“Not particularly.” Walking by him, her skirt swooshed, and he grabbed her wrist, pulling her taught against his body.
“Talk to me, baby. What’s wrong?” He smoothed her hair back from her face, her intense, blue gaze defined with apprehension.
“You’re gonna be mad. Promise you won’t be mad.”
Tim furrowed his brow. “I’m not going to get mad. Tell me.”
Her shoulders drooped and she mumbled while looking at the floor. “I overheard some women talking about you in the restroom. They didn’t see me and said all kinds of horrible things; not just about you, but me too. I couldn’t stand it, and when I came out, I told them the truth about who you really are.”
Tim knew his secret would come out at some point, but never imagined it would come out in a ladies’ restroom at a posh country club. “What exactly did you tell them?”
When she looked up at him, a single tear had rolled down her cheek. “I told them where you went to college, that you were a quarterback in the NFL and that your real name is Tim Ryan.” Her lip quivered, and she thrust herself into his chest where she hid her face and gripped his waist with her hands. “I’m sorry, Tim. I’m so sorry.”
Consoling her would have been the right thing to do, but he was disappointed and needed a minute to gather his thoughts. Stroking the back of her head, he kept his mouth shut and sighed deeply, knowing things would radically change once the news of his identity got out into the world. Their small bubble of happiness was ruptured. If the local news stations got wind of who he was and what he had been doing all this time, all hell would break loose. The media would have a heyday with this information, the onslaught of questions and cruel quips about his demise on the west coast coming back to the surface. They would pull Jessica and her family into the circus too, something he was not prepared for. Jessica had no idea what she had done—he knew that. She was trying to protect his honor by putting those women in their place. Part of him was glad she stood up for him. The other part petrified that the world they had created together was about to come crashing down.
“Aren’t you going to say anything?” Jessica’s voice was muffled against his chest.
“I need to go.” He pulled her back from his body and gripped her by the shoulders.
“What?No. Please don’t go,” she pleaded, her tear-stained face causing him to frown.
Tim couldn’t bear to see her cry. As much as he wanted to be alone and come up with a new plan, he couldn’t leave her in this condition. Her crying turned into sobbing, and it had him coming undone.
“Okay, okay. I’ll stay until you calm down. Please, calm down, baby.”
She forlornly nodded and pulled him by the hand into the master bedroom. The lights flickered for an instant, followed by a low rumble of thunder.
“Sit,” he commanded. When she was seated on the mattress, he lowered himself to the floor and took off her shoes. Trying hard to stop the tears, she sniffled and struggled to breathe normally. Grabbing a tissue off the bedside table, he pressed it tenderly against her cheek, wiping her tears away.
“Shh. Calm down. It’s gonna be okay.” Shrugging off the black tux jacket, he laid it over a chair before he sat down and took off his shiny dress shoes. “Scoot over.”
They lay next to each other on the giant bed not saying a word, Jessica’s ball gown fanned out dramatically across the mattress. When she shifted her body to lay her head on his chest, he didn’t complain. He wrapped his arm around her, pulling her in tighter, not wanting to let go. Unsettled, he let his mind go blank and concentrated on the steady breathing coming from her as she fell asleep in his arms. Soon, his eyes were heavy, and he drifted off to the sound of rain pelting the windows against the backdrop of faraway thunder.
***
Something wasn’t right.
Tim woke with a start. The lights in the bedroom were still on, the digital clock reading 12:39 a.m. Looking to his right, Jessica was fast asleep next to him with the palms of her hands in a praying position under her cheek. God, she was so beautiful.
Rain continued to pelt the windows in the bedroom, turning into small pieces of hail ricocheting off the sills, sounding like pennies thrown at the glass. Tim stood and eyed the darkness outside before reaching for the TV remote. When the screen came alive, all he could see were large purple colored blobs covering the Doppler radar as a weather anchor frantically indicated a tornado warning in the area. Tim squinted to make out the area the map showed before the sound of a transformer blowing tripped the breaker, throwing everything into darkness.
Tim’s adrenaline hitched and goose bumps covered his skin as he glanced out the window again at the dark greenish sky.
Fuck.
“Jessica? Jessica, baby, you need to get up.”
“Wha…what?”
“Come on. We gotta get the girls down to the basement. There’s a tornado warning in the area.” By this time, Tim had grabbed his cell phone and turned on the flashlight app.
“Oh, my god,” she replied breathlessly. “What do we do? I need to change…”
“No!” he yelled, startling her in his grip. “We need to move fast.”
They ran through the great room toward the stairs, the weather outside turning unusually still.
“You get Jo-Jo, I’ll grab Jennifer and the other two.” He thrust the phone into her hands.
