Page 60 of The Seascape Between Us

He nodded, his gaze narrowing while he measured me up, assessing me. Probably trying to decide if I was worthy of his friend. I wanted to be.

“Get comfortable,” Daniel said, setting the groceries on the counter. “I’m just going to get changed, and then we’ll start dinner.”

Despite the easygoing, friendly tone of his voice, I knew it was fake. Even from across the room, I could feel the tension radiating from his frame. His thoughts were on the hotel. If I hadn’t turned up when I did, I wasn’t sure he would have stopped working.

The sight of him, boarding windows while the rain fell in sheets, soaking his clothes until they stuck to him like a second skin, lightning flashing, thunder cracking above him. He looked like a man possessed. He was lucky he hadn’t been struck by lightning. Even now, I wondered if he’d been alone, would he have been back at that hotel, facing the elements, sacrificing himself to the hotel like it meant more than him?

My stomach churned sickly at the thought.

“I need to change too,” I said. I’d only been outside a few minutes, but the rain had soaked me through.

I followed Daniel into the bedroom, where he peeled off his wet t-shirt and tossed it into the hamper next to the closet.

“You should shower,” I said. “Warm yourself up.”

He nodded but didn’t look at me. It was as if he was on autopilot, going through the motions but nothing really registering. My apprehension kicked up another notch.

“The hotel will be fine,” I assured him. “It’s been here for sixty years. I bet you this isn’t even the worst storm it’s faced.”

“I hope you’re right.” He swallowed hard, his throat jumping. “Otherwise, everything we did won’t matter. It will have been for nothing.”

“Like I said, we can always start again.” He didn’t answer or look at me, and that apprehension coiled tight in my stomach squeezed. “We’ll be okay.”

“I’m going to jump in the shower. I won’t be long.”

“I’ll start dinner,” I told him.

In the kitchen, I went to work on chicken in a rose sauce over pasta with salad. I wanted to cook dinner quickly. We’d lose power eventually, and from the way the wind rattled the windows, rain pelting hard against the glass, it would be sooner than later.

I started the water boiling and was slicing the chicken when Brody wandered in and leaned against the door frame. “Can I help?”

“I have dinner under control, but you could open the wine. Or there’s beer in the fridge.”

Brody grinned, picked up the corkscrew and opened the bottle of wine on the counter.

“Is he okay?” Brody asked.

I didn’t need him to clarify. There was only one person we were both concerned about. I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure that Danielwasokay. “He’s worried about the hotel. We didn’t get it boarded up the way we’d hoped.”

Brody nodded. He opened his mouth as if he were going to say something else, but Daniel strolled in, freshly showered, and he snapped it shut again. He turned to Daniel. “Wine?”

He poured glasses for Daniel and Jett, too. The four of us stood in the kitchen chatting while Daniel and I got dinner ready, then settled at the dining room table to eat. It was nice, even with the storm raging outside. There were moments where even Daniel seemed to forget what was going on, and his smile looked genuine. But I could always see the minute he remembered. The way he tensed. The way he glanced at the front window, as if he thought he could see the hotel from our vantage point—high up on the hill looking over The Square.

The power went out as predicted while Daniel and I cleared the table. While I finished loading the dishwasher that I wouldn’t be able to turn on, Daniel lit candles in the living room. From the kitchen, I watched him drift to the front window and peer into the darkness. Brody stood next to him, reached up and squeezed his shoulder.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Daniel turned away from the window and nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe him.

“There are board games,” Jett suggested, brightly. “In the closet at the top of the stairs. Monopoly?”

“Sure,” I said, flopping down on the sofa. Daniel sat next to me, and I absently rubbed his back. He leaned closer, and something like relief loosened inside me.

Using the flashlight app on his phone, Jett hurried upstairs and returned with a well-worn box containing the game.

“God,” Brody said, lifting the lid and setting up the board on the coffee table. “This game looks like it’s a hundred years old.” He poured the metal pieces out from the small plastic bag they’d been stored in.

“I’m the race car,” I called before someone else could.

---