Chapter 10

Nolan hadn't seen Ryder once over the weekend and didn't see him on Monday or Tuesday. He wasn't sure when Ryder worked, but he worried that the man would end up driving home in the storm.

Maybe he was being ridiculous, but he still worried, though Ryder was obviously capable of taking care of himself. Then again, Andrew had been capable of taking care of himself until tragedy struck. That day had been stormy, too. The cops said it had been a freak accident. He wanted to lay blame, but who could he fault?

Nolan stood at the kitchen nook window, watching the storm roll in from the southwest, thinking that the clouds looked funny when an alert went off on his phone. He jumped and dropped the device. It bounced and tumbled, landing under the table.

Nolan dropped to his knees and reached for the phone right when he heard a noise that made his spine tingle. He jerked up, cracking his head on the underside of the table. He plopped down on his ass as pain and dizziness twisted through him.

“Shit.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a second, then looked at the warning on his phone. A tornado was spotted close to town. The roar outside increased, and he knew he was in trouble. He scrambled out from under the table and looked out the window, fear almost making him drop his phone again.

The funnel was on the ground and headed his way. Tears burned his eyes as panic took over. He turned to head out the door but stopped himself.

"No, dummy, don't do that," he said to himself and spun to head to the interior bathroom that he hated but now was in love with because he felt like he was going to piss his pants, and he needed to stay safe.

He slammed the bathroom door behind him and flipped open the toilet lid. He was thankful someone had thought of building this room in the middle of this house. That it included a toilet was a huge plus. By the time he washed his hands, the sound outside had died down.

Was the tornado gone? His hands shook as he reached for the door handle. He paused, his fingers gripping the cold metal as he listened for something to tell him what had happened.

The sound had quieted. He pulled open the door about an inch and didn't hear anything weird. Had the storm passed? This wasn't a hurricane, so there was no eye that would trick him into thinking everything was calm when the rest of the storm was on its way.

He closed his eyes and stood still, listening for any noise that indicated the tornado still threatened. From what he could tell, the tornado was gone.

Though his hands were shaking, and he wanted to stay in the house, he needed to check on everything. He made his way to the den, happy nothing looked broken. The windows all looked intact. He blew out a breath of relief.

Nolan headed outside and walked around his house, seeing no damage. Relief filled him until he glanced over and saw Ryder’s place. Curtains billowed out of one window at Ryder’s house.

“Oh shit.”

He didn't see Ryder's truck in the driveway, so he headed over, getting a deep moo from Mavis. The noise initially scared him, but he laughed and headed her way, giving her a loving scratch.

“I don’t know where he is, but I’ll see what I can do.”

Nolan walked around the house, seeing that only one window was busted. It sucked that Ryder’s house had been damaged. After taking a good look at everything, he pulled out his phone and checked the weather application, seeing that another storm would be coming through in about thirty minutes. If he didn’t cover up that window, Ryder’s house could be ruined, or at least the carpet in that room would be toast.

Nolan opened his garage, not seeing much other than the cardboard boxes he'd unpacked but hadn't taken to the recycling center. Maybe he shouldn't do anything, but he felt the need to help Ryder.

He should have gotten Ryder's phone number so he could contact him. After grabbing duct tape and a couple of boxes, he headed to Ryder's house. All he had was cardboard. Would it even work? If he applied the cardboard to the outside would that be enough? No, he should do both inside and outside.

Maybe this was foolish, but he headed to the back porch and moved to the sliding back door. He knocked once, then again. After a moment, he tried the door, and it slid open. "Hello. Is anyone here?"

No one answered. Nolan stepped in and thought about leaving the door open but remembered Ryder's story of the goats getting in and shut the door. After calling out twice more, he was sure Ryder wasn't home.

The window had been damaged on the side closest to his house, so he headed down the short hall to that bedroom. Before he started working, he took a few snapshots in case insurance wanted the information, then began working. With the glassed picked up from the floor, he was ready to start in on covering the window. It took a moment to fit the cardboard to the window, but soon he had it secured in place. Nolan was about to leave the room when he heard a vehicle pull into the driveway.

Fear twisted through him, but he couldn't see out the window since he'd covered it already. He picked up the tape and the cardboard, then remembered he needed to grab the trashcan full of glass. When he turned, he knocked into it and had to scramble so it didn't spill all over the place.

The car door shut and he tried to hurry out of the bedroom and back into the main room. It would be weird being here inside Ryder’s house with him not home. Maybe this had been a mistake.

Nolan had just made it to the kitchen and set down the trash can when the door right beside him opened. A scream escaped his lips and Ryder gasped. Then Nolan was pushed up against the wall, his hands held overhead.

At first, he knew Ryder didn’t know who he was. He tried to talk, but his tongue was tied.

Anger and fear shone in Ryder’s eyes. Then he saw the moment it changed from anger to a different kind of heat.

There were no lights on, and the sun was covered by clouds, so the light spilling in was muted at best, but he could see the desire, and he felt the thickness of Ryder's cock. Shock pulsed through him that was chased by molten desire.

For a moment, he thought Ryder was going to kiss him, but both of their phones went off from another weather alert.

"Fuck, you idiot," Ryder cursed. "What the fuck are you doing in my house?"

“Your window was busted out. I put up cardboard.”

“Cardboard? That won’t do much.” Ryder let him go and backed up, taking in the trashcan full of glass. “Shit. Cardboard is better than having rain blow in.”

Nolan shrugged. “I don’t have any plywood.”

“Fuck,” Ryder cursed again before he wiped his hand over his face. “Sorry, you just surprised the heck out of me.” He grabbed his phone and looked at the alert that was just sent out. “Another tornado in the area. I have plywood. Help me get it up.”

“Sure.”

They headed out to Ryder’s shed, and he grabbed a plank of plywood. Thunder rumbled in the distance though it hadn’t started to rain again. They headed around to the busted-out window and Ryder’s lips thinned when he saw the cardboard-covered window.

“Sorry about that. I guess my efforts were useless.”

Ryder shook his head. “No, you did good. You didn’t know I have plywood in the shed. If you need any, just grab some. It’s there for stuff like this.”

“Does this happen often?” Nolan asked as he held the wood in place while Ryder nailed in the top corner.

“Naw, but stuff happens on the farm. This is the first time the window has been broken out in a storm since I’ve been here. Really, I appreciate you trying. Finding you in my house shocked me.”

“I need your phone number. I could have called and told you about the window.”

“After this, I’ll give it to you.” Ryder glanced over his shoulder at the nearing storm. “It’s about to come down.”

They finished nailing the plank of plywood in place and then headed in, running the last few steps as rain started to pour. Ryder let out a loud whoop, a smile on his face as he watched the rain come down. Lightning flashed, and thunder rumbled so hard over the land that Nolan felt it deep in his soul.

“Wow, this storm.” Nolan worried about his house as the rain blew in sideways. “Yeah, that cardboard would have been useless. I was going to go out and put up a piece outside.”

“Thanks for trying. Both pieces would have kept out the worst of the rain. But yeah, the plywood is better.”

“Do you want a beer?” Ryder asked.

“Um, is that—” Lightning struck close by and he heard a loud pop. The noise from the refrigerator stopped as the lights flicked off.

“Shit, I guess we lost electricity. I was going to offer to heat up a pizza, but we won’t be heating up anything.”

“Damn. How long do you think the electricity will be out?”

Ryder shrugged. "It depends. Probably a few hours. Everything in your refrigerator should be good. But I'll start up my generator if it doesn't come back on, and you can bring your cold stuff over to keep it frozen."

“Thanks. I don’t have much. I was planning on grocery shopping this weekend.”

Ryder nodded as he moved to a different window. Nolan followed. The storm looked awful. He’d lived in some places he’d thought had wild weather, but those storms were nothing compared to this.

"I'll be back in a minute," Ryder said as he left the room. A moment later, Nolan heard the toilet flush and then saw a light at the end of the hallway as Ryder stepped out with a large flashlight.

“It looks like it’s getting worse,” Nolan said.

Rain pounded the roof, and he saw something blowing outside in the yard. He moved closer to the sliding glass door, but Ryder's hand on his shoulder stopped him. He glanced back over his shoulder and met Ryder's gaze. Neither of them moved as the wind whipped the rain hard against the house.

“Anything blowing in the yard could take out a window. Best to stay over here,” Ryder said before dropping his hand.

“Sure.”

They stood in Ryder's house in silence, watching the rain coming down, neither of them speaking. Nolan felt weird. He'd sworn he'd seen desire in Ryder's gaze, but he wasn't going to act on it. The idea that Ryder might be into him shouldn't be a thought in his head. This man had been married to a woman, and he probably would be pissed if he knew the thoughts Nolan was having about him. He’d dealt with more than one straight man who wasn't so straight in his lifetime, and they were always insulted if he acknowledged their desire.

After the storm died down, Nolan got Ryder's number and then headed back to his place to check it out. Nothing was wrong with his house, and he wondered if he'd overreacted by going to Ryder’s to fix his window.

No, it had been the neighborly thing to do. He would want Ryder to fix his broken window if he'd been at work and Ryder had been home. Maybe it hadn't been desire shining in Ryder's eyes. He needed to get this out of his system because the last thing he wanted was to be called out for being gay by some homophobic tough guy.