toes and kiss him. He isn’t wearing a shirt, so I can see all his muscles. “You sure are pretty,” I say quietly.
He rolls his eyes, scoops me up into his arms, and takes me to bed. “You don’t have to flatter me into sex.”
“What do I have to do, then?” I ask as he pulls my shirt over my head.
He grins wickedly. “Just breathe.”
But I lose my breath with what he does next, and that’s quite fine with me.
36
Abigail
“I’m beginning to think this rain is never going to stop,” Gran says from her spot at the kitchen table where she’s shelling peas. I have never understood why anyone would want to shell peas when you can buy a whole can for less than a dollar, but she enjoys doing it. When she’d found them in a bushel basket at the tackle shop, she’d been overjoyed.
“It’s supposed to stop later today,” Ethan says as he walks in. He had to go and move some things around for Mr. Jacobson, but he has been inside most of the past three days, while the hurricane has stalled on the coast exactly the way Mr. Jacobson said it would. It was a category four when it hit the coast, and it has sat and churned, which gave us a little wind and pouring rain that hasn’t quit yet.
“How bad is the flooding?” I ask him.
“Pretty bad,” he says. “The campground is under water. Mr. Jacobson is glad he had me go tie down all the picnic tables before the storm hit, or we’d find them at the bottom of the lake when all this is over.”
He pulls his hat off and brushes his wet hair back from his face. “Mr. Jacobson is monitoring the police scanner. Five Mile Bridge is under water.”
“All the way under?” I ask, aghast. Five Mile Bridge, a bridge whose name is not appropriate at all since the bridge is only about half a mile long, usually has about fifteen feet of clearance between it and the water.
“Like, you can’t see the rails of the bridge under,” he clarifies.
He walks to the bedroom to get a dry shirt. He has a few things here, but most of his clothes are at his cabin which is where we sleep. We seem to have fallen into a rhythm of eating at Gran’s every night after he gets off work. For the past three days the schools have been closed because of the storm, so Mitchell has stayed with me during the day.
Right now, Mitchell is sort of upside down on the couch, reading a comic book. His feet rest on the back of the couch, and his hair hangs down off the seat cushion to touch the floor. I have learned over the last few weeks that Mitchell is almost never still. Even when he’s standing still, he’s moving something. He might be standing on one leg, or he might be upside down, but he is always moving.
“Did you call your mom?”
He grins. “I did.” He leans toward me and says quietly, “A man answered the phone.”
I lay a hand upon my chest. “A man?”
“A real live man,” he whispers vehemently.
“Who was he?”
He shrugs. “No idea. He said his name is Shawn, but I don’t know anything else about him. But when I asked to talk to her, he told me she was in the shower.”
“Oh, so that’s how it is?” I arch my brows at him and grin comically.
He shoves his fingers into his ears and sings out, “La la la la la la la! I don’t want to know!”
I try not to laugh. “I’m glad she’s happy.” I nod toward Mitchell. “He looks pretty happy too.”
Ethan grabs me and pulls me against him. “How about you?” His eyes run up and down my face. “Are you happy?”
“Couldn’t be happier,” I reply. I stand on my tiptoes so I can kiss him, and Mitchell makes a gagging noise, but he’s still engrossed in his comic book so I’m not too worried.
Suddenly, Ethan’s phone rings. His brow furrows. He hits the button to put it on speaker. “Hello,” he says.
“Ethan, the boys at the rescue squad just called. They need some help, so Jake and I are going to go down.”
I shake my head at him. “No,” I mouth.
He ignores me. “What’s going on, Mr. Jacobson?”
“There’s flooding down by Big Belly Creek, and some trees are blocking the road. They need a few men with trucks and chain saws to come