She was rooted to the same spot he’d left her, white as a sheet and clutching her phone to her chest. She hadn’t even turned on her flashlight. Felix pushed the radio strap up to his elbow and took Jo by the shoulders.
“You okay?” he asked.
She stared right through his chest, eyes glazed over.
“Look at me, Jo,” he demanded, making his voice deep and commanding. She started but obeyed. “There you are,” he continued, more gently. “Stay with me. Are you okay?”
“No, I am not the fuck okay.” Her words were flat and emotionless.
“What can I do?”
“Get me out of here. Put me on a plane back to California.”
A stab went through Felix’s heart. He shoved the feeling aside. Later. Later, he could process what the thought of sending Jo away did to him. “What can I do that doesn’t involve leaving this room?”
Something in Jo shifted as the shock wore off. She started to shake. Her phone thudded to the floor; her palms pressed against her cheeks. Her fingers curled around the arms of her glasses, digging into her temples. She wasn’t looking at him anymore.
“I-I—I don’t…”
“Shh, it’s all right, cariño. Come here, come sit down.” He guided her to a corner and sat her on the floor. On the radio, the tornado warning was repeating over and over. Nothing about a touchdown. Not yet.
Jo hugged her knees to her chest, wedged into the space where the two walls met. Felix sat beside her and stretched his legs out long, a third wall to protect her.
“I hate this,” she muttered, staring into the darkness. “I hate this so much.”
“This is the safest spot in the building. We’ll be okay.”
“Earthquakes just happen. They’re over before you know it. Waiting around like this is so much worse. Christ, I was just starting to like it here.”
She sounded more like herself, so Felix took a chance at teasing her, hoping to draw her out more. “You do know you moved to Kansas in the middle of tornado season, right?”
Jo finally looked at him, wincing. “Honestly? I didn’t think about it too much. I was afraid I’d chicken out.”
Well, that explained a lot. Her surprise about the tornado watch despite ominous weather, her ignorance of alert apps, her apparent lack of a waterproof jacket. But it did raise another question.
Perhaps keeping her distracted was a good idea. They might be here a while.
He shifted, angling his torso toward her. “Jo, why did you move here? Of all places, why Ashville?”
She didn’t answer at first. Then, letting out a long sigh, she said, “Remember, at Stan’s, how I said I broke up with someone? He… he actually broke up with me. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t, and it got messy. We lived together, and when he ended things, I floundered for a while. I didn’t know where to go. It was right after the holidays, so I’d just spent a bunch of money on Christmas gifts. I didn’t have a deposit saved up, and I couldn’t afford rent on my own anyway. I really didn’t want to do the whole roommate thing again in my thirties. Plenty of people do it, I know, but we’d been together so long—”
“You don’t have to justify yourself to me,” Felix interjected.
Jo knit her brow and regarded him for a moment. “Oh. Thanks. Anyway, I was crashing in Aida and her fiancé’s guest room. One night, she sat me down with a bottle of gin and a laptop and told me to figure my shit out.”
“That sounds harsh.”
“No, that’s just Aida,” Jo said with a tiny laugh. “I needed a kick in the pants, and she knew it. She’d watched me wallow and fed me ice cream and Thai food for two months at that point, and there was no end in sight. Literally, the only things I did outside work were sleep, eat, and run our MnM game. I hadn’t even looked at apartments in weeks.”
“Then I amend my statement,” Felix said. “That sounds like a pretty great best friend.”
“Yeah,” Jo stared at her hands, clasped on top of her knees. There was a gentle, affectionate smile on her face. Felix wondered if she ever smiled that way when she thought about her friendship with him. The way he did, especially whenever he saw the damn library key. Lately, he’d taken to running his thumb over that meaningless, stamped G.
“So what happened?” Felix prompted.
Jo’s smile turned sly. “We got blackout drunk that night, is what. When I woke up, I had a hangover so epic that bards should write songs about it. And I found tabs open on my browser for”—Jo ticked them off on her fingers—“‘lowest cost of living cities in the U.S.’, a map of Ashville, the jobs page on the White Hills website, and my email, where I somehow already had an approved apartment application. Luckily, I didn’t apply for my job while blacked out, but once I stopped barfing and could see straight, I decided to go for it.”
Jo tipped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. Felix allowed his gaze to wander down the line of her throat. It bobbed as she swallowed. His eyes trailed all the way down to the point of the V-neck of her sage green shirt. His lips fell open of their own accord, and sensation flooded to his dick. Jo took a deep, shuddering inhale, and Felix realized, with the same level of subtlety as being hit by a truck, that she was trying not to cry.
Fuck. Shit. Stop it.
Felix bent the leg closer to Jo and slung his arm casually over his knee. Hiding the tightness in his slacks because Jesus Christ, man, the woman is crying. The fuck is wrong with you?
“But it wasn’t just about money,” Jo continued, oblivious. “Jeremy and I were together a while. I didn’t know what it was like to be me, on my own, anymore. I thought it might be good to get a fresh start somewhere, where I didn’t know anybody. I wanted somewhere cheap… but also somewhere far. I don’t know if I was being brave or just trying to get away from the people who looked at me with pity. But drunk-me thought we were brave, and that bitch chose Ashville. Aida and Trey gave me the money for movers, and I drove out here. Just me and Merry. God, I hope he’s okay right now.” She opened her eyes and met his gaze. “So that’s the story. Here I am. In the middle of a fucking tornado, sitting in a library basement, with a—”
SLAM!
Jo screamed. Felix jumped and yelled, “Fuck!”
It sounded like the entire library, books and all, had collapsed on top of them. The ceiling trembled, though the walls were rock-steady. They were both frozen, waiting for the next sound and… holding each other tightly.
Jo’s arms were wrapped around Felix’s waist. Her grip was so strong it was a struggle to draw a full breath. Her face was buried in his chest, rapid breaths fluttering his shirt, glasses digging into his pec. Felix had somehow draped his long legs over hers. Her knees were poking the back of his thigh. His were flattening her boobs. He could feel the underwire of her bra against his kneecap. His upper body was folded over her protectively, one arm down her back and the other covering his own head and neck. He was breathing against her hair, practically tasting that sweet, fruity scent that cut right to the core of him. And, it appeared, he was clutching a handful of her thick, fleshy hip to draw her body even closer against his.
Fuck if it wasn’t as soft and yielding as he’d imagined.
“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit,” Jo was saying, over and over.
Felix shushed her and said, “Radio.”
