Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
J unicia
I tossed and turned in Franklin’s guest bedroom.
The storm had finally come, and the thundering and lightning scared the shit out of me.
I hated thunderstorms, and usually, I would stay up all night or go to Lauren’s house.
Sometimes, she would come to my house when we knew a storm was coming, but I was all alone with her being out of town.
I jumped and covered my mouth as a loud boom rumbled through the sky. I didn’t want to scream and wake up Franklin if he was asleep. If he was sleeping, I wasn’t sure how because the thunderclaps were loud as hell, and the lightning made the whole room light up.
My fear of thunderstorms started when I was six years old.
There was a bad storm, and it knocked the tree in front of our house down, and the power had gone out.
I ran into my parents’ room and got right in between them.
Since then, as long as I lived with them, I was in their room whenever it stormed at night.
When I went away to college, I had a roommate who understood my fear, so she would sit up and talk to me during the storms. I really appreciated her for that, but we lost touch once we graduated.
We followed each other on social media after I looked her up one day.
She married a football player and lived in California.
Last I checked, they had two kids, with another one on the way.
When it thundered again, I got out of the bed and paced the room. Lauren was in Oregon for some nursing conference, so it was two hours earlier there. I decided to call her so she could distract me from the disasters outside.
“Hey, cousin,” she answered on the second ring. “I thought you would be sleeping or at least boo’d up with neighbor bae.”
“Girl, no,” I whispered. “It’s a damn storm, and I am terrified out of my mind.”
“Give me a second,” she said to someone. “Why didn’t you go into that man’s room?”
I stopped pacing the room and sat on the bed. I wasn’t about to allow her to skate past the fact that she was with someone. I was sure it wasn’t one of the other nurses, at least not one of the females.
“First of all, who was that?”
I reached over and pulled the curtain tighter to try and block out the lightning, but it didn’t help.
I hoped the storm didn’t last long because I was tired and needed some sleep.
I wanted to go downstairs and get some water, but I didn’t feel comfortable roaming around in his house.
The thought of going back home crossed my mind, but between the broken window and the storm, I nixed that idea.
The last thing I needed was to be in my house alone, scared of the storm, and Leo coming back to finish whatever he tried to start earlier.
I still couldn’t get over him doing that bullshit.
“It’s just a friend,” Lauren said, bringing me out of my thoughts.
“Like, a dude or…”
“A grown ass man that was about to give me some grown man dick.”
I heard the guy chuckle in the background. He must have already been familiar with my crazy ass cousin.
I laughed and quickly covered my mouth because my laugh could get loud sometimes, and I didn’t want to be noisy in the middle of the night.
“Damn. My bad for calling.”
“It’s okay. I knew something was up when you called me this late. You know you can be doing the same thing if you stop being scary. You know you want to.”
Knocking on Franklin’s door had crossed my mind, but I had better chances of going home. That man probably would look at me like I was crazy if I told him my grown ass was afraid of damn thunder.
“Lauren, I can’t. What if he turns me away?”
“And what if he doesn’t? Pull up your big girl panties and knock on that man’s door. Then let him knock your boots.” She cackled in my ear, and I rolled my eyes.
“I don’t know how that strange man deals with you.”
“Baby, when you got what I have between my legs, any man would put up with you. But I have to go. I’ll talk to you tomorrow. Smooches.” She hung up before I could even respond.
I put my phone on the bed and sat there.
I thought about what she said, but I was even more scared of Franklin than I was of the storm.
I was not scared that he would hurt me physically, but I didn’t want him to reject me.
I wasn’t trying to have sex with him—I just didn’t want to be alone during the storm.
I bit the corner of my lip, contemplating going. The rain beat hard against the roof, and lightning shone through the window. I knew it was a matter of time before the thunder came again.
Boom!
I jumped up and ran next door to Franklin’s room, but when I got to the closed door, I hesitated. My heart thundered in my chest just as loud as the thunder outside. The hallway was dark except for a light that was on in the bathroom, but when that flickered, I almost lost it.
I took a deep breath and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” Franklin’s calm voice called through the door.
Slowly, I pushed the door open but stood in the doorway. He sat up against the headboard, watching television with his glasses on.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t wake you, did I?”
That was stupid Junicia. The man is literally sitting up.
I was so damn nervous, I asked an obvious ass question.
He chuckled like he knew the inner dialogue I had with myself.
“Nah. You good?”
“Um. No-no. I’m scared of thunderstorms.”
His lips turned up into a smile.
“Come here.” The tone in his voice made my nipples harden.
I hesitated for a minute. At first, I was nervous about him rejecting me; now, I was scared about getting close to him.
What the hell was wrong with me? I never got nervous around a guy, but for some reason, Franklin made me nervous.
Maybe it was because I really didn’t know him or that he never showed interest in me before.
I wasn’t sure if I should close the door or not, but since it was closed when I entered, I closed it back. I hesitated and walked toward the bed, but when another loud boom of thunder came, I quickly moved to the bed.
Franklin moved over to give me room. I sat on the side of the bed.
“You can get in the bed, Junicia.”
I scooted back on the bed and sat against the headboard. The TV was on some movie I had never seen before, so I focused on that to distract myself from the nervousness in my belly.
I pulled my knees up to my chest and wrapped my arms around them. We were quiet for a little bit until I broke the silence.
“Thanks. Usually, I have my cousin with me, but she’s not around. If I were by myself, I would probably stay up all night, or at least until it passed.”
It didn’t seem like the storm was going to let up anytime soon. It sounded like it was getting worse.
“You’ve always been scared of them? What were you doing all this time? The storm has been going on for a minute.”
I looked over at Franklin, and he was already looking at me.
“I have been since I was little. I called Lauren, but she was busy, so I was just sitting there. I didn’t want to bother you if you were sleeping. I’m glad I didn’t wake you.”
“I told you to let me know if you needed anything, and I meant that. If you thought it was a monster under your bed, I would have checked for you.” He smirked. “If you are scared of thunder, then I’m here to take your mind off it if I can.”
I wasn’t sure if it was crazy, but I believed him. It was nice seeing that he had a playful side to him. I wondered what he would do to take my mind off it, but that went out the window when there was another loud boom and we were surrounded by complete darkness.