Chapter 5 Hurricane

"I'm sorry we're not going to be able to make it. The tunnel is closed because of the hurricane." The DJ for my party sounds genuinely sorry, but that doesn't help my situation.

"Can you take a helicopter in?"

"Uh. Even if I could find one right now, the storm is moving toward land, and you'd be crazy to risk it."

"Okay. Okay. Thank you . "

"Stay safe out there on the Sound."

I hang up on him and survey my family's house in the Hamptons. Less than half of the guests have arrived.

My father walks up with his disappointed glare on his face. "Milana. What the hell is wrong with you? Get some music playing right away."

"Yes, Dad."

When I suggested we cancel due to the storm, he wouldn't hear anything of it. He said there's always storm warnings to scare people. It never hits as hard as they say it will.

So, here I am. Forced to play music while the Titanic sinks.

"There's a stereo in the entertainment room," he says like it's obvious I should've thought of that. My dad has old- fashioned TVs and a vintage stereo receiver in there that I have never touched and have no idea how to make work.

"I'll try, Dad, but please go talk to the Sinclairs. I worked very hard to get them here, and they braved the storm to come."

He glances over at them with his nose up. "They're too artsy."

"They are influencers, and they'll donate generously to the charity. Please be nice to them. Others will follow their lead."

He grumbles and looks away from them. "Get some goddamn music playing right now, and stop telling me how to work a room."

I bite my lip to hide my anger. He disregards my opinions and all the effort I put into planning this because of his ego. He won't take any direction from me, and he ruins everything.

Following instructions, I march into the entertainment room and study the antique stereo. The knobs, meters, and weird letters on the big wooden box mean nothing to me. Pushing the Power button causes the whole thing to light up. Good. Progress. Is there a stream music button? This thing is so old it probably doesn't even have Wi-Fi.

Oh, here's one that says Play . I press it even though I have no idea what will happen. I just need music!

" Near … Far … Wherever you are … " Celine Dion blasts from the speakers .

The guests look around confused, as if they expect the world-famous diva to actually appear and start singing live. Although a celebrity like that would not be unusual here, it's just an old cassette tape of my mother's. She used to listen to 80's love songs before she died.

A collective "ooh" floats up from the crowd as the outdoor pool flamingos and the catering tent take flight and sail away like Mary Poppins. This same caterer had an employee fall in the pool the last time they catered this event, and now they are dealing with another fiasco. They'll never work for us again.

The catering staff runs and jumps, trying to grasp the trays and plates before they fly away. One woman is holding a flailing giant flamingo in her arms like her job depends on it.

Oh, this is terrible.

In the midst of all the chaos outside, one person isn't scrambling. One man stands tall against the wind. He's looking inside through the glass of the solarium window. The wind pushes his hair up and flattens his shirt to his chest.

My heart thuds and my breath hitches.

It's him.

It's the Unstoppable Foster Dunham.

In all the pandemonium, I'd forgotten I'd invited him. And I never expected him to show, never in a million years, but there he is staring at me through the hexagonal panes of glass in the solarium. It's like he's peeking in at a fish in an aquarium while he withstands a bitter wind.

We make eye contact. His eyebrows go up and his lips quirk in a whimsical grin like he's enjoying the bedlam unfolding around him.

He looks other-wordly with his strong jaw, cocky smile, and super-human height.

Jesus, he's beautiful. I've been sleeping with his jacket on my pillow every night, trying to hold onto the memory of being on his bike.

Now he's here.

My life is in turmoil, but he's here, so I have hope. Something good exists beyond my fishbowl and that something is unshaken by the storm.

A sudden gust forces him to raise his elbow over his head and duck to avoid getting hit by a flying card table.

I scuffle down the narrow walkway next to the indoor pool, careful not to fall in while trying to rescue the people outside.

The wind blasts my hair as I open the side door to the pool area. "Come in, come in!"

Servers and busboys keep running around trying to grab flying napkins and utensils. "Come inside, please! Leave the stuff. "

Donnie is right behind me. "Have them go in the kitchen. You can't have servants in here."

"Oh please, Donnie. There's a storm. They need to come inside."

Warm wind pelts my face as I run out and wave my arms, forcing them to move to the door. "Go, go." I grab a giant pink flamingo and throw it toward the pool house. It takes off into the wind.

The staff scuttles inside. Foster holds out his hand, motioning for me to precede him into the house. After I'm in, I turn to wait for him. He steps inside and closes the door, dampening the crazy noise of the wind. My brother, father, and the other guests stare at the windblown crew as Celine Dion belts out "My Heart Will Go On" in the background.

What a mess.

I run to the front of the crowd and Foster stays behind. "Please, sit down. Stay." I point to the couches in the living room but the staff looks awkward and uncomfortable.

Foster glances down at the pool and side steps away from the edge. When he lifts his head, his gaze stops on me. Again it's like time has stopped. He's the calm in the eye of the storm. His lips curl into a smirk that makes his eyes sparkle.

Gah! This is not funny! This is my life imploding!

Mrs. Sinclair comes up to me and pats my shoulder. "We have to run, Milana. Thank you for a lovely party. "

"I'm so sorry. Please remember to donate." My last attempt at salvaging this benefit.

"Of course, of course," she says. I don't believe her as she hastily returns to her uber-wealthy husband and leaves through the front door.

More guests move to grab their coats, and the catering staff runs to the side door of the house where their cars are parked. My party is ruined.

My father and Donnie glare at me like this is all my fault. I told them there was a storm, but they wouldn't listen.

It's all too much. The walls are closing in on me like the storm. I need to escape!

I rush out a side door and my sandals slip on the grass hill. I don't know where I'm going. I just know I need to get out of here, away from the proof of my failure and the judging eyes of my father.

The wind steals my breath as I gasp for air. Spears of salt abrade my cheeks and push me back as I reach the shoreline. Go back to the mess up there , the wind says. Face your life and who you are .

No. No. "No!" I scream at the wind. As I reach the shore, the turbulent water soaks my feet. I can't say no to anyone up there, but down here I can scream it and get away with it.

"No!" I scream until my throat burns. Hard, heavy, sideways pellets of rain hit my white sundress .

"It's not safe out here right now." A deep male voice startles me.

It's Foster and his mocking eyes. He's standing on the berm behind me. He has to yell to be heard above the wind, but he seems restrained and easy-going even though his shirt is changing color as it gets wet.

He steps down from the dune and walks toward me, squinting through the rain as it gets thicker. Angry waves slam down at my feet.

"Stay back!" I hold my palm up to him.

His eyebrows crease. "You need to hunker down."

The thought of going back up to the house and facing my father makes me want to puke.

"I'll stay here," I say.

"You can't stay."

"What does it matter?" I turn my face back to the waves and open my arms to let the rain hit me. "Who cares if I die? Let the forces of nature decide my— Oomph ."

A blow to my waist makes me double over. I'm flipping over and catch a glimpse of black jeans marching up the shore toward the house. He's carrying me over his shoulder! My fists pound on his back, but he's rock solid.

"Let me go! "

He doesn't reply or slow his pace.

"Put me down!" My skirt is flying around and now my ass is getting wet. At least I'm wearing a bathing suit underneath.

The wind pushes him off course, and he has to dig in and bend forward to keep moving up the steep hill of grass.

"I don't want to talk to anyone!" My wet hair smacks me in the face.

"No one is here!" he answers.

"They aren't?"

"They all left. There's a fucking tornado watch or did you not hear me while you were yelling your manifesto into the wind?"

He carries me into the house and stomps around. Pat Benatar is singing "Love is a Battlefield" and the place is empty. Everyone is gone.

"Put me down."

"Not till I find a safe spot to sit out the tornado."

A ferocious gust of wind rattles the mostly glass house. A tornado would shred it—and us—to bits. "We can't sit it out. We need to evacuate." I hate talking to his backside, but it's all I can see right now.

He chuckles. "Welcome to the party, sweetheart. Your chance to leave came and went. We're stuck here." He marches from the main dining room down the hallway to the bedrooms before spinning and returning to the living room.

"Who told you that?" We probably have plenty of time to evacuate.

"You see anyone in this house? No. You don't. Everyone left. You? You go for a walk on the beach. Who the hell goes to the shore to duke it out with a tornado?"

He keeps mumbling low, cursing under his breath. Drops of water mark the floor in a trail following his path as he wanders from room to room with me hanging over his shoulder. "Here we go," he says in the kitchen as he opens the door leading to the wine cellar in the basement.

Oh hell no! I scream and pound his back with all my might. "No!" There's no way I'm going down into the basement with him. But I have zero say in the matter as he heads down the stairs.

At the bottom, he flips me over and plops me on my feet. "Are you insane?" he yells at me, his chest heaving.

I catch my balance and fire back at him, "You're the one who hauled me off the beach and carried me to the basement and you're calling me crazy?"

"There's a tornado watch, you go to the basement. Common sense."

"It's only a watch!"

"You hear the wind?"

The screaming wind is quieter down here and I still hear Pat Benatar playing, but yes, the wind is battering the house upstairs.

For the first time tonight, my eyes get a chance to look at him up close. The rain has made his white dress shirt transparent, showing off the tattoos on his toned chest and arms. His wet hair is plastered to his forehead. A drop of water hangs from the dimple in his chin. God, he's hot as hell.

"Um..." The quick turn of events from failed party and wanting to die to hiding in a wine cellar with Foster has me dazed and reeling.

His gaze locks on my chest and his smirk reappears. My sundress is soaked and the fabric is clinging to my cleavage like an x-rated wet T-shirt contest. My hard nipples show through the red fabric of my bikini. Darn.

Click .

The room goes black.

Pat Benatar cuts off.

There's only darkness and howling wind.

"The lights. We've lost power. Oh no. We're going to die!"

"No we're not." The chuckle in his voice and his unflappable confidence would bother me if I wasn't fighting panic. It's pitch dark. The kind of dark where you keep waiting for your eyes to focus but they don't and when they do, you see a ghostly figure looming.

"Oh my God, it's dark. We need light. I can't do this. Holy crap. Where are you?" My arms search in the void but find nothing. It's like I'm about to jump off a ledge, but I don't know where the edge is.

"I'm right here." A bright beam shines on his face and makes his cheekbones look ashen and spooky.

My gasp sounds loud in the small room. It's just his cell phone but it was enough to make my heart jump into my throat.

"You scared of the dark?" He's eyeing me again, waiting for another chance to razz me.

"No," I say indignantly. I'm not sharing my fears with him.

He chuckles.

"Stop laughing. It's not funny."

"A few seconds ago you were asking to die out on the beach. You fought like a banshee every step I took to get you safe. Now you're terrified you're gonna die because the lights went out? Are you suicidal or scared as shit?"

"I have no idea!"

"Exactly, so relax and trust me on this one. "

He grins and shines his cell phone flashlight around the long narrow room. Wine bottles stacked in wooden racks cover the walls on each side. The arched brick cove at the end makes it feel like a crypt.

"What if the tornado rips the roof off?" I ask.

"We're below ground. We're safe." He digs into a drawer and pulls out a wine opener. "Hold my phone." He grabs a bottle of wine off the shelf like it's a beer and starts pushing the corkscrew into the cork as he holds the bottle between his legs.

My shaking hands make the light bounce around.

"Hold the light still."

"I'm trying."

He pops the cork and tosses it across the room. He sits on the floor at the back of the room and tips the entire bottle up as he slugs back the wine. "Turn off my phone to save the battery." He places the bottle next to his leg, which is bent at the knee.

"But then we'll be in the dark."

"You said you weren't afraid."

"I'm not."

"So come sit next to me, drink some wine, and turn out the light. "

"I'm not drinking from that bottle."

He blows out a breath and stands. "Red or white?"

"Cabernet," I answer.

He searches a bit, takes another bottle out, opens it, and hands it to me. "Drink up. It'll calm your nerves."

"Fine." I use his phone to find a wine glass and pour myself a generous amount of wine.

As I sit down with my full glass, the rough brick scratches the exposed skin on my back, and the cold tile squishes against my wet butt.

The buttery drink tastes bitter and tart. I glance at his phone to see how much battery he has left.

His screensaver is a quote that says "Maybe self-destruction is the answer," and it has a picture of a bloody fighter's face in the background.

"Your phone is at twenty-five percent."

He twists his screen away from my view when he sees me checking out his screensaver. "It'll last an hour if we're lucky," he says.

"I can go get my cell phone upstairs. Then if yours dies, we'll have mine." I don't like the idea of running out of light.

"No. Don't risk it. "

It's quiet in the small space. The wine warms my chilled skin, and the smell of old wood and dusty bottles fills my nose.

After a minute, the quiet sets in. We could be in here for a long time. "All right," he says. "You have one hour to tell me everything about you and finish that bottle."

I'm surprised by his question and laugh it off. "It won't take an hour." My story is short and I'm happy to get drunk after the night I had.

"Get started."

Gosh. What do I tell him? "We're a typical family. My parents immigrated here from Sicily in the seventies. We had a small house in New Jersey. My uncle helped my dad get into commodities trading. That went well. We bought a bigger house. My dad met rich people and we moved to Manhattan. My brother died." My voice falters. "Then my mom died." He leans in closer and our shoulders touch. I have to take a deep breath to continue. "I run my dad's charity now. That's it."

"Typical, huh?"

"Not typical I guess."

"I'm sorry about your mom and your brother."

"Yeah." I really don't want to talk about it as the sadness wells up in my heart, but something about Foster makes me feel comfortable enough to share. "I miss them all the time. Ricky was so young. Only five years old. He used to ride his little fire truck all around the house and my dad tried to stop him, but nothing could get that kid off that truck. Even when he outgrew it, he still folded his legs and pushed himself around on that truck." My chest tightens. It hurts but they were right, it does get better with time. Then of course I feel guilty for not being as sad as I used to be.

"That's rough. And your mom?"

My mind fills with the image of her long brown hair, her caring eyes. "She was so loving. She loved us kids. We were her whole world. She didn't care about all the nice houses and jewelry my dad would buy her. She liked 80's music and old cassette tapes. She bought me puppy figurines instead of the fancy statues my friends collected." I'm rambling a bit now, but the memories bring a warmth to my chest, and it's not just from the wine or Foster sitting next to me. "Losing Ricky shattered her."

"I didn't realize you'd lost so much."

I shake my head. "I don't think we ever recovered from losing them."

"So, now you're doing these fundraisers? Are they for your mom or brother in some way?"

"No. Today's charity was for the animal shelter. I'm sad it was a flop. They rely on it each year." Enough about my sad life. "How about you? Where'd you grow up?"

"In the New York foster care system."

"Foster? "

"Yep. I'm the foster kid . The name stuck." He shrugs in an unassuming way, but it has to cut him deep that his identity is based on being a foster child.

"Can I ask about your parents?"

He's quiet for a minute and makes a point of taking a huge gulp of wine. "My mom was an alcoholic. Spent my life waiting for her to sober up."

"She never did?"

"No." He says it matter of factly, but the truth is he's shared something very personal with me.

My heart aches for him. I can't imagine how painful that would be to always be hoping to be adopted or have your mom back and neither ever comes true.

"You don't have any family?" My family isn't perfect, and we've been through a lot together, but at least I have a place I belong.

He holds up one finger and sways it back and forth. The wine is loosening him up. Me too.

"Let me tell you about a man named Henry Twist. You gotta hear this. I'm seventeen, walking down the street like a wet rat, this guy stops his car, picks me up, takes me in, and fights like hell to adopt me. At seventeen! He could have waited one year and I'd age out. But he did that for me. He knew I needed it. "

"Wow. So he's your dad now?"

He laughs. "Yeah. My dad is the Malibu Elvis."

He must be drunk now because he's not talking sense. "What?"

"Back in the seventies, Henry was a surfing pioneer out in California. He did these tricks on the board. Karate moves with some hip action. Earned the rep of Malibu Elvis. The way he tells it, surfing changed after the Gidget movie and he rebelled against it. He stayed true to the spirit of surfing, not the competition and crowded beaches of the eighties. People admired him. He became a living legend."

Wow. That was the most I've heard him speak since I met him. "So you got adopted by a famous surfer?"

"Yeah, but he never played into it. He lived a normal life, made some money selling surfboards with his logo on it, but he never sold out to the press. He's more of a private person."

I can tell by the tone of his voice he loves and admires Henry.

"He sounds interesting. I'm glad you have him." He needs someone in his corner.

He nods and stays quiet for a long time, most likely thinking back on his life with Henry.

"I was surprised to see you here tonight." My breathy voice breaks the silence .

He takes another swig from his bottle. "Was looking to have a word with your brother Donnie."

"Oh." Silly me started getting ideas he was here to see me. Of course it's about Donnie. "About what?"

He looks down at me. "Why he left you alone with Rocco."

Oh no. He's still angry about what happened after the fight at the abandoned fire station. "He's my brother. Please don't hurt him."

"Didn't say I was gonna hurt him. Just wanted a word."

"Uh-huh." I haven't seen Foster do much talking, but I've seen him get his message across with his fists. As mad as I am about what Donnie and Rocco did, I don't want Foster to beat them up. He could really hurt them. That wouldn't be good.

A comfortable silence grows between us as we consume large volumes of wine. I'm feeling much better now. My head is light. I've squashed down my grief and forgotten about my wet bathing suit and the failed party.

He breaks out into unprompted laughter. "You were so funny. Waving your arms trying to save the flamingos. Ridiculous music playing inside. All the rich people scrambling to get their Rolls Royce's out of the driveway."

"Stop." Don't remind me. I'm enjoying a nice buzz from my wine .

"You were screaming at the wind, talking about death." He breaks into a deep belly laugh. I'm glad my misfortune entertains him. At least it's lightening the mood in the wine cellar.

His laughter dies down. I need to rest my head. It feels heavy. It slides along the wall and plunks down on his shoulder. Ah. Nice. His shoulders are nice.

The cell phone battery dies and we fall into darkness.

"Why are you afraid of the dark?" His voice is a gentle caress in the void.

"Bad things happen in the dark," I whisper. My voice sounds childlike, but I don't care. I'm always ten years old again when the lights go out.

"Like what?" His arm slides behind my back and provides a soft resting place instead of the brick wall. His arm is nice like his shoulder. Everything about the Unstoppable Foster is really nice.

"The bad guys will get you."

"Who are the bad guys?"

"I don't know." I'm too drunk to worry about that.

"Mmm. Are you scared now?" His hand behind my back reaches up to rub my upper arm. Feels good. He's warm and gentle.

"No. "

"Good."

I like him rubbing my arm. His hands are nice. I don't want to pass out. I want to stay up and feel his hand on my arm, but…

"You need someone in your corner." It comes out in a mumble.

"Hmm?" His chest vibrates against my ear. It's nice too.

"When you fight, you need someone to take your back."

I'm not sure he heard me because I'm having trouble forming words.

His hand tightens on my arm.

He heard me.