AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Inside, Nate fixed Colby coffee in a French press. She watched him pour in the hot water and, after a few minutes, slowly press down the filter. “Was that in your trunk too?”
“Yep. Got it this morning. I always travel with a French press, just in case.”
“In case of…?”
Nate smiled as he poured her a mug. “Zombie apocalypse, nuclear fallout, hurricane, early morning. You know, whatever. Cream? Sugar?”
“A little milk. Is it still good?”
“The fridge is still cold,” Nate said. “I moved the milk to the freezer. We should probably eat things like the eggs, cheese, and meat from last night first. It’s hard to say when the power will be back on, but things will start going bad if it’s not back on by this afternoon probably.”
She sat at the counter and took a sip of coffee, playing with her phone, turning it off and on. No new messages from Napper. “I should probably call my mom,” she said.
“I’ve got to make a few work calls myself,” Nate said.
“You have to work right now?”
Nate smiled. “Work doesn’t always wait. Not when you’re developing an app. We’ve got a launch date coming up soon and a lot of bugs to kill and fires to put out.”
“That’s a few too many analogies.”
He rolled his eyes. “Call your mom.” He tapped the counter twice and then headed down the hallway.
After assuring her mom that she was okay, but needed to preserve battery life, Colby opened up the app again. She stared at the last, middle of the night conversation with Napper.
Sewzy:You survive?
There was a few minutes’ pause and she fidgeted with her coffee cup, waiting. She almost gave up when a new message flashed.
Napper:No power, but otherwise okay. You?
Sewzy: Pretty much the same. I won’t be able to get out for a few days.
Napper:Glad you’re okay
Sewzy:Thanks. My battery’s almost dead. Talk again soon?
Napper:Yep
His messages felt strangely like he was holding back now. They were shorter. Cooler, almost. What if something changed in the time since they talked?
Colby put her mug in the sink and then walked to the dining room table where she had three projects in various stages of completion. She could work today, but it didn’t feel right. She wanted to change and go around the neighborhood with Nate to see the damage. People might need help. Nate seemed to read her mind.
“Want to go walk? We can see the damage and see who needs help,” he said.
“Let me get dressed.”
Twenty minutes later they were walking through yards, assessing damage and talking with the neighbors. People kept assuming that Nate was her boyfriend, even though they didn’t hold hands or give any other signals. All of their touching from the middle of the night seemed way too intimate for daytime. A few times their hands brushed as they walked and Colby found herself doubly distracted, thinking of Nate while also thinking about Napper.
Nate still had his chance. She hadn’t given up… yet. But if he didn’t tell her soon, she wouldn’t keep hoping. She couldn’t.
As they turned the corner at the end of the street, they saw the big tree they had heard the night before. “Whoa,” Nate said.
It was a huge live oak, the root ball totally out of the ground. It was taller than Colby. When it fell, it somehow missed all the houses, landing right down the middle of an intersecting street that dead-ended in front of the home where it had stood. That street wasn’t as flooded and mostly just had puddles and filled gutters on the edges of the road.
The leaves and branches blocked the whole of the road. It would be impassible until someone chopped it down. Two neighbors already had chainsaws on it, the buzzing whine the loudest sound. The chainsaws didn’t seem that loud after the winds the night before, but as they approached a group of neighbors by the place the tree uprooted, Colby couldn’t hear anything they were saying until the chainsaws turned off for a moment.
“Are you new to the neighborhood?” a woman asked. She looked to be in her late forties and wore a tennis skirt paired with rain boots.
