Birthday Girl

“Jordan!” a bellow comes from downstairs.

I drop the white shirt I was sorting and jerk my head, hearing the screen door slam against the frame downstairs.

My heart thuds a little harder.

Leaving the room, I jog down the stairs. Pike’s by the front door, pulling out his jacket from the closet. Water streams down his face and the golden skin of his tattooed arms, and his hair is stuck to his scalp. He pulls his jacket over his head and his soaking wet T-shirt.

I walk up to him. “What’s wrong?”

“The riverbank is flooding,” he says, charging into the kitchen and toward the fridge. “They’re calling anyone who’s able to come help sandbag before it reaches the streets.”

Got it. I pull my Chucks out of the closet, hopping on one foot as I slip each one on. “Did you call Cole?”

“Yeah, but he’s not answering.” He grabs an armful of water bottles. “Why don’t you try?”

I yank my raincoat off the hanger and close the closet, grabbing my baseball cap off the hook on the outside. “If he didn’t answer for you, he definitely won’t for me.”

Pike re-enters the living room, his five bottles pinched between his fingers. He raises his eyebrows, silently asking me again, and I roll my eyes.

“But I’ll try in the car,” I tell him, opening the door. “Let’s go.”

We get down to the inlet in no time, Pike having already loaded up as many of his sandbags as he had left in the back of his truck. The city has a hefty supply, though, and they were already down here with their trucks.

With the rain being so bad this summer and every last inch of snow finally melting farther north, the river has been a time bomb. I remember it flooding the homes on the west side a few years back, but the city got prepared after that. Police, firefighters, city crew, and citizens are now scattered amongst the rocks of the flood barrier already in place. Piles of sandbags are set up all the way from the water, up the incline of the boulders, and to the dirt and grass up here. There’s little more than a hundred yards of weeds, trees, and railroad track to cross before the dilapidated houses of the old west side that was the first part of Northridge to be settled. The water is rising, but slowly, so hopefully if the flood barrier isn’t enough, the sandbags will be. The people in this neighborhood can’t afford to leave, much less lose their houses.

The river runs south, growing in speed, and I shiver a little, every inch of me soaking wet. Drops of water fall from the bill of my cap, and rain runs down my legs.

“Water?”

Pike holds a bottle out to me, and I peer up at him from under the brim of my hat and smile, snatching it up. “Thank you.”

He moves around me without another word, grabbing a sandbag and tossing it to a guy down the line. We’ve been here for three hours now, and we haven’t been able to reach Cole, although I can’t say I tried very hard. I don’t want to see him right now, so I gave it three rings and then hung up.

I look down at the bottle of water in my hand. My mouth is like a desert.

Unscrewing the cap, I suck down half the water, take a breath, and swallow two more gulps. There’s only about an inch left, so I stick it in my jacket pocket to finish later.

“Hey, Jordan,” a chipper voice calls, passing by.

I look to see April Lester pulling on a pair of work gloves and heading down the rocks toward Pike, dressed in jeans hugging every inch of her legs and a cute camouflage T-shirt and hat. A black ponytail hangs out the hole in the back.

She looks kind of cute. I’m so used to seeing her in her ‘going-out’ clothes at the bar.

I pull out a sandbag from the truck bed and heft the forty-pound burlap sack to the next guy in line and turn back to the bed, repeating the task. Each bag makes its way from one set of hands to the other until it reaches its place on the river bank.

I notice April in another assembly line, directly across from Pike, and she’s talking to him.

I try to keep my eyes averted, because it’s not my business, but I find myself stealing glances, and I don’t know why.

Liquid heat rushes through my chest, and I feel a cool sweat breaking out on my forehead.

Does he know her? Have they ever talked? I don’t think they’ve ever been out. They can’t have been. Pike’s like a priest. He’s so uptight, and that woman comes on stronger than a hammer over the head. She’d scare him.

I wet my lips, handing off another bag, and unable to keep myself from watching them. She smiles brightly, saying something, and he looks over at her, listening with amusement. One of his rare, outstanding, and gorgeous smiles flashes on her—on her—and my heart skips a beat.

I scowl and grab another bag.

Is he fucking blushing? He actually looks a little shy, but he doesn’t look turned off by her flirting.