Page 47 of The Storm

I shrug. “Or at least it pretends to be asthma. It’s difficult to distinguish between the two. I’m not, like, afraid of the dark or anything. It’s more that situations where it feels like there might be a lack of oxygen involved make me cautious, and I didn’t really have any time to prepare myself.”

He nods slowly. “I shouldn’t have pushed you in here.” He closes his eyes. “Fuck. I’m sorry. I…”

I glance at the door then back at him. “Probably would have died if you hadn’t? Unless that’s what you’re sorry about.”

He lets out a weak laugh and, unbelievably, I find myself smiling at him.

He raises his hand, and when his fingers touch my neck, I jerk in surprise.

“Your pulse is going haywire,” he says.

It crashes down on me in this exact moment that we had sex, and if my pulse was fast before it’s really going crazy now.

“It’s the medication,” I manage to say. “Heart palpitations are a common side effect. Harmless. I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

I nod and then shrug before I look down at my hands because it’s easier than looking at him. “It’s been a while since I’ve had one of these. It’s… I’m… Thank you.”

He doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t acknowledge the gratitude, but doesn’t dismiss it either.

I don’t get him.

Then again, that’s not new.

I’d like to.

That’s not new either.

Nick turns off the flashlight to save the battery, and then we’re sitting side by side in darkness.

Silence stretches between us, and the tension gets heavier and heavier until my shoulders start to ache from the pressure.

“When I was about eight or nine,” Nick says. “We were living in this apartment building. It was a pretty shitty part of town, but there was this strip of woods behind our place, and there were a lot of squirrels living there. And they were used to people, so they’d come into the yards.”

I’ve stopped breathing again, but this time it’s not from overwhelming anxiety. This is anticipation. This is the first time he’s ever told me anything about his life before.

“Mom liked to watch them when she was drinking her morning coffee. She’d do this thing where she narrated what the squirrels were doing like it was one of those nature documentaries. She gave all the squirrels names, and she had backstories for them. Paul was in a love triangle with Eva and James. It was a whole thing for a while.”

I smile. “She recognized the squirrels? I mean, she knew which was which by name?”

“No,” he says, and his body moves against my side as he adjusts himself. “Not even close. She’d just be like ‘Oh, there’s Paul again. What’s he up to today?’ And it didn’t even look close to the one she’d called Paul the previous day. It’s not like I could really tell them apart, but some of them were still pretty obviously not the same squirrel.”

He’s quiet for a bit, and I wait because I don’t want him to be done yet.

“I decided I’d make one of those squirrel feeders. You know, to help them through the winter. I wanted it to be a surprise, so I spent ages saving up my allowance to buy wood and paint and everything because it was going to be the best squirrel feeder ever. I cleared out a secret spot in the backyard to work on it. Didn’t have any tools though, so I… Uh, I broke into our neighbor’s shed to… borrow some stuff.”

He sounds adorably bashful when he says it.

“And then I got caught trying to sneak a hammer and saw out.” He chuckles. “Man, I thought old man Jenkins was going to skin me alive. All the neighborhood kids were terrified of him.”

“Wasn’t there anyone else to borrow from?” I ask.

“It’s like you’ve never stolen stuff before. If I had picked someone new I would’ve had to waste a lot of time casing the joint and making preparations. With Jenkins I already knew where he kept the key and when he took his naps.”

I don’t know if I’m imagining it, but it feels like he’s leaning into me more.

“Then how come you got caught?”