Chapter 22
22
T here was always a calm before the storm. The calm was when the waves slowed to a lapping, the breeze dulled and the sky cleared of all clouds. If you didn’t know that somewhere in the ocean violence was brewing, it would be a perfect beach day. But there was also a kind of eeriness to the lull. Because the animals around Tybee sensed the shift more than the people themselves. Even the caw of the gulls became muffled, almost like they were preemptively going into hiding.
While hurricanes occasionally happened in Tybee, they usually turned long before it was ever a concern for Grandma Pearl. But this one—Tropical Storm Courtney, which had just been upgraded to Hurricane Courtney—appeared to be heading straight for them.
“It’ll turn,” Pearl chided as Sam took the planks of plywood out from the storage space in the garage. The wood was specifically cut and fitted to be pressed against each window and nailed tightly to the frame to prevent strong winds from knocking something through the glass.
“Maybe the storm will pass,” Sam agreed. “But if it doesn’t, we’ll have the hurricane panels up just in case.”
On top of being necessary, the storm prep was also providing a welcome excuse to avoid the CD player. The thought of seeing another vision wasn’t as appealing after the last one.
“Aren’t those a little heavy?” Pearl waved her cast in the general direction of the planks Sam had carefully brought out and stacked neatly in the driveway.
“You and Mom used to carry them, didn’t you?” Sam huffed as she lugged a panel out. The panels were heavy, but who else was there to handle them? Each panel was the same height as her, maybe a touch taller. She was just barely able to grip each side, and the stretch of it already had her arms aching. She didn’t hesitate to put the plank down on top of the pile.
“We did,” Pearl conceded. “But there were two of us, and your mom and I are short, so our centers of gravity are closer to the ground. You, on the other hand...”
Sam placed her hands defiantly on her hips but, as she did, a rather loud and fat bumblebee flew in front of her face. She squealed and frantically waved her hands to swat it away, tripping over the pile of wood in the process.
“Mmm-hmm,” Pearl said. “Exactly.”
Sam frowned as Pearl turned on her heel and walked back inside. Pearl wasn’t wrong—this was a two-person job, but Sam only had herself. So she would just have to do.
What she couldn’t help but wonder, though, was why whoever built this house decided that a huge bay window would be appropriate? Couldn’t it be one of those homes with several small windows versus one big one? Because the massive one required an equally huge piece of wood that was both taller and substantially wider than Sam. She managed to nail up one corner but got splinters in both of her hands. So she had to use pot holders to hoist up the other side; gloves were apparently not something the Leto women owned.
When she’d finished the bay window, Sam decided to lie in the overgrown blades of grass and close her eyes. The stagnant air and the heat from the unobstructed sun made her drowsy. She could nap. That way, when the hurricane did come, she’d die in her sleep. She let her body go limp, wove her fingers into the grass and took luxuriously long and deep breaths. This was how people who did hot yoga must feel; so physically depleted that they mistook delirium for euphoria. Because Sam was, at least for the moment, unencumbered.
That is, until her moment of peace was interrupted by the low rumble of a motorcycle. Motorcycles made Sam think of Damon. But Damon wasn’t the only person on Tybee who owned one. Plenty of people did. So she kept her eyes closed and tried to refocus.
Grass.
Sun.
Not Damon.
The engine grew louder, like the motorcycle was cruising down her street. Still, that could be anyone. It was when the engine stopped in front of her house that she realized what was happening and attempted to become one with the lawn, because she knew in her bones that Damon had just arrived.
She tried her best not to breathe so as to avoid being detected, but her tactic didn’t appear to work, as Damon’s heavy boots clomped across the driveway.
“Sam.” His tone was concerned.
She opened one eye and there was Damon, blocking the sun in a way that also surrounded him in a halo of light, like some hot biker angel.
“Damon.” She tried to sound casual, like this had been her plan all along.
“I see you’re lying on the ground.”
“You see correctly,” she replied. She could do this deflection thing all day. And besides, she didn’t owe him an explanation or anything, really.
“I asked him to come help. So sue me,” Pearl shouted from the porch. Sam tried to express how angry she was through her eyes, but Grandma Pearl stood down to no one. “I’m going to take a nap, which is all I’m good for these days. You two have fun.”
Pearl waved to Damon just as he raked a hand through his hair, like he was in a goddamn shampoo commercial. Like he didn’t realize the move made Sam suck in a deep breath.
“Pearl said you were trying to use a hammer.” Damon put his hands on his hips. “She sounded pretty worried about it.”
“I’ve used a hammer before.” Sam finally sat up. Damon extended his hand and she took it. When she stood, they were face-to-face and way too close. She could smell the burn of the road on him, nearly feel the scratch of his shadow of a beard across her cheek. She took a step back and unhooked the hammer from the belt loop of her jean shorts. Then she waved it at him, like that was a normal thing someone did with a hammer.
“Yes, you’re very skilled.” Damon peeled off his leather jacket, which revealed his short-sleeved fitted shirt and the defined line of his triceps. He draped the jacket over the back of his bike. “Let me help you prep for the storm. We both know this is a two-person job.”
She did know that, but she really wished her grandma had called anyone else to be there with her.
“Okay,” Sam said, resigned. “You’ll be my other person.”
They didn’t have to talk about their non-kiss. She could just accept the help, get the house safe and then Damon would leave. Simple and clean. Sam pointed toward the stack of boards. He grabbed one end and she the other. As they maneuvered the board to the side of the house, she couldn’t help but remember the way Damon had looked at Alt-Sam in her most recent vision—so caring, like she could do no wrong. Meanwhile, this Damon couldn’t even meet her eyes.
“How was your day?” Sam decided that if they were going to be stuck together, small talk was a safe lane. She gestured for Damon to lift one side of the panel, as she grabbed the other.
“We were doing storm prep, mostly, but I did have a middle-aged tourist tell me I look like Colin Farrell, which was nice,” Damon said.
“That is nice.” Sam and Damon lifted the panel up until it covered the window perfectly. “Was that before or after they grabbed your ass?”
“Oh, definitely foreplay to the ass grab,” he grunted out. “You’ve gotta buy me dinner before you get a handful.”
Sam couldn’t help notice the bulge of Damon’s biceps as he held the plank in place. The little line of muscle that spanned the length of him. The way his shoulders popped and revealed their own strength. “Noted,” she said and glanced away.
“Where are the nails?” Damon asked.
Sam snapped out of her gaze and reached into her pocket with her free hand. She passed a long nail over to Damon and he pinched it from her grasp. The small graze of his fingertips sent a little jolt through her, and she quickly shoved her hand back into her pocket for another nail.
She propped the wood on her knee, positioned the hammer over the top of the nail and thwack, thwack, thwacked it into place. When the nail was flush with the wood, she passed the hammer to Damon.
“Hey, you weren’t kidding. Maybe you have used a hammer before.”
“A gal has to have her tricks.” She winked at him and he gave her a small smile back.
“The rain is coming.” He hammered away at his own nail, then opened his palm for another, which she placed into his hand without having to touch him.
“You can still smell it, huh?”
“What can I say, it’s a gift.” He placed the nail slightly away from the last one and hammered again.
Damon rubbed his arm across his forehead to remove a thin sheen of sweat. With the rain came thick and dense air as the sun was swallowed up by gray clouds. “Not to be rude, but Pearl promised a cold beverage in exchange for my services.”
“Oh.” Sam wiped her palms against her shorts and made for the front door. “Lemonade? It’s not homemade, but it is filled with sugar and other terrible things.”
“I love terrible things,” Damon said as he casually rolled up his shirtsleeves so that his biceps were fully exposed.
And frankly, Sam was surprised. His arms were the kind of chiseled that didn’t just happen from helping people lift wooden panels up to a window. No, Damon clearly put some effort into himself, and Sam felt compelled to acknowledge those efforts.
“You have muscles, Damon.” Her hands rested on her hips as she admired him. “When the hell did that happen?”
He dramatically stretched his arms over his head and leaned from one side to the other, just showing off. “I’m not a piece of meat, Sam. Please don’t harass me in the workplace.”
“You’re right. Of course you’re right.” She turned to go into the house but looked back, maybe lingering for a beat too long.
“My lemonade, with ice, please!” He mimicked her hands on hips pose and she swore he flexed his arms just to tease her.
When Sam walked into the house, Pearl was perched at a window that hadn’t been sealed yet. She watched Damon with a blissed-out expression.
“It’s okay, Grandma.” Sam placed her hands on Pearl’s shoulders and squeezed. “The calm before the storm stirs something up in all of us, doesn’t it?”
“Close this window last,” Pearl suggested. Sam stifled a laugh as she went into the kitchen to grab two glasses of icy lemonade.
There were twelve windows to cover, and while each window became easier the more they fell into a routine, the work was tiring. Sam’s arms ached from the strain of holding the wood in place, and then swinging the hammer. She’d tied her hair up into a messy ponytail, and Damon’s arms gleamed with sweat.
As they picked up the last piece of wood paneling, a fat rain drop landed on her forearm, then another on her nose. “You sniffed out the rain, all right.”
“I felt them, too.” Damon squinted as he glanced up at the gray-black rain cloud above them. “We just need to get this last one up and we’re done.”
“Right.” Sam hoisted the panel higher and lined it up with the window. She handed Damon a nail and the hammer, and he got to work nailing down his side.
The rain started to come down harder, less of a dribble and more of a steady pour. Sam’s shirt clung to her, and the wisps of her hair tangled in soaked strands around her face. Damon handed the hammer back. She grabbed a nail with her wet fingers and lined it up with the wood. She nailed it in fine, but decided to give it one last swing for good measure. Maybe the sudden downpour made her sloppy, but as the hammer swung toward the nail, she knew even before it made contact that her aim was off.
The hammer landed on her thumb, and she instinctively sucked the tip of it into her mouth to try to stop the overwhelming pain. “Shit!” she exclaimed. When Sam looked up, there was Damon—hovering with concern.
“Let me see.” He took her finger and rotated it. Rain ran down his hands and onto hers in cool rivers. He stroked his thumb across the top of hers. “Can you bend it?”
She bent the finger but felt a surge of pain.
“It’s not broken,” he said. “At least there’s that.”
And then, as unexpected as the biceps, he brought her finger to his mouth and placed a soft kiss over the throbbing red part of it. He held her hand in his, his mouth on her skin, and neither of them moved.
Sam blinked rain out of her eyes and looked at him. He stared back and a kind of heat flashed through her. When he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbed, and she heard him suck in a breath.
“Damon,” she said so low she wasn’t even sure he’d heard her.
“Sam,” he replied.
He held her fingers inches from his lips, the lips that had just brushed against her skin.
“What is this?” Her voice was cautious, not wanting to break the spell of them.
“I don’t know.” He took her hand and placed it on his chest. His heart thudded wildly and she flexed her fingers against him.
He rested his forehead against hers and his free hand traced up her rain-soaked arm, then back down again. Sam wanted nothing more than to keep going; she really did. But she couldn’t do that to Damon or Marissa—not again anyway. She wasn’t going to be the other woman, no matter how badly she wanted him.
“You have a girlfriend.” Sam removed her hand from his chest.
“I don’t,” he quickly said.
Sam blinked away the rain. “What are you talking about?”
“We were never serious. And she ended things.”
Sam felt guilty for a moment—was it because of the barbecue? Or the accidental kiss? She stepped away from him. “I’m sorry, Damon. Maybe you could try to get her back? Marissa is a catch—she’s a doctor and her hair looks like something out of a Disney movie.” Ironically, Sam was making the hard sell for the woman who wasn’t her.
“She’s not you,” he said. “I couldn’t... I haven’t stopped thinking about you since you left. And then you came back, and...”
He cut himself off. The rain was cool and Sam couldn’t help but lean toward the heat of Damon as his fingertips ran up her neck and into the back of her hair. He pulled and her face tilted up toward him. His eyes searched hers for some kind of sign that he could continue. And she really, really wanted him to.
She closed her eyes and was about to lift on her tiptoes to make her intentions clear, but then he spoke.
“Sam?”
Her eyes slowly opened. Judging by the look on his face, she wondered if he was having second thoughts. “Yes?” she tentatively asked.
“Why didn’t you kiss me?” he asked. “All those years ago, why didn’t you want to?”