“Thank you, Juliet,” Sienna whispered. “That means more to me than you can imagine.”
Sienna pulled Juliet into a hug. Juliet responded, pulling Sienna tight to her chest. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the warmth of Sienna’s arms. Because this is what friends do.
Sienna pulled away slowly and resumed her position on Juliet’s shoulder. Juliet took a drink from her expired water and offered it to Sienna. Seemingly forgetting about the dirty urinal in the corner, Sienna also took a long sip.
“So, what are we doing wrong?” Sienna asked quietly. She sat up and made semicircles with her neck, loosening the muscle tightness that had probably developed from her position on Juliet’s shoulder.
Feeling Sienna more than seeing her, Juliet reached out and began massaging Sienna’s neck with her thumb and index finger. Sienna moaned in approval, which made Juliet shift a little.
“I don’t know.” Juliet figured they’d gone back to the relationship question. “I just assumed that since I’m sort of a fuck-up at anything to do with relationships, it’s me. I’m a good mom, and a good friend, but I’ve never been lucky in love, as cliché as that sounds.”
“I always wonder if I expect too much,” Sienna said. “I haven’t been with anyone but Will in a very long time. Maybe that fire and excitement and soul-consuming love that I long for only exists in youth. Maybe I’m yearning for something that I can never have, because it’s the stuff of romance novels, not real life.”
Juliet stilled her fingers. She let them fall slowly to the middle of Sienna’s back, where she turned Sienna toward her slightly. What am I doing, what am I doing, what am I doing? No answers came, but that didn’t stop her. Juliet brought her hand to Sienna’s cheek. She ran her thumb cautiously over Sienna’s jawline. “I think that, maybe…” she said, nearly choking on her words, “it is real.” She inhaled deeply and leaned forward, brushing her lips lightly against Sienna’s.
Sienna gasped lightly, taken by surprise. She didn’t push Juliet away, as Juliet’s chest pounded with about a million feelings. She covered Juliet’s hand with her own and tilted her head slightly, parting her lips in what Juliet took as an invitation. The heat within her rose as she explored the warmth and wetness of Sienna’s mouth. Sienna ran her tongue along Juliet’s bottom lip, teasing her into oblivion. Juliet moved forward again, sliding her hands underneath Sienna, pulling her up and forward so she was straddling Juliet’s lap, contact never broken. She felt Sienna grasp the back of her shirt, the material tightening around her midsection. It was messy and heated and desperate. For a moment, self-control became slippery. It had been so long since she’d been so consumed with anyone, and she forced herself to slow down and enjoy the moment.
She almost didn’t hear the voice from above until it grew frantically closer.
“Mom! Mom? Juliet Mitchell! Are you in here?” Declan’s muffled voice drifted down.
They broke apart immediately, but neither one of them moved. They stayed sitting in the same position as if time had stopped, as still as stone.
Chapter Nineteen
Reacquainting herself with reality, Sienna jumped up off Juliet’s lap and tugged her shirt back into place. She carefully wiped her mouth with the back of her hand to remove any traces of errant lip gloss.
“We’re down here,” she yelled.
Juliet snapped back as well, racing over to the staircase. She straightened herself up in the same way that Sienna did, adding a quick pat down of her hair. “Dec! Open the basement door,” she shouted, banging on the door with her fist.
“I’m coming!” Declan yelled back. There was a clamoring of footsteps. “There’s no doorknob!”
“I know! Who’s with you?” Juliet asked.
“Celeste. What should we do?”
“Is the other side of the doorknob on the floor? You should be able to slide it in and open it that way,” Juliet said.
Sienna rubbed her hands together furiously. She joined Juliet at the top of the staircase, listening for their two-man rescue team to let them out. Silence hung in the air like a wet sheet, thick and suffocating.
“I don’t see it!” Celeste yelled from the other side of the door. “It’s a huge mess out here. I’ll just break it down.”
Juliet rolled her eyes at Sienna. “Okay, good luck. Declan, keep looking for the doorknob.”
Sienna reeled from an immense sense of relief, but also with dread and disappointment. Everything felt different now, and as crazy as it was, she wanted to stay in that dark basement where things had been getting interesting.
“Stand back.”
They backed down a few steps to give Celeste room to do her thing. Within seconds, a deafening bang shook the door and it swung open on protesting hinges. Celeste was standing there with an old fire extinguisher in her hands.
“You had a lot more momentum than I did, standing on the stairs,” Juliet said.
Sienna gave her a really look and rushed over to Declan. She swept him up in her arms and clung to him tightly.
“Thank God you’re okay,” she said. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Sienna. What are you doing here? I thought you were in your office in the city!” he said, hugging her back just as tight. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so open to affection.
“Go see your mom.” Sienna let him go and Juliet was waiting for him with open arms. Sienna smiled as they embraced.
It took a few minutes for her eyes to adjust to the light, even though it was only a dim glow from a generator-fueled backup system. The station was largely intact, but a fallen tree had broken the glass of the entrance door. The branches had knocked all kinds of files, papers, and office supplies to the floor. It was a mess, but it could have been a lot worse.
Celeste wrapped her up in a bear hug. Sienna was surprised but hugged her back. “Can you even believe this?” Celeste asked. “When the warning came through, I didn’t really take it seriously. We don’t have tornadoes here. That happens out in Western Mass once in a while, not here. Are you guys okay?”
Sienna nodded. “Yes, we’re fine. We got stuck down there when the tornado hit, and we had no cell service at all.” She raised her cell to find that she still had no service.
“A tower must have been taken down. None of us have service right now,” Celeste said. She turned to Juliet. “We don’t have any reports of injuries or…worse, yet. I’m hoping everyone listened to the warning and got to a safe place. We drove by your house first, Jules.”
“And?” Juliet asked, raising her eyebrows.
Celeste flinched. “Your roof was ripped clean off. There are about a hundred shingles on your front lawn. I’m actually glad you weren’t home.”
“Seriously?” Juliet yelled. She rubbed her temples. “Great. I better go take a look at the damage. I’ll do that once we take a sweep through the town. I’m glad no one’s been hurt, or at least that we know of. Looks like we have a shit-ton of cleaning up to do, though.”
“Were you afraid?” Sienna asked Declan, who looked very much like a little boy in the middle of the chaos.
He shrugged. “Not really. I’ve seen enough disaster documentaries to know what to do. We went down to the custodian’s room below ground. Coach just kept smashing us into this tiny little room, but it has no windows, so it was perfect. Everybody was good.” He looked between them. “I was just worried about you guys.”
Sienna rubbed his arm while Juliet cupped his face. He would normally never allow that kind of affection, so they had to take it where they could get it.
“Sienna, can you take Declan home? I’ll take the ride with Celeste to make sure everyone is safe and has everything they need.” Juliet looked around for her phone. She found it under a pile of paper clips and stuck it in her pocket.
They walked outside where tree branches and debris littered the street. A big blue mailbox was turned on its side; a swing set sat in the middle of the road as if it had been there the whole time. The sky had
lightened to a muted gray, so at least they could see, but everything around them looked beaten and battered. The heavy rain had tapered off, but the soft breeze was still carrying the leftover raindrops.
Sienna’s car had been spared. She brushed off a smattering of leaves and debris that covered her windshield and unlocked the car. “Come on, we’ll go see how the house looks.” Sienna waved Declan over to her.
“Jules, you can stay with us until your roof situation is taken care of,” Celeste said, standing in front of her own car.
“Is it that bad?” Juliet asked.
“Yeah, it’s that bad. I don’t want you to be surprised when you see it.” Celeste pulled up the collar of her jacket.
“I love you to death and I appreciate you more than you know. But I should really just get a motel room while I have it fixed if it’s that bad. Your one-bedroom would be a little tight with me, you, and Brooke,” Juliet said.
Sienna was about to offer up their house for Juliet to stay in, but she closed her mouth quickly. She didn’t know where they stood or if Juliet was having regrets or if she could even handle her in that proximity.
“You can just stay with us,” Declan said, putting the kibosh on Sienna’s uncertainty. “It’s not like we don’t have the room.”
Juliet didn’t say anything, just smiled and nodded. She shot a quick look to Sienna, who was also silent. No, we’re adults. This is silly. One tiny kiss doesn’t change everything. There’s no use being all dramatic about it.
“Of course, you should stay with us.” Sienna touched Juliet’s shoulder. “It wouldn’t make sense for you to spend the money on a motel when we have three spare bedrooms.”
Juliet coughed. “Thank you. Maybe Celeste is exaggerating, as usual, and I won’t need a place to stay after all.”
Celeste smiled and gave Juliet the finger. “I have to go check on Brooke’s parents when we’re done. I don’t think their street was even touched, but I promised her I’d go have a look.”
“Thanks again,” Juliet said, bringing her hands together in prayer formation. “Love you.”
Sienna waited while Declan climbed into her car. She looked over at Juliet, their eyes met, and they both looked away. At some point they’d have to talk about what had happened, but now wasn’t the time. Juliet and Celeste drove off, their lights flashing, but the siren off.
Sienna and Declan took a detour by their house, which was completely undamaged. There were some branches strewn around the property, and it looked like one of their wrought iron streetlamps was bent, but other than that, it was untouched by the twister. She caught a glimpse of Will using the net to clear the pool of sticks and leaves. She winced internally at how little she’d worried about him through all this.
“Dad came by the school before he went home, so I knew he was okay. Like I said before, we both thought you were in the city,” Declan said. “The whole thing kinda feels like a dream.”
“It certainly does,” Sienna agreed, looking over at Declan. “We’re all very, very lucky.”
She pulled up to the curb outside of Juliet’s house. It really was as bad as Celeste had said. There were two-by-fours and shingles and bricks from her chimney all over the place.
“You okay?” Sienna asked, noticing Declan’s slack-jawed expression.
“Yeah.” Declan walked around back to survey the damage in the backyard.
Sienna waited outside, leaning against her car. Declan was picking up small pieces of debris, shoveling sand against the tide, but she wasn’t about to stop him. She was chilled, even though it was quite warm out. It was entirely possible that she and Juliet could chalk what happened in the basement up to a stress-fueled reaction to a tragic situation. They could go back to their easy conversations, their flirtatious and then close-then-distant-then-close-again friendship that they’d been engaging in for the last few months. It could be done. It would be a little harder waking up to Juliet in her house for the foreseeable future, but it could be done. What other choice was there?
Chapter Twenty
All hands were on deck. Quinlan and Celeste had just finished hammering a piece of plywood over the broken windowpane of the police station door. When she’d been out with Celeste, Juliet had prepared herself for the worst. Luckily, the tornado had confined the bulk of its damage to property. Life and limb had been spared. Leland and Deagle were out patrolling the community again, making sure that everyone was safe and that the elderly and disabled were taken care of. And Juliet was collecting the paperwork and files that had been scattered everywhere.
“Just hung up with MEMA. They’ll be coming first thing in the morning to survey the damage and see what kind of relief we can get. Power crews are already out and about trying to restore the electricity, but that could take up to a few days. Jeffries, what kind of calls have been coming through from the public?” Quinlan pushed his glasses up on his head and sighed. Juliet didn’t think she’d ever seen him so fatigued.
Celeste grabbed her notepad. “Could be worse, Chief. Reports of some minor injuries, those people have been taken to Coastal Creek either by ambulance or by themselves. People are upset, of course, but all in all everyone seems to be handling it okay. We’ve put the word out that electricity may not be restored right away, and that always causes a minor panic. The town council is setting up cooling stations and buffets in the high school gym using their backup generator. If nothing else, this storm will break the heat. We’re really lucky, Chief. No deaths and no serious injuries. It seems the worst to come out of this is property damage.”
“Great news,” Juliet said, along with the chorus of the others agreeing with her. She wished her house hadn’t been hit quite so badly, but she was still grateful that everyone had made it out of the storm with their lives intact. “We’ll need to get that basement door fixed, but I just stuck a wedge under it for now to keep the door closed.”
Nobody seemed to care much about the broken basement door, but Juliet decided she’d be sure to put some emergency supplies down there. Just in case.
By the time they’d finished getting everything in some semblance of order at the police station, it was nearly ten o’clock. Juliet was exhausted, but the thought of going to Sienna’s worried her. Sienna and Will’s. But if she didn’t accept their invitation, it would open up a whole line of questioning she wasn’t prepared to deal with. If she could just get the thought of Sienna’s mouth on hers out of her head, it would make the whole thing a lot more manageable. But that was easier said than done. Every time the image of the two of them on the tablecloth in the basement snuck into her mind, her stomach would do flip-flops and her face would flush. This was madness.
Once she was in her car, she shook her head, trying to rid herself of what she was feeling. There was too much going on, too much work to be done to spend time pining over someone she couldn’t be with.
She drove slowly up her driveway, not allowing herself to grasp the full impact of the fact that her house was in shambles. She wanted to cry, which would have been a perfectly normal response, but she pushed it down. Her roof was completely obliterated. If anything, Celeste had understated the damage. Juliet stepped over a few shingles and shoved open the door. She stood in the hallway, looking up at the night sky. Stars were everywhere now, a cruel erasure of the tempest that had blown through just hours earlier. She hurriedly packed a bag with some clothes, some toiletries, and a phone charger. She took the family photos from where they’d hit the floor and wrapped them in an old T-shirt. She contemplated taking them, along with the lock box that held her passport and other important documents but left them under the bed instead. The house wasn’t any less secure than it was when it had a roof, since all the walls had remained intact, and it wasn’t like someone was going to scale them to go through the debris inside. She locked the door behind her and cast one last glance at the damage before she drove away. It doesn’t matter. It’s just a thing, and things can be replaced. I’m very, very lucky.
Juliet pu
lled up to Sienna’s house and parked behind her Volvo. She grabbed her duffel bag from the back seat and slung it over her shoulder. She felt like she’d been in the same uniform for a week and she desperately needed a shower.
“Hey, Mom,” Declan said as she dropped her bag on the floor near the door. “Look at us, one big happy family.”
He was clearly joking, but Juliet could only manage a half smile. “Yeah, look at us.”
“Jules, Dec told me about your house. That totally sucks. I called Brian Walsh in Nashua, remember him? He’s going to come out tomorrow to see what needs to be done and how quickly they can get it fixed,” Will said. He gave her a quick hug before picking up her bag.
Yes, Juliet remembered him. He was a townie who had moved north after college and opened up his own contracting business. She was so ecstatic someone was coming to help she considered throwing her arms around Will and squeezing him until he cried for help.
“That’s amazing. Thank you so, so much. I didn’t even know where to begin. My brain is complete mush at the moment.”
“No problem,” he said. “You know you’re welcome here as long as it takes.”
Sienna came in from upstairs and seemed startled at the sight of Juliet. The feeling was mutual. “I didn’t even hear you come in,” she said.
Juliet noticed that she had showered and put on comfy clothes, black yoga pants and a baggy yellow tank top. She looked absolutely adorable.
“Yeah, I just got here, actually. You wouldn’t know the town was without power,” Juliet said. Declan was already flipping channels on the television.
“I’m glad Will had the foresight to have a whole-house generator installed. We thought it would be more for snow than tornadoes, but the end result is the same.” Sienna shrugged.
“Definitely. Do you mind if I grab a shower?”
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