This is Delilah, reporting live from my bathroom, manifesting chaos for Charleston’s most dramatic couple.
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CHAPTER 9
JESS
The sky turnsangry around four o'clock.
I'm finishing notes on my last patient when my phone buzzes with an emergency alert. Hurricane Delilah, upgraded to Category 2 overnight, is making landfall earlier than expected. Bridges are closing. Roads are flooding. The shelter in place warning is coming any minute, I just know it.
Fan-fucking-tastic.
I grab my keys and head for the door. I’m already calculating the fastest route home. But when I pull out of the parking lot, traffic is gridlocked. Red brake lights stretch for miles in every direction and the first fat raindrops splatter against my windshield.
My phone buzzes again and when I see his name on my screen, it’s a shock to the system.
Griffin:Where are you?
I shouldn't answer. I've been keeping my distance since that moment in the treatment room. The one where I made the fatal mistake of grazing his red wood tree with my palm. I didn’t do it on purpose, but it’s impossible not to notice the way it swells up every single time I touch him. The sight sends heat pooling low in my belly every single time.
I admit that I’ve thought about it, but I was never going to actually touch it. It was a Freudian slip, or whatever. But I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll just commit it to memory and secretly obsess over it like a proper adult.
I blow out a deep breath. Professional texts only. Clinical detachment. Pretending I don't think about his hands on me every single night.
Me:Stuck in traffic. Trying to get home.
Griffin:The bridges are already flooded. You won't make it.
He's right. I can see the water rising on the overpass ahead and cars turning around in defeat.
Griffin:I'm five minutes from the clinic. Just come here.
Me:No. That's not a good idea.
Griffin:It's a better idea than drowning in your car. Don't be stubborn, Jess.
Dr. Hartwell, I want to text back. But the wind is picking up. It’s rocking my little sedan, and a tree branch skitters across the road in front of me.Dammit.
Me:Fine. Send me your address.
Twenty minutes later, I'm sprinting through horizontal rain to Griffin's front porch. He opens the door before I can knock and pulls me inside. His eyes rake over my soaked scrubs.
"You're drenched."
"Excellent observation." I'm shivering, water pooling at my feet. "The sky is falling, in case you hadn't noticed."
He disappears down the hall and returns with a towel and a stack of dry clothes. "Bathroom's through there. Change before you catch pneumonia."
I don't argue. I'm too cold, too tired, and too aware of how small his house feels with both of us in it.
When I emerge in his oversized sweatpants and a t-shirt that smells like him, the man has lit candles throughout the livingroom. I’d take it as a gesture, but the power is already flickering. So clearly I’m going insane and reading way too much into everything.
"Hungry?" he asks.
“I’m starving."
We eat soup and sandwiches by candlelight while the storm rages outside. We talk about… nothing. The clinic, his recovery, Biscuit's latest vet visit, the fact that Biscuit is safe with neighbors waiting out the storm. We go around and around, carefully avoiding anything that actually matters.
