From Twinkle, With Love(31)

It was nice. The air was cool and I was perfectly comfortable in my T-shirt and shorts. Then something rumbled.

“Is that thunder?” I asked, frowning up at the sky. Sure enough, these giant black clouds were rolling in, and lightning was glittering in the distance. “We’re pretty far into the trail. I don’t think we can make it back to your car in time.”

“It’s all good,” Sahil said. “We can take cover under the trees.”

I was beginning to panic. Colorado thunderstorms are freakishly fast. There are many things that don’t scare me, but being outside in a lightning storm is not one of them. I have seen way too many charred and splintered husks of trees to be blasé about something like that, let me tell you. “I don’t think so, Sahil.”

“Hey, it’s going to be okay.” Sahil smiled his gentle, calm smile.

“No, you don’t understand,” I said, finding it not a bit calming. “I think standing under a tree is the exact opposite of what you’re supposed to do in a lightning storm.” The first drops splattered on my skin.

“Serious?” Sahil’s smile faded. “Crap.” The drops turned into streaks of rain. The ssshhhh sound of them hitting the trees intensified.

Another bright flash of lightning split the sky, and right on cue, we both grabbed the other’s hand and began to run just as a huge clap of thunder rumbled the ground under us.

“Um, where are we going, exactly? The car’s too far away, right?” I huffed after a while. I wasn’t even well-endowed, but my boobs hurt from running without a sports bra.

“It is! Let’s just find some other shelter!” Sahil said, shouting over the thunder and deafening rain. “I know that’s at least the right thing to do!”

“Stupid Colorado summer storms!” I yelled back.

“You’re joking.” Sahil glanced at me as we ran. He was barely breathing fast at all, but I felt like I was dying. Well, if you looked at our legs, mine were about half the size of his stilt-like numbers. It was no wonder. “That’s one of my favorite things about this place!”

“Let’s take it down a notch, please,” I panted, holding my side, and Sahil immediately slowed to what for him was a leisurely pace and for me was still a brisk walk. “I like storms when I’m inside and drinking chai and reading a book or watching a movie. Not when I’m apt to be the latest lightning victim. Although I did read once that this guy got zapped by lightning and when he woke up, he could suddenly paint and speak five different languages he couldn’t speak before. That’s the only way this will be okay.”

Sahil laughed and pointed with his free hand. “Hey, a cabin! Perfect!”

I looked at it through the needles of rain and then at Sahil. “Um. Doesn’t that remind you of the cabin in any number of horror movies?”

“Beggars can’t be choosers,” Sahil countered. “Especially wet beggars.”

He had a point there.

The cabin was old and the floor was full of pine needles and the walls were full of spiders’ webs and it smelled like green, sludgy stuff, but at least if we stayed in the center, away from the holes in the roof, we would be dry. And I was fairly sure we were safer in it than out.

Sahil closed the crooked door behind us and blinked in the dim light. I could barely see him. I looked down at myself—and almost died. No. No. I was wearing a white T-shirt … which was now soaked through. My tattered old bra, the one I’d had since eighth grade, was on display. Immediately, I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to act casual.

Sahil was poking around. “Just looking for a lantern or something,” he explained. “It would be nice if we could see.”

“What? Nah,” I said with a flick of my wrist while still keeping my arms locked firmly around my torso. “This is fine. It’s a nice rest for my eyeballs anyway. I mean, they’re always on, you know?”

I thought Sahil was giving me a weird look, but I couldn’t be sure. “Um, okay,” he said, coming to stand with me in the center.

A sudden wind gusted through the single open window (the glass was completely missing), and I shivered.

It didn’t even seem like Sahil thought about it; he just put his arms around me. I froze again, but this time it was a totally different kind of freeze. “Are you cold?” he asked, rubbing his big, warm hands up and down my arms. Goose bumps sprouted immediately.

I tried to think about Neil in that moment. I did. The slight problem was, all I knew about Neil was that he had nice abs and calves. And all I knew about N was that he had questionable poetry skills (though of course I’d never tell him that) and favored an air of mystery. But Sahil? He made me laugh. I looked at things differently because of him. He supported me as an artist. How was Neil supposed to compete with that?

Oops, Sahil had asked me a question. “Um, yep,” I said, my voice all high and squeaky as I tried to remember to breathe. I don’t think he noticed, though, because he didn’t say anything. “I just hope this cabin doesn’t flood. That would be bad.”

“Very bad,” he said softly. “I can’t swim.”

I laughed a little. “You can’t? But Neil’s a swimming superstar.”

Sahil’s hands stilled and then dropped; his body tensed. “Yeah,” he said, his voice hard. “He is, not me.”