Page 41 of Xavier

My gaze wanders around the now tidy yard, surprised it only took a couple of hours to clean it all up.

Brianna walks over to me with a bottle of water in her hand. “Here. You need to hydrate. You’ve been working for hours with no break.”

“Thank you.” I take the offered water and drink half the bottle in one gulp.

Who knew storm clean up was so hard and time consuming?

“All that’s left is to burn the brush pile.” I say after I finish my water.

“Don’t get too sweaty because we have the town meeting to go to.”

I look down at my sweat-soaked shirt. Too late. There’s no way I could have cut up the trees without soaking my shirt.

Unless I was shirtless.

“What town meeting?” No one has mentioned a town meeting over the past couple of days.

“Oh, right, I forgot you’re new to town. Dad always holds a town meeting after a major hurricane. The community gathers and we discuss what still needs to be cleaned up, if there’s anything left after people get started on their own.”

“That makes sense.” Scarlett Island is a tight-knit community after all, so it makes sense that they would all chip in to help each other out.

She continues. “If someone needs an extra hand, then a team gets together to help. Last year, it took almost the entire town to get a tree off Uncle Zach’s restaurant. They had to call a company for a crane.”

“Well, I’d say your family’s house is debris free. We just need to burn the branches. I’ll have to go check on my dad’s house before the meeting.”

“Don’t you mean your house? It’s not your dad’s house anymore.”

Her comment catches me by surprise, and she winces when I turn to face her.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry. That was incredibly insensitive.” Her face blushes a deep red with embarrassment.

I shrug. “It wasn’t insensitive. I know you didn’t mean anything negative about it. Besides, you’re right. It is my house now, and I should start thinking of it as mine.”

“On that note, I’m going to run inside and grab my keys. I’ll see you at the town hall for the meeting.”

She spins around and jogs toward her house.

I chuckle and shake my head before grabbing the chainsaw to put it back inside the garage.

I say a quick “See you in a few,” to the mayor and his wife before getting in my car and driving the short distance to my house.

That’s one of the perks of living on an island. It only takes a few minutes to get from one end to the other.

I take a deep breath as I turn onto my road. It’s still flooded on this side of the island.

Stepping out of my car, my gaze immediately surveys the damage. Palm fronds litter the front and side yards. The old giant tree in the backyard has been uprooted and is laying half in the water across the dock.

The dock will have to be completely replaced, but it was old and barely holding on as it was, so that loss isn’t too much to bear.

The clean up, brush fire, and pulling the tree out of the water will have to wait until after the town meeting.

I turn around, run inside, and change shirts before heading back out to my car.

Slowly and carefully, I drive to the center of town where the town hall building is located and survey the town’s damage on the way.

Even though it was a category three hurricane, Scarlett Island seems to be lucky, but I haven’t seen the entire island.

Roof shingles and tree branches litter the roads and sidewalks, but from what I can see, there isn’t any structural damage to the town’s buildings.

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