She choked out a laugh. “This is just the eye right?”
He nodded. “So what do you want to do tonight?” he asked with a rueful smile.
“This.” She laughed, repeating what he’d said earlier.
He laughed out loud. Tornado sirens started screaming in the air. “Better late than never,” he said. “I mean, watch out—there could be a tornado coming.”
She laughed again but scooched over further toward the wall, under the shelving. “There’s room for you.”
“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure my very big, very hard, very handsome body might make the screws holding this thing down pop out.”
“You’re not that big, hard, or handsome,” she replied with a grin but grabbed his hand tighter.
The wind kicked up again. He moved closer so they were lying facing one another, as they had been that very morning. “Yes I am.”
“Yes, you are,” she agreed, her gaze fixed firmly on his. This time as the wind raged, he could only feel warmth inside. She didn’t take her eyes off him. Not even when the ceiling eventually peeled back. She just pulled the hand that was clenched around hers to her mouth and kissed it. Right then, she became everything.
Right then, he knew he was in love.
She rested his hand against her mouth as the contents of the shelves toppled onto the floor around them. Thankfully just more napkins, packages of paper plates, plastic utensils, and things that made them jump as they fell instead of hurting them.
The wind finally died down. And carefully, he helped her slide out. She wrapped her arms around him and just hugged him. He hugged her right back in relief.
After a few seconds, he pulled away. He checked their surroundings. Where the ceiling had been, clear blue sky was now. He helped her up.
“Have you ever seen Twister?” she asked, looking around them.
“I have a vague memory of that movie,” he replied. “Enough to remember that we’ve lived through it.”
“We should check to see that it’s safe to leave before we barge out,” she said, trying to look out of the door without actually opening it.
He tentatively pushed the door open and looked up through the crack, but there was nothing but blue sky above them out there, too. He went to open the door farther, but it was obstructed. He managed to force it open enough for Avery to get out under his arms.
As she ducked under his first arm, she stopped and kissed him quickly on his lips. “Thank you for staying with me,” she said and slipped under his other arm out into the debris.
He managed to get out behind her as another wall of boxes slammed the door shut again. “What? You think I would have left you?”
She took in the absolute annihilation of the store. No doors, no windows, no shelves, and a mass of debris from other places in town lay where they’d blown when the wind faded. Half the roof had gone, too. He was slightly embarrassed that his first thought was that he wasn’t going to get paid for the day.
Suddenly, out of the dead quiet came voices in the distance calling for Avery. She fought her way through the mess on the floor of the store to the front. “I’m all right,” she called, getting tangled in some netting that had covered the ceiling of the main sales floor.
Lucas made his way over to her and tried to stomp down the netting enough that she could extract her feet.
Coach and Colin came running toward the store and came to a halt when they saw them. Coach stood, hands on hips, and head tilted back, trying to catch his breath. Colin did the same, but he recovered faster. “Shit, Avery. You scared the crap out of us.”
“I’m so sorry you were scared while I was trapped as a tornado destroyed the building I was in! What’s the matter with you?” she nearly screamed back, obviously releasing a little tension.
Colin laughed.
“You all right, son?” Coach asked Lucas, looking behind him into what was left of the store.
“Yessir. We stayed in the stockroom,” he said.
“Where’s Benny, Avery? Where’s Mr. Hardy?” Coach made as if he was going to wade into the store.
“He went home about ten minutes before it hit. Wait, where else did it hit? Is everyone else okay?” Lucas asked, walking to the middle of the road and trying to see where the tornado had struck and the path it took.
Police cars sounded in the distance. “I don’t know how far it went when it passed you,” Coach said. “Colin and I were heading for lunch when we heard the tornado warning siren.”
“It was already right on top of us when the siren started. Luckily there was no one else in the store.”
“Oh my God,” Avery said in a horrified voice, looking at the space where the counter used to be.
Lucas turned around, worried by the tone in her voice.
“My planner. It’s completely gone.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
“It’s probably in the next county already,” Lucas said with a smile.
Coach gave him a look that he didn’t understand and went to Avery’s side. Lucas suddenly felt out of place, like he was the only one not understanding what was going on. Even Colin looked worried.
“What? What is it?” he asked.
Coach ignored him, his focus on Avery. “It’ll be all right. It doesn’t mean anything. We can just get you another one.” He put his arm around his daughter and led her away.
“Avery.” Lucas tried to get her attention.
She glanced up briefly, but her eyes slid away again almost immediately. He didn’t recognize the look on her face.
Lucas watched them walk away, not really understanding what had just happened. She acted like someone had died, not like she’d just lost her school planner.
And then there was just him and Colin standing in front of what used to be Hardy’s.
Colin leveled him with an assessing look. “I think we have some talking to do, right?”
Lucas really didn’t want to talk to him, but he wasn’t going to lie about Avery. He was in way too deep. “Yeah, I guess we do.”
He looked at Colin dead in the eye. “I am dating your sister. I really like her, and I’m not going to stop seeing her, even if you get me benched. I’m sorry, I’m just not.”
Colin nodded. “That’s all fine and everything, but you don’t know her. You don’t know what she needs.”
“What does she need?” He pulled Colin back from the front of Hardy’s as the police came to check everyone was okay and no one needed the hospital. “No wait, don’t tell me. I’ll ask her. I’m not ruining this by getting secondhand information from you, of all people.” He wondered if he’d gone too far.
“What do you mean ‘me of all people?’” he said.
“You can’t even see what’s in front of your face. You know that Lexi likes you, right?”
Colin’s eyes dropped to the floor. “It’s complicated.”
“It’s always complicated, dude. Everything is always complicated.” Because there was nothing more complicated than wanting to be with a girl when your very existence could bring the whole team down. He needed some time to figure shit out. Preferably before that evening.
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that you don’t fuck with Avery. I told you to keep clear, but you didn’t listen. But if you piss her off or even make her cry, I’m coming for you. If you move too fast, I’m coming for you. And I’m serious. I’d beat the shit out of you if we didn’t need you on the team right now. Avery needs time and space and an understanding that she’s been through the worst year of her life. Hell, we all have.”
Lucas took a step back. “I know. Avery told me about it. I’m sorry about your mom. I really am.”
Colin stared at him and then opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something. Then he closed it and looked away.
“No, man. What were you about to say?” Lucas asked.
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Colin looked back at him for a second. “Okay. Look—you blew off her planner like it was a joke. Last year, her planner was what kept her getting up in the morning. It’s what got her to school, got her through her homework, got her to work. Dad says it’s what keeps her going forward and not dwelling on the past. The fact that she’s lost her planner, I don’t know, man. It’s like her future has disappeared for her—you know?”
Lucas was silent. Sure, he knew she ran her life by her planner, but he didn’t realize it was a tangible part of her recovery. He wanted to shout at Colin for not putting her calendar online if it was that important, but he guessed it wasn’t his place. “I didn’t know,” he said simply.
“There’s a lot you don’t know. So…I don’t know. Take it slow, I guess,” Colin said awkwardly.
“Sure, man. I’m sorry.” He didn’t know what else to say.
By then, the whole street was flooded with people trying to help gather things that had been blown around. Firemen were steering people away from collapsing buildings.
The whole place looked like his brain. Devastation, too many people, things falling apart…
And he had no idea how to fix it.
…
Once Avery had eaten, and her father was convinced that she’d stopped shaking, she retreated to her room. She pulled up the local news on her PC and watched the coverage of the tornado. Not one weather service had predicted it or warned against it until it was overhead at Hardy’s. It seemed to have tracked from the clinic, through the intersection, over Hardy’s and the empty storefront next door, and back into the neighborhood behind the parking lot she used every day. Thank God her dad had given her a ride. Otherwise the Toyota would have been wrecked, too.
As she watched the images of the carnage the tornado had left in its path across the town, she couldn’t believe she and Lucas had gotten out of there in one piece. Instinctively, she reached for her planner for comfort but remembered again that it was gone. She tried to remember what she had planned for Sunday, but her gaze rested on the footage loop of the tornado that was on the news site. She couldn’t remember anything that she was supposed to do next week, either.
And then she had a different thought. Oh God. What if someone finds it? That would be so much worse than losing it, if she were being honest. She’d written out a few of her mental pro and con lists, including one about kissing Lucas and the one about killing Billy Seymore.
She couldn’t think about that now. She needed to get a new one. Today. It would take the whole rest of the weekend to transcribe her life back into a new planner, and that was only if she got started right away.
Her phone vibrated on the desk. She grabbed it. Lucas.
- Are you OK?
- Barely.
She put a laughing emoji next to it and then deleted it to put the crying emoji, then she deleted the whole thing.
- Yup. You?
- Never so glad to take a shower. I had dust inside my pants.
She snorted and then for the first time looked in the mirror. Argh. She couldn’t believe her dad hadn’t told her that she looked like she’d been rolling around in her backyard.
Wow, she needed a shower, too. But Lexi was on her way, and she didn’t want her dad to send her away. So she elected to wait until Lexi was actually there before jumping in. Lexi never had any trouble sitting on the toilet lid chatting while Avery was in the shower.
- Can I see you tonight still?
- Honestly, I think my dad might freak out if I’m out of his sight right now.
There was a long pause.
- Later then?
What did he mean? Later in the weekend or later in the week? As much as she wanted to see him, she felt unfocussed and, as Lexi would say, discombobbed. She needed to concentrate on at least re-planning her week so that she felt settled. And normal again. She was untethered without it. And really, really tired.
- Sure.
…
Lucas tried not to think about anything. Every time his mind flickered to sleeping beside Avery in her bed the night before, he redirected it to how scared he’d been during the tornado. But Avery had handled it like a champ, so he was going to, too. He was bummed that he wasn’t going to see her that night, but he understood.
When he got out, he put a Star Trek movie in the DVD player, just to stop himself thinking about Avery. Except, even as the original Captain Kirk bravely sacrificed himself to save his ship, he was still thinking about her. While he watched, he worked on Avery’s gift. He was going to give it to her next week, when it was ready.
Maybe his whole fight with himself over whether or not to play football on this team, whether to try for a local community college, or whether just to get a job somewhere…maybe his whole dilemma led him here, to Avery. He’d never felt this way about a girl before. Like he wanted to absorb her through his skin and just keep her there with him. Except that sounded really creepy, even in his own head.
He just wanted the opportunity to come clean to her. She was so good and generous and kind. He was sure there’d be a right time to tell her, where she’d forgive him for lying to her. Maybe.
If he thought he’d been conflicted when he arrived in Hillside, it was nothing to how he felt now that he had friends here. In one sense, it was so much better, but in every other way, his subterfuge was so very much worse.
The only person keeping him relatively sane was Avery. When he was with her, kissing her, he couldn’t think of anything else. Her existence blocked anything bad from touching him.
By the time Captain Kirk, Jr. had met Spock from the future, he was jonesing to see Avery again. He couldn’t wait for another undetermined “later.” He’d been stupid for not making it more specific. But he wanted to see her, like, now.
And he knew exactly what to take with him. He just needed to make a little detour to the store at the other end of his neighborhood.
He left the store with a plastic bag and started slow jogging toward her house. As he ran down his street again, his neighbor got off his porch for the first time since Lucas had moved there and high-fived him. “Good game,” he said. “Might make playoffs this year, huh?”
“Hope so,” Lucas said, a little bemused. He smiled as he walked back down the street. A few other people, just hanging out in the street or working on their cars, stuck their hands up to high-five him.
Adrenaline shot through him, and the familiar high of being celebrated flooded back. It was like he was at his old school. As he cut across the road to turn left, the guy in the undercover police car stuck his hand out of the window and also high-fived him.
He laughed out loud. Euphoria spiked through him. This was the feeling his soul had been craving.
As he left his neighborhood, the streets emptied. The wealthier citizens of Hillside were long inside their homes.
When he reached her house, he picked up, like, ten stones, chosen for their size—not so small they wouldn’t make a sound, not so big they’d break a window. But he was so excited to see her that he just threw the whole handful at her window. Talk about blowing his wad.
And then his heart stood still as she came to the window. “What the hell?” she said in her adorably annoyed voice.
“It’s me!”
“As opposed to the Easter bunny? You’re the only person who throws stones at my window!” she hissed back.
He didn’t care; he felt like he could fly. “Can I come in?”
“Sure, let me—”
“No need,” he said, taking a running jump, using a raised flowerbed wall as a springboard. He caught a downward drainpipe and pulled himself up using only his arms.
“You’ll kill your—” she started to say. But before she finished, he was at her window. She was so close, he could have kissed her. But for a second, his own life preservation came first. “I have amazing muscle co
ntrol, I know, but if you don’t stand back and let me in, I’m just going to fall into your father’s flowerbeds.”
“Oh my God,” she said, leaping backward.
With no footrest, he used the last of his arm strength to heft himself into her window and collapse on the floor, panting.
She stood next to him for a moment, just watching him catch his breath.
He held out his hand. “I may need mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.”
She grinned and took his hand, but instead of allowing him to pull her down beside him, she sat astride him, which frankly did nothing for his ability to breathe but did bad things for the distribution of blood around his body.
“I thought I said I’d see you tomorrow?” she said, arching her eyebrows disapprovingly.
“Later. You said later. This is later. Besides, I couldn’t wait to see you,” he replied, raising his hands to touch her but keeping them in the air because he was suddenly unsure of where to touch her, when all he wanted to do was touch her all freaking over.
“Are you trying to levitate me?” she asked, looking at his floating hands.
“I don’t need to levitate you,” he said, dropping his hands on his stomach. “You’re already an angel.”
“Don’t make me barf. That’s…” She hesitated, looking to the side as if trying to recall something. “Yes, that’s the worst line anyone has ever used on me.”
“I brought you something,” he said, nodding to the bag around his wrist.
She squinted at it and worked it off his hand. Inside the bag was a heavily discounted journal.
“It’s not an actual planner,” he explained. “It’s just a placeholder, so you can…” His gaze caught on the rows of folders, notebooks, and planners that lined her wall. “Oh. I guess you’re already prepared to make a new planner.”
She leaned down and kissed him. “I love it. It’s so thoughtful. I’m going to use it tomorrow to brain dump everything I can remember from my planner. I love it,” she repeated.
The Love Playbook Page 19