"No."
"Could've fooled me. You're a natural."
He doesn't respond, but his posture shifts. Straightens, maybe. Just a fraction.
We work. I strip off my shirt about thirty minutes in because the sweat is running down my back in rivers and the fabric is sticking to me like a second skin. I can't swing a hammer properly when I'm wearing a wet blanket.
"Fair warning," I say, tossing my shirt over the railing, "this is not a Magic Mike bachelorette party situation. Nobody's throwing dollar bills anywhere. This is just a largesweaty man trying not to drown in his own shirt. Very different energy."
I catch Stormy glancing my way. It's quick. His eyes move over my chest and arms and then snap away, fast, like he touched a hot stove. I don't read into it. I'm a big guy, covered in tattoos, swinging a hammer in the heat. People look. It doesn't mean anything.
But I notice. I notice everything about him, which is fast becoming a problem.
"Alright," I say, holding up a sheet of plywood against one of the higher windows. "I need you to go up the ladder and nail the top corners while I hold this in place. Can you do that?"
He nods. He takes the hammer and a handful of nails and climbs the aluminum ladder I've leaned against the building. He's light on it, careful. I plant my feet and grip the ladder rails with both hands, holding it rock-steady against the concrete wall.
"You good up there?" I call.
"Yes." A pause. I can almost hear the sir forming and dying on his tongue. "I'm good."
"There you go. See? That wasn't so hard."
He drives the first nail in clean. Then the second. He's repositioning for the third when it happens. A storm band rolls through without warning, and a wall of rain hits us like a fire hose, and the ladder rung under his right foot goes slick. His shoe slides. His weight shifts. I feel the ladder kick sideways in my hands and I react before I think, one hand leaving the ladder to catch him, my palm flat against his lower back, steadying him, holding him in place.
He goes rigid. Every muscle in his body locks up under my hand like I've pressed a taser to his skin. I can feel it through my palm, this full-body flinch that starts at the point of contact and radiates outward, and I pull my hand back so fast you'd think he burned me.
"Sorry," I say. "Sorry for the grabby hands. I just didn't want you to fall."
He doesn't answer for a second. He's gripping the ladder so hard his knuckles are white, and he's not moving, not breathing, just frozen there three rungs up with rain running down his face.
"I'm okay," he says finally. His voice is tight. The voice of someone who is very much not okay but has a lot of practice saying he is.
"Take your time. I've got the ladder. It's not going anywhere and neither are you. I won't let you fall."
He finishes the nail. He comes down the ladder one careful step at a time, and when his feet hit the ground, he takes two steps away from me. Not one. Two. Putting distance between us with the carefulness of someone who measures safety in feet and inches.
I don't comment or apologize again. I just pick up the next sheet of plywood and say, "Three windows down, eleven to go. We're making good time."
We work through the morning. The storm bands keep coming, soaking us and then retreating, and the heat between them is suffocating. Stormy works harder than he should, maybe, for someone his size who probably hasn't been eating enough. But he doesn't complain or even slow down. Every time I show him anything new, he absorbs it silently and does it right the first time.
Around noon, a Bay County Sheriff's cruiser pulls into the parking lot. I know the car before I see the driver. It's Mickey Weaver. He's wearing his uniform and his cop face, which means he's here in an official capacity before he's here as my best friend.
"Oh no," I say, loud enough for Stormy to hear. "The law has arrived. Everyone act natural and hide the drugs."
Mickey gets out of the cruiser and walks toward us through the rain. He's over six feet, muscular, with tanned skin, close-cropped hair, and the kind of jawline that makes him very popular on the dating apps he's always complaining about. We went to school together, played football together, and came out to each other on the same night junior year after splitting a bottle of his mama's peach schnapps. He's been my best friend for going on twenty years.
"You stubborn son of a bitch," he says by way of greeting.
"That's Big Stubborn Son of a Bitch to you. I have a sign and everything."
"I'm here in an official capacity to inform you that Bay County has issued a mandatory evacuation for all Zone A residents, effective immediately. Emergency services will not be available for rescue operations after six PM today. If you choose to remain in the evacuation zone, you do so at your own risk and the county assumes no responsibility for your life. In other words, don't call us if shit gets real and you find yourself hanging onto the roof and floating down the street in a storm surge."
"Did you practice that in the car?"
"Twice." He smiles, then kills it. "I'm serious, Tex. This one's bad. They're saying it could hit Category 5 before landfall. The surge projections are insane. You need to leave.As your friend, I'm asking you to leave. You can stay at my place as long as you want."
"You know there's no way in hell I'm leaving this place."
