A Crowe's Song Page 16

  I watched her, though she stared out the window behind me. “Why?”

  “I think it was an inherent fear.”

  I was confused. “It was what?”

  “Inherent fear. Like, my mom hated storms, so when we had one, I followed her lead.”

  “So because she was scared, you were, too?”

  “Yeah. To me, they were in the same category as bad guys.”

  I bit my lip to keep from smiling. I didn’t want her to think I was making fun of or laughing at her. But the way she said, “bad guys,” like she was still a kid, amused me. “Do you have any idea why she was afraid of them?”

  “My grandmother—her mom—died during one. Taking her to the hospital, no less. So it had to do with that, but she’s never fully explained it to me. I’m pretty sure it was the loss of her mother, coupled with her own guilt for thinking it was her fault.”

  “But you’re not scared of them anymore?”

  She dropped her chin and shook her head. When she glanced up again, her lips were twisted to the side, and a bright smile shone in her eyes. “No, and if I tell you why, you won’t believe me.”

  “Oh, now I have to hear this.” I lowered my feet to the floor and sat forward, practically on the edge of the cushion.

  A soft giggle danced past her smiling lips, and it warmed my soul. “Okay, but you have to swear you won’t call me a liar. Regardless of how farfetched it might sound, you can’t doubt it. Well, you can, but don’t voice your skepticism. Deal?”

  If she ended up telling me something really lame after getting me this excited, I’d be disappointed. “Yes, yes. Deal. Just spit it out already.”

  “In middle school, a really bad storm hit while I was helping a friend paint her bedroom.”

  “You’re right, Kenny. I don’t know if I can trust anything you say from now on.”

  Her lips split wide as unrestrained hiccups of laughter filled the room. I’d seen her laugh like this once before, when she really got going, and I was happy to see it wasn’t a fluke. The way the bridge of her nose wrinkled, the lines that fanned out from her squinted eyes. The way her top lip thinned as if stretched too tight, exposing more of her straight white teeth than normal. It got to me. It penetrated my defenses and made a home in my chest.

  Right next to my beating heart.

  Without thinking, I tapped the camera icon on the front of my cell screen and captured the sight. Her head tilted back, her body completely committed to the amusement rolling through her. This would be the photo I’d look back on when I was old and alone, remembering the one time in my life when I didn’t feel lonely.

  “Are you going to let me finish?” she asked as her laughter tapered off. “Anyway, the power went out, and we were all in the living room with candles, waiting for it to pass. I swear, I thought it would last forever. I started freaking out and was on the verge of a panic attack.”

  I found myself hanging on every word that rolled off her tongue.

  “Her parents had no idea what was going on, so they started trying to get me to talk. Finally, I was able to explain that thunderstorms frightened me. I told them about my fear and where it stemmed from, and her dad got up and left the room. Several minutes later, he came back with a photo album.”

  I had no idea what part of this was unbelievable, but it certainly had me waiting—literally—on the edge of my seat to find out.

  “So his brother, my friend’s uncle, had been struck by lightning seven times.”

  Yeah, I could see where people might doubt her story now.

  “The first time was when he was young. Based on the pictures, he looked around my age now. The other six times took place within an eight-year span when he was an adult. Not sure how, but he managed to survive each one.”

  “Did he have metal rods in his body or something?”

  She giggled—still the best sound in the world. “No. I don’t remember how it happened the very first time, but all the other times were on the job. He was a park ranger.”

  “Is he still alive?”

  “I have no idea.” The most beautiful smile I’d ever seen lined her lips—her extremely kissable lips. “We ended up going to different high schools and losing touch.”

  As much as I wanted to know more about this guy and how he could’ve possibly been struck that many times, I wanted to know about Kenny even more. “So that got you over the fear?”

  She shrugged and picked at her thumbnail. “Pretty much. Because my mom was so afraid during storms, and because my grandmother died during one, I think I had convinced myself they’re deadly. So to learn that someone had been struck that many times and lived to tell the tale, it eased my concern.”

  “Did you know that the saying lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice is a myth? It’s actually really common for it to hit the same spot more than once.”

  Her eyes lit up with interest. “No, I didn’t know that. I thought it was like winning the lottery. It happens to very few, and if it happens to you once, it will never happen again. Is this something you learned while watching the weather reports with your dad?”

  I nodded and leaned back against the cushion, getting comfortable to give her more useless information about Mother Nature. “Yeah, and I also learned that Americans have a one-in-three-thousand chance of getting struck, and nine out of ten people will survive. And I bet you didn’t know that you can’t have thunder without lightning.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t know that,” she said with a smirk. “Are you going to tell me why?”

  “I wasn’t sure if you cared to hear it. They’re all just really stupid weather facts.”

  “Of course I do. I find it all rather interesting. And you impress me with your wisdom.”

  If I were a betting man, I’d say my face just flushed. Hopefully, she didn’t notice. And if she did, I hoped she’d find it rugged and manly. I shook my head before I laughed at my own thoughts and started to tell her facts about storms she probably already knew. I only wished I wouldn’t bore her to death.

  “Well, thunder comes from the actual lightning bolt. When the negative energy from the cloud meets with the—” I had to stop after nearly putting myself to sleep. “That’s all scientific, but in laymen’s terms, it gets so hot that the air inside the channel explodes. The first sound it makes is, like, a tearing sound. That really loud cracking noise I’m sure you’ve heard before comes a few seconds later. That’s when it’s extremely close. And as the frequency inside the channel goes from high to low, it becomes distant rumbling.”

  “That’s insane.”

  I convinced myself that she was captivated by my knowledge, not bored of it. “The craziest part is that it gets hotter than the sun. When the two energies meet, it gets something like fifty thousand degrees. And once it hits, it shoots back up to the cloud at, like, sixty thousand miles per second.”

  “Per second?” Oh yeah, that impressed her.

  And her being impressed stopped me from obsessing over how many times I used the word like. I knew I wasn’t a jock; what I didn’t know was that I had somehow turned into a Kardashian. All I needed were a few totallys and Oh-Em-Gees. Seriously, is it that much more work to say oh my god? There was a reason I didn’t have many girlfriends—aside from not being a jock.

  “Yeah. If you think about driving a car, it would be around two hundred million miles per hour.” I let that sink in for a moment while I soaked up the sight of her wide, cerulean eyes, slightly gaping mouth, and the color of interest in her cheeks.

  “Really, Drew, how do you know all this stuff?”

  “I told you…nightly forecasts with my dad.”

  “There’s no way you learned this from a two-minute news segment each night.”

  Answering her could potentially make her view me as a nerd. Most people did. Nevertheless, I decided to give away my secret anyway—I was a total dork when it came to useless facts. “We would talk about the weather, which would create a bunch of questions. And to
get answers, I had to look them up. So that’s what I did while normal kids were kicking balls around their neighborhoods with their friends. Being isolated out here meant I had a lot of free time on my hands to research stupid shit.”

  “I don’t think it’s stupid at all. In fact, I find it incredibly interesting.”

  Being a walking encyclopedia of useless knowledge had its advantages. Such as, many people enjoyed listening about things they probably had never thought to question. I’d made friends easily in school. Impressing a girl enough to see me as more than a friend, however, was a bit more complicated. And while I knew that Kenny would be leaving in several days, with no chance of being anything more than friends, it didn’t change the fact that I suddenly felt like I was in high school again.

  “What else do you know?” She leaned back on her hands, her legs straight in front of her.

  “Lots of things. Pick a topic.” I didn’t care too much to play this game, but I could tell by the excitement across her lips that she was. And that was all that mattered.

  She twisted her mouth to the side, raised her eyes to the ceiling, and hummed to herself in thought. “Volcanos.”

  It only took a few seconds to search my memory bank for interesting facts regarding her chosen topic. And oddly enough, it actually excited me and made me eager to explain all about it. “Did you know that there’s a super-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park?”

  Her nose scrunched and brows pinched together. “A what?”

  “Yeah, that term is reserved for the devastating, world-changing variety. The big daddies. The ones that cause twenty-five hundred times the amount of ash and rock expelled by Mount St. Helens in 1980. That kind of eruption would cause irreversible damage. I’m talking, like, a thick layer of ash blanketing most of the US. There’s even the potential for it to plunge the entire planet into what’s called a volcanic winter.”

  The more I talked, the wider her eyes grew.

  “Yellowstone has seen several eruptions. The last one was over six hundred and thirty thousand years ago, so some believe it’s overdue for another one. Although, scientists have been studying it for a very long time, and they all say another eruption is highly unlikely—at least in our lifetime.”

  “Oh my God, Drew…I thought you were going to give me fun facts, not scare me half to death with thoughts of a fiery, molten-covered apocalypse.”

  Even though she wasn’t technically laughing, her tone was filled with humor, sparking a wave of rolling mirth through my chest. “I happen to think those are fun facts.”

  Kenny glared at me for a moment before rolling her eyes.

  “I guess you don’t want to know that there are at least half a dozen other super-volcanos around the world? And that scientists believe super-eruptions happen every one hundred thousand years? It’s okay, though, because the last one was over twenty thousand years ago, so we should be good for a while.”

  “That’s definitely a depressing fact—yet still interesting,” she admitted with a smirk.

  I stood and stretched my arms above my head. “I have to use the restroom, and then I’m going to get something to drink. Would you like anything?”

  “No, I’m okay for now. But while you’re doing that, can I look at the pictures of the fog wall?”

  I picked up my phone off the couch cushion and dropped it in her hands as I walked past. “Passcode is all fours.”

  She shouted thanks over her shoulder just as I stepped into the bathroom.

  Most people probably wouldn’t trust someone else with unsupervised access to their phones, but I didn’t care. It wasn’t like I had anything to hide. The most fascinating thing she could find would likely be my search history, but even that wasn’t gossip material.

  When I returned to the room with a can of soda in my hand, I noticed my cell was on the floor next to her, her attention glued to the flickering flames in front of her. The blanket no longer wrapped around her shoulders, though she still seemed to be using it on her legs.

  “You’re right, those pictures turned out like crap.” She picked up my cell and tapped on the screen, her lips pulled to the side. “However, I did find one that piqued my interest.” That’s when she turned it around so I could see the photo in question. “Should I be concerned?”

  I wanted to laugh, but I also wanted to run and hide. Staring back at me was Kenny’s face, mid-laugh, frozen in time on my screen. I’d completely forgotten that I had taken it when I gave her my phone to look through.

  Based on her expression as she stared at me, I didn’t think I had anything to be embarrassed about. She might’ve been teasing me, but it was obviously in a friendly way. Unfortunately, I had trouble shaking the humiliation that burned my skin.

  This must be how she felt every time I made her face flame red.

  But if there was one thing I was good at, it was pushing through.

  “It’s just a really good picture of you. Candid. I forgot I even did that.” I shrugged, acting as if it were no big deal. The more I acted that way, the more convincing it would be until she believed it wasn’t a big deal.

  Kenny glanced at the photo again, eyes narrowed and brows knitted. “My mom says I’m the spitting image of my grandmother. She says there are certain things I do that remind her of her mom, and one of those things is my laugh. Apparently, I look and sound just like her when I genuinely think something is funny.”

  “That must mean your grandmother was a very attractive person.”

  At least now I wasn’t the only one with heated cheeks.

  “I’ve always found it extremely frustrating that I’m pretty much a carbon copy of someone I’ll never get to meet. I can hear about her sometimes, but I can’t witness those little nuances for myself. It would be like finding out you have a twin somewhere in the world but not ever having the chance to meet him.”

  “Yeah, I can understand that.” I took the phone from her outstretched hand and allowed her to continue her thought without interruption.

  “It would be one thing if I had photos of her, or if I’d ever heard some of her life’s stories. Like how your grandmother told you about the lake and the people who lived in the town. I don’t have any of that.” Frustration mixed with resentment in her tone.

  “Have you ever asked your mom about her?”

  “I used to, but I eventually stopped because I never got real answers. Apparently, my grandmother was rather tight-lipped about her life. My mom said she felt like she didn’t really know her, so it was hard to talk about who she was as a person because even she didn’t know. I was her namesake, though. So there’s that.”

  For some reason, that grabbed ahold of my attention and wouldn’t let go. There was a soft humming in my ears, almost like static but far away. “Her name was McKenna?”

  “No. But her maiden name was McKinney.”

  There was a familiarity to that, though I shook it off. I likely felt that way because I called her Kenny, which closely resembled her grandmother’s moniker.

  My cell buzzed in my hand, my dad’s name popping up on the screen. “Well, it looks like we’re stuck here for a while. Dad said the storm won’t be letting up any time soon. At least I don’t have to worry about work. The Feeder’s staying closed until tomorrow,” I said as I read the message that came through.

  “So does that mean I have to sleep here, too?”

  Damn, what I wouldn’t give to have her here all night. “Doubtful. Worst case scenario, it’ll rain throughout the night, but that won’t stop me from taking you home. It’s the lightning that’s keeping us in for now, but it won’t last forever.”

  “Then why aren’t they opening the restaurant?”

  “Because of the rain, especially if it continues to come down this hard. There’s no way anyone will want to venture out in it, so there’s no point in opening. My dad might have a couple cooks available in case anyone at the resort wants food delivered to their cabins, but he won’t open for full service.”

  K
enny glanced out the window behind me and then met my stare. “What are we going to do to pass the time?”

  “I have drinks. We can play never have I ever.”

  A twinkle flashed in her eyes, causing my heart to skip a beat.

  Chapter Twelve

  Kenny

  “Do you believe in soulmates, Kenny?” Drew twirled my hair around his finger, every now and then brushing his knuckle across my cheek.

  He had moved to the floor so that we were both in front of the fire—Drew on his back, me next to him on my front, propped up by my elbows while hugging a couch pillow to my chest. The heat had long since died down, making it comfortable and somewhat sedating. It seemed to guide the tone of our conversation well.

  “Yeah,” I answered, my voice wispy yet poised. “Doesn’t everyone?”

  Drew shrugged as best he could while on his back, one arm tucked behind his head as if it were a pillow. “I wouldn’t be surprised if there are people who don’t believe in the idea of only one person out there who matches you completely.”

  “Well, I don’t necessarily believe that. I think we can have many soulmates.”

  His eyes narrowed as his forehead creased. “How?”

  “I just mean that the term isn’t exclusively romantic. We can have friends, relatives, and lovers as soulmates, which means you can have more than one out there.” I began to doubt my own beliefs the longer he stared at me, brow lined with either confusion or concentration. “I take it you think everyone only has one person?”

  “Yeah. Because I believe the definition is in the word—the mate of a soul. Like the mate of a shoe. You can have many pairs of shoes, but each individual one has its own match. Their equal yet opposite counterpart. We hear it all the time when someone talks about their significant other; they call them their better half. We are each half of one soul, so how can you have more than two people make up the whole of it?”

  I had never thought about it that way. “So you’re saying it’s always romantic?”

  “Not necessarily. It could be a friend or a relative who completes you. I believe both parties need the same, so you’ll be what each other needs. If it’s a parent-child, sibling, platonic, or romantic relationship, then that’s what both sides need to be complete.”