“Okay.” Jo swallowed and glanced around the empty lobby. Peggy wasn’t here. Judging by the complete silence from the rooms beyond, neither was anyone else. “Is everyone gone?”
Felix nodded. “No one’s come in since the watch alert went out about an hour ago, and Peggy went home early to get her chickens secured.”
Jo’s mind raced, flashing with images of Dorothy (and her little dog too) dashing through sepia-toned plains. “Do I need to go home? Do you?”
Felix walked over, stopped an arm’s length away. He put his hand on her shoulder, like he’d done at Stan’s last weekend. He made eye contact with the same kind of steadiness Jo had been trained to use in medical emergencies. “Do you have a basement at home?”
Jo focused on Felix’s deep brown eyes and tried to recall what her landlord had told her when she moved in. There was definitely something about a designated tornado shelter, but, at the moment, she couldn’t remember the details. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’m not sure where the shelter I’m supposed to use is.”
“Okay, then we’ll stay here,” Felix said, cool as a goddamn cucumber. “Would you feel better if we went downstairs now?”
The Wicked Witch of the West’s theme music was now looping like a broken record in Jo’s mind. How could she have been so stupid? Sure, she’d never actually seen tornado weather before. But if she hadn’t been in such a rush and gotten distracted talking to Aida about her silly boy problems, maybe she would have put two and two together. The music in her head crescendoed, mocking her. She shook her head, trying to clear it away.
Felix apparently took that for a no, but Jo could barely remember what he had even asked. He slid his hand to her upper back and murmured “okay.” He guided her around the desk, where she plopped onto a chair and let her bags tumble to the floor. A male voice intoned softly from a yellow handheld radio beside her, rattling off numbers and meteorological phrases that she only partially understood.
Felix took the other chair. “May I have your phone, please?”
She blinked at him. “Why?”
“I’d like to install the Butler County Severe Weather app on it. And the NWS Mobile app.”
Jo unlocked her phone and handed it over without further protest. Watching him work and listening to the steady drone of the man on the radio had a mildly calming effect. Jo’s heart rate returned to something closer to normal, and her flashbacks of The Wizard of Oz faded away.
“Thank you for doing that,” she said to Felix. Looking at the careful way he held her phone, she could almost feel the imprint of his touch on her back.
“You’re welcome,” he said. “Do you mind if I give you my number and text myself so I have yours? I don’t think it’s a good idea to keep relying on email to communicate.”
“That’s fine.” She watched as he created a new contact for himself with his full name. Of course, Jo thought. So formal. He typed a message reading “Jo” and tapped send. Finally, he gave back her phone.
“Let me know if you need any help with the apps,” he said. He grabbed his own phone to save her number. “You can turn off some alerts and sounds, but others, like tornado watches and warnings, will always push through.”
“You stayed for me.”
Felix froze, not looking up from his phone.
“Didn’t you?” she prompted. “I never responded to your email, so you stayed here in case I showed up. Instead of going home like everyone else.”
“I needed to make sure you were safe.” His voice was soft as a whisper, but too rough to be called one. He lifted his chin a fraction of an inch and peered at Jo through his eyelashes. His gaze seared her skin with dark fire, her face heating from the scorch of it. Her pulse throbbed once—hard—in her temples, in her wrists, between her thighs. Felix had never looked at her like that before. No one had ever looked at her like that before. Like she was something worth keeping safe.
Felix knew the look he was giving her was too honest, too intense, too real. But the past hour had turned him into a wreck, and he didn’t have the energy left to stop himself.
This was Ashville’s first tornado watch since Jo had moved here. As soon as it was announced, he’d emailed her to make sure she had heard. Then he’d spent an hour refreshing his inbox over and over, even though it should have refreshed automatically with each new email. When he didn’t hear from Jo, there was no question of whether he’d wait for her. The shelter downstairs was as safe as his basement. He would stay. He had to. He couldn’t simply lock the door and walk away and hope for the best. Wait to hear from Jo on the other side of her first fucking tornado. He needed to see for himself that she was okay and give her somewhere safe to wait it out.
Jo didn’t look away from his scrutiny. Her breath quickened, and some instinct within Felix told him it wasn’t from fear of the storm.
“Oh,” Jo finally said, all round eyes and round cheeks and round glasses. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Before he could respond, two klaxons of emergency notifications blared.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.” Jo was white-knuckling her phone with both hands, wide eyes locked onto the screen. Felix’s phone displayed the same message she was seeing.
TORNADO WARNING IN YOUR AREA. SEEK SHELTER IMMEDIATELY. FOR MORE INFORM…
“Come on.” Felix offered her his hand. She took it without hesitation. But when he pushed to his feet, she didn’t move. She was still staring at her phone. He roughly pulled her up, jolting her into action. Her feet were barely under her when she started running for the stairs. Felix gripped her hand tighter and ran alongside her.
At the base of the stairs, he took control. He steered them to the large, empty room at the end of the hallway, in the dead center of the building. Once the door was securely closed behind them, Felix turned on the flashlight on his phone. He stuck it in his pocket, light facing out, to keep his hand free. Because no way in hell he was letting go of Jo.
He reached for the hook on the wall that held the portable radio.
And immediately realized his mistake.
“Shit. I have to get the radio. I left it on the desk.”
“What?” Jo’s hand clenched even tighter around his. She grabbed at his forearm, pulling on his sleeve. “You can’t go up there!”
He almost touched her cheek. At the last second, he diverted to her shoulder, chest to chest with her. “Cell service isn’t reliable right now. We need that radio to know what’s going on and when it’s all clear. I’ll come right back. I promise. Stay here.”
Jo released him, hovering a breath away. “Hurry.”
Felix tore himself from her side, leaving a piece of his heart behind to watch over her.
He pounded down the hall, up the stairs. The windows rattled. He didn’t spare them even a glance. He launched himself at the desk, hopping up to land on his belly on the tall counter. A soft “oof” escaped him. He snatched up the radio and, in the same movement, shoved himself backward. Looping the wrist strap over his hand, he made a beeline for the stairs. Two steps down, he tripped on the carpet and had to slam against the wall to catch himself.
Fuck.
He took the rest more carefully. Nurse or not, the last thing Jo needed right now was a broken ankle—or worse, a broken neck—to deal with.
