52. Storm
Lorie wasn’t kidding when she said to wake up early. It’s barely eight o’clock and there’s noise coming from the kitchen. Auden’s already awake beside me, playing on her phone. I scoot closer to her and rest my head on her shoulder. It’s fucking bright as shit in her room, I hope it’s not like this in New York. I already regret not taking my blackout curtains with me.
“Morning, baby,” I say sleepily through a breath.
She scrolls through her phone. “Morning.”
“That us?” I ask, adjusting my head and opening one eye.
“Yeah, Millie posted a bunch of pictures from the wedding,” Auden says. “Look how cute we look in this one.”
We’re facing each other, smiling; her hand is on my chest while mine is on her back and the other pinching her chin. She looked so beautiful that night, much like she does every night. Although just knowing that this was the night we officially decided to see where we’d go, makes it so much more special.
I slide my hand on her stomach. “Send this to me.”
“I already sent you all the pics with us in them,” she admits. “And I posted one on my Instagram.”
I yawn. “Did you now?”
“I just don’t know your handle.”
“EyeOfTheStorm,” I reply, turning over to get my phone.
She giggles, not wasting a moment to tag me in it as well. “Seriously?”
I laugh, going through the pictures. “Yes.”
“Mine is so plain. It’s just my name,” she tells me and gets off the bed to stretch. Her little butt flashes me a good morning.
I chuckle, and like the photo she posted, commenting a few hearts, and immediately follow her. She is quite active on her social media, posting plenty of photos of her and Millie, her and Sean, and pictures of her in the BnB. There’s a photo of me near the top, right before the wedding pictures of her and the girls getting ready. I’m sleeping on my stomach with my back to her. She posted this the morning she left.
The caption says nothing more than I’ll hold onto you forever even though we didn’t get to hold onto each other.
“I think I’m in love with you,” I admit, staring at the picture and reading the caption again.
“What?” she asks nervously.
“I’ll hold onto you forever even though we didn’t get to hold onto each other. You wrote that the morning we thought we were through.” I look up at her.
“I’m not ready to say it yet.”
“That’s okay.” I drop my phone and crawl to her. “I know you feel it, too.”
We kiss and smile as we do, but don’t let it lead to more. Knowing her feelings toward me means more than being inside her right now. I thought I knew what love was. When I was with Leah, being with her felt different, but there was always something missing. I loved her, I did, but I don’t think I was ever in love with her. Maybe the love I thought we shared wasn’t really love at all. Just a companionship. Someone to talk to.
I jump in the shower as Auden gets dressed, chuckling at all her floral and coconut-scented shampoos and body washes. Now I understand why she always smells so delicious.
I throw on the same jeans I wore yesterday when I get out of the shower and dry off with a new t-shirt before I decide to show my face to the people I’ll now consider family.
Pictures of Auden hang on the walls as I make my way down the stairs. Her hair was always so reddish-orange, more so when she was younger. Doing cartwheels, making silly faces when everyone else is smiling. There are pictures of her and Millie, too. Sean, even. But my personal favorite is a photo of Auden at the beach. She must be no older than sixteen. She’s sitting in the sand with her knees to her chest looking off at the water. Her freckled shoulders are hunched forward and there’s a small grin on her lips. Breathtaking then as she is now. Utterly beautiful.
“Good morning, dear,” Lorie says, smiling at me as she cracks eggs into a bowl and mixes them with a fork.
“Morning, ma’am,” I say, then nod at Auden’s father who is in uniform. I get nervous around cops. But he smiles at me, easing my anxiousness toward today. This is good. This will be good. “Do you need me to do anything?”
“No, sit down,” she says, pointing at the round wooden table Auden is also sitting at. She wrinkles her nose at me and nods her head at an empty chair.
“Never bother the mother hen in the kitchen, she’ll stab you with the fork,” Glenn says, laughing as he sips his coffee.
Lorie scoffs. “I will not.”
“Christmas 2009, Thanksgiving 2014, oh, our first date many moons ago?” Glenn points out, smiling. Auden laughs, pouring me a cup of coffee and wrinkling her nose at me. Three milks and two sugars. It makes me so damn happy that she remembers.
“It’s fine, my mom stabbed me with a fork once, too. I kept eating with my hands and she warned me she’d do it, then did it,” I say, chuckling. “She felt like shit right after she did it because I ended up needing four stitches.”
Lorie gasps with a laugh. “Oh, dear.”
“Look at the scar,” I say, showing Auden the top of my hand.
“You’re riddled with scars,” she teases, sipping her coffee as well.
Glenn claps me on the back. “You excited about the move? One more day.”
“We’re still bringing a few things today, right?” Auden asks, rising to set the table.
Lorie nods, smiling at me as she brings a plate of bacon to the table. “Let me ask you, Storm. I’d love to have your family over for dinner sometime this summer. They’re more than welcome to stay the weekend with us. It would be nice to get to know more of your family than we’ve already met.”
I take the plates from Auden. “I’m sure my mom will love that.”
“Then it’s settled, if your parents are free July 4th weekend, they can come down and join our celebration,” Lorie rejoices.
“That’ll be fun,” Auden says. “We also have a housewarming to plan.”
“I’ll get to bring Heath to the Central Park Zoo,” Lorie marvels.
This family is so generous, I’m taken aback. They have so much love to give and I feel like I don’t deserve it. But when I look at my angel, I can’t stop smiling. She’s the reason. The only reason.
“He’s never been to a zoo before,” I tell them.
“Oh, we have to have your family stay for more than a weekend, then.” Lorie claps her hands, reminding me of Auden when she finds something exciting. “Give them a call when you can. I’ll get to planning something right away.”
Auden sips her coffee. “Don’t plan anything until you have the okay.”
“I can plan the housewarming,” Lorie says, chuckling.
Shit. I thought I’d have more time to talk to my parents and mentally prepare myself for this stupidity. I have to try and find a way to tell my parents to come down without informing Denny of my whereabouts. This is going to be one interesting phone call.