“Bathroom?” I asked him.
He nodded. “Walk in and take a left. It’ll take you right where you need to go. Just follow the line.”
Great. Just what I needed right then, a line.
But alas, that was the way it was, so just like a good girl, I went to stand in line waiting for my turn.
“All yours,” the woman that had been in front of me said.
We’d been chatting while we waited about how crazy the weather had been since the first of the year.
Something I hadn’t witnessed for myself until about a month ago.
The weathermen predicted this unusual weather pattern would continue for at least another ten days.
I didn’t think I’d seen the sun shining in well over a week, yet I’d still managed to get sun burned, even through the clouds.
Once I was done in the bathroom, I picked up Belly’s leash from where I’d hooked it onto the stall’s door and headed over to the sink.
There wasn’t any soap left, and I grimaced as I used water only.
“Gross,” I muttered as I walked out, wiping my hands on my shorts seeing as there were no paper towels either.
I smiled in mutual commiseration at the women waiting in the line and continued on my way, Belly at my side.
Wiping all other thoughts of my mother and Silas from my mind, I got right back into the thick of things, thoughts focused solely on finding more people.
Hopefully – preferably – alive.
And Silas could suck it.
Chapter 12
I may look calm, but in my head we’ve already made use of the table. The wall. And the bed, three times.
- Sawyer’s secret thoughts
Sawyer
Sixteen hours later, I was fairly certain that I couldn’t feel my toes.
My legs hurt so bad that I honestly thought I was going to die as soon as my back hit the bed.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it.
Silas was mad at me.
Me!
What the hell had I done to him?
When he’d spent more time speaking with my mother during that fifteen minutes of barbeque, I realized something.
My mom and Silas had some sort of relationship.
And not only did it piss me off, since my mother was married, but it pissed me off because Silas was now with me, and he hadn’t said a word to me about him having a relationship with my mother.
“Who was the man you were talking to this morning?” Silas asked again.
Apparently, I’d spent too much time with the old guy for his comfort.
I had a thing for him, not every old guy on the planet.
Not that Silas was old, or that he looked old, but Silas didn’t see it that way.
“I already told you I don’t know his name,” I said with annoyance. “He helped me lift crap off of people. He said goodbye this evening. That was it. We didn’t exchange names or anything.”
“With a hug?” He half snarled under his breath.
Was he jealous?
I shrugged. “I don’t know. To tell you the truth, the last twenty-four hours are kind of a blur.”
So on top of having sex with Silas throughout the night, I spent a very long, hot and physically exhausting day, as well as the whole night and into the early morning hours, on my feet, handling Belly, as we searched through the aftermath of the tornado for victims and survivors.
I was lucky to be sitting upright now and not slumped over, face in my pancakes.
Silas might have had something to say to that, but Zack interrupted us with his exclamation of excitement.
“Lookie here, girlie! You made the front page,” Zack laughed, tossing the paper down in front of me.
I smiled as I looked at it.
It was of Belly and me walking around the grounds of the high school.
It’d only been taken about eight hours ago. I was surprised they’d gotten it into the paper so fast.
“Look, this is the guy I was telling you helped me get that old woman out,” I said, pushing the paper down toward Silas.
Silas caught it and brought the picture up to look at it better.
I smiled and turned back to Zack, who was sitting in the booth in front of me.
We were at a diner eating breakfast.
It had been well over twenty-four hours since I’d last slept, and despite the tiredness I understandably felt, I was still invigorated.
I actually felt alive for the first time in eight long years.
Doing something important, helping people in need, had made me feel like I was a half decent person. It was the closest I’d felt to my pre-accident self since the moment of impact.
“Motherfucker,” Silas growled. “Goddamn motherfucking son of a bitch!”
I blinked at his use of so much profanity.
“Silas, what’s wrong?” I asked, turning to find him standing, anger flowing off of him in waves that were nearly visible.
My question bought us the attention of everybody at the surrounding tables, including the members of his club.
“I gotta go,” I heard him say, and then, without another word to me, he turned and practically prowled straight out of the diner’s front door.