Misadventures of a Curvy Girl (Misadventures #18)(25)

“I wish I had my phone,” I murmur. I left it upstairs in the rush to get dressed and to the basement. “I could check the weather.”

“Signal’s bad enough around the house,” Caleb says with an apologetic smile. “It’s even worse down here.”

I sigh and lean back. It’s both boring and weirdly energizing to be without my phone at a time when I’d normally be using the hell out of it, and it makes me hyperaware of everything. The way the candlelight moves across Ben’s bare chest and beautiful features as he sits on the floor next to Caleb. The way Caleb’s eyelashes fan across his cheekbones as he closes his eyes and croons to Greta.

The way neither of them are touching me.

Oh God.

What if this is it? What if this is the beginning of the inevitably awkward end? What if it actually began ending the minute Ben left Caleb and me in bed? That’s a very telling thing to do, right? One of those actions that speaks louder than words—so much louder it’s practically a shout?

I don’t want you again. That’s what it shouts.

I adjust my position on the hard floor, again feeling the ache and lingering sting in my pussy from being so well-used last night. At least I don’t feel ashamed. I worried about that last night, before I fell asleep, that there’d be some kind of good girls don’t have threesomes panic, but I don’t feel anything even approaching shame. If anything, I’m a little proud I had such a good adventure with such handsome men, that I was brave, that I did something impulsive and electrifying without stopping or censoring myself. Every part of it was good, and even knowing it’s time for me to let go of the night and move on, I still only feel good things about it.

I only feel ashamed I want more.

I stare down at my knees as the wind picks up and roars around the house with a renewed fury that raises goosebumps on my arms. Caleb hugs Greta harder, mumbles something about hoping Clementine is okay in the barn. Ben is the picture of stillness, sitting with crossed legs and a straight back, his eyes on the weather radio as it drones on and on about tornado sightings near Holm and which counties need to take cover.

There’s something about Ben’s stillness that betrays something, however, even if I can’t put my finger on it. It’s not the stillness of a person at peace but the stillness of a person who’s trained themselves not to flinch, and it makes me wonder what else Ben has trained himself to do.

And why.

A huge clatter comes from upstairs, followed by a glass-shattering crash, and Caleb jolts, as if to get up, but Ben clamps a hand on his shoulder. “Stay the fuck here,” Ben bites out.

Caleb looks up the stairs, torn, and I remember he told me on our tour around the place that this is his family’s house, that it’s over a hundred years old. No wonder he feels protective.

But Ben is right—whatever is happening above us is too dangerous to investigate, and I watch his hand on Caleb’s shoulder for longer than I should, something about it making me hot and squirmy all over again.

The weather radio keeps droning, but the wind and crashing get louder and louder, drowning out the robotic voice coming through the small, old speakers, and there’s a moment when I think the house is going to come right off the foundations and just blow away. It rattles and creaks and groans mightily, and I realize I’ve grabbed on to Caleb’s thigh only after he takes my hand and rubs a soothing thumb over the back of it.

The house seems besieged for hours, but when the weather radio announces the time, it’s only been a handful of minutes, and from there on out, the wind slowly abates, retreating with erratic and fitful gusts, until all is silent once more. The next time the weather radio lists the counties that need to take cover, our county isn’t on the list.

Ben clicks it off.

“Ready?” he asks us, as if we’re about to go into battle and not upstairs. Neither Caleb nor I answer, although I notice Caleb gives Greta an extra pat before shifting her off his lap, and I think it’s more to comfort him than to reassure her.

After blowing out the candles, we mount the creaking stairs up to the ground floor, with Ben’s bobbing flashlight to guide us, and then he swings the door open to reveal a house that’s still intact.

“Oh, thank fuck,” Caleb breathes as we walk around to see everything is where it should be. The screen door came loose in the wind, apparently, and banged against the side of the house hard enough to shatter the glass in the lower half of it, but the rest of the windows are intact, and when we walk around the outside, the siding and the roof seem to be fine. Even Clementine is okay when we check on her, although she’s agitated. The worst thing we can find is a tree on the edge of the property that’s been blown over and some sunflower petals scattered across the lawn.

Caleb visibly brightens the more we walk, and he’s nearly smiling when we get back to the house. Even Greta is wagging her tail, and for a moment, I think it’s all over—the storm, the fear, the worry—all of it.

Then Ben’s phone rings.





Chapter Ten





Ben





I don’t like storms. Never have, actually, but after I got back from my last deployment, I realized I really don’t like them. Not the unpredictable rolls of thunder that remind me of mortars echoing through lonely, scree-covered valleys. Not the strobes of lightning that remind me of muzzle flashes at a distance. But weirdly, it is the wind that gets me the most. My therapist says it’s because the wind is as unpredictable as the thunder, but I know it’s more than that.