Page 31 of Praying for Rain

I glance over my shoulder at Wes and smile. “Yeah, I’m good.”

Wes doesn’t let me go until the door shuts behind Quint and Lamar. Then, he spins me around and grips my shoulders so hard I feel like he’s going to crush them in his bare hands. I wince and brace myself for the lecture that I know is coming about blah, blah, blah, you never listen, blah, blah, blah, I told you whatever, but instead, I hear Wes suck a deep breath in through his nose and exhale it just as hard. I open one eye and peek at him. His jaw is clenched, his eyes are narrowed, but he’s not yelling. Not yet anyway.

I lift my other eyelid and give him a tiny cringe of a smile. “Don’t be mad. I know you said—”

But before I can finish my apology, Wes pulls my body flush against his and smashes his lips even harder against mine. My body goes rigid for a second, completely caught off guard, but when he grabs the back of my head and slides his warm tongue into my gasping mouth, an atom bomb of desperation goes off inside of me. I press up onto my tiptoes and kiss him back, sparklers and bottle rockets going off behind my eyes. Wes tears the backpack off my shoulders and tosses it to the ground before slamming me up against the shelves of weed killer behind me. I can feel him everywhere. His hands are clutching the back of my neck, cupping my face, gripping my waist, grabbing my ass. His chest is pressed against my chest. His thigh is shoved between my legs, and when he rocks his hips forward, I feel another part of him—full and hard—against the side of my belly.

“Wes.” My plea is barely audible as it disappears into his relentless mouth.

Wes responds by gripping my hips and grinding against me harder. I feel my core coil and tighten as the entire world, both inside my mind and outside this store, disappears.

“You never … fucking … listen,” he growls between kisses.

“I know,” I pant, hooking my knee over his hip and shifting so that his hardness is now between my legs. “I’m sorry.”

Wes’s pace becomes even more punishing. I cling to his shoulders and suck on his swirling tongue and hold my breath as tiny earthquakes begin to rock my body. My legs tremble as the pressure builds.

“Wes …”

I tilt my hips forward, taking the full brunt of his force. Feeling him there—right there—separated by only a few layers of fabric and knowing he’s just as desperate for me as I am for him, does me in. I whimper against his lips and pulsate around nothing as the earth shifts beneath me, and I’m suddenly falling.

But I don’t hit the ground.

The shelf does.

Along with about two hundred plastic jugs of weed killer.

I open my eyes at the sound of the crash to find Wes smirking down at me, lips swollen and eyes hooded. He has a death grip on one of my arms, which he releases slowly as I turn and look behind us at the damage.

My cheeks burn white-hot when I realize what just happened. How pathetic I am. Wes is a sex god, and I just came in my panties and knocked over a shelf of weed killer from a kiss. I can’t even face him.

Thunder booms outside—for real this time—and I feel his stubble graze my cheek.

“As much as I’d love to pick up where we left off, I think it’s about to rain. We’d better go.” He smacks me on the ass and walks off, giving me and my bright red face a much-needed moment to compose ourselves.

So … that happened, I think, staring down at the damage we did.

I wait for my next thought to come—for me to overanalyze every aspect of that interaction; for me to admire the way the shelves were spaced just far enough apart so that, if one fell, it wouldn’t cause a domino reaction; for me to freak out and find a way to make the whole awkward situation worse—but there’s nothing inside my head except for a warm, soft, fuzzy kind of glow. I wait and wait, blinking at our mess, smiling to myself, but still nothing comes.

I don’t know how long I stand there, admiring the emptiness in my mind, but it’s the closest thing to relief I’ve felt in weeks.

Wes managed to do what all the alcohol and painkillers in the world haven’t. With nothing more than his body and his attention, he made it all just go away. All the memories. All the loss. All the worthlessness and loneliness and hopelessness and fear. For a few minutes, I was free of it all.

God, I hope he does it again.

As I wander the aisles of Buck’s Hardware, I let my mind actually contemplate the possibility of survival. Maybe living a little longer wouldn’t be so bad … if I were with Wes. Maybe we could make each other happy in our bomb shelter built for two. Maybe, once we find it, we can do what we just did again but without clothes on.

Blurry, grainy images of Carter’s boyish face begin to tiptoe around the edges of my chemically induced bliss. He’s only been gone about a month, but I can hardly remember what he looked like anymore. What his voice sounded like. What it felt like when we’d sneak out and make love on a blanket under the stars, hidden by the waist-high grass in Old Man Crocker’s untended field.

It hadn’t felt like whatever Wes just did; I know that much.

Or had it? I can’t remember.

I walk two or three laps around the store in a daze before I spot Wes kneeling next to his dirt bike just outside the front door. He tucks his hair behind his ear as he fiddles with the tire, and I can’t help but admire his gorgeous profile. It’s crazy to think that somebody that beautiful came out of Franklin Springs. I’m glad he got out when he did. He doesn’t belong here. The people here are … simple. Or, at least, they were before the nightmares began. Now, most of them have left town, killed themselves, or gotten themselves killed.

Not that I’m one to judge. I was thinking about doing one of those three things myself—until Wes showed up.

I take another lap, actually paying attention to the merchandise this time, and discover that Buck’s Hardware does not carry metal detectors. My hope deflates like the tire on Wes’s bike. How am I supposed to tell him that we came all the way out here and got a flat for nothing? I can’t. I won’t. I just need to think. I close my eyes and try to concentrate, but nothing comes. It’s ironic. This whole time, all I’ve wanted to do was erase everything in my brain, and now that Wes and the painkillers have finally done it, I need the damn thing back.

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