I heard my name from behind the house and I scurried from around the front as I called out Colton’s name. I wasn’t sure he could hear me over the sound of the thunder clapping in the sky.
Twice I tripped in the mud, my clothes now covered in muck as I found Colton anxiously looking around as he hollered my name.
“Autumn!”
“Colton! I’m here!” I yelled back. The relief on his face when he saw me would be something I would never forget, but as lightning lit up the sky, I was going to have to think about that at another time.
Doing my best to run on the damp, sloshy ground that reminded me of the quicksand I’d been so terrified of as a child I headed toward the house, only for Colton to grab my arm and tug me toward his trailer on the opposite side of the backyard.
“We need to go to the trailer!”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll explain when we get inside,” he said as we ran through the buckets of rain. Each drop stung as it collided with my skin, and I knew that I’d have welts in the morning.
Colton grabbed my hand as the wind whipped up around us, pushing my smaller body around like nothing more than a rag doll. I stumbled a few times and Colton did his best to help me along. When the trailer came into view, I released a sigh of relief. It wasn’t even but two hundred yards or so from the house, but it felt like miles with the wind and rain. Not to mention the lightning and thunder that cost me a life with every crack and boom.
Colton reached for the door and it swung back shut twice before we were able to duck inside out of the storm.
“Oh, my God,” I sighed as I leaned against the white wall to catch my breath, then quickly remembered I was completely soaked through and covered in mud. “Oh, Colton, I’m so sorry.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” he said as he leaned over, bracing his hands on his knees as he worked to catch his breath. For a hockey player he seemed pretty out of shape if that run left him breathless, but I didn’t care to let him know that.
“I swear I lost ten lives when the storm opened up and I couldn’t find you,” he said between heaving breaths.
Well, maybe he wasn’t so out of shape after all. He simply. . .cared.
“I’m okay, Colton.”
“Yeah?” he asked, turning his eyes toward me.
“Yeah. Just a bit. . .wet.”
Chuckling, he seemed to come back to himself as he moved around the trailer. “Let’s get some dry clothes on. I’m sure I have something you could wear.”
“Do you have your phone? Mine is still in the house in my bag and I want to let my mom know that I’m okay.”
“Sure, it’s on the counter. Call whoever you need.”
“Thanks.”
I did my best to keep from leaving a muddy mess as I took giant steps toward the kitchen island where his silver phone rested. It surprised me that the phone was unlocked and required no code to open up. With the celebrity status that Colton had, I would have thought he’d need at least three ways to unlock his devices.
Quickly I sent a text to my mom’s number and let her know I was at Colton’s waiting out the storm. She replied swiftly that she was glad I reached out and was about to send Dad looking for me.
I didn’t linger on Colton’s phone and made sure to ignore the incoming text from a number with the letter S as the contact name that asked if he could chat soon as I placed it back on the counter. His personal life wasn’t my business, but the jealousy that bubbled up couldn’t be helped.
“So, why is the trailer safer than the house?” I asked, as another clap of thunder sounded after a flash of lightning. I’d never been afraid of storms as a child, but there was a first time for everything.
“Because the house has open electrical wires. We could be electrocuted if lightning struck. The trailer runs on conserved solar power. It’s safer in here and I took the precaution of having the trailer staked down so the wind won’t rock her too bad. Here we go,” he added as he held out an oversized hockey jersey with his name across the back.
“Is this some devious way to have me wear your jersey?”
“Absolutely.” He chuckled. “If you want to go change in the bathroom, I’ll stay out here.”
With relief, I thanked him as I made my way toward the back corner of the trailer that housed a small shower and tiny toilet. I wasn’t sure how Colton hadn’t broken the darn thing given his massive size.
I imagined him like a bull in a china shop inside the camper, barely able to move around without crashing into anything. It was much more spacious than it appeared on the outside, though.
