Weathering Stormy

by Auburn J. Kelly

  “Whoa, settle down. Your truck is fine. It’s right outside…all safe and sound.”

  The guy…she tried to remember his name…Bryan? No, Brylan, was looking at her with concern on his face. And what a face it was. Deep, milk chocolate eyes dotted with gold flecks, prominent nose—strong and straight, to compliment the rest of his angular features. His dark, almost black, wavy hair had that mussed up just-got-out-of-bed look to it. She imagined running her fingers through it. Then her eyes roamed a little further south to discover wide, muscular shoulders and narrow hips, covered up with a green tee-shirt and matching plaid pajama pants. Even his bare feet were sexy.

  His chest rippled as he stalked slowly towards her. “You alright?” he asked, knocking her out of her trance. She dragged her eyes back up his body to meet his face. The left side of his mouth turned up in a smirk and revealed the most adorable little dimple in his cheek.

  Embarrassed, she stammered, “Um, yeah. I mean…no.” She had to think hard to figure out how to answer what should have been an easy question. Her brain just wouldn’t cooperate. She tried shaking the fuzziness from her head. “Sorry. I just…I guess I’m still a little loopy.” She attempted to sit up, but when she tried to move her foot, pain shot all the way to her hair roots.

  Feeling defeated, she flopped back against the stack of pillows behind her and stared up at the ceiling. “What the hell happened last night?” Memories swirled in her head, but she just couldn’t make them stay still long enough to made sense of them. “I mean, I remember the track…I remember being scared….” She noticed Brylan flinch in her peripheral vision. “Then my stupid ankle gave out and I slid across the gravel. And I almost blasted you with my pepper spray….”

  That one caused her to grimace. “Sorry about that by the way.”

  Brylan shrugged nonchalantly.

  “I remember the hospital…but after that I’m a total blank.”

  Brylan sat down on the edge of the coffee table. He was close enough for her to smell his aftershave, and it was…distracting.

  “Well…” He hesitated. “After the doctor fixed you up, the nurse tried to contact your mom. She wasn’t able to get a hold of anyone…and you didn’t have anybody else listed on your paperwork.” He ran a hand through his hair while he searched for the next words. “You told the nurse it was okay for the doctor to talk to me about your discharge instructions since you were so…out of it.”

  How humiliating. Stormy hoped that she hadn’t made a total fool out of herself. “So then what happened? How did I end up here?”

  “I had the nurse look up your address on the computer.”

  Oh no. Panic clutched her around the throat and her heart threatened to beat its way out of her chest. He’d been to her house, the dilapidated trailer with the broken front step and the overgrown weeds. And Mama!

  “Brylan, what happened when we got to my house?” She wasn’t sure if she wanted to know.

  “Nothing really. I knocked on the door, but nobody ever came.”

  Whew. She resumed breathing. “Then what?”

  “We stuck around for a little while…maybe fifteen minutes or so. It was getting pretty late, and I didn’t know what else to do so I brought you here.”

  “Oh” was all she could manage. She searched his face for traces of pity or judgment…but there was only concern there, etched in the teeny tiny lines across his forehead.

  Stormy closed her eyes and let out a long, drawn out sigh. When she tried to adjust her leg, to get more comfortable, her ankle screamed in protest, causing her to flinch.

  “Looks like your pain meds have worn off, huh.” It was more of a statement than a question. He stood up and walked to the kitchen to retrieve a little white paper bag. “I had a buddy of mine take me to get my car this morning. I stopped by the pharmacy to pick up your prescriptions on the way home. You should probably take something before the pain gets too unbearable. I noticed that the bottle says ‘take with food,’ so I recommend eating first.”

  “Yeah. You’re probably right.” She made another attempt to sit up, but the pain gripped her.

  “Here. Let me.” Brylan moved to the end of the couch and gently slid a hand under her splint-encased foot. Ever so gently, he eased it up and over, moving with her as she turned her body, and lightly set it on the floor. Gravity immediately took hold of the injured limb, signaling the nerves to start firing all at once as the blood rushed to it. The pain was unbearable and a wave of nausea hit her.

  “Deep breaths. In and out,” Brylan cooed while rubbing small circles on her back. “Breathe through the pain. You can do it.”

  She did as she was told, sucking in deep breaths and letting them out slowly while silently counting to ten. After a couple of rounds of counting and breathing, the pain and the nausea subsided a bit. Brylan bolted to the kitchen and returned with a pair of crutches. He thrust them at her, “I picked these up at the pharmacy too.”

  She stared at the crutches as realization dawned on her. Brylan had done so much for her, a stranger, and she didn’t know how in the world she would ever be able to pay him back. Experience told her that nothing in this world was free. “How much do I owe you for all this…the medicine and the crutches?” she asked timidly while he helped her to her feet.

  ****

  The pained expression on Stormy’s face was almost too much for him to bear. He didn’t want her to feel indebted to him. “Please. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No. This stuff…the medicine and the crutches…it wasn’t free, Brylan. Now, tell me, what do I owe you?”

  Damn, she was headstrong. “Don’t worry about it, Stormy. I’m sure we can arrange something later.”

  Oops. That came out wrong. Really, really wrong, judging by her horrified expression. He needed to do damage control. And quick!

  “I meant…that stuff really didn’t cost much. There’s really no need to worry about it.”

  Stormy’s face relaxed some, but she still looked a little weary. He almost saved himself, but he just couldn’t seem to keep his foot out of his mouth. “Maybe we can trade favors or something once you’re all healed up.” Dammit! She was going to think he was some sort of pervert. Hell, he was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with him. “Arrggrhhh!” He let out an exasperated growl while rubbing his face with his hands. How was he even going to be able to look the girl in the eye after that?

  And then he heard giggling.

  “I know what you’re trying to say, Brylan. You can let yourself off the hook,” she said through her snickers. “I think if you were some sort degenerate I would have picked up on it by now.”

  He let out a sigh of relief. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not this awkward. Maybe I’m just sleep deprived.” He knew he was lying. Stormy got to him. There was just something about her that made him edgy. She was beautiful, smart…and feisty. And he was drawn to her like a moth to a flame.

  Stormy cleared her throat. “Hey. You zoned out for a minute. Everything okay?”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry. How ‘bout we get you fed? I made two kinds of eggs. Would you like burnt, or slightly charred?”

  Her eyes lit up and she giggled again. “I’ll have burnt please.”

  It took a little while for Stormy to figure out how to distribute her weight on the crutches without falling over. “Now put them out in front of you, and then swing your legs through,” Brylan instructed. Stormy hated feeling helpless. Who knew crutches could be so difficult?

  Once she made it over to the tiny kitchen island, Brylan helped her up on the stool and set a plate down in front of her. It was overflowing with bacon, toast, and something resembling scrambled eggs, with little black bits stuck to them. “Were you expecting an army or something?” she asked while raising an eyebrow. But then she noticed that his plate was piled high too.

  His fork paused mid-way to his mouth. “Huh?”

  “Never mind.” She picked at the food on her plate. She didn’t have much of an appetite, espec
ially with those peculiar looking eggs staring back at her, but she made herself take a few bites of toast. She watched in awe as Brylan plowed through his plate like a man on a mission.

  He nibbled absently on his last piece of undercooked bacon and Stormy could see the thoughts formulating in his head.

  “So…I guess you have a pretty long commute back and forth to school during the week, huh?”

  The question struck her as strange. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly call it a long commute. Usually takes about fifteen minutes or so to get to the high school from my house.”

  Brylan stopped chewing and all the color drained from his face. He swallowed once…twice…three times before he spoke again. He suddenly looked as though he might be sick.

  “You’re in high school?” he asked incredulously.

  She startled at his response. “Um, yeah. For a few more weeks anyway. I’ll be graduating in May. Why the face?”

  He shifted around uncomfortably, looking as if he’d done something terribly wrong. He gripped the edge of the counter and squeezed his eyes shut briefly before answering. “I just…I uh…I thought maybe you went to the community college over in Wharton. I overheard you give your birth date to the lady at the hospital last night and I did the math. You’re almost nineteen. I just assumed….”

  “Yeah, I….” How was she going to explain being a year behind in school? She couldn’t tell him that she had to repeat the sixth grade because she and her mama spent three months in a shelter for battered women. “I had to repeat a grade,” she said simply, hoping that he wouldn’t question her further.

  “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to be nosy.”

  “No, it’s okay,” she said, some of the tension leaving her shoulders, “It was a reasonable assumption.” She was just glad he hadn’t prompted her to spill the ugly details.

  Brylan downed his orange juice before gathering their plates and taking them to the sink. Stormy was feeling really guilty about him waiting on her hand and foot. His back was to her as he squirted dish detergent into the steaming water. “Brylan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m really sorry about last night… I was rude to you when you were just trying to help.”

  “It’s totally fine, Stormy. You were freaked out. I get it. No harm done.”

  “Thanks. I’m not usually like that. It’s just….” She wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to say. Sorry just didn’t seem like enough. “I was already on edge…because of some stuff that happened earlier.”

  “Stormy. You don’t have to explain anything to me. Really.” The sincerity in his eyes pulled at her heart strings. He was such a good guy, the kind of guy she could easily fall for. Wait. No. What was she thinking? She couldn’t fall for him. She was leaving town as soon as graduation was over, hopefully, and he was a distraction that she couldn’t afford.

  She looked up at the clock mounted on the wall. “It’s nearly one o’clock in the afternoon?” Panic suddenly hit her. Mama was probably freaking out …and assuming the worst. “Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Sure.” He handed her his cell phone.

  She made repeated calls to the house phone. Nothing. Then she tried Mama’s cell, but all she got was her voicemail, “This is Marni. You know what to do.” She groaned and hung up before the beep.

  “Looks like she’s still out.”

  ****

  Brylan could tell Stormy was feigning her indifference by the way her smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. She was obviously distressed by the fact that she couldn’t reach her mother and she was trying to hide it. But Brylan recognized it for what it was. It was the same disappointment he’d seen in her eyes when he’d taken her home at three o’clock that morning.

  He couldn’t bring himself to tell her how her mother had been too drunk to comprehend what was going on, that her daughter had been hurt and had needed her. The woman had groaned something incoherently and passed out on the front porch before he’d even had a chance to fully explain what had happened.

  If only Stormy had stayed asleep….

  He’d never forget the stricken look on her face when he got back inside the truck, or the anguished tears that had rolled down her cheeks. He was so grateful that Stormy didn’t remember any of it, and he secretly hoped that the memory would stay hidden in the depths of her medication-induced stupor. It was bad enough that she experienced it once, but the thought of her having to relive that moment sickened him.

  Anger boiled in his belly and he knew he needed to shake it off before Stormy caught on.

  He shifted his thoughts to how peaceful Stormy had looked on his couch while she slept. Her face had been relaxed, and the moonlight filtering in from the curtains had cast a silvery sliver of light across her delicate features. As he watched her, he couldn’t help but smile at the way her breath pushed through her barely parted lips in little whistles. He had longed to touch her, just to see if she was as soft as she looked.

  Brylan snapped out of his reverie and gave himself a silent reprimand. Stormy was still in high school. Principal Flint would skin him alive if he even suspected he was thinking about her. He’d made it crystal clear— students were off limits.

  ****

  Stormy was standing in Brylan’s living room, balancing on one foot with her arms outstretched.

  “Is this really necessary?”

  “Yup. Now, touch your nose with your right index finger.”

  “I’m going to fall over!”

  “Nah. I’ll catch you first. Just don’t poke yourself in the eye, or else you fail.”

  “I. Am. Fine. To. Drive,” she spat for the fifth time. “It was hours ago when I took my meds.” Brylan’s over-protectiveness was grating on her nerves.

  “Okay. Touch your damn nose already then.”

  He was grinning like a Cheshire cat and it crossed her mind to hit him in the shin with one of her crutches. He wasn’t going to let up until she complied. He was so bullheaded. But, since she would be borrowing his car, she figured it was best to play along. There was no way she would be able to maneuver the clutch in her truck. “Fine,” she sighed. “Let’s just get this over with.”

  She stood perfectly still and brought her index finger to the tip of her nose without so much as a wobble.

  Brylan finally seemed satisfied. “Okay. Good to go. But sheesh, you’re a stubborn one.”

  “I’m stubborn?” she said in disbelief. “You’re the one that’s holding me hostage.” She waited for some sort of snarky comeback, but he just laughed at her. She growled in frustration.

  “You’re pretty cute when you’re pissy. You know that?”

  The room got quiet. It was an obvious flirt, and it caught them both off guard. The spark dimmed in Brylan’s eyes while Stormy’s mind spun in circles. She couldn’t deny the attraction. As much as she tried to ignore it, it was there. Being in the same room with Brylan…it was like that feeling she always got after a thunderstorm, when the air still crackled with remnants of electricity and she could feel the little tingles on her skin.

  And then there was his smile. It was completely disarming, and a simple grin could make all of her thoughts go tumbling right out of her head. It was startling, the way her body responded to him, and she did not like the loss of control. It scared her.

  He was a good guy. Charming, generous, funny…and so good looking it made her breathless. But there were barriers that called for her to shield herself. Shield her heart. She’d seen the look on his face when she told him she was in high school.

  He was a teacher. She was a student. It didn’t take an Einstein to see that anything beyond friendship had disaster written all over it.

  Chapter Six

  A million and one scenarios played out in Stormy’s head on the drive home. Why hadn’t her mama answered the phone? Did she pass out in her car again? Was she stuck someplace with no phone, no money, and no car? Whatever it was, Stormy was certain that alcohol was involved.

  The other half of the e
quation was Bill, the new boyfriend. He was some guy, amongst a long list of others that her mother had met online, fallen madly in love with, and moved halfway across the state to be with. Stormy didn’t trust the guy as far as she could throw him. For all she knew, Bill had left her mother somewhere, stranded and destitute…or worse.

  She drove as fast as her banged up ankle would allow, and the bumpy dirt road had her cursing under her breath. She was going to need a ton of ibuprofen when she got home. When she turned down the long driveway leading to her house she spotted Bill’s dusty, old jeep…and the small flatbed trailer attached to it.

  Getting out of the Brylan’s car was a challenge. For starters, Brylan wasn’t there to help her. Plus, it was low to the ground, which meant pulling herself up, as opposed to earlier when she’d been able to lower herself into it. Using the door for support, she pulled herself upright, and then hopped on one foot over to the rear door to retrieve her crutches. By the time she made it to the front steps she was exhausted. She stopped to wipe the sweat that had accumulated on her upper lip, despite the chilly temperature outside, and noticed Bill leaning against the side of his jeep. The creep had just stood there watching her the whole time, never once offering to help…not that she would have accepted it anyway, but it was the principle of the matter. And it pissed her off just the same. The whole way up the steps she could feel his eyes on her, and it took everything she had in her not to clobber him with one of her crutches.