“Of course it is.” Stormie stepped inside behind me, her voice echoing in the dark space. “Because why would anything be easy tonight?”
I pulled out my phone and turned on the flashlight, sweeping it around the room. The cabin looked the same as it always did–a small living room with a couch and a couple of chairs, a kitchen area off to the left, a hallway leading to the bedroom and bathroom in the back. Wood floors, wood walls, everything smelling like pine and dust.
“Stay here,” I told her. “I’m gonna check the breaker.”
“Where’s the breaker?”
“Outside. Around back.”
“Kade, you just got–”
“I’ll be right back.”
I didn’t wait for her to argue. I stepped back out into the rain, jogging around the side of the cabin to where the breaker box was mounted on the wall. I flipped it open, checked theswitches. Everything looked fine. I reset them anyway, just in case, but when I looked back at the cabin, the lights were still off.
“Damn.” The storm must’ve knocked out a line somewhere. I knew for a fact that we weren’t getting power back tonight.
By the time I got back inside, Stormie had found the candles my mother kept in the kitchen drawer. She’d lit three of them and set them on the coffee table, the small flames flickering and casting shadows on the walls. “No luck?” she asked.
“Nah. Line’s probably down. We’re gonna be in the dark for a minute.”
She sighed, sitting down on the arm of the couch. “Great. So no lights, no… wait, does the stove work?”
“It’s gas. We should be good.”
“Okay. So we won’t starve or freeze. That’s something.”
I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and came back, tossing it to her. She caught it and immediately started drying her hair, and I grabbed another one for myself, rubbing it over my head and face.
“You should change,” I said, gesturing to her bag. “You can shower and change first.”
“Yeah.” She stood up, grabbing her bag from where I’d set it by the door. She disappeared down the hall to the bathroom, and I heard the door close behind her.
I stood there in the middle of the living room, dripping water onto the floor, listening to the rain hammer the roof. The wind was picking up, howling through the trees outside, and Icould hear branches scraping against the side of the cabin. This storm wasn’t letting up anytime soon.
I pulled off my hoodie and tossed it over the back of a chair, then got started on the fireplace. By the time I was done, Stormie was coming back down the hall looking too good. She’d changed into leggings and an oversized sweatshirt that hung off one shoulder. Her hair was still damp, pulled up into a messy bun, and her makeup was gone. It was just her in a naturally beautiful state.
“Better?” I asked.
“Warmer, at least.” She walked over to the couch and sat down, tucking her legs under her. “So what’s the plan? We just... sit here in the dark?”
“We got candles. I packed shit to make sandwiches, we got Remy and we got games. That’s good for now.”
“Kade, it’s too damn quiet. There’s no TV. No Wi-Fi. My phone’s dead, and I’m pretty sure yours is too.”
I yawned and stretched. “So we play games and talk. Like people used to do before phones.”
“Talk,” she repeated, like I’d suggested some crazy shit.
“Yeah. Talk. You know how to do that shit, right?”
She threw up a middle finger, and I grinned. “I know how to talk,” she said. “I’m just saying, a whole night of it? That’s a lot of talking.”
“You scared you’re gonna run out of shit to say?"
“I’m scaredyouare. You’re not exactly chatty, Kade.”
“I talk when I got something to say.”