He nodded and pulled me close. "Technically, a tropical cyclone. I'd been hoping it was only a tropical depression, which is much milder. Cyclones are rare this time of year."
"How big is a hurricane eye?" I snuggled into him, reassured by his presence and happier than ever he hadn't left me here alone to face the storm. I wouldn't have known to seal myself in the underwater level. How scared would I have been out here by myself?
"Is that an esoteric question, like how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" He kissed the top of my head.
"I'm serious."
"It depends," he said. "Twenty to forty miles? Storms vary. The winds are strongest on the edge of the eye."
"How long will it take to get here?" I suppressed a shudder. I didn't know if I could face what we just went through again so soon. Then again, we had no choice.
He shrugged.
"It depends," I said, answering for him.
He smiled softly.
"Should we check the house and see if it's still standing?" I said.
He shook his head. "We're better off waiting until the storm is over. The weather service is reporting the storm is fast-moving, but it could stall."
He left the words "we don't want to be caught up there and washed away" unsaid. Or so I imagined. He was trying not to scare me. I appreciated it, but he wasn't fooling me.
We had to do something to kill the time and had no place to go. It was either play a board game or make love again. Sex won, of course. Then we watched the end of the movie. Just as the credits rolled, the second edge of the storm hit. As he'd predicted, it was worse. Much worse. The wind hit the house above with a crack so hard it reverberated to the depths. The ocean outside our bubble had begun to settle. Now it swirled and seethed.
The scared little girl part of me wanted to bury my head beneath the covers and cower. Pretend the frightening outside world didn't exist.
Eli pulled me into his arms, a simple, reassuring thing that I would forever be grateful for. I wrapped mine back around him and put my head against his chest, listening to the strong, steady beat of his heart, telling myself over and over again in my head that It will be all right. Everything will be all right.
The storm could have made me a liar at any moment.
We huddled together in each other's arms, tucked beneath the covers, for hours, jumping every time debris hit the glass around us. Or the house above us groaned in the wind and relentless waves.
Late in the night the storm finally subsided and the Dramamine, alcohol, great sex, and sheer relief took its toll. I couldn't keep my eyes open. I drifted off sleep to sleep in Eli's arms with a major case of hero worship going on.
Day Two
When I woke, the sun was shining through the water, lighting it the most brilliant blue imaginable. I was tangled up in Eli. It took me a second to remember where I was. And whom I was with. And then I was surprised, and stupidly pleased, he was still here. That he hadn't ridden out on his trusty boat before I'd awakened. Though that would have taken some tricky untangling on his part. I wasn't that sound a sleeper.
The morning after an unexpected sleepover is usually awkward, especially saying goodbye. I resolved that this one wouldn't be. We might have been washed away and died last night. All we'd done was ensure one more thing on our bucket list was checked off. No harm. Except maybe to my heart.
For all that he was a douche who'd ignored my calls, he was also a sweetly romantic hero. I loved a man who cuddled.
I untangled myself from Eli and sat up in bed, gasping softly with pleasure at the view outside the window. The underwater room sat at the edge of a coral reef. The water had calmed and the silt settled. The water was clear now, revealing a gigantic coral formation just outside the window, looking like a mermaid's garden. The coral was multicolored in shades of green and white beneath the sea and lit from above. A school of small bright orange and red fish flitted happily around it.
Eli stirred. "What?"
"The fish are back!"
He rubbed his eyes, sat up sleepily, and looked for himself. He had a bad case of bedhead, but he was completely hot and adorable as he broke into a beautiful smile. "The storm is officially over."
"Admit it." I bumped him playfully with my shoulder. "You were worried last night when there were no fish." I looked him in the eye. "That's a bad sign, right?"
He nodded. "Even in a mild storm, some of the varieties of little fish hide. They aren't strong enough to swim against the currents created as the storm churns the water. The stronger the storm, the deeper the water roils, the more varieties of fish hide.
"There should have been a few species of fish that were able to swim in a moderate storm. That we couldn't see any of even the strongest swimmers was a bad sign. The worst was that dead manatee. A storm strong enough to kill a manatee is more powerful than we'd like to deal with." He let out a breath, looking relieved to be able to talk about it now.