Page 32 of Praying for Rain

I wander the store some more, and just when I’m about to admit defeat, I notice a few giant magnets, grouped together on a shelf near the door. They look like round metal weights with a hole in the middle, and the sign below them says they can lift up to ninety-five pounds.

“Thank you, Jesus,” I whisper, raising my palms to the drop-tile ceiling.

I find some yellow nylon rope on a different aisle and use a pair of gardening shears to cut off two six-foot-long lengths of it. I thread one through the hole in each magnet and tie it off, figuring that Wes and I can just drag the magnets behind us as we walk through the woods. If they can lift almost a hundred pounds, surely we’ll feel a tug if we pass over a big metal door beneath the pine needles. Right? It might work.

It has to work.

I run outside with the backpack and my makeshift magnets-on-a-rope, eager to show Wes my new invention. He looks up at me from where he’s reflating his newly patched tire with a hand pump, and all my excitement leaves me in a single breath. Just beyond the store’s covered entrance, the sky has gone from bright blue to slate gray. Sizzling yellow lightning bolts shoot out of the clouds in the distance, and big, fat raindrops are hitting the asphalt parking lot so hard it looks like it’s boiling.

“You were right about the rain,” I mumble, staring at what’s become of our beautiful spring afternoon.

A clap of thunder booms so loud and so close it rumbles a piece of glass loose from the broken door. I jump at the sound of it shattering on the concrete behind me.

Wes glances at me over his shoulder.

“Can we … can you drive that thing in the rain?”

He raises his eyebrows like that was the stupidest question ever asked. “It’s a dirt bike. A little mud ain’t gonna hurt it.”

I smile, hearing the country in his voice for the first time.

Guess he’s from Georgia after all.

“You afraid of a little rain? ’Cause I can take you home if—”

“No!” I blurt out before reclaiming my chill. “No, it’s fine. I don’t mind.”

Wes gives me the side-eye, then returns to pumping the tire. “The sooner we find that shelter, the better. I have a feeling the locals are about to burn this whole shitty town to the ground.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because I drove through at least twenty other shitty little towns just like this one on my way here from Charleston, and they were all burning. Including Charleston. That’s why I left.”

“Oh.”

I’m such a fucking idiot. Wes arrived in Franklin Springs without so much as a toothbrush, and I never even wondered why.

Thanks, hydrocodone.

“You had to leave because of the fires?”

“Yep,” Wes replies in a clipped tone, squeezing the tire to test its fullness. “I was living on Folly Island and waiting tables at this little tiki bar.” He’s not looking at me, but at least he’s talking. “The owners were good people. They let me play guitar on the weekends so I could earn extra tips.”

Wes talked about playing guitar in Rome, too. I don’t know why, but I have such a hard time picturing him as a musician. I mean, sure, he looks like he just walked offstage with that grunge rock hair and effortlessly cool outfit—not to mention, his stupefyingly gorgeous face—but all the artists and musicians I know are sweet and sensitive. Wes isn’t even in the same zip code as sweet and sensitive.

“After everything started shutting down,” he continued, giving the tire a few more pumps of air, “they said they’d keep serving ‘til they ran out of food. I didn’t have shit else to do, so I volunteered to help ’em out.”

I smile to myself, picturing Wes grouchily waiting tables by the beach in jeans, combat boots, and a Hawaiian shirt—his half-assed attempt at beachwear.

“On Friday night, some locals came barging in, screaming about fires. The phone lines were already down, so by the time word got to us, half the island had already burned … including the house I’d been living in.” Wes screws the cap back on the tire nozzle as the wind changes direction and begins spraying us with sideways rain.

I shield my face with my forearm. “Oh my God, Wes. I’m so sorry. Did anybody get hurt?”

He stands and wipes his dirty hands on his jeans. “My roommate got out with minor burns, but I didn’t wait around to find out about anyone else. I traded my wallet and everything in it with my buddy down the street in exchange for his dirt bike, stole a gun and holster out of his closet before I left, and got the fuck out of town.” Right on cue, the wind blows Wes’s lightweight shirt like a beautiful floral curtain, exposing the deadly weapon he keeps tucked away underneath.

“But I met you Saturday morning.”

Finally, Wes looks at me—or squints at me, thanks to the spitting, sideways rain. “Drove all night. I figured, if the world’s gonna burn, I’d better get my ass underground.”

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