Page 105 of The Spider & the Storm

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

An infuriating stream of sunlight had broken through the blinds to lay across my partially downturned face, ensuring that, if my alarm had somehow failed to wake me up, the blinding light wouldn't have given me a choice.

I grumbled an incoherent curse, my voice thick with sleep and aggravation, as I reached out and smacked my hand against the nightstand until I found my vibrating, shrieking phone. That one eye, assaulted by sunlight, cracked open as I turned off the alarm, catching the date.

It was November. Winter would make its approach quickly. The new year would arrive before I was ready. It always happened that way, and this time last year, I'd been grateful, as I had been the year before that and the year before. One year closer to being free of this world, one year closer to ending my sentence of living alone with my sadness and guilt.

But it was a new November, a different one from before, and I was reminded of that by the shift of weight on the mattress and the arm lying across my back and the lips brushing against my shoulder.

“What time is it?” Stormy mumbled, groggy and barely awake.

I glanced at the time once again on my phone screen before dropping it back on the nightstand. “Few minutes after seven.”

“Fucking Christ,” she groaned and rolled over. “Wake me up when the hour is in the double digits, ‘kay? Thanks.”

My lungs emptied with a sigh as my lips spread in a smile. I said nothing as I remembered how much Luke hated mornings. How reluctant he always was to wake up for work, how he'd spend the entire day in his underwear on the days he didn't have to work at all.

“Why does she remind me so much of you?”I sent off to a prison in Connecticut, wondering what he'd say if he got the message.

“Charlie, man, I love you, but, like, I don't wannafuck you. I mean, no offense, but … yeah, no. You're too hairy and weird for my tastes, thanks.”

I chuckled to myself before I pulled myself up to sit naked at the edge of the bed, brushing the hair off my forehead and scrubbing that same hand over my face. With a peek over my shoulder, I saw Stormy, her hair as wild and chaotic in the morning as mine. The blanket was pulled up tight over her shoulders, concealing everything but that big poof of black, and I couldn't help but laugh again.

“What the hell is so funny?” she grumbled from beneath the covers, clearly agitated.

“Your hair looks like a … a …” Another chuckle rumbled up from my chest uncontrollably. “An electrocuted cat.”

She rolled over quickly, flipping the blanket back to stare me down with a murderous glare as she fired back, “Oh, yeah? Well, you look like a fucking bridge troll.”

I snorted and grabbed my briefs from off the floor before standing up and turning to face her, her eyes still shooting daggers in my direction.

“I mean,” I said, bending over to tug the underwear on, “that's not an entirely inaccurate assessment. But I don't have a bridge.”

“No. But you do have a whole freakin’graveyard, which probably makes you worse than a bridge troll.” She was speaking more clearly now, even though the circles under her eyes were deepened by smeared makeup and exhaustion.

“That's fair.”

I snatched my jeans next, pulled them on, and then went in search of my T-shirt while Stormy watched, narrow-eyed and disbelieving.

“How the hell are you so awake? We only got, like, four hours of sleep.”

I found the T-shirt at the foot of the bed and shrugged before slipping it over my head. “I don't usually sleep much. I'm used to it.”

“You're used to having sex all night and waking up a few hours later to go to work?”

“No.” I shot a smirk in her direction. “I don't sleep well on a normal night. I’m in bed at a certain time, for routine’s sake, but I’m not usually sleeping.”

Her smile was touched by too much sympathy for my tastes. “Why doesn't that surprise me?”

“Because I'm a bridge troll. No time to sleep when I’m always on guard.”

I stuffed my feet into my boots on my way to the side of the bed, bending over to grip the headboard and press a quick kiss to her lips, immediately startled by how normal it felt.

“I'm making coffee,” I announced quietly, staring into her eyes.

She didn't reply right away. She tightened her hands around the blanket at her shoulders, looking back with dancing eyes and breathing deeply for a few beats of my heart. Her lips parted gently, as if she'd seen something within my gaze she hadn’t expected to find, and then she nodded.

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