Perfect Storm, part 2

EVELYN

In the darkness, Evelyn paced back and forth, anxiety running a mile a minute. The storm outside had become even more fierce. She was well and truly stranded now, and stuck with a complete stranger, no less.

A very, very hot stranger. A stranger she couldn’t stop looking at, especially now that the darkness made it easier for her to sneak glances without being noticed. Josie wasn’t just good-looking, she was five alarm fire hot, the kind of hot that made Evelyn shut down completely. She wasn’t good around attractive people—hell, she wasn’t good around people to begin with, but people like Josie made her feel even more self-conscious than normal. She spent most of the next several minutes re-examining every single thing she’d said to Josie up until now, panicking over every interaction, wondering what she was thinking, how she was feeling, whether she was upset.

And it was pretty clear she was upset. Who wouldn’t be? Putting herself in Josie’s shoes, she’d be pretty pissed off, too. But it wasn’t Evelyn’s fault that the storm knocked out their power, that’s for sure.

“Well, there’s no point in trying to get any writing done now, I guess,” Josie said, deflated. She fell onto the couch and sighed theatrically. 

“You still have a bit of battery left, right? Maybe the power will come back soon,” Evelyn tried to assuage her.

“I just checked on my phone,” Josie said, hurling her phone onto the table for dramatic effect. “Power’s knocked out for this whole region. It’s not coming back for a while. I’m hosed.”

Evelyn sat at the other end of the couch, suddenly overcome with curiosity. “So you’re a playwright?”

“Trying to be,” the woman confessed, undoing her ponytail and raking her nails through her dark brown hair. Evelyn envied Josie’s looks fiercely. Comparing herself to others was a weakness of hers, but she couldn’t stop herself when confronted by somebody with a body like Josie’s. Tall, well toned, legs for days, perky breasts that made Evelyn’s mouth water. Compared to her own body, Josie was practically a supermodel. “I’m supposed to have this script done by the end of the weekend, but I guess that’s a lost cause, now,” Josie continued.

“Josie…I’m sorry.” It wasn’t Evelyn’s fault, but she had a habit of apologizing for things outside her control, regardless. “I didn’t mean to mess up your plans. I really did think I’d have the place to myself. And I wouldn’t have booked it all if it weren’t for this freak storm.”

“Please, call me Jo. And don’t worry about it. I’m upset, just not at you. It’s not your fault,” she said, although her tone of voice still suggested otherwise. Evelyn bit her lip, a nervous tick of hers.

“Well, if there’s anything I can do to help—” Another flash of light, and a second later a crack of thunder. Evelyn jumped in surprise, letting out a squeak she wasn’t particularly proud of. 

Jo raised an eyebrow at her, barely visible in the darkness. “You don’t do very well with storms, do you?”

“Just…nervous,” Evelyn admitted. “This trip is already a mess, and so many more things could go wrong. What if this cabin floods over? What if the thunder keeps me up all night? What if it’s still raining this bad tomorrow morning and I have to drive the rest of the way in this storm? I hate this. I hate it.”

Jo stifled a chuckle and shook her head. “You think too much.” 

“Tell me about it.” Evelyn once overthought what to eat for breakfast for so long she wound up skipping breakfast and lunch. 

“Where are you headed, anyway?” Jo asked, scooting a little closer on the couch. 

Evelyn’s cheeks burned. The hottest girl she’d ever met was inching closer to her, and she felt like a total wreck. She suddenly wished they were meeting under better circumstances. “Chicago. Going to a friend’s wedding tomorrow. I was supposed to stay in a hotel over there, but…” she motioned to the rain pelting the nearby window, loud as can be. “That plan went up in smoke.”

“That sounds like fun though. Much more fun than my reason for being here,” Jo said. 

“Not as fun as you’d think,” Evelyn said. “Wedding is between my best friend and my ex.”

“Oof.” Jo grimaced. “That sounds rough.”

“Eh. It’s fine.” It was, all things considered. Evelyn dated Mel a looong time ago, and she was more than happy that things had worked out between her and Remy. It was a perfect pairing, if she was being honest. It didn’t sting anymore. At least, she tried to tell herself that, anyway. 

“Still…” Jo trailed off. If Evelyn didn’t know any better, she’d think this woman who’d been yelling at her just minutes ago was feeling sorry for her all of a sudden.

“Yeah, it’s not ideal. And so far everything that could go wrong on my way to this damn wedding has gone wrong.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true. Her present company was extremely hot, after all. And even though they’d gotten off on the wrong foot, she seemed to be warming up to Evelyn’s presence. Who knows, maybe she’d get through this night in one piece after all.

“Sorry,” Jo said, as if reading Evelyn’s mind. “I guess me being here just makes things harder, too.”

“No, it’s okay—”

“If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t have come at all if I’d known this damn storm was gonna knock the power out,” Jo continued. “Hopefully it comes back tomorrow so I can get some more writing done this weekend.”

Evelyn squirmed in her seat. It felt like her presence was only making Jo more annoyed. Maybe she shouldn’t have come here after all. She swallowed those doubts and buried them somewhere deep, as she always did. “So…what’s your play about?” she ventured.

Jo glanced her way with a raised eyebrow. “You really want to know?”

Evelyn nodded.

“It’s about me,” Jo answered.

---

JO 

“It’s about you? Like, your life?”

“Well, sort of.” It wasn’t really. It was just born out of a lot of the experiences Jo had growing up, and the experiences she had transitioning in her 20s. But she wasn’t sure how much of that she wanted to share with a total stranger. An adorable stranger, granted. A stranger who Jo was starting to appreciate the presence of, despite it all.

At first she’d lumped Evelyn and the storm together like they were one and the same. As though Evelyn was the one who’d made the power go out. But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t Evelyn’s fault—the power was going to go out one way or another. At least now she had company. Someone to commiserate with. “It’s not like I’m a character in the play or anything like that. But it’s kind of auto-biographical, I guess.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to pry, then. I didn’t mean to—” Evelyn began, and Jo could already tell she was about to fly into an anxiety spiral.

“No, it’s fine, seriously,” Jo said. “It’s, umm…it’s about family, I guess. And…gender…exploration,” she added tactfully.

Evelyn’s eyes widened. “Oh. Are you…?”

Jo shrugged. “Yeah. I started transitioning a few years ago. It’s been…pretty wild,” she admitted. And it had been. When she discovered the truth, her entire life had been thrown upside-down. Her relationship with her family had always been fraught, but now it was a downright minefield. “It’s been a lot to work through and a lot to learn. I felt like I needed to, I dunno, write about my experiences.” It was bold of her to blurt all of this out to a random stranger. Perhaps even stupid. She didn’t know how Evelyn would react to this news.

Thankfully, Evelyn was cooler than she gave her credit for. She gave Jo a gentle smile and reached over to put a hand over hers. “I think that’s really sweet. And brave, to put yourself out there like that. I appreciate you trusting me enough to tell me.”

Jo felt her cheeks flush. She hadn’t had somebody touch her like that in—well, it had been a while. She eventually cleared her throat, pulled her hand away, and glanced back at her blank computer screen. “Th–thanks. Sorry if that’s…I dunno, TMI or something.”

“Not at all.” Evelyn pulled her hand back and brushed some curly blonde hair out of her eyes. God, she was cute. It felt like every one of her mannerisms was designed to pierce Jo’s heart. She suddenly felt compelled to reach out and play with Evelyn’s hair, too. “So…maybe you can’t get any more writing done, but…do you want to tell me all about your play? I know sometimes talking about stuff can get those creative juices flowing.”

Jo blushed harder. Okay, this was bad. Now she was thinking of juices flowing. But she nodded. Evelyn was right, talking about her play was almost as valuable as getting the actual writing done. It would help her structure out her plot, flesh out her characters, and nail down an ending of some kind. “Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. Tell me everything,” Evelyn said.

“Well, okay!” Jo grinned and launched into a frenetic description of her play, from the basic concept down to everything that happens in the first two acts. It was cathartic, in a way, getting it all out there—there was a lot of her in this play, and the more she talked about it, the more it felt like she was letting Evelyn in on some of her deepest secrets. Evelyn mostly listened, though she would occasionally hop in with comments or questions of her own, prompting Jo to fetch a notebook from her luggage and start taking notes.

It was almost as good as writing the damn thing. Hell, it was even better. She was getting very solid, actionable feedback, and it was helping her shape the rest of the script in her mind. An hour of discussion was going to wind up cutting her writing time in half, in all likelihood. Maybe this trip wasn’t a bust after all.

Maybe meeting Evelyn was what she needed all along.

As the night went on, the topic shifted from Jo’s play to Jo herself. There was something about Evelyn that encouraged Jo to open up, to reveal parts of herself she didn’t normally show others. She felt safe. At home. Which was a strange feeling, since she rarely felt at home even when she was home.

Finally, mercifully, the lights suddenly flickered back on. Her laptop beeped in relief and powered on. “Oh, hey! Look at that,” Evelyn said with a smile. “I guess you can get some writing done after all.”

Jo should have been pleased. After all, she had just enough time left in the night to finish this act, at least, and Evelyn had provided her a lot of inspiration. But instead she was left feeling…disheartened. She’d been enjoying talking to Evelyn. The thought of going back to her solitary writing wasn’t as fulfilling as it had been before. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. Maybe I’ll take a bath or something, calm my nerves. That sounds nice. That okay with you?”

“Oh…right. Yeah.” Jo should have said something. Told Evelyn to stay. Told her she was enjoying her company. Instead she nodded. There was a lingering, awkward silence as Evelyn rose from the couch and started unpacking some toiletries from her luggage. Jo hadn’t realized how closely they’d been sitting since their conversation began. By the end of it, their shoulders had been practically touching.

Evelyn ducked out of the room and into the bathroom, which adjoined the bedroom where all of Jo’s stuff was aside from her laptop. The door to the bathroom closed behind Evelyn, and she was alone again.

Alone, thinking of the curly-haired girl who’d somehow turned her stomach in a knot in just a couple hours. A girl who was about to be naked two rooms over.

---

EVELYN

Oh god oh god oh god. This was bad.

Evelyn shut the door to the bedroom and braced herself against it, blushing furiously. She was smitten, all right.

When Evelyn fell for someone, she fell fast and hard. It had always been this way for her. She’d only had a couple big relationships in the past—Mel and Brad—and both times, she’d become obsessed in a matter of hours. Josie was turning out to be no exception. But this was bad. She barely knew this woman, and already she was a flustered mess around her. 

Actually, that wasn’t true. She’d learned a lot about Jo just now, more than she ever thought she would. She learned about her family, her friends, her transition, her hopes and dreams. It had been like an Intro to Josie course, and now she wanted more.

But Jo lived in Madison. And Evelyn had a wedding to get to in less than 12 hours. She didn’t have time for a meetcute, let alone time to fall for a complete stranger. She hustled over to the bathroom and started disrobing, realizing through the mirror that her face was flushed red all over. God, she had it bad. She took a moment to examine the rest of herself and wondered what Jo would think.

No. Bad Evelyn. She had to stop thinking about Jo. That was the whole point of running off to take a bath, after all. The power turning back on had been the perfect excuse. Now Jo could get her writing done in peace like she wanted, and Evelyn could…wind down.

Right. Wind down. That’s what she was supposed to be doing right now. Not thinking of Jo’s well-toned, inked arms or her absurdly perky breasts or her adorable upturned nose or her perfect hair. No no no. She let out a held breath and started running water for her bath. She was going to take a break from all of this anxiety and, above all, stop thinking about the beautiful woman who’d somehow already begun to capture her heart.

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