Page 8 of These Summer Storms

Another rumble, a reminder that any wild thoughts about a one-night stand with a perfect stranger were just that—wild thoughts. And Alice Storm was simply not the kind of person who made good on wild thoughts.

She had a father who did that, and look where it got him.

Dead at 70.

The words crashed over her, discordant and unwelcome and she hated them for it. Grief shouldn’t feel like this, should it? It should feel like screaming and crying and rending of clothes. Not like this—empty. Like she wanted to fill it up with anything but sadness.

Like she wanted to fill it up with this man. With one night.

A car door slammed in the distance.

She cleared her throat and looked back to her phone. “Dammit.”

“What happened?”

She shook her head. “The universe. My ride canceled.”

A gray SUV turned the corner from Main Street. Long Legs said, “That’s mine.”

“Thanks for keeping me company.” There was no reason for her to feel like this, like his departure was a loss. Like he was a port in the storm.

“Are you okay?” No reason for him to notice that she wasn’t and still, it felt—“Do you…need a ride?”

“Thatdefinitelysounds like you were following me.”

“Okay, but what if I don’t want anyoneelsefollowing you?”

It was a really decent thing to say. The kind of thing she’d rememberfondly in an hour or so, when she recounted this bad day (understatement) to her best friend. A sort of,And then a really handsome, very decent guy asked me if I would be okay by myself,kind of memory.And I wondered what he would say if I said, “Definitely not, you should stay and protect me. And also let me climb you like a tree.”

And Gabi would laugh, and Alice would talk about the rest of the day—her ride bailing and the train being loud and packed with people and the missed calls requesting comments and interviews she was never going to give. And the calls that never came from the people who should have called. And somehow, everything would seem better when she hung up the phone.

Except this wasn’t the kind of bad day that was made better by a phone call. This was the kind of bad day that came along once in a lifetime. Because the bad luck—the ride and the train and the texts and the missed calls—it was all layered on top of something worse.

My father died.

The words were a knot in her throat.

My father died, and we hadn’t spoken in five years, and I don’t know how I feel.

She couldn’t say them to the stranger. Instead, she stepped toward him, tilted her head to the side, and tried for a different kind of feeling. “If I let you give me a ride…what happens next?”

Something flashed in his eyes.Heat.

That felt good.

The heat wasn’t alone, though. It came with regret. Or some cousin to it, like that decent guy didn’t want to be so decent, but would be, nonetheless.

The car pulled up beside them.

She tilted her chin toward it. “I’ll be fine. It was nice meeting you.”

“We didn’t meet,” he said. “No names, remember?”

“Maybe we will,” she replied. “Someday.” They wouldn’t, but Alice stored the idea away like a memory anyway.

Lightning flashed.

She counted.One…two…three…four.

---