Joining the Storm

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Alex opened his apartment door to a blowing Chicago snowstorm, drifts he didn’t want to deal with already building up on the concrete steps. Four people barely recognizable through heavy coats and scarves stared up at him. He’d seen two of them in considerably less clothing a few times over the past five years

“You’re not honestly expecting me to go out in this?” he said, holding the door open.

A party had sounded like a good idea a few hours ago, before a blizzard settled in like a heavy blanket over his shoulders. They stomped enthusiastically before stepping inside.

“What exciting plans did you have instead?” said Kim, one of those friends he’d spent close personal time with. “Reading some journal, or working?”

“Neither, thank you very much,” Alex said, kissing her cheek. “Just finished up work a few minutes ago. I had plans to watch a shitty movie and go to bed. That’s what we do out here in the real world.”

“For f**k’s sake, Grampa Collins.” That was another of Alex’s more intimate friends, Thom. “You graduated college early. You didn’t magically accelerate to fifty years old.”

“Maybe not, but this isn’t my crowd anymore. Seriously. Have a couple here if you want, but I’m going to sit this one out.”

Kim and the other two, recent dates for his friends who Alex didn’t know very well yet, shook their heads and headed back toward the kitchen to take him up on the offer. Thom crossed his arms and stared at Alex with his head tilted.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to insist you get the hell out of here tonight,” he said. “You have the rest of your life to work yourself into a rut like everyone else. And you need to act your age whether you want to or not.”

“What am I supposed to talk to them about, Thom? Yeah, I’m still a kid, but I’m not drowning in finals anymore. I’m drowning in work. There’s a major conversational disconnect there.”

“How about you stop drowning, then, at least for one night?” Thom stepped forward and kissed Alex, hard and deep, cold hands slipping into his hair. He stepped back, grinning. “Just have some fun, man. You still remember how to do that, right? And unless there’s someone I don’t know about, it’s been a while since you got laid. If we’re both bored at this party, fine. We head back here and take care of that.”

Alex looked around the space, a far cry from the cramped dorm he’d endured with three other guys for three years. This apartment wasn’t huge, but it was all his. It did look like a guy in his thirties lived here.

An actual adult, one he didn’t often feel like.

No evidence of secondhand furniture or dirty clothes, no trace of stale beer or piles of books. He was damn proud of accomplishing so much so young, of getting himself out of his hometown and his parents’ house and into a great job.

And Alex wasn’t quite ready to join his father’s demographic before he turned twenty-three.

He’d been feeling strange and out of sorts all day, off track somehow. That kiss felt pretty f*****g good, and it had been a while.

“All right, I’m in. We’ll see about your generous offer depending on how the party goes. You and I are great at that part, not so much at the rest.”

“Who said anything about the rest?” Thom said, walking toward the kitchen. “I’m planning to use you for your body.”

“Works for me. I’ll get my coat.”

The first steps into the bitter cold nearly sent Alex right back inside. The wind was vicious, driving stinging snow into his face and eyes. Walking two blocks to a college party hoping for some kind of hookup felt like insanity at the moment, but not quite as pathetic as going to bed at nine on a Friday night.

The cars outside the building were already covered with snow. A thick trail of footprints showed the way through the tree-lined courtyard to the second apartment on the left. Alex again considered going back home despite the promise of time with Thom, or someone else. The drifts would surely be up past his knees in a few hours with the way this storm felt.

Alex blinked, sure his eyes were watering from the icy assault. He stopped on the sidewalk, looking back toward the street. That wind had died down inside the sheltered courtyard, leaving the snow to float rather than being driven through a howling tunnel.

Everything he saw, everything he felt, resolved into massive, interlocking patterns.

The streetlight caught the huge flakes and threw sparkling light across several inches on the ground, all lining up to point toward where he stood.

In a lifetime of sensing and feeling such things, he’d never imagined his entire life turning on one point, one moment he did not yet understand. As if a thousand train tracks from all over the world joined in this one spot, then continued on their way.

“Alex is in danger of abandoning us,” Kim said from beside him. “He’s staring wistfully toward his shitty movie and his bed.”

“His empty bed,” Thom said. “Get your fine ass in gear, old man. I’m freezing mine off out here.” He squeezed Alex’s backside and pushed, bringing them all in the door laughing.

The heat from an overachieving fireplace and way too many bodies hit Alex like a steaming hot shower while he was fully dressed. There wasn’t enough room to stand, much less walk around. And still that movement forward, people shifting to give him a path when there shouldn’t be space for one, Thom close behind him, no longer grabbing his ass but adding to the momentum.

Alex looked up, in the direction nothing less than what felt like orbital mechanics was pulling him. He saw one face out of dozens. One man with lovely green eyes, dark brown hair, and the sexiest smile he’d ever seen.

The crowd closed behind him, and Alex walked forward, pulling his coat off. Some part of him knew the years before and the years that would come after still existed. Other people, far too many of them, still lived and breathed all around him.

None of that mattered. This was the moment his whole life, all the choices and hard work and random events, would turn upon.

Alex stepped into his future.