Weathering Stormy

by Auburn J. Kelly

  What the hell is wrong with me?

  His pocket buzzed and Brylan’s shoulders slumped when he saw the text from Pam:

  Dinner tonight?

  As if he didn’t have enough emotions filling his plate, he added a side of guilt. He hadn’t given the woman a single thought all day. And how in the world was he supposed to look Pam in the eye over dinner?

  He wished that he could feel something for her. It would make things so much simpler.

  But his heart had taken a liking to the brunette that was tying the boat to the dock. The one that he had no chance with.

  He needed his head examined. Maybe his dad was right. Maybe he did have a propensity for self-destruction.

  He thought for a minute and then sent a return text:

  Been a long day. Rain check?

  His phone buzzed again:

  Okay.

  She added a frowny face, as if he didn’t feel bad enough.

  Brylan paced back and forth, rubbing his neck and listening to his hollow footsteps on the wooden pier. But no amount of rubbing was going to relieve the amount of tension that had accumulated in the last few hours.

  Stormy finished securing the boat to the pier and jogged over to Brylan, “Hey, are you okay? You look a little…tense.”

  “Oh yeah, I’m fine,” he lied to her. She raised a skeptical eyebrow but didn’t say anything.

  “Where’s your dad?” Nozz asked.

  Brylan had more than exceeded his threshold for lies and it was killing him. “He uh…he had a headache so he headed back to the house.”

  “Oh. Okay.” Nozz shrugged it off as nothing, but he could see the suspicion in Stormy’s eyes. He wasn’t fooling her for a minute.

  “Brylan, it’s okay if you want to head back now.” The softness in that silky voice nearly did him in. If he’d been a lesser man, he would have buried his face in her satiny hair and cried like a baby right there on the pier.

  “No, I’m good.” He plastered a fake smile. “I know a good spot a little ways down from here where we can throw our lines in. You game?”

  There was uncertainty in her eyes.

  “Hey, I ain’t leavin’ here without a fish.” Nozz said emphatically.

  “Well, I guess that settles it,” Stormy said with a small smile.

  ****

  “Man, that was awesome!” Nozz said while peeking at his catch in the ice chest. “I think I found a new favorite sport.”

  “From a rookie to a master fisherman in one day, huh?” Brylan said sarcastically.

  “Hey, I can’t help it if mine is bigger than yours.”

  Stormy snorted a laugh, “Are we still talking about fish?”

  Nozz waggled his eyebrows, “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “Whoa, I think this conversation took a wrong turn somewhere,” Brylan said through a grin while loading up their tackle. His mood was a damn site better than it had been a little bit earlier, but his ego was still sore. He’d wanted to impress Stormy with his fishing skills…and then Nozz went and caught a catfish that dwarfed his in comparison.

  He laid the rods in the back of the truck and noticed Stormy walking back toward the lake. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that she was reluctant to leave. She sat cross-legged by the edge of the water and Brylan watched as she plucked a handful of grass and started absently tossing the thin blades into the water one by one.

  He left Nozz to finish loading up the gear and joined Stormy at the water’s edge. “Penny for your thoughts.” He crouched down and plucked a blade of grass and twirled it between his fingers.

  She kept her gaze fixed on the lake. “Look at all those colors on the water,” she said dreamily. The sun was setting and the lake looked like it was on fire with all the different reds and oranges bouncing off it.

  “Not a bad view, huh,” he sighed.

  “I think I dreamed about this place.”

  “Really? That’s strange. You’ve never been here before….”

  “Yeah, it is kinda weird,” she agreed. “I like it here. You’re lucky to have a place like this that you can come to whenever you want.”

  Yeah, as long as Dad’s not around.

  “I suppose so,” was his reply. She was right about the lake though. “This is my favorite time of the day…watching the sun set and listening to the bullfrogs. It’s peaceful.” If it was up to him, they would stay all night.

  As if she had read his mind, Stormy said, “I wish we didn’t have to leave.”

  “I know, but it’s getting kind of late and we have an hour-long drive ahead of us. Besides, Nozz probably needs to get home soon. He never stays out past eight or nine o’clock. He must have a curfew or something.”

  Stormy looked up at him and something flickered in her eyes. It was something he couldn’t quite read. Then she shifted her gaze from him to Nozz, who was leisurely leaning against the side of her truck and staring up at the sky. Apparently she knew something that he didn’t.

  “Well,” she stood up and began brushing bits of dirt and grass from the seat of her shorts, “I’m ready when you are.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Stormy opened Brylan’s refrigerator and wrinkled her brow in confusion. “Brylan, I thought you said you didn’t have much to work with. This thing is full.”

  “Huh?” He laid the freshly filleted fish on a plate and joined her at the fridge for a quick inventory. He couldn’t remember the last time he bought real food. The last time he’d checked there was little more than ketchup and a half gallon of chunky milk. When he peered inside his refrigerator his mouth dropped open. The refrigerator was brimming with all sorts of stuff . Stuff that he hadn’t put there. Even the produce bins were full. What the hell?

  Pam.

  He had forgotten that his dumb ass had given her a key. And when she had texted him about dinner, he’d assumed she meant going out, but apparently she was planning to cook. In Brylan’s mind she’d crossed a boundary. It even bordered on stalker-ish. The unwelcomed image of a boiling bunny on the stove popped into his head. What was the name of that movie? Oh yeah, Fatal Attraction. He shrugged it off and grabbed a beer, making a mental note to ask for his key back. “You’re welcome to use anything in here, Stormy.”

  ****

  Stormy was thrilled to have someone to cook for. Well, someone who would actually appreciate it. She had never seen such a well stocked refrigerator and she was plumb giddy at the prospect of having so many things to choose from.

  She stood there in front of the open refrigerator, rubbing her chin while she planned her meal. Hmmm. What went with fish? She spotted all the ingredients for an awesome salad—romaine lettuce, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots…. Okay, what else? She remembered seeing potatoes in the pantry and sweet onions on the counter. Ah ha! She snapped her fingers as each component of the meal came together in her head. She wanted the meal to be memorable for Brylan and Nozz. She hated to admit it, but she was secretly hoping to impress Brylan with her cooking abilities.

  It took a little while to get her bearings in Brylan’s haphazardly arranged kitchen. The pots and pans were where she thought the glasses would have been, and the glasses were in the cabinet next to the stove. When she found the knives stashed in a drawer next to the refrigerator she shook her head and made a silent vow to come over and organize the chaos someday.

  The fish was seasoned and ready to go and Stormy was cutting up potatoes when Brylan casually strolled into the kitchen and popped a tomato in his mouth. He was so close that she could smell the intoxicating mixture of aftershave and the outdoors. It was messing with her concentration.

  “Looks like you know your way around a kitchen.”

  Stormy blushed. Damned pheromones. She was tempted to tell him to stand on the other side of the kitchen so she could focus. She didn’t want to lose a finger…or her self control. “I’m just cutting up potatoes. No big deal.”

  He cocked an eyebrow, “It is to me. I probably would have already cut off a finger by
now. What are you making anyway?”

  “Nothing fancy…just smothered potatoes and a salad. And maybe some of that garlic bread I saw in the freezer.”

  His eyes brightened, “Smothered potatoes? Really?” He looked like a kid on Christmas morning. “I love those things. My mom used to make them all the time.” Then his eyes turned more somber. It was a subtle change, but Stormy noticed it. “I haven’t had them since before she died.”

  She suddenly felt like a heel. In her attempts to show off, she had somehow managed to conjure up a hurtful memory for him.

  “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  “Nah, it’s alright. It was a long time ago. I was fifteen.”

  “How… I mean….” She was tripping on her tongue, and possibly overstepping an invisible boundary.

  “Cancer.”

  “Oh,” she said quietly. “Wow. That must have been hard.” She couldn’t imagine having to go through something like that. Her mother was no picnic, but at least she was still around.

  “It was. Sure. But I had my dad and my sister and brothers…. Somehow we got through it.”

  Brothers. Another revelation. And a subject changer.

  “How many brothers do you have?”

  “Three. All older. I’m the baby, or the runt, as my brothers like to refer to me so affectionately.”

  Runt. That was too cute. She giggled at the thought of a little Brylan being bossed around by his older brothers. She pictured them ruffling his hair and playing tricks on him, the way siblings did. She couldn’t really relate though, being an only child. She’d always wished she would have had siblings, but it hadn’t been in the cards. Considering her home life, it was probably just as well.

  “Anything I can do to help,” Brylan offered. Being a former victim of his cooking, Stormy was a bit reluctant.

  “Um, do you want to slice up the cucumber?”

  “I think I can handle that.”

  Nozz sauntered into the kitchen and looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. Stormy picked up the pace, knowing that he would have to leave soon.

  “What do you two have going on in here?”

  Crap! He was on to them. Oh wait. No. He was referring to the mess on the counter, not her and Brylan. She had the sudden urge to put her head in the freezer to cool her flaming cheeks. Instead, she went to the sink to wash her hands and give herself a second to recompose. “Pan-seared catfish, potatoes, and salad,” she answered over her shoulder.

  “Cool.” He had his hands in his pockets and he was rocking back on his heels in that laid-back way of his.

  Stormy peeked at Brylan’s progress and decided that fat chunks of mangled cucumber would have to do. She warmed up the olive oil and began sautéing the onions. The scent flooded the kitchen and made her stomach growl.

  Fifteen minutes later Stormy was beaming with self satisfaction as the guys eyed their plates like a couple of hungry dogs. Her pan-seared catfish and smothered potatoes turned out perfectly. “Alright guys. Dig in.”

  Their groans of delight gave her ego a much needed boost.

  “Wow, Stormy. This is awesome,” Nozz said through a mouthful of food. She was tempted to scold him on his bad manners, but he was enjoying himself way too much and she didn’t want to ruin it for him.

  Brylan swallowed a big bite. “Yeah. This is pretty incredible. Where did you learn to cook like this?”

  “Mostly self-taught. But there was a lady I used to know that showed me a few things too.” An image of Ms. Hattie’s smiling face popped into her head as she put a flaky bite of fish in her mouth. It was amazing what a little bit of dill and lemon could do.

  The three of them enjoyed their meal in comfortable silence. When Brylan was done, he scooted his stool back from the island and took his empty plate to the sink.

  “Prom’s coming up. Are you two going?”

  Stormy flinched at the abrupt change of topic. One that made Stormy uncomfortable. The prom buzz was already starting around school—banners begging for theme ideas, flyers asking for king and queen nominations, eager girls yapping about hair and dresses…. The whole thing made her queasy.

  “I hadn’t planned on it,” Stormy said flatly.

  “Me neither,” Nozz concurred.

  “Why not?”

  Stormy was glad she had finished her meal, or else she might have lost her appetite. “Never thought about it,” she fibbed. “No date, no dress….”

  “Well I’m going,” Brylan announced.

  Nozz’s fork halted and hung suspended over his third serving of fish and Stormy nearly choked on her iced tea. The looks on their faces demanded an explanation.

  “I’m chaperoning,” he said simply.

  “Ohhhhh, okay. Now it makes sense,” Nozz said nonchalantly and scooped another bite into his mouth. “You taking Pam?”

  What? Who the hell is Pam? Stormy suddenly forgot how to breathe. She set her glass down and looked over at a very uncomfortable-looking Brylan. “Pam?” she managed to ask lightly. It took a supreme effort to keep the scorn out of her voice.

  Brylan cleared his throat nervously and she couldn’t help but notice the red that was creeping up his neck. “She’s somebody I’ve been sort of dating.”

  “Oh.” The single syllable came out strangled. In an effort to disguise her hurt feelings, she forked a cherry tomato from her unfinished salad and put it in her mouth. She needed something to keep her from making a bigger fool of herself. A full mouth might just do it.

  “Hey, why don’t the two of you go to prom together? You know, as friends?”

  And the hits just kept on coming.

  Was he serious?

  Now Nozz was the one looking nervous. The look he shot Brylan was crystal clear: Dude, I can’t believe you just did that to me!

  Brylan had the audacity to look unfazed by Nozz’s death stare.

  Nozz put his fork down and turned his attention on Stormy.

  Crap. He’s going to ask me. She was so going to kick Brylan in the shin for this.

  “What do you think, Stormy? Want to go to prom with me? It might be fun.” The proposal was timid and weak-sounding. Then he added, “It would get my mom off my back about it. She’s been going on and on about tuxes and pictures… so technically you would be doing me a favor.” His big green eyes pleaded with her to say yes.

  How in the hell was she supposed to say no to that? Even worse, how in the hell was she going to endure a whole evening of watching Brylan with another woman? Could things get any more screwed up?

  Knowing she was too damn generous for her own good, she accepted. “Sure, Nozz.”

  “Well alright then. It’s settled,” Brylan beamed like a moron.

  Stormy was so screwed.

  ****

  After the most awkward dinner of her life, Stormy and the guys retreated to the living room. Her mind was still reeling while Nozz grabbed up the remote and flopped down on his pile of throw pillows in front of the TV. Brylan and Stormy sat on opposite ends of the couch with an invisible wall of tension between them. Stormy fidgeted with the fringe on the chenille throw blanket and stared blankly at the TV while she wrangled her insane, completely irrational jealousy. Of course Brylan would date. Why had it come as such a surprise? He had no obligations to some needy high school girl with a crush and a truckload of baggage. She knew there was no hope for them beyond friendship.

  So why did it sting so much?

  Her eyes drifted over to Nozz and his fluffy, dark blond hair and forced some of the tension away with a big exhale. She hated the idea of prom, and loathed the idea of seeing Brylan there with some mystery woman even more. But, in truth, she could do a lot worse for prom dates. Nozz was a good friend. He was sweet, funny, and cute as a button, but she couldn’t help but worry that going prom with him might put other ideas in his head about their relationship.

  As she sat there staring at the back of his blond head it occurred to her that there was a lot she didn’t know about him.

 
; “Hey, Nozz?”

  “Yeah?” he answered while still flipping through channels.

  “How did you get your nickname…if you don’t mind me asking?” It was something that had bugged her since the first time she met him.

  “Yeah, Nozz,” Brylan chimed in, “How did you end up with that crazy handle?”

  Nozz put the remote down and spun around to face them. “Well,” he began with a semi-serious look, “A couple of years ago I was riding my skateboard down the sidewalk in front of our house, minding my own business, when the neighbor’s psychotic chihuahua decided to run out and attack me. Stupid thing grabbed the ankle of my pants and I ended up face-planting right into a damned tree. Stupid dog caused me to break my nose.”