At 1 am, it began to rain.
With no internet, and no cell signal either, there wasn’t much for us to do but go to bed. Wes was definitely not in the right headspace for under-the-covers fun, so we simply went to sleep—him with the blanket from the Challenger, since the cold rarely bothered me.
What did bother me, though, was water dripping onto my face.
I spluttered awake and sat up, promptly slamming my head into the angled ceiling. I swore. Loudly. Suddenly the room was awash in light as my favorite god lit up like a Christmas tree to take on all comers. The switch from full dark to full bright hurt my eyes, but the pain wasn’t as bad as my head.
“Hud?” Wes was on his knees beside me a moment later. “What happened?”
“The fucking ceiling happened.” I lifted my hand away from my forehead, relieved to see there was no blood on my palm. “You don’t need to smite the cottage. I’m good.”
Grimacing, Wes let his godliness fade. “I might smite the cottage,” he grumbled. “Were you trying to get up for the bathroom or something?”
“No. I think the roof is leaking.” On cue, another drop splattered onto the top of my head.
Wes looked up, then at the foil emergency blanket. He opened his mouth and I held up a hand. “Don’t.”
He ignored me, of course. “You know what usually comes with bedsheets and a non-leaky roof?” Not waiting for a response, he continued, “A hotel. Plus they have room service. And maybe a spa tub.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Or—and hear me out—we could just stay in our crazy amazing house.”
Our house was crazy amazing, but the whole point of this was to get away. Away from the norm, away from the city. And to experience a reconnection to nature. It was something I craved every once in a while, but I didn’t think Wes felt the same. Scratch that—I knew he didn’t.
“We need a bowl or something.” I got up—carefully this time—and went downstairs to the kitchen to retrieve a vessel to capture the rain.
When I got back upstairs, Wes helped me position the bowl under the drip. And by “helped,” I mean he gave directions that I ignored because they were wrong. Once it was set, I crawled into bed beside him—nice and close to avoid the bowl and the drip—only to have the bowl tip over with the shifting of the mattress.
I tried twice more, but no go. The bedframe and mattress moved too much as I was getting comfortable. Grumbling, I got out of bed.
“Where are you going?” Wes’s voice was sleepy, his eyes barely open.
“I’ll sleep on the futon.” No way was I going to try to fit on one of the twin beds on the other side of the loft. At least the futon was a double. “You stay here.”
He didn’t argue, and simply closed his eyes.
Thankfully the futon didn’t take much effort to open. It wasn’t long enough—my head and feet touched the metal armrests on both ends—but it would do. I’d just started to drift off, listening to the constant patter of the rain, when Wes suddenly appeared on the bed. On me. I made an oof sound of surprise, followed by, “What the…”
“The plink of the drop into the bowl was really annoying,” Wes whispered.
“Did you really just haunt me?” That was one of his abilities, to go, in his ghost form, to wherever someone he knew was, no matter how far away.
“Psh, yes. You think I was going to try that staircase in the dark?” He snuggled in to my chest. “You’re comfier than the bed.”
I drifted off with a smile on my face.
Mostly because I didn’t know what was going to happen next.