TEN Sebastian
Coop There It Is
The clip of you helping that woman is making the rounds online, Seb. Are you okay? We go through serious training for ?ood safety at the station, and you’re out there saving the day. That’s intense shit. Might need to recruit you.
I’m fine, and I’d do it again if I had to.
Nate the Great
Are you driving back tonight?
First thing in the morning. I didn’t know if the roads would be safe, so I booked a hotel. It has a 2.5 star rating, and a review mentioned rat droppings in the bathtub. Can’t wait to see what’s under my bed.
Coop There It Is
Text us when you’re headed back tomorrow.
Sure thing, babycakes.
Nate the Great
I thought we agreed on no pet names in the group chat.
YOU agreed to that. I didn’t agree to shit.
Coop There It Is
Majority rules. Sorry, buttercup.
Nate the Great
I’m removing myself from this chat.
Bye, sweet cheeks.
Nate the Great
I liked you better when you lived in New York.
We take our time walking back to our cars after Claudia passes through and find them free from damage. I grab a towel from my trunk, running it through my hair and over my face.
“You’re freaking me out.” Quincy lifts her tripod off the muddy ground and wipes the legs clean. “Is your mouth broken? Why are you smiling so much?”
“This is, unfortunately, just my face.” I drape the towel over my shoulder and stretch my arms above my head, groaning when my back pops.
A deep massage sounds like heaven right now.
So does a different pair of shoes. I stopped feeling my toes around three in the afternoon, and it’s getting dark now.
“And I’m smiling because today was a good day. ”
The best I’ve had in months, actually, but I don’t want to admit that out loud. I’m afraid that if I put words to it, it’ll be taken from me. It’ll be snatched away the second I’m finally having fun at work and not putting any pressure on myself.
It’s been goddamn ages since that’s happened.
“It was pretty good, wasn’t it?” She leans against her trunk, a foot propped against the bumper. “You weren’t the worst person to chase a hurricane with.”
“Thank you for your generosity, Monroe.” I offer her the towel, and she shakes her head. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Are we going to upload our footage to social media? Start the drive home?”
“Nope.” I tap the strap of her backpack, grinning. “Let me see the goggles, Pres.”
“Dammit.” Quincy groans, head dropped back and staring up at the sky. “I thought you might’ve forgotten about that.”
“Only thing that kept me going, to be honest.”
“I probably shouldn’t tell you I also keep a helmet in my car.
” She sighs and slips the bag off her arm.
She crouches down, riffling through supplies I saw earlier when I was searching for rope.
A water bottle lands on the ground. So does the first aid kit she mentioned and a small whistle.
“You’re going to want me to play dress-up. ”
“A helmet?”
“For safety, obviously. I’m not riding a bike.”
“Obviously,” I echo, watching her find the ski goggles. She stands and pulls her hair out of the ponytail she’s had it in, shaking the long strands free. “You do know rainfall flooding makes up 57 percent of direct hurricane deaths in the last decade, right? Water kills more people than wind.”
“Oh, I’m aware of the statistics. It’s in case I’m live streaming and can’t protect my head. I can prevent myself from walking into floodwaters. I can’t prevent a tree branch from falling on me.”
“And the goggles?”
“For debris. And so I can see when the winds pick up. I used them during a Category 3 a couple years ago, and they worked wonders.”
“Huh.” I hum. “Maybe I need a partnership with a ski goggle brand.”
“No making fun of me.”
“I cannot promise that, but I’ll do my best.”
Quincy sighs and slides the goggles over her face. She adjusts the strap around the back of her head, tightening the eye protection, and holds her arms out at her sides. “What do you think?”
“Oh, my god.” My lips twitch. I cough into my fist, trying to cover up my laugh. I fail miserably when the bark of a chuckle rumbles out of me. “Please tell me you have your helmet. I dare you to put it on.”
“You owe me.” She turns and opens her trunk, grabbing a dark blue helmet and buckling it under her chin.
My fingers twitch. We’re perfectly safe, away from any threats, but I still want to check the strap.
I want to make sure it’s secure. “There. The complete look. Quincy Monroe’s hurricane preparedness. ”
“Please let me take a picture of you.”
“I’m surprised you haven’t already for blackmail somewhere down the road.”
“It’s definitely blackmail material. Can I post the photo on social media?”
“You were on my show. It’s not like people don’t know we spent the day together. Go ahead, Dunn. It better bring me at least a million new followers.”
“You’re overestimating my worth.” I wrestle my phone out of my pocket, moving until I have the perfect angle. The lighting is moody. Behind her, shingles are strewn across the ground. “Smile, Quinny baby.”
Quincy sticks out her tongue, hands on her hips. She might be trying to act like she’s miserable, but I can see the grin she’s fighting off. The easiness in her movements, and it makes me smile too.
I snap a couple shots, quick to upload my favorite one to social media. No filter, no #sponsored content. Nothing but her looking goofy as hell, my shadow just in the edge of the photograph, a caption of hurricane chasing with the ultimate weather girl typed out under it.
I tag her, too, @TheRainyDayShow proudly displayed on my screen.
Why the hell not?
The rest of today has been an anomaly: having a good time at work. The two of us getting along.
Might as well keep it going.
The picture uploads, and my phone immediately begins to buzz with notifications. I silence them, tucking the device away and rapping my knuckles on the top of her helmet.
“The water is receding,” I say. “It’s getting pulled back to the bay.”
“Good.” Quincy takes off her protective gear and slides it in her trunk next to a duffel bag. “Think the roads are safe?”
“The highway is only a mile up the road. We’re at a higher elevation than we were during the storm. We should be okay.”
“Guess that means it’s time to head out.”
“Want to grab some food first?”
“Pardon?”
“Food. Eating. The thing people do after they’ve been on their feet all day and haven’t consumed enough calories to sustain basic bodily functions.”
“You want to get food?” She wrinkles her nose. Eyebrows pulled tight, she lifts her chin to look at me. “Together?”
“I was going to ask Ernie and Dave, but you’re a good runner-up.
” I laugh when she grabs a pair of rolled-up socks and launches them at my head.
“C’mon. I’m starving, and I’m sure you are too.
I’m going to drive myself to a restaurant to get dinner.
If you want to join, I’ll keep the seat on the other side of the booth open.
It’s forty-five minutes, not a marriage proposal. You can handle that, can’t you?”
Quincy hesitates. “Is anything open?”
I’m glad to have a task. Something to focus on besides her, because there’s a mark on her forehead from the helmet I want to rub away with my thumb. A rogue piece of hair I want to tuck behind her ear.
I busy myself with searching on my phone for something specific, and I smile when I find what I’m looking for. I plug in the address to my GPS and glance her way.
“Do you trust me?” I ask.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You always have a choice.”
“Three weeks ago, I might’ve said no.” A long pause. The husk of a soft laugh. “Tonight? The answer is yes. I do trust you.”
That makes me the happiest motherfucker in any zip code, and I stomp down on the pride zipping up my spine.
“Do you want to take one car or two? The place we’re going is in the opposite direction from the highway, so you’d have to circle back anyway,” I say.
“One car is fine. Can you drive?”
“’Course.” I spin my keys. “I promise to return you when we’re finished.”
“In one piece?”
“Where’s the fun in that?”
Her laugh is louder now. We pile into the rental car I leased for the summer and head south, making small talk on the way.
I navigate around downed branches and the occasional stoplight without power, but damage appears minimal.
There’s no major flooding, and that’s a good sign for our first landfall of the season.
Quincy asks for the name of the best pizza joint in Manhattan. I make her tell me the spring specials at my favorite local restaurant I missed out on. She gives me shit when she finds out my building has a doorman, and I hand over my phone so she can send the photos I took of her to herself.
Our conversation halts when we pass a car with a tree on the hood and a live power line sitting dangerously close to a house.
“I hope no one is using their generators inside.” She presses her nose against the window, breath fogging up the glass.
Every time I glance over, her bottom lip is caught between her teeth.
She’s scanning the streets like she’s checking to make sure no one out there needs help, and there’s a sharp and jagged ache behind my ribs.
“I try to remind people about carbon monoxide poisoning.”
“Fear makes folks do things they wouldn’t normally do. It makes them forget things too.”
“Truth or Dare, Dunn?” she asks, and I grin.
“Truth, Monroe.”
“What’s the worst natural disaster you’ve covered?”
“Wow.” I blow out a breath. “That’s a hard question.
There was heavy flooding in Tennessee a couple years ago.
I was tracking the system in the days leading up to it, and ABC decided to send me out there.
It was …” I shake my head. “I’ve never seen that kind of devastation before.
Towns were there, then they weren’t. The search and rescue was the worst part. ”