Chapter Twelve
Tornado Buddies
Cheyenne
Of course it would storm on the first night back in the lake house.
I know I won’t be able to fall asleep—not until the wind dies and the severe weather alert expires at two in the morning. It’s not going to be ideal, being sleep deprived on my first morning with Milo, but that’s where this is headed.
I roll over in my childhood bed for the umpteenth time. I’m ensconced in soft blue floral sheets and a downy white comforter. I squeeze my eyes closed. Lightning beyond the curtained windows illuminates my eyelids, and the howling wind lifts goosebumps on my skin.
My anxiety over severe summer storms isn’t explainable, and I don’t really know when it started. There’s a storm shelter tucked in the basement, and the city regularly tests emergency sirens. I should be able to calm my rapid pulse and slow my racing thoughts.
I can’t. I don’t know why, but I can’t. Anxiety is like an unwelcome pest on my shoulder, feeding me every worst possible scenario. What if the siren didn’t go off for a tornado? What if something happens to Milo and I can’t get to him? What if this is the end?
What if, what if, what if…
And then, as soon as the threat dissipates, the pest will become a vampire in the sunlight and vanish.
I try to think about something, anything , unrelated to the storm. Milo helping me and Indi put his clothes in Justin’s closet this afternoon. Colton, going to get a box of Sunny Glaze donuts for us to share at the kitchen table. How well Milo took it when Indi told him he was going to stay here, but that she would only be a few blocks away. Colton lingering in the doorway while Milo and I looked at the sailboat book again before bed. How the dim hall lighting softened Colton’s good night before we closed ourselves into our respective rooms.
Those thoughts, though, feel like a barricade across a road. Just beyond my grasp, just too positive to hold onto in the grip of anxiety. It’s like I can think about them long enough to know they’re there, and then they evaporate.
I roll back toward my wicker side table. Thunder cracks, and I jump, but I stick my hand out of my blanket cocoon to depress my alarm clock. I squint into the bright light and my arm drops.
12:03.
Two whole hours until the threat is gone.
Here, in the sweaty darkness, that feels like an eternity.
I don’t want to wake Colton or Milo so I can’t really get up. I’m also pretty sure Colton noticed that I came back to the house to clean yesterday. If he did wake up to me spritzing homemade lemon cleaner on the baseboards, I would never hear the end of it.
I reach over and turn on my bedside lamp. Its base is covered in seashells, a project I did with my grandmother when I was twelve, and the saggy periwinkle lamp shade has seen better days. But with a new lightbulb, it does its job.
My room is like traveling back in time to a different me. One who believed wholeheartedly in herself. The sunset canvases I painted that hang on the wall are from a confident me, and the pictures taped on the white wooden frame of my mirror spoke of much, much simpler days. Even the paint choices—hydrangea blue and baby’s breath white—feel bolder than I’d paint with now.
2.0 versions of things are supposed to be new and improved . Upgraded to the latest, greatest version of themselves. I feel like a downgrade.
Midnight slips into one. The storm continues raging outside, and even though I want to lose myself in the book of poetry from Ember’s shop, I can’t. My mind is preoccupied with noticing every last detail of the storm. Wind, beating navy blue shutters and scraping tree branches against cedar shake siding. Thunder, rumbling in an ominous sky only illuminated by bright flashes of lightning. Rain, slanting into glass panes of windows and hopefully not leaking through the spoked ship’s wheel window in the attic.
If the staircase up there didn’t creak, I’d go check.
I’ve just sat up and untangled the comforter from my bare legs when something slides under my door. I frown and cross the room, hardwood cool beneath my feet, and then I muffle a laugh when I unfold the sheet of printer paper.
Are you awake ? Colton had written in that neat but blocky handwriting of his, a little sleep mussed at the corners.
I could open the door and answer, but I don’t. I dig around in my desk drawer, shoving old receipts from Dairy Dock and a stray pad out of the way. I finally find a pen that looks usable, and I plaster the paper to the scuffed desktop.
In sparkling blue ink, I write, Can’t sleep because of the stor m , and slide it back under the door. This time, when thunder reverberates across the charged earth, I don’t even flinch.
The scratch paper comes back a moment later. No really? I thought it was because I hid all your cleaning supplies.
A gasp tumbles from my lips, not humorlessly, and I plaster the paper to the door to write, You DID NOT.
*shrugs * , he scrawls, Milo’s awake too. Is the window seat still compatible with storms and cards?
With this note comes a Go Fish card. I hear children’s laughter muffled by the sturdy oak door. We probably should put Milo back to bed, but something stops me. Maybe it’s the promised distraction from Mother Nature wreaking havoc outside, or knowing Dad never did that. No matter how tired he was, no matter what time of the night I padded into my parents’ bedroom, did he ever say no to playing cards until the storm settled.
Folding the piece of paper, I tuck it into my bedside table drawer before I twist the doorknob. Colton and Milo stand in the hallway, side by side. Colton wears gray cotton shorts with a very rumpled Keep Falls Lake Blue t-shirt, and Milo wears his shark pajamas while he holds the Go Fish box of cards close to his chest.
My heart melts—sticky, sweet ice cream dropped on hot pavement level of melting.
“He said you don’t like storms,” Milo says, his curls sleep mussed and his cheek pillow indented. “The thunder’s too loud for me ta sleep.”
“It is,” I confirm.
Colton squats next to Milo and points at my window nook. “Crawl up there and get the cards out of the box, okay? I’m gonna find some flashlights in case we need them.”
Milo hesitates only long enough to scratch his knee before he runs across my room to do what Colton asked. His tongue pokes out the corner of his mouth and he grunts lightly as he opens the card box, completely unfazed by the lighting flashing outside.
When I turn around, Colton has straightened back to his full height. I realize now that I should feel self-conscious—I’m only wearing a faded, oversized Falls Lake t-shirt with wrinkled blue and white striped pajama shorts, but I don’t.
This is Colton . My childhood best friend and my soul’s mate and my fiancé for the summer. His disheveled dark hair and crinkled lake water blue eyes are as comfortable as my tee, and the tired smile at the corners of his mouth unknots my anxiety.
“If you do find flashlights,” I say, leaning my temple against the door jamb, “I doubt the batteries will work.”
Mischief tiptoes into his expression. “Yeah, I figured. I bought new ones today—batteries, not flashlights.” He grins lazily. “Can’t go a summer without using Ole Blue, now can we?”
Ole Blue— the Mag-Lite flashlight that saw us through many, many summer storms.
“You did?” I ask.
He scoffs. “You think I went out just to get donuts when they were predicting storms tonight?”
“Colton,” I say delicately, “you will drive thirty miles out of your way for any kind of food.”
At this, his smile turns boyish. “Okay, that’s fair. But yes, I bought new batteries. Consider it Storm Preparedness 101.” He nods in Milo’s direction. “By the way, I doubt he’ll last very long. He woke up more because he misses Indi than because of the storm. I’m going to text her, and if she responds, I’ll talk to her about where to go from here. I don’t want to wake her up if I can help it. Milo was about to crawl into my bed when I remembered your anxiety surrounding storms. I give him ten minutes, tops.”
I reach for my wave necklace, but I took it off before bed. “You didn’t have to get up for me, Colton.”
“No,” he agrees, holding my gaze. “I wanted to.”
And then he takes off down the hallway in search of flashlights.
Colton was wrong.
We’re three games of Go Fish deep, and Milo isn’t any closer to falling asleep. One of my legs dangles over the edge of the cushioned window nook, Colton is twisted sideways for his tall body to fit, and Milo sits cross-legged, leaning into Colton’s broad chest. I’m on my own team, the boys are together, and there is approximately five inches of space for the fishing hole , but we’re making it work.
Milo hasn’t mentioned Indi again, but she did respond to Colton. If it comes to it, he told her he’d pick her up, so I quickly made up the guest room, just in case.
“Hmm, let me see here.” I tap my chin and squint at my cards. Partly for drama, partly because my bedside lamp barely reaches this far across the room. “Milo, do you have a…whale?”
“You asked me that last time!” he exclaims.
I frown in mock confusion. “I did?”
He dissolves into a fit of giggles. “ Yes!”
Colton leans down to whisper something in the child’s ear. I wish I could keep this moment in a bottle like Justin’s ships. I’d keep it on the shelf so I could pick it up twenty years from now, so I could remember the feel of Colton’s bare knee brushing mine and the sound of Milo’s laughter.
“He says to say—” Milo pauses for a rogue giggle “—you don’t sit by a window when it storms.”
A surprised laugh parts my own lips, but I force my smile away and lift my brows. “He did, did he?”
Milo nods vigorously. Above his head, Colton innocently bats his eyelashes.
“Well, you tell him that I’m a Midwesterner,” I say to Milo, fighting to keep an even voice. “He should be happy I’m not standing on the front porch.”
Colton rolls his eyes and mouths over your dead body, you would , but he’s entirely too serene when Milo reaches for his chin. There’s something about Milo’s small hand on Colton’s whiskered cheek while the child tugs his face down that makes me tingly. Here they sit, this tiny boy and this fully grown man, a complete contrast.
“Ah,” Colton says, nodding. “Yes, that is a very good point.” He gestures to me and clears his throat. “Proceed, Captain. Tell Annie what you told me.”
My dad’s nickname for me on Colton’s lips should send grief crashing through me. It should elicit a bone deep ache to hear it on my father’s lips again. It was Dad, after all, who put Chey enne on my birth certificate instead of Chey anne ; the reason he gave me the nickname that doesn’t truly match my name.
But it doesn’t.
“I’m s’pposed to say you delayed the game,” Milo tells me. “So now I get all of your sharks.”
My mouth falls open. “Um, you never answered me about if you had a whale.”
Milo giggles and looks at his hand. “Uh-uh. You have ta go fishing!”
Shaking my head disdainfully, I draw a card. I pretend to be grumpy when Milo asks for my sharks, and I glare when Colton tries to cheat by telling Milo to pick up a card that flipped over. Three rounds later, Milo has won the fourth game in a row, and by the time we have the cards picked up, he’s completely out.
“I don’t know how he trusts so easily,” Colton admits quietly, his gaze fastened on Milo. “He just lost his mom, his sister isn’t staying here, and he just…goes with it.”
“I guess that’s why I’ve always wanted kids.” I wrap my arms around my knees and hug them to my chest, my admission soft. “They force you to live fully in the present. They basically always choose happy.”
My gaze sweeps over Milo. Blond lashes rest on soft round cheeks, and his cupid’s bow lips are parted in sleep. Then my eyes tiptoe upward slowly. My pulse trembles when I realize Colton’s attention has shifted fully to me, and he looks at me with great intent. Like he can see the past I’m not telling him about.
“He didn’t want kids,” he says slowly. He doesn’t have to name drop for me to know who he’s asking about. “Did he?”
I look away. If I confirm his suspicions, he’ll have been right about who Stephen always was, even when I was too blind to see it. When Stephen led me to believe he wanted love and a family, only to suddenly change his mind after I’d taken his last name.
“He told me he did,” I whisper. My attention fixates on the empty white stucco vase on my desk. If there were still flowers in it, they’d be wilted, dead. It feels fitting for how I feel right now. “And I believed him.”
Naively, I’d believed every false truth that came out of Stephen’s mouth. Looking back now, it’s abundantly clear. The way he promised me everything under the sun, but never really followed through. How fluently he fit into my life after that one chance meeting at the Institute, until I no longer fit in his life. Covering his affair with Courtney by saying he had to pull late nights at the office, and then buying me already dying flowers to keep up appearances.
Gentle fingertips brush my chin, and Colton’s firm hand turns my face until I’m forced to look him in the eye.
“I’m sorry,” he murmurs. “You deserve a love that doesn’t try to change you, it accepts and glorifies everything about you. If I knew how to give that to you, Cheyenne, I’d do it in a heartbeat.”
I swallow, hindered by the lump in my throat. I want to nestle my cheek deeper into his palm, and I want to lean forward and brush my mouth over his.
I want to love him.
“I know you would,” I say, because I can’t say I know he could.
His throat works and his jaw tics under his beard. He drops his hand from my face, flexing and unflexing his fingers. He looks down at Milo, at the small drool spot on his shirt. I think he’s going to get up. The storm has quieted, and my eyes are getting heavy.
He doesn’t. He looks at me with renewed mischief.
“I have an idea,” he says, like it’s not two in the morning.
Laughing, I remind him of that fact.
Also laughing, he tells me that life is an adventure and that I should trust him.
Minutes later, we’re downstairs. He lays a sleeping Milo on the sofa, and we try desperately to stay quiet as we drag the lower-level guestroom mattress into the living room. It takes no less than ten times of silently recharging our laughter by looking at each other, muffling that same laughter by pressing our faces into the side of the mattress, and then shuffling another seven inches before we finally round the arched corner.
By the time the mattress is where the coffee table goes, Colton has settled Milo on it, and we’ve each claimed a couch, I should be laughed out. I should be so tired I fall asleep on the spot. Instead, I roll my head sideways on my pillow. Colton is looking at me.
Chin doubling unattractively, I glance down. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? Do I have something on my shirt?”
“No,” he says simply. One hand is behind his head and the other rests on his abdomen. He laughs. “I was just thinking about how I basically lost my job today.”
I bolt upright. My blanket falls around my lap, but Milo is sleeping soundly, so I whisper-yell, “ What?”
Colton shrugs noncommittally. “Trav says he’s doing damage control. When he said I’d be off the circuit for a couple months, I told him to make it three. Until the guardianship ends.”
Right.
I haven’t asked what happens with Milo after this. I don’t think I’m brave enough for the answer. It’s been less than one day, and I already feel like time is moving too fast.
I slowly lay back down and pull my slightly scratchy blanket up to my chest. “You got fired. Today.”
“Technically? No.”
“Not technically?”
“I’ve been terminated,” he says in his best Arnold Schwarzenegger voice, whisper edition.
I stare up at the ceiling, my own hands clasped on my stomach. It’s too dark to tell for sure, but I think the blue Fun Tack is still up there from when Mom let us hang homemade streamers for my thirteenth birthday.
That was the year Colton convinced my dad to let him ride for the first time.
“Indi needs to be here,” Colton says quietly. “For the summer. For Milo.”
I don’t say anything because I don’t need to. It’s a conclusion I’d come to before he mentioned it, so I only nod. Three blocks from Sam’s house is three blocks too far when it comes to the bond between Indi and Milo.
“You know, if there was a tornado, I’d for sure pick you to be my tornado buddy.”
My head lolls to the side again. Without lightning flickering anymore, I can barely make out his faint smile. “What?”
“If there was a tornado,” he repeats, matter of factly, “I’d want you to be my tornado buddy.”
“Colton, that’s not a thing.” I pause, squinting into the darkness. I’m pretty sure I can hear a mosquito buzzing somewhere in the house. “But why? If it was. A thing.”
I know his eyes are holding mine when he says, “Because you care about the people you love. And people who care about the people they love would make sure their people took shelter if there was a tornado.”
I don’t say anything in response. It’s not a compliment, not in the most functional sense. But coming from Colton and his complex mind, it’s better than any compliment I’ve received in my life.
Hours later, sleep drowsy and only half awake, I roll onto my side. In the blush of predawn, I smile.
At some point in the early morning, Colton went back upstairs to retrieve Milo’s slightly tattered teddy bear. But rather than falling back onto the sofa, he’s sprawled out on the mattress we dragged into the living room. His features are fully relaxed in sleep, and Milo is curled up beside him, his head resting in the hollow below Colton’s collarbone.
On the sofa in Colton’s place is Indi. Her short blonde hair fans out on the Choose Happy throw pillow, her lips are parted, and her expression is just as peaceful as her brothers’.
Colton can pretend to remain unattached all he wants, and I won’t call him on it. But he went to get someone who will make Milo’s morning when he wakes up. In my book, there’s not a greater definition of love than something like that.