“I know you can.” Jake covered Wes’s hand with his own. His grip was tight, desperate. “But I said I wasn’t leaving you. I promised.”
“This isn’t leaving,” Wes said, though it felt like it. It felt like an amputation. “It’s temporary.”
Jake stared at him for a second longer, his blue eyes searching Wes’s face. He looked at the beard, the small scar on Wes’s eyebrow, the stubborn set of his mouth. “Keep Henry safe. Check the generator fuel. Charge your phone.”
“I know the drill, city boy.”
“I mean it, Wes. If there’s service, I’m calling you every hour.”
“Get in the car, Jake. Before the rain turns.”
Jake didn’t move toward the door. Instead, he surged forward.
He kissed Wes. Right there in the driveway of the B&B, where Barb or Cassie or anyone driving by could see.
It wasn’t a sweet kiss. It wasn’t the frantic exploration of the workshop or the gentle touches in the bedroom. It was desperate, a claim. Wes gripped the back of Jake’s coat, haulinghim closer, trying to imprint the warmth of himself against the coming freeze.
When they broke apart, they were both breathless.
“Tomorrow,” Jake promised, his voice rough. “I’ll be back tomorrow afternoon.”
“Tomorrow,” Wes said, wishing he believed it.
He knew the forecast. He had checked the radar on the massive iPad Miguel used for sales. A pink and purple blob the size of Texas was churning up from the Gulf, colliding with a cold front that was already sitting on top of them.
Jake got into the car. The engine revved, cutting through the eerie silence of the afternoon. He didn’t look back—Wes knew he couldn’t. If he looked back, he wouldn’t leave.
Wes stood there as the sedan crunched over the gravel, turning onto Main Street toward the highway. He watched until the red taillights were swallowed by the gloom.
He was alone.
A single drop of precipitation hit Wes’s cheek. He reached up to wipe it away, but it didn’t smear. It was hard. Solid.
Sleet.
He looked up at the sky. It was a flat, featureless sheet of slate. A magnolia tree nearby shivered in a sudden gust of wind, its glossy leaves rattling like dry bones.
He pulled his phone out. He had a missed notification from the monitoring app—Henry moving around in his room.
Wes turned his collar up against the wind and walked toward his truck. The silence of the town felt heavy, waiting.
“Scene One,” Wes whispered to himself. “Act Two.”
Just him, the old man, and the coming storm.
Eleven
I-75 South, near Macon
Monday, December 22
2:30 PM
The world didn’t end with a bang; it ended with the rhythmic, scraping sound of windshield wipers fighting a losing battle against slush.
Jake gripped the steering wheel of the rental–another Audi sedan–until his knuckles turned white. He had left the meeting in Atlanta at 11:45 AM, declining Harrison’s invitation for a celebratory lunch at The Capital Grille. At noon, it had been raining—a cold, miserable, city rain.
But as he crossed the fall line, the rain changed.
