Chapter 37
Kelly
The next day starts early, with me making calls to vendors, asking them to push deliveries back, secure equipment, and delay anything that might arrive too soon, lest it get damaged by the storm. Most are understanding, but a few grumble, reluctant to reschedule on such short notice.
Then there’s Jake. He’s busy with the Valiant Hearts, but he has his crew on-site anchoring the installations in place. He promises me they’ll do everything they can.
I send updates to the mayor, detailing every measure we’re taking, but she’s distracted with other things. And I try to stay optimistic, but it’s becoming harder to keep my own fear in check.
Truthfully, I spend a lot of time counting, ordering things neatly, but I’m already mentally cataloging everything we stand to lose. And I’m consumed by that nagging thought: I should have planned for this. If I’d only thought ahead. We knew the storms were a possibility. I could have budgeted for better, sturdier materials, or designed with more flexibility.
And I can’t escape the thought that if I’d planned everything differently from the start, we wouldn’t be this vulnerable. I did this.
Soon the day is over, and I’m lying in bed awake, thoughts of Jake swelling, rolling through me. It’s nicer to think about him than the storm that’s coming. But I can’t shake the edge of my anxiety, and the night presses close, inky and deep, sleep refusing to come. Grabbing my phone off the bedside table, I check the time: I should definitely be asleep.
Is Jake awake? Is he thinking about me, too? Picturing him lying in bed alone sends heat coursing through me. Screw it—messaging him is better than drowning in my own pity spiral.
I type out a message, thumb hovering, before tapping send. “Can’t sleep. Thinking of you.”
Minutes drag. Then the screen lights up with his name. “Me too. It’s too quiet without you. My bed’s too cold.”
The response is a shot of fire straight to my veins. I type out another response: “Quiet isn’t always bad. Sometimes it lets you hear other things.”
“Like what?” he shoots back, almost immediately.
“Like the sound of my heart racing thinking about you lying in that cold bed all alone. What I’d do to warm you up.”
A pause. Anticipation prickles my skin.
“Kelly, if you’re trying to get me worked up, it’s working.”
“Good.” I bite my lip, images of him, strong hands and broad shoulders, flashing through my mind. “What would you do if you were here?”
His reply comes fast. “I’d kiss you. Slow at first, then harder. Starting with your mouth and working my way down.”
My breath catches, my own hand trailing down my body. “What else?”
“I would touch you all over,” he writes. “I want to start at your collarbone and trace my fingers down to your breasts, teasing your nipples until they’re hard.”
My hand drifts down to my chest, my fingers mimicking his movements as I imagine him kneeling between my legs, leaning over me. I can practically feel his hands on me, the rough pad of his thumb grazing my skin.
Another message: “Then I’d trail my fingers down to your stomach, before moving lower, trailing over your hips and down to your thighs.”
I spread my legs, imagining his hands on me. My fingers move lower, sliding inside my panties.
“I’d spend so much time exploring you,” he writes. “I’d kiss and lick every inch of your body, savoring the taste of your skin.”
I’m so wet, my body responding to his words as if he were really here with me. I slide my fingers lower, rubbing small circles over my sensitive nub, pleasure spooling inside me.
“I’d tease you with my tongue,” he writes. “Flicking it over your clit, sucking it until you’re begging for more.”
I can practically hear the need in his words, the desire that mirrors my own. I rub myself harder, my fingers slipping through my wetness as I chase my own release.
“I want to make you come,” he writes. “I want to hear you moan my name as you lose yourself in pleasure.”
“Are you touching yourself?” I write, reckless and needy.
“Fuck, yes. Are you?”
“Yesss...”
I imagine his calloused hands running up and down his hard shaft, thinking of me. Heat coils tighter, a crescendo building within me.
“Come for me, Kel.”
Reading his message, I shatter, waves of release crashing over me. Through half-lidded eyes glazed with satisfaction, I type out a message.
“I want you here with me,” I write. “I want your hands on me, your body against mine. I want you inside me for real.”
“Soon,” he writes. “Soon we’ll be together. And when we are, I promise you, it will be worth the wait.”
“I love you.”
“Love you, too, beautiful.”
The afterglow hasn’t worn off, and I’m floating somewhere between satisfaction and sleep, all thoughts of the festival mercifully vanquished, when the vibration of my phone cuts through the silence, and I scramble to find it in the tangle of sheets. “Jake?”
“Kelly, sorry to call so late.” I’m instantly awake at the sound of his voice. There’s no heat in his tone, just a seriousness that sparks my worry. “Patrick just called me.”
I sit up straighter, the fog of pleasure completely gone. “What’s wrong?”
“The storms are coming in faster than expected. They’ll hit by tomorrow and get worse over the next couple of days.”
“You’re kidding.” I draw my knees up to my chest.
“I wish I was.” There’s a rustle on the line. “I’m going to be out with the Valiant Hearts, helping to secure homes, make sure everyone’s safe. But I just wanted to let you know. I’ll call you in the morning. Listen...” He hesitates. “I miss you. And I want you to promise me you’ll stay safe.”
“I miss you too. And I will. Stay safe, I mean.”
“Good.” He exhales, and I picture those dark brown eyes of his, steady and resolute. “I’ve got to go, but we’ll talk tomorrow. Try to get some sleep.” His tone changes, and I can practically hear him smiling. “And hopefully tomorrow I can make you come myself.”
“God, I hope so.” A brief smile lifts the corners of my lips.
“Love you, beautiful.”
“Love you, too.”
We say goodbye and the line goes dead, and I’m left staring at the screen, the glow a poor substitute for his presence. Outside, the wind picks up, rattling the windows, and the smile disappears from my face.
I slip back under the covers, wrapping them around me, but the cold still seeps through, and no amount of layers can ease the tension twisting inside me.
The pleasure from earlier is gone. There’s just my mind spinning once again—thoughts of the festival, of the storm, of everything we’ve built so far being derailed. I close my eyes, willing myself to sleep, but it takes hours for my mind to settle, each anxious thought twisting into another until finally exhaustion pulls me under.
What seems like only moments later, I’m jolted awake by the sharp crack of tree branches striking against the window, the sound echoing, brittle bones snapping. A gust of wind howls past, rattling the glass and sending a barrage of twigs and leaves against the side of the apartment building. I’m cold even through the blankets, and shiver, curling deeper under the covers.
But I can’t stay here forever, and I force myself to throw the covers back and climb out of bed, grabbing my robe before pulling back the curtains. Frost clings to everything outside, a sheet of ice that’s almost a pale blue under the heavy, gray clouds hovering ominously above. It’s beautiful, in a way—but there’s no mistaking what it means: the storm is heading right for us.
I close my eyes, trying to steady my breath, counting slowly—one, two—my fingers tapping against my thigh in time. One, two. I tell myself it will be fine. It has to be fine. My mind clings to the thought, looping it obsessively, trying to make it real.
My gaze darts to the edges of the window frame, the faint draft slipping through a barely-there crack, and I have the irrational urge to check every single window in the house. To make sure they’re closed, sealed, locked. I take a step back, heart pounding.
I’m stronger than this. But the words feel flimsy, fragile, dissolving under the steady drumbeat of what if, what if, what if.
A buzz breaks through my thoughts, and I glance at my phone to see a message from the mayor’s office. “Severe storm warning. Stay off roads and shelter in place or go to the high school, where an emergency shelter is being set up, by 3 p.m. Schools closed. More updates to follow.”
A shuddering breath rolls through the tightening cage of my ribs. I’ve been telling myself it’s going to be okay, but now I’m actually facing the storm, I’m coming undone from the inside out. Panic replaces my anxiety, consuming it and spilling over until my mind is racing, cataloging every single thing that could go wrong.
The festival site—those carefully built installations sitting out in the open, unprotected. Weeks of work, vulnerable to a few days of relentless wind and snow. The schedule I’d clung to, every deadline I’d fought to keep on track—it could all be wiped out, like none of it ever mattered.
This was my time to make Mom’s memory proud.
I press a hand to my face, the weight of it all pressing down, as if each thought has its own gravity, pulling me deeper into a spiral. It’s all on me. My choices. My plan. My failure.
My fingers clutch the edge of the window, knuckles whitening as I stare out at the sky. The first flakes are already beginning to fall, dusting the town, a silent warning. They seem so harmless at first, but I know what’s coming. This is just the beginning.
A familiar voice stirs somewhere in my mind, Mom’s steady, calm reassurance: You’re stronger than this. Don’t give up. But even as I try to hold on to her words, a part of me wavers, faltering under the weight of it all.
Is this what finally breaks me?