Page 25 of Hideaway Whirlwind
“I…I’m not,” he says, almost like a question, dropping his eyes to my stomach. “But what if—”
“I can’t get pregnant,” I interrupt, gripping the doorknob that’s as chilly as my demeanor.
“Oh,” he says, ducking his head so I can’t see his eyes. “You’re on birth control?”
“Something like that,” I murmur, and he doesn’t try to stop me again when I swing open the door and slip out of his room.
* * *
“We’re almost out of gas,” Elliott says two evenings later when he steps into the cabin, stomping his boots to rid them of ice.
The forecast Elliott was able to catch on his radio in the Bronco said the freak, record-breaking freeze is supposed tocontinue for at least the next two days, if not longer. Even then, it might take several weeks for people to get their power back, and Elliott has already emptied the spare cans of gas he had stored in his shed.
“What are we going to do?” I ask, wringing my hands.
Since it rarely snows or gets this cold in Texas, Elliott doesn’t have much by way of split, readily available firewood for his fireplace, which we’ve been using to heat the cabin while rationing the use of the generator. That is cause for worry all on its own since we have to keep an extremely close eye on the kids, especially Kendall.
Although…this isn’t the worst thing to happen. After working multiple jobs at a time during certain periods, it’s nice to finally get a break, like a vacation of sorts. Not a very fun one, since there’s not much to do or see, but one nonetheless.
He sighs. “I’m going to drive around. See if there are any gas stations open. If not, I’ll have to start chopping trees, and I don’t know if they’ll be dry enough to burn.”
“You can’t drive in this weather!”
“I have to, Mama,” he says, grabbing my hip to pull me closer. “I promise, I’ll be careful.”
I step away and cut my eyes to the kids bundled together beneath a pile of blankets on Elliott’s recliner while Dustin practices reading aloud a comic book from Elliott’s childhood that he found in a box in his attic. He’s never called me justMamain front of the kids—only ever referred to me asyour mamawhen speaking to them—and I worry they’ve overheard him. Thankfully, they’re too engrossed in the story to take any notice of us.
“Sorry.” Elliott shoves his hand into his jeans pocket. “‘Sides, we’re running out of food, too.” His stomach rumblesright on cue, and I can’t ward off the mounting guilt. A man as big as him needs as much food as me and the kids combined, yet he’s lied about how hungry he is each time we’ve sat down for a meal, urging the kids to finish their plates first, giving them seconds if they need it. I’ve tried to do the same, but then he just plops more onto my plate from his portion.
I’ve picked the skin around my fingernails bloody as night falls, my stomach roiling with nausea the longer time stretches without Elliott’s return. After tightly tucking the kids into bed, I sit on my hands on his recliner, worrying my bottom lip next as I stare out the wide, frosty front window. With two pairs of Elliott’s woolen socks on my feet, I bounce the balls of them on the floor, listening to the generator sputter and eventually die.
What if he crashed his vehicle or ran off into a ditch? What if he’s trapped and runs out of gas and heat? Is there anyone else out there, looking for food and gas, who could help him? What if he never comes back?
I clap a hand over my mouth at the thought of never seeing Elliott again, wondering how in the world I became so attached to him when he was supposed to be in and out of our lives in only two days. A passing, helpful stranger. Someone to get us safely from point A to point B as a favor to our mutual friend. That’s it.
It’s my nightly visits, lingering in his room and his arms longer than the night before. It’s turned what had been a task and a little bit of fun into something dangerously more than that. Something I need to nip in the bud. Something that I’ll be forced to let go of once the freeze does finally end and we move on. Something I can look back on, a fever dream of sorts, and perhaps think of fondly. Or if not fondly, then…
I don’t know what to call this, but I do know that I’m absolutely sick over the idea that I’m repeating the same pattern, falling for the wrong type of man disturbingly fast. Sick over the idea that my girls will repeat my pattern because I’ve set a terrible example for them. Sick over the idea that last night might have truly been thelastnight with Elliott…
As soon as I hear the distinct, distant rumble of Elliott’s Bronco, I throw myself out of the recliner and run out the front door. I scream and grab onto the wooden handrail when my feet slip out from under me on the slick front porch steps.Stupid, stupid! I shouldn’t be risking a fall, and though I want to run down the gravel drive to meet him, I force myself to go back inside, pressing my nose to each window, tracking his Bronco as it makes its bumpy way around the cabin to the back. Even then, I have to wait longer for Elliott to fill the generator and get it started again before he steps through the door I already have whipped open for him.
His face is blooming red beneath his beanie, and his fingers are so stiff and frozen solid around the handles of several plastic grocery sacks and a bundle of firewood that it takes effort for him to relax his grip enough to chuck everything on the table, a two-liter bottle of ginger ale toppling over.
“We need to get you warmed up,” I say, hustling down the hallway, pulling the shivering silver bear behind me.
Like the rest of his cabin, Elliott’s en suite bathroom is wood paneled with natural stone counters and tiles. Having used it last night for the first time to clean Elliott’s cum from my thighs so I wouldn’t have to leave his room just yet, it’s easy enough to find the glass shower door’s handle and pull it open to turn the water on full blast with only the weak moonlight to see by.
“In you go,” I say after stripping Elliott of his clothes, catching a whiff of smoke and a familiar, chemical scent I can’t quite place beneath the smell of gasoline on his hands. When he remains stock still and silent other than his chattering teeth, I tell him, “I’ll wait for you in the bedroom.”
“Birdie…” Elliott gently grabs my arm to stop me from leaving when I step aside to move around him, and he draws me into his big, naked body, his skin so, so cold. At my lower back, he tugs on the hem of his sweatshirt that I’m wearing over two of his T-shirts that fall to my knees. “Please,” he says.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or don’t want to?” he asks quietly.
What I don’t want to do is lie, so I pull one of his trademark cards and simply don’t respond. Neither do I stop him, after a long pause, from taking my sweatshirt and top T-shirt off, though I hold down the bottom T-shirt when he tugs on that, too.
“If I get in the shower with you,” I say, “you have to promise not to look at or touch my stomach.”
