American Honey

“The beaches here are nice. They are very family oriented.”

“Yeah, I noticed. They see me on my Harley, and act like I’m an alien.”

“Not necessarily. We have Bike Week. If you’re here when that happens then you’ll be giving the dirty looks. I’ve never seen so many motorcycles in my whole life.”

“Have you ever attended?”

Was he crazy? I was the most conservative prude to exist. Hanging out with a bunch of bikers would have put my own mother in an early grave. There was no way she would have approved. “It’s not really my cup of tea.”

“You don’t look like a girl whose ever been on the back of the bike. How do you know you wouldn’t like it, if you’ve never tried it before?”

I giggled. Just imagining putting on a helmet and clinging to the back of a guy made me uneasy. Motorcycles were dangerous, and I didn’t do dangerous. “No thank you. I’ll take your word for it.”

“Even if you do it only once in your life, I promise it will be a fulfilling experience. Nothing is better than to feel the wind against your face while you’re cruising down a quiet country road. It’s invigorating.”

“Until you get caught in a tropical storm,” I added.

“Like I said before, I was trying to beat it. The satellite imagery showed it staying on coastal waters, so my plan was to get out of dodge before it got bad.”

I snickered, “You probably should have left yesterday.”

“Yeah, you’re right. My poor bike got doused. That hail did me in. Did you hear it?” He leaned forward and slapped his hands together, then started rubbing them.

“I actually drove through the hail. It was huge. You’re lucky you weren’t harmed.”

“Yeah, I heard it first. I knew better than to keep going. I parked my bike under a tree and let it pass.”

“Aren’t you supposed to avoid trees in thunder storms?” Everyone knew that rule.

“I’ve seen warzones and had fragments of metal tear into my skin. A little bit of hail isn’t going to hurt me. Besides, it only lasted for about a minute. As far as the trees go, when you see giant balls of ice falling from the sky, you take cover.”

Hearing him talking about being a soldier was frightening for me. I knew that it happened, but I’d never talked to someone that experienced it. My phone beeped reminding me that it was sitting on a table by the front door. I stood up and headed toward it, recognizing the sound that meant the battery was about to die. As fast as my fingers could type, I pulled up the weather. It was way worse than I thought. “They say the temperature is supposed to drop twenty degrees tonight. How could I have not heard about this?”

“There’s nothing you can do about it now. At least we have a roof over our heads. I tell ya, for

a while I thought I’d never come to a house. That stretch of road out of town is deserted.”

I smiled, having known since I was young how many miles the bed and breakfast was from town. “Four miles to be exact.”

“Damn.”

All of the sudden the room got quiet. I looked down at my hands realizing that I had nothing coming to my mind to talk about. Then something horrifying happened. A loud crash rumbled the house, and to be honest it sounded like it was collapsing with us inside of it. Reed jumped up quickly, shielding me with his own body, while searching around to see what was actually happening. When we could hear nothing but the storm outside again, we both stood and looked at each other. “What was that?”

He turned to look back at me as he started walking toward the stairs. “I don’t know, but I’m going up to check things out.” I grabbed the flashlight and ran after him, just as curious as he was.

We made it to the top of the steps and turned the corner. The sound of wood breaking caught Reed’s attention. He put his hand up so I wouldn’t walk past him. “Hold on. Something’s wrong.”

I watched him walk in the direction of the bedrooms. He peeked his head inside of the room that he’d changed in and immediately came back out. When he reached the next room I went after him, and was struck with a shocking revelation. A limb as thick as my body had come in through the roof. It was literally raining in the room from the extremely large hole. “Oh my God!” In the corner of the room, near the exterior wall, was the most damage. It had come all the way through the attic and busted into the drywall of the next level. Knowing that I’d just been given the deed meant that I’d be responsible for having the repairs done. The thought of the stress this was going to cause me made me feel nauseated.

Reed stopped me from going any further. He grabbed my arm and led me back into the hallway. “The whole structure of the roof may have been damaged. I’m going to have to find some kind of tarps to prevent any more water damage.”

“You’re not getting on that roof with this wind. You could die.”

He walked past me and started heading down the stairs again. I followed, shining the light as I went. Reed headed to the kitchen and stood at the exit looking around in the back yard. “Is there supplies in that shed?”

I nodded. “Yes, but please don’t worry about it. I’d rather have more damage then watch someone fall to their death. Don’t be crazy.”

“I’ve been through much worse than a rain storm, lady. Trust me, you’re going to want to secure the roof to prevent any other damage that can be made.”