that she became this… woman, this infuriating woman, but maybe that was why I’d hated her ignoring me so much.
She looked up at me, blinking raindrops from her lashes. Her lips parted, and she looked like she needed to say something, but she didn’t get it out before Tanner appeared.
“I imagine you two need another set of dry clothes… for free.” He crossed his arms.
Rae pushed away from the door and patted Tanner’s shoulder. “A thank you would suffice.”
He whirled on his heel to follow her across the sodden floor. “I was getting to that.”
