Page 55 of No Judgements

I wasn’t disappointed by the interior of his home. It was like him, uncluttered and expansive. Because of the sliding glass doors, almost everywhere you looked you saw either the bright blue of the sky or the deeper, grayish-blue of the sea. Almost all of the sliding doors had been flung open to allow the ocean breeze to flow in.

I understood now why he didn’t have air-conditioning.He didn’t need it. If Leighanne had left because of the lack of AC, she’d been a fool.

The walls were all as white inside as they were outside. The floor plan was open concept, one main large room that was a kitchen, living, and dining room combined, with a hallway leading off to what I assumed was the master. He owned very little furniture, only a leather sectional and a large wood-and-glass dining table that I was guessing he’d made himself. It wasn’t much of a guess, since the tools he’d used to make it were scattered all over the table itself and even the darkly stained wooden floor, against which the dogs’ claws went skittering as they ran to be close by when he opened the huge stainless steel refrigerator for the beers.

And when he said, “Bob, sit,” all four of the dogs sat obediently, even Socks, watching him as he opened two bottles of Corona.

“Wait,” I said. “They’re all really named Bob?”

“Dogs are pack animals,” he said with a shrug as he handed me my beer. “They don’t need individual names. They do everything as a group anyway. I’m their alpha. They do what I tell them.”

I took a swig from the bottle. It had managed to stay pretty cold, despite the lack of power to the fridge.

“Well,” I said. “I think that’s terrible. Everyone, even animals, needs their own individual name.”

“Socks seem okay to you?”

I looked at the border collie and had to admit he appeared brighter eyed and happier than I’d ever seen him, and notonly because Drew was tossing him a dog treat from a jar he kept on the black granite counter by the fridge.

“Well, yes. But—”

“Then who cares? Let’s talk some more about that kiss. What other traditions do New Yorkers—”

“Let’s talk about what happened here last night.”

“Oh, yeah.” He winced at the memory as he was biting into the sandwich his aunt had prepared for him. “That. Well, as you probably recall, after I dropped off your scooter at the house, I drove back here.”

“Yes...”

“And that’s when the weather started getting a little dicey. Do you want a bite of this?” He held the sandwich toward me.

I shook my head. “It’s all yours. Where’s your truck?”

“I didn’t want it to get flooded out in the storm surge, so I parked it over by the high school, then hoofed it back here to be with the dogs.”

This was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard... aside from naming all your dogs Bob.

“Did it not occur to you to take the dogs with you and stay at the high school? It’s a storm shelter.”

He shook his head. “Couldn’t do that. The high school’s a shelter of last resort for people who really need it.”

“Yes. And?”

“So I didn’t really need it. The dogs and I would have been taking away valuable space and resources from those in need.”

I nearly lost it. Standing in the middle of his bright, airyhome, the sun and sea shining all around me, I flung both arms above my head and cried, “Drew, did you hear me when I told you what’s going on around here? The bridge to the mainland is washed out. Half your neighbors’ houses are gone! Someone’s refrigerator is in the middle of your street! Along with a boat!”

He chewed calmly on his sandwich then said, after swallowing, “Yeah, but my house is fine.”

“But you didn’t know it was going to be!”

“Yeah, I did. I built it. And look at it. It did great.”

The problem was, I couldn’t deny it. Ithaddone great. Except for the sand and seaweed flung up against it, which could be hosed off, it hadn’t received a single scratch.

I couldn’t let him win the argument, however. My assignment had been to bring him back to his aunt.

“Well, you can’t possibly be planning on staying here,” I said. “You don’t even have power.”