Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Together.
Chapter seven
Luca
This little cottage is set in a tiny yard. It’s entirely surrounded by mature trees that were here long before someone decided to pay an outrageous price for a lot, clear some space, and build the easiest and fastest thing they could, just so they could rent it for a disgustingly obscene amount of money on some touristy website where touristy tourists have to suck it up if they want to vacation in the area.
I can’t see out the side windows because of the rain, and I haven’t moved to crowd Dulcie at the kitchen window, but the wind is probably doing a real number on those trees. I know what it looks like when it storms out here.
She spins around, wringing her hands. Fear widens her eyes, and she looks unnaturally pale. “Is now a good time to say that I really hate storms?”
“We’ll be okay. The place seems sound.”
“A tree could fall on us and crush us to death!”
“The trees might look like they’re not handling it well, but they’ll be fine. I’ve seen some bend nearly in half at my place in storms like this and—”
Crack.
Creak.
Crash!
Life has a way of proving a person wrong in the most humiliating way. Case in point, my face. But also, the apocalyptic crack, the resulting ear-splitting groan, and the horrific sound of crunching metal and busting glass.
“Fuck!” Dulcie whips open the door and flies out onto the porch.
I chase her outside, but she stops on the edge of the deck, teetering there, one hand out to catch the railing to keep herself from going over. I grab her hand. Touching her is like pressing my palm to a hot burner. It’s such a shocking sensation that, at first, my brain doesn’t even register it’s happening, but when it does, my whole body feels it.
“Oh my god. Oh my fucking god!” Dulcie yelps.
Through the blinding sheets of rain, we can both see Dulcie’s rental car. And the tree that’s lying right across the top of the caved-in roof. The tree trunk smashed and punched the thing in so hard that the top of the tree and all the branches and limbs are touching the ground on the other side.
“That’s not mine!” she squeals, pacing back and forth on the porch and doing some rapid-fire breathing that I’m afraid is going to turn into hyperventilating if she doesn’t slow down.
“You have insurance,” I point out. “You always do.”
She stops, her hand hovering near her mouth. It’s shaking. All of her is trembling, and it takes all of me not to step forward and offer her my arms as a place of shelter and comfort. Since when have I ever made anything right in her life?
“I got extra insurance. I… I just… I never thought I’d actually need it. This is insane. Infreakingsane. I thought you said the trees would be fine!” She shifts her hands to her hips and glares at me.
I toe the porch boards. At least they spent some money on composite decking here. “About that… what do I really know? About anything. I think it’s established how colossally I fucked up your father’s life and then how mine went to basic shit. I’m clearly not the all-knowing wizard of trees over here.”
She gulps air, then actually lets out the smallest giggle. Everything she does is beautiful. She said she felt too awful to go anywhere and get food. Wait, no, she said she looked too awful. But she doesn’t.
I don’t think it’s possible for Dulcie to be anything but beautiful. With her messy hair and her smudged makeup, she has a distinctly artistic aura. Some people purposely try to achieve that exact look. But on her, messy is alluring.
She’s biting her bottom lip right now and picking at a hangnail, her mind probably whirring at a thousand miles an hour, trying to figure out what her next step is. Getting one’s car demolished by a massive tree isn’t something that happens every day.
“I can make some calls,” I suggest, instinctively wanting to take care of her. “You don’t have to worry about anything.” I extend a hand. She stares at it with burning eyes, the darkness sucking me in. Something in my chest shifts, my brain goes haywire, and the universe enters a full-on cataclysm. “You should come inside. It’s cold out here. The wind… and you’re getting wet. The rain’s driving in.” It’s not, actually, but it could change in a second. “You said you haven’t eaten all day. The pizza really is good. I don’t give sixes turned into eights easily.”
Whatever it is between us is real. The longer she stares at me, the more my heart races. Sticky sweat gathers on my skin beneath this hoodie. It’s not just the sudden onslaught of humidity out here. I can’t deny the underlying electricity and tension in the air that has nothing to do with the storm. There hasn’t been any lightning.