Page 71 of Fake It For Love (Faux Love)
“Looks like we got a bit of a river over the road,” he said.
“What the hell does that mean?”
He stopped the truck and put it in park. “I need to see how wide it is. It may be nothing. It might be something.”
That was pretty fucking vague. I jumped out of the truck with him. I was still drenched from my time at the hangar. Eddie grabbed a stick and walked up to the water running across the road. He said something, but I couldn’t hear him over the wind.
“What?” I shouted.
Rain ran down my face, making it even more difficult to see. He pointed to the water. “Too deep!”
The water looked like a river instead of a puddle. I raised my hands. “Now what?”
Before he could answer me, I heard a loud crack. And then another. Eddie was frantically looking around. “Run!”
My eyes widened. “Run? Where?”
“I don’t know!”
That was about the least helpful thing he could offer. Then I heard it. The cracking sound combined with the sound of something falling. It was a feeling more than a sound. I could feel the massive palm tree thirty feet in front of us slicing through the air in slow motion. We both ran back to the truck. Just as I opened the passenger door, I felt the impact of the tree hitting the road. The sound came a split second later followed by a roar of wind declaring its victory over the tree.
We hopped in and closed the doors. “Holy shit,” I breathed. “That could have been bad.”
I wiped the water from my face. “Yeah. We’re not getting there this way. It’ll be morning before we can get this tree out of the way. There might be more downed trees up ahead. We’re on foot if we want to make it to the resort.”
“How far are we from the resort?” I asked.
“Maybe a mile, maybe half mile,” he answered. “I’m not sure.”
“Are we safe in this truck?” I asked him.
He gave me a look. “I don’t know. These trees come down all the time.”
“So, we’re sitting ducks,” I said.
A palm frond hit the hood. “We can walk.”
He turned on the heat in the cab. It had suddenly gotten very cold. That and the wet clothes were making it even colder. This day just kept getting better. I stared out at the weather. “How long do these storms usually last?”
“Usually not more than a couple of hours,” he answered. “Sometimes.”
“Sometimes?”
“Sometimes they can last hours on end,” he said.
“Fuck.”
“When they come out of nowhere like this, they tend to disappear just as fast,” he offered.
More branches fell to the ground around us. It was becoming pretty clear we were safer in the truck than we were out there. “I think we should wait it out,” I said.
“It could be a while,” he warned. “You were pretty desperate to get to your lady.”
“Yeah, well my lady would probably prefer I’m alive,” I said. I really had no idea if she cared whether I lived or died, but I wanted to believe she did.
“Alright, well, I guess we’re settling in.”
The sound of the rain pounding the roof became our soundtrack. “How long have you lived out here?” I asked him.
