The Spider & the Storm

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

An infuriating stream of sunlight had broken through the blinds to lay across my partially downturned face, ensuring that, if my alarm had somehow failed to wake me up, the blinding light wouldn't have given me a choice.

I grumbled an incoherent curse, my voice thick with sleep and aggravation, as I reached out and smacked my hand against the nightstand until I found my vibrating, shrieking phone. That one eye, assaulted by sunlight, cracked open as I turned off the alarm, catching the date.

It was November. Winter would make its approach quickly. The new year would arrive before I was ready. It always happened that way, and this time last year, I'd been grateful, as I had been the year before that and the year before. One year closer to being free of this world, one year closer to ending my sentence of living alone with my sadness and guilt.

But it was a new November, a different one from before, and I was reminded of that by the shift of weight on the mattress and the arm lying across my back and the lips brushing against my shoulder.

“What time is it?” Stormy mumbled, groggy and barely awake.

I glanced at the time once again on my phone screen before dropping it back on the nightstand. “Few minutes after seven.”

“Fucking Christ,” she groaned and rolled over. “Wake me up when the hour is in the double digits, ‘kay? Thanks.”

My lungs emptied with a sigh as my lips spread in a smile. I said nothing as I remembered how much Luke hated mornings. How reluctant he always was to wake up for work, how he'd spend the entire day in his underwear on the days he didn't have to work at all.

“Why does she remind me so much of you?” I sent off to a prison in Connecticut, wondering what he'd say if he got the message.

“Charlie, man, I love you, but, like, I don't wanna fuck you . I mean, no offense, but … yeah, no. You're too hairy and weird for my tastes, thanks.”

I chuckled to myself before I pulled myself up to sit naked at the edge of the bed, brushing the hair off my forehead and scrubbing that same hand over my face. With a peek over my shoulder, I saw Stormy, her hair as wild and chaotic in the morning as mine. The blanket was pulled up tight over her shoulders, concealing everything but that big poof of black, and I couldn't help but laugh again.

“What the hell is so funny?” she grumbled from beneath the covers, clearly agitated.

“Your hair looks like a … a …” Another chuckle rumbled up from my chest uncontrollably. “An electrocuted cat.”

She rolled over quickly, flipping the blanket back to stare me down with a murderous glare as she fired back, “Oh, yeah? Well, you look like a fucking bridge troll.”

I snorted and grabbed my briefs from off the floor before standing up and turning to face her, her eyes still shooting daggers in my direction.

“I mean,” I said, bending over to tug the underwear on, “that's not an entirely inaccurate assessment. But I don't have a bridge.”

“No. But you do have a whole freakin’ graveyard , which probably makes you worse than a bridge troll.” She was speaking more clearly now, even though the circles under her eyes were deepened by smeared makeup and exhaustion.

“That's fair.”

I snatched my jeans next, pulled them on, and then went in search of my T-shirt while Stormy watched, narrow-eyed and disbelieving.

“How the hell are you so awake? We only got, like, four hours of sleep.”

I found the T-shirt at the foot of the bed and shrugged before slipping it over my head. “I don't usually sleep much. I'm used to it.”

“You're used to having sex all night and waking up a few hours later to go to work?”

“No.” I shot a smirk in her direction. “I don't sleep well on a normal night. I’m in bed at a certain time, for routine’s sake, but I’m not usually sleeping.”

Her smile was touched by too much sympathy for my tastes. “Why doesn't that surprise me?”

“Because I'm a bridge troll. No time to sleep when I’m always on guard.”

I stuffed my feet into my boots on my way to the side of the bed, bending over to grip the headboard and press a quick kiss to her lips, immediately startled by how normal it felt.

“I'm making coffee,” I announced quietly, staring into her eyes.

She didn't reply right away. She tightened her hands around the blanket at her shoulders, looking back with dancing eyes and breathing deeply for a few beats of my heart. Her lips parted gently, as if she'd seen something within my gaze she hadn’t expected to find, and then she nodded.

“Okay,” she whispered.

I kissed her again, then left the room to begin my day as I normally would. But …

It wasn't a normal day, was it?

Because today, I hadn't started the morning beneath a rain cloud of despair and loneliness. I had been pulled in from the storm, within the shelter of an impenetrable cloud, and for the first time in I didn't even know how long, I was happy. Truly and honestly happy.

And there really wasn't anything normal about that.

***

Stormy had dragged herself from my bed fifteen minutes later with her wild hair tied into an even messier knot and one of my T-shirts hanging over her frame. She sat at my little kitchen table with a cup of hot black coffee held within her hands, sipping periodically and closing her eyes, as if to will the caffeine to hasten its journey through her veins.

“So, when do you have to open the gate?” she asked, clearing her throat and taking another sip.

“Eight thirty,” I said, flipping the first omelet onto a plate and placing it in front of her.

“God, you cook too.” She shook her head as she poked at it with the provided fork before taking a bite. “ And it's edible. What the hell kinda bridge troll are you?”

“A domesticated one,” I muttered, followed by a laugh, as I set to preparing my own breakfast.

“Were you married?” She narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Are there any psycho ex-wives I need to worry about?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “Never been married.”

“I mean, you had to have lived with a woman before at least,” she accurately guessed, her mouth full as she pointed the tines of the fork in my direction. “And your mom doesn't count.”

I added diced peppers to the egg mixture in the frying pan and slowly nodded. “My brother's fiancée. She lived with us for a while.”

“God, I'm good,” she said triumphantly, pumping her fork-holding fist into the air before taking another bite. “They never got married?”

“Nope.” I took a deep breath and pressed my lips together, swallowing against a disappointment I had never been able to do anything about. “He had his issues, and after a while, she just … couldn't deal with them anymore. Not without losing herself.”

Stormy slowed her chewing as she stared at me, her green gaze heating with every passing second. “So, she what? Left you to clean up after him?”

It was a bold accusation for someone to make, and I began to shake my head, to defend the people of my past. But then I stopped myself and said, “I don't know that I'd put it that way. Luke and I … we kinda looked out for each other. He always looked out for me, and then when we were older, I looked out for him too. It was fine. It's … you know, we did what we had to do. It's just how it was.”

“And what about her?”

I thought about Melanie and where she might've gone after she left Luke. “I don't know,” I replied quietly while hoping she had wound up in a place where she always had time for herself, to do the things that made her happy.

I hoped she was always happy.

“You had feelings for her?” Stormy guessed, and I glanced at her, startled, before lifting one side of my mouth in something I hoped looked like a smile.

“For, like, two days a long, long time ago,” I admitted aloud for the first time. “Back when I had first met her and we were still kids. I thought she was pretty, and she was always nice to me, which definitely wasn't the norm. But that was very fleeting. She was never for me, and honestly, she became more like a mother figure to me once my mom wasn't around anymore.”

I turned off the stove and plated the omelet before taking it to the table. I sat across from Stormy, who had slowed her eating to watch me with intrigue. I pretended not to notice at first as I sprinkled my eggs with pepper and a dash of hot sauce. I sipped my coffee and set to eating, keeping my eyes from meeting hers. Had I said too much? Had I revealed more than I should've? Was it too soon to delve so deep into my past, and what the hell would her reaction be if I ever delved deeper?

Just stop thinking.

Stop talking.

Pretend it's a normal day.

I dived into my breakfast, cut a piece of omelet with the side of my fork, and began to shovel it into my mouth, when Stormy started to speak again.

“You asked me last night what had happened to me.”

My gaze lifted back to hers then as the fork hovered somewhere above the plate on its way to its destination. “I did.”

Her demeanor had changed. That comfortable, confident woman was gone, and, in her place, there was this small, timid creature, hunched over and unable to look me in the eye. This was the version I'd met at Blake's party, the one whose legs jittered and hands shook.

I saw myself in this side of her. The parts of me I tried to keep contained, the parts time had helped to stifle. But not everything died that easily, and I suspected that to be the same for her.

“I wasn't sure I wanted to tell you.”

“You don't have to,” I assured her, lowering my fork back to the plate, untouched.

She clenched her hand around her fork several times and pushed a chunk of red pepper around the plate. Her eyes never stopped watching it skate around between bits of egg.

“I've never told anyone other than Blake and Cee.”

“You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to,” I pressed further despite the flaming hot rage building beneath the surface of my skin and the urge to destroy whatever the hell could render her this terrified in a matter of minutes.

“But I want to tell you,” she said, her voice firm. “Because I see how hard it is for you to talk about yourself and your life. And I'm with you, Charlie—you don't have to tell me anything you don't want to. But the thing is, I trust you. I don't even know why when I barely know you, but I do. Like …” She lifted her green eyes back to mine. “You ever just get a feeling about things? Like your intuition is doing the talking?”

I couldn't help but huff a sardonic laugh. “Oh, you have no idea.”

She barely bobbed her head. “Well, that's how I feel about you. Like something bigger is pushing me toward you, and I'm not fighting it. So, I want you to know what happened to me, okay? And I'm not going to tell you because I want you to then spill your guts to me. I'm not, like, bargaining trauma for trauma … nothing like that. But if I tell you my story and you then wanna tell me yours, I'm here to listen.”

When she finished talking, the room fell silent, save for the ticking of my mom's wall clock. Stormy was offering a gift; it didn't take a genius to understand that. She was declaring her commitment to whatever thing we had going on. She was inviting me into her world, and logic told me that the least I could do was return the favor.

And truthfully, I wanted to tell her. The weight I carried on my back was a heavy one, the type of load that hunched my shoulders and ached more with every passing year. But the thing that stopped me from baring my soul to her entirely right then and there at my kitchen table was this: not all nightmares were created equally. And while I knew with certainty—call it confidence, arrogance, whatever—that I could bear the weight of hers, I was too afraid that mine would keep her up at night.

So, I just nodded, unsure of what else to do or say that wouldn't chase her away or at the very least insult her.

“Um, so …” She diverted her gaze and glanced at the clock. “Oh, it's almost time for you to go.”

Her shoulders sagged with disappointment, like she wasn't ready for this morning to end so soon. And even though I might not have been ready to unveil the monsters hiding in the shadows, I wasn't sure I wanted to be without her just yet either.

So, as I once again lifted the fork to my mouth, I asked, “You wanna come to work with me?”

***

The sun was shining as the wind blew cold, and I gritted my teeth to the chill coursing through my bones as I held on to one side of the iron gate. But Stormy didn't seem to be bothered at all with her hands wrapped in the long sleeves of her brother-in-law's sweatshirt. She pushed the other side of the gate open and wasn't at all fazed as another gust of wind bit at our cheeks.

In the truck, I had instructed her on how to open and secure the gate, and now, I watched from the other side of the wide-mouthed driveway, making sure she followed my directions.

With the hood over her head, she crouched and flipped the drop rod into the ground just outside the tall stone wall surrounding the perimeter of the cemetery. I knew it wasn't a difficult task, and honestly, an untrained monkey could probably figure it out. Yet I couldn't stop one side of my mouth from lifting, feeling an odd sense of contentedness and pride at the sight of her.

She looked up, peering at me from beneath the shade of her hood. “Making sure I'm not fucking up?”

My lips spread in a grin as I dropped my chin and shook my head, both at her and myself. Then, I stuffed my wind-bitten hands into the pockets of my leather jacket and walked slowly across the driveway.

“What do you think?” she asked as I pretended to assess her handiwork. “Am I bridge-troll material?”

“Well …” I cocked my head, pursing my lips and making a show of this pretend critique. “You could use some practice, but …”

“Oh, shut up!” She laughed, rolling her eyes as she turned to walk back to the truck, her sneakers plodding against the asphalt. “You're just jealous because it's taken you years to perfect the art of gate opening. Me? One and done. I'm just that—”

“Top o' the mornin' to ya, Chuck!”

I was mid-laugh when I heard Ivan's enthusiastic greeting bellow over Stormy's teasing. Surprised, I turned to watch him climb out of his sedan, parallel parked on the side of the road. How I hadn't noticed him pull up, I didn't know, but then again, I'd always been known to become distracted by a woman I was seeing.

“Shit,” I grumbled as Ivan limped his way toward me.

I hadn't anticipated introducing Stormy to him or anyone … well, ever, let alone the morning after we'd slept together for the first time.

She glanced over her shoulder at me, her eyes flaring with instant panic.

She doesn't like strangers , I noted and walked coolly toward her to wrap my arm around her shoulders, caring more about her comfort than the transformation in Ivan's observant gaze.

“I told you I had a friend,” I said, inclining my head toward hers.

“Oh, right. Your one friend.” She nodded, her nerves unwinding just a little against my touch.

She took a step closer to my side when Ivan came to stand before us, his eyes alight with an excitement I both loved and wished I could extinguish.

“Well, well, well,” Ivan exclaimed, clasping his hands over his rounded belly as he looked between Stormy and me from behind his black-framed glasses. “I guess I'm not the only one with happy news this morning!”

My sigh was accompanied by the closing of my eyes as I scratched an invisible itch on my eyebrow. “Uh, Ivan … this is Stormy. Stormy, Ivan.”

“It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance, m'lady.”

Ivan scooped Stormy's hand in his, bringing her knuckles to his lips. She tensed against my side and made an attempt to inch backward, and I cleared my throat loudly with a warning. He looked into my eyes before his lips could touch her hand, and I shook my head. Like a pro, he straightened his back and laid his other hand over hers, giving her knuckles a warm, friendly pat.

She relaxed with instant relief.

“It's nice to meet you too, Ivan,” she finally said after an uncomfortable few seconds.

He released his hold on her hand, lacing his fingers together once more over his middle, and looked up to meet my eye. “I have to say, Chuck, this is unexpected. You've been busy!”

“And you weren't supposed to be here until next week,” I reminded him, glowering into his beady, taunting gaze.

“Well, I was in the area—”

“You're always in the area.”

“Well”—he lifted his hands in a helpless shrug—“I just happened to be driving by—”

“You pass by here every single day. You literally work down the street.” I gestured in the direction of the real estate office Ivan had gotten a job at once he could no longer handle the physical labor at the cemetery.

“Okay, fine,” he finally relented, rolling his eyes at his own expense. “I saw you out here with this very lovely, very you specimen and thought I'd stop and say hi. But!” He held up one finger and waited approximately two seconds to continue, dramatically building anticipation. “That's not the only reason for this little impromptu visit.”

He reached into the pocket of his long, oversize tan coat and handed me an envelope adorned in silver ink and a matching wax seal.

Without giving it a further look, I raised a brow at him and asked, “What is this?”

“An invitation to my wedding, of course.” He grinned up at me with the expression of a man who'd found permanent residence on cloud nine.

Stormy peered over my arm as I ripped the envelope open.

I scanned the details quickly, then stated, “It's the day after Thanksgiving.”

“Yes, well, we wanted to hurry things along a bit, and we got a good deal on the venue,” he explained a little defensively.

I grunted a reply as I read further, my nerves kicking into high gear. “And it's in Connecticut.”

“That's where Lyla's family lives,” Ivan replied. “Her parents are too old to travel far from home, so we thought, why not bring the festivities to them? Plus, we'll already be in the area for the holiday, so”—he presented his hands in a gesture of grandeur—“why not make a weekend of it?”

Without saying a word, Stormy took the invitation from me and read over it as I struggled to work the boulder from my throat. I didn't want to raise suspicion, didn't want to express my current anxieties, but … Connecticut ?!

“You're from around those parts, aren't you?” Ivan asked, revealing a fact that Stormy didn't yet know about me. “Maybe you could stay with a family member, if you didn't want to—”

“There is no family,” I quickly interjected, brash and on the defense.

Stormy looked up at me, surprise and shock widening her eyes. “You're from Connecticut?”

“Lots of people are from Connecticut,” I grumbled.

“ I'm from Connecticut,” she said, as if this common ground somehow meant something, and she said it as though she couldn't believe I'd kept it from her after she told me at Blake's party.

But things had been different then. I hadn't wanted her to know anything about me in those moments in his backyard. Hell, I wasn't sure I wanted her to know now, but this time, it had nothing to do with her and keeping my distance.

Now, all I wanted was to not scare her away.

“I do hope you'll come,” Ivan said, his eyes on the card in Stormy's hands. “I understand if you can't, but if you do decide to, I'd be honored if you'd also be my best man.”

My heart leaped into my throat as my gut plummeted straight to my feet. “Best man? You don't want to ask someone—”

“There is no one else, Chuck,” he gently interrupted, offering an embarrassed smile, his dark eyes jumping toward Stormy.

She took the hint that maybe this was a private moment between us, and she asked for the keys to the truck. I only turned my attention from Ivan to watch her walk away, that enormous sweatshirt hanging from her frame in a way that would've made anyone else look ridiculous, but she managed to pull it off effortlessly. When she got in and closed the door behind her, I looked back at my friend, not at all surprised to find a wistful little smile on his face.

“Don't say anything,” I warned, but I had never known Ivan to heed my warnings.

“She's good for you, Chuck.”

“You have no idea what you're talking about.”

He tapped one finger against his temple and nodded. “Oh, but I do, my friend. My devotion to my Lyla might be new, but the roots of my love for her feel like they've been growing since the beginning of time.”

I narrowed my eyes and crossed my arms over my chest, guarding my most battered organ from whatever he was going to say. “You talk like a crazy person sometimes—you know that?”

“And you're not as cold-blooded as you pretend to be. I see the way you look at her. She puts a light in your eyes I haven't seen in all the years I've known you, and I gotta say, Chuck, it looks good on you.”

I glanced toward the truck to catch her swaying along to something on the radio, her lips moving to the song's lyrics, and one corner of my mouth twitched into an involuntary smile. Ivan caught this, of course, and wagged his finger at me.

“Like I said,” he said as I shot him a sidelong glare, “she's good for you.”

He was right, of course. I knew it more than he ever could, but I was too stubborn to satisfy him with my agreement.

So, as per usual, I said nothing.

He nodded anyway, as if he could read my mind and hear the truth in every beat of my heart, and he turned to head back to his car.

“Come to the wedding, Chuck,” he said over his shoulder. “Bring your Stormy. Be my best man because you're my best friend.”

Best friend . I had never had a best friend before, nobody outside of my family, and the declaration brought an ache to my chest I hadn't expected. Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe, and the backs of my eyes pricked with a humiliating rush of emotion.

“Yeah,” I replied, clearing my throat. “I'll, um … I'll think about it.”

“Well, don't think too long,” Ivan called over the engine of a passing car as he walked away. “I'm getting married in three and a half weeks, you know!”

I kept a watchful eye over him, making sure he got into his car safely before I headed back to the truck. Stormy's eyes grabbed mine as I rounded the hood, and her face lit up brighter than a thousand flames, like she hadn't expected I'd come back.

Is that what I look like when I look at her? I thought, hardly able to believe someone could be that happy to see me.

I opened the door, and Nirvana's “Heart-Shaped Box” poured out as I climbed into the cab to find Ivan's invitation on her lap.

“Are you gonna go?” she asked point-blank.

“I don't know,” I replied honestly, starting the engine.

“You should.”

I scrubbed a hand over my chin as I drove toward the maintenance shed. “I'll think about it.”

“I'd go with you.”

An exhale escaped my nose, and I tightened the line of my mouth. I didn't want to feel so aggravated by her well-intentioned insistence, but she had no idea what those state lines held for me. Was that her fault? No. But did it make it any less difficult for me to pretend there was nothing wrong? Also no.

“Why didn't you tell me you were from Connecticut?” she asked as if she could read my mind.

I had decided I wouldn't lie to her, so I sighed and said, “Because I was afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” she pressed.

“Stormy …” I propped my elbow onto the window ledge and pressed my palm to my forehead.

She stared at the side of my face, eyes narrowed like she was trying to fit the puzzle pieces together herself. Then, she cocked her head, her brows rising with realization, and I braced myself.

“Is this about your brother?”

That palm slid down the length of my face. “It's part of it,” I replied. Not a lie.

“I don't care about your brother.”

I shot a glare at her. “Don't say that. You have no idea what he did, or—”

“I don't care,” she repeated, enunciating every syllable. “And if you think that me knowing where you're from is going to make me suddenly want to run a Google search on you, think again. I mean, for fuck's sake, I don't even know your last name—”

“Corbin,” I offered, and it didn't rattle me nearly as much as I’d thought it would to say it aloud.

“Corbin,” she repeated on a soft exhale, bobbing her head gently. “Well, Charlie Corbin, I won't be running a background check. But I do hope you'll go to your friend's wedding, and if you need a plus-one—”

“Why are you staying at the hotel?” I asked, parking the truck outside the shed that housed the ride-on mower.

She was taken aback by the abrupt change of subject, and honestly, so was I. I guessed the question had been nagging at me for too long, and I finally couldn't take it anymore.

“The house my apartment is in is under construction,” she explained with an exasperated sigh.

I nodded, looking out the truck window in the direction of my cottage. I thought about what Ivan had said, about how she was good for me, and, God, I knew how right he was. Waking up, going through my usual routine, and beginning the day with her at my side had been easy and comfortable, like I'd been doing it every day for the past thirty-something years of my life.

Ivan had mentioned that, while his relationship might've been new, the roots of his feelings for her felt like they'd been growing for a long time. It had sounded crazy to me at the time, and, fuck, I still thought it was crazy … but then why was I also starting to think it made at least a little sense?

If soulmates existed—and I believed they did—wasn't it possible for that affection to have been there, manifesting and building, over the course of … well … forever?

Now, I'm starting to sound crazy too.

“Hey, you okay over there?”

I blinked and turned to Stormy, realizing I must've gotten too wrapped up in my brain, probably staring into space.

“Yeah, sorry.”

She smiled, tipping her head and sweeping her gaze over my face. “What're you thinking about?”

“Check out of your hotel,” I blurted out before the thought had a chance to circulate my brain, before I had the time to reconsider. “Stay with me until your apartment is ready.”

The smile fell from her face as shock took over, her brows lifting and her eyes widening. “You're serious?”

I nodded, now certain this was an excellent idea. “It just seems silly to pay for a hotel room when I'm right here.”

“But … where would I leave my car?” she asked quietly, as if she was trying to find a reason this wouldn't work out while a spark of hope ignited in her eyes. “I do have a job I have to get to, and you lock the gate for the night before I'm—”

“I'll let you back in,” I quickly replied.

“And my stuff—”

“We'll make it fit. And remember, it's not forever.”

She inhaled deeply, staring into my eyes with her lips locked tight, then sighed. “Right. It's not forever.”

One corner of my mouth quirked into a forced smirk before I abruptly got out of the cab, not giving her the chance to change either of our minds. I flipped through the ring of keys, looking for the one to unlock the shed, when Stormy exited the cab to come stand by my side.

“So,” she said as I crouched to fit the right key into the lock.

“So.”

“I guess I'll check out of the hotel and grab my stuff.”

I glanced up at her as I turned the key and unlocked the shed.

“I have to go to work today, but when my shift is over, I'll come here and call you at the gate. And then, tonight, I'll tell you a story.”

As I stood, rolling the garage-style door open, the scent of grass clippings and earth pummeled my senses. I stepped onto the concrete floor and grabbed the work gloves from off the seat of the mower, then turned to Stormy as I put them on.

“Text me your schedule, and I'll make sure it's open by the time you get back.”