Chapter 59
Chapter Fifty-Nine
WYATT
The unfettered joy I felt at returning that lime green Kia could only be matched by plopping my ass on my own couch. The trip from Poblocki to home was smooth sailing but I’m glad to be back in my own house.
Nash and I are still in this alternate state.
Two people who have admitted their love for one another, but aren’t together.
The bottom line is, I believe love is enough.
I’m not giving up on Wisconsin, on getting to be with Nash for real.
Despite the odd circumstances between us, she didn’t immediately pack a bag and dip, so things are okay for now.
Nash comes back in the room as I’m sprawled out on the couch. “Did you see the weather?”
“I never pay attention to the weather. It’s June, it’s hot. What is there to check?”
“Uh, it’s hurricane season?”
I chuff. “The Hurricanes season doesn’t start until September. Training camp is late August.” I jump as she whacks me with a rolled-up magazine like a naughty dog.
“No, you oaf. Actual hurricanes. Not your football team.”
“What about actual hurricanes?”
“There’s one coming,” she says, and it’s so unbothered that I have to do a double-take.
“Come again?”
“They’re tracking a hurricane in the Gulf.” She shows me the Weather Channel post on her phone. “It looks like it’s going to hit us.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night.”
I sit up straight from the couch. The news of an imminent natural disaster catapulting me from my reclined seat. “Tomorrow night? Why are we just now hearing about this?”
“We weren’t here, so I wasn’t really paying attention. We were lucky to even get in today.” She flips her wrist like damn, I can’t control the weather.
I stand up because I think better on my feet. “What do we do?”
She eyes me for a split second and her eyes go wide. “Holy shit, this is your first hurricane.” She moves and takes me by the shoulders. “Don’t worry, we still have plenty of time to get ready. Plus, right now it’s only a category two.”
“That’s good?”
“Well, it goes to five, so two is lower than five.” I nod, but she keeps talking. “It will likely gain some momentum before making landfall, so it’ll probably be a three by the time it hits us.”
“Three?” I put my hands in my hair. “That’s closer to five!
” What a horrible welcome back gift. Almost like the city is punishing me for coming back.
Maybe I was wrong—Houston sucks, I don’t want to stay here.
I knew everything would be ruined when we came back to Texas.
She’s about to see how unprepared I am for a natural disaster and decide that she doesn’t love me because I don’t know how to protect her.
She reaches up and pulls my hands out of my hair. “I know what to do. We are going to do it together and everything is going to be fine.”
“Everything is going to be fine,” I repeat.
“Does your truck have gas in it?”
“I don’t know; it’s been a couple days since I drove it.”
“We’ll take it to go get some water and you can fill it up at H-E-B if you need to.”
Hours later we’re back at the house with two vehicles filled with gas, one gallon of water per person per day (which I learned is the math for prepping water for a storm), a loaf of bread, and a jar of peanut butter.
We unload everything onto the kitchen island.
I look at all of it and then look at her. “Now what?”
“Now we wait.” She shrugs and reaches for the peanut butter pretzels we stocked up on.
“But a storm is coming, and in the three hours we’ve been preparing, it hit category three.”
“Yes, but now there’s nothing left to do but wait to get hit.”
“That’s insane.” She strides over to the couch and plops down. Now she’s as relaxed as I was earlier, and I’m strung up like a live wire.
“That’s just how it is. Get comfortable.”
“We’re supposed to just make dinner, and watch TV like it’s another normal night?”
“Yup,” she pops the p.
I grab the bag of purple Doritos I got for myself—a Wisconsin classic that H-E-B occasionally has—and take a seat next to her on the couch. I go for the remote. “What do you want to watch?”
“Whatever Gordon Ramsey shows we need to catch up on.”
I turn the show on for her, but I don’t really watch it.
Worries about the storm just keep running through my mind.
Should we have evacuated? Nash packed us a go-bag in case this gets out of control and we have to be rescued or something, but maybe I should have taken the initiative and just packed us up?
There are blizzards in Wisconsin, but since the snow is solid, there’s no chance of it flooding your house.
This seems a lot more serious between the wind and the rain.
I wonder if we’ll be on the ‘dirty’ side or not? I really need to stop googling.
All I know is Nash is the most important thing in the world to me and I would literally fight Mother Nature to keep her safe.