Page 80 of Beautiful Place By the Sea

The rain has begun to fall now, starting quickly and only growing in intensity. By the time we’re halfway to the porch, it’s coming down in angry sheets, waved this way and that as the wind commands. In just a matter of seconds, our clothes are drenched.

“Well, that wasn’t great,” I remark as we huddle under the overhang.

He pretends to wring out the bottom of my dress. “You might need to change.”

A genuine laugh bursts forth from deep within my chest. I can’t believe how easy it is, being with him. How I almost walked away from it without knowing. What a mistake that would have been.

I reach out and squeeze his hand. “You’re funny.” We’re standing so close together, my wet hair is dripping onto his shoulder. Based on his expression, I wouldn’t say he minds.

We’re quiet for a moment, communicating some sort of new understanding without any words whatsoever.

“Hey,” he says finally, his breath warm on my cheek.

“Hey,” I reply, swept away in the current of his eyes. They’re so like the Ogunquit River: safe, sheltered. Breathtaking.

A creaking noise breaks my focus. Over Oliver’s shoulder, I spy the culprit: an old pine leaning precariously toward the roof.

Oliver turns and follows my gaze. “I don’t think that’ll fall.”

He may know nothing whatsoever about trees, but the confidence with which he reassures me is enough to convince me he’s a world-class arborist.

Suddenly, my eye catches on something adjacent to the tree. The attic window.

The one I left standing wide open yesterday. The one that’s probably now welcoming torrents of water into the house, right on top of Simon’s photo album.

“Shit!” I turn away from Oliver and hurriedly key in the door code.

“What’s wrong?”

“I left an attic window open. Hold on.” I start to run inside, then spin back toward him. “Or, well, you don’t have to hold on; I should let you go. But I need to take care of this. Thanks for the ride.” I’m caught between the violent urge to race upstairs and survey the damage and the frenzied need to keep Oliver from leaving. I don’t even have the mental bandwidth to be embarrassed by my gibberish, I’m so caught up in my racing thoughts.

Oliver’s looking at me like perhaps I hit my head harder than he thought earlier. “That’s okay. I’ll stay and make sure you don’t need any help.”

“Okay,” I agree. “Thanks. It’s just this way.”

My heart’s racing with fear that I’ve destroyed both Simon’s home and his irreplaceable personal effects. It’s also racing when I realize Oliver goddamn Clarke and I are alone in my house. Well, my rental.

I pull down the attic stairs, and Oliver attempts to steady them as I head up. He follows close behind. As soon as I flip on the lights, I groan. There’s a massive puddle of water on the attic floor, with more streaming through the open window every second.

“Seriously?” I say out loud. I can’t believe I forgot to close the window. Granted, I was fairly overwhelmed yesterday, looking at photos of my grandparents in their youth, then baking the most mediocre blueberry pie of all time. I’d had a lot to think about, and it makes sense that closing the window would slip my mind. But given the weather, and the fact that this is someone else’s house, I really needed to do better.

I tear toward the puddle as fast as I can amidst the forest of boxes, then reach up on tiptoe to yank the window down. Leveraging my weight forward, I pull with as much force as I can muster. The window taunts me by offering no movement whatsoever.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I mutter under my breath. I pull again, my hands slippery from the water that’s blowing in all over the sill plate as the wind rages outside.

Oliver catches up to me then, reaching his arms over my shoulders to grab the head jamb. He must be pushing pretty hard, because I can see his biceps bulging out of the corner of my eye as he shoves the window down the track. Even in this moment of crisis, I’m not immune to a little thrill that he’s pressed up behind me.

“It might be a little easier if I could get closer,” he says apologetically after a minute. He’s managed to narrow the gap, but the window looks crooked on its track and won’t concede further progress.

“Sorry.” I duck out from under his arm and watch as he wrestles it back toward the sill. All things considered, I’m enjoying the show—Oliver’s face is determined, his damp hair is curling around his forehead, and his wet clothes are clinging to his muscular frame.

Finally, with one last shove, the window slams shut.

“You made that look easy,” I say coquettishly.

“Did I? That window gave me a run for my money.”

I shoot him an easy grin. “Well, you did a lot better than I did.”