The next morning, Laura woke to absolute silence and darkness in the house. No furnace, no humming from the appliances, no lights from the clock, complete total silence, and darkness.
“Nooooo!” Laura moaned to herself as she realized there was no electricity. “Well this will make for an interesting day, won’t it?”
Laura hopped out of bed and quickly dressed in warm clothes. The house was already starting to have a chill. She let the dogs out and watching them from the window dialed the power company to hopefully get an estimate on when the power would be restored. Laura wasn’t going to hold her breath for the power to be restored anytime soon as the roads were still impassable and snow was still coming down.
That thought was confirmed when the recording told her that it could be days before the power was restored to all the homes in the area.
Laura decided to make the best of it, eating a bowl of cereal before she started gathering up all the oil lamps, candles, and flashlights she could find. But as she finished eating, the phone rang. Chewing quickly, she grabbed the phone before it could wake up JC.
“Lo.” Laura said into the receiver. She had seen on the caller id it was her parents.
“Nice,” her father said. “Do you have power?”
“Nope and I called it in and it could be a couple of days before it comes back on.”
“Are you staying warm enough?”
“Yeah, I think we’ll be fine.”
“What do you mean we?” Her father asked slowly.
“Oh, I didn’t talk to you yesterday; there was an accident out by the tree line, the night before last. The guy didn’t wake up until hours later and is now snowed in with me.” Laura rushed quickly through the explanation, leaving a few key details out like how attractive he was.
“Laura, are you alright?”
“Yes, father I’m fine,” after sharing a few more details and wishes to stay warm, both hung up.
Getting up from the table, she placed her bowl in the sink and went about gathering up the necessary supplies to get them through this power outage.
During the day, JC and Laura played board games, put a puzzle together, and just talked, sharing information with each other that no one else knew. They were normally both so busy with their respective jobs that they didn’t often get to know someone on such a deep level. And not having the distraction of TV or cell phones or computers was another plus to getting to know one another.
They had closed off the living room as best as they could, tacking blankets over the doorways. There was a kerosene heater warming the room and the lit candles were sending a flickering light over their features. The other rooms in the house were a different story. With no heat all day the temperature had dropped rapidly. Now that night had fallen, if you left the living room you did what you left to do and came back immediately.
“I think I’ll pull my mattress in here on the floor. It’s too cold to sleep in the bedrooms and I don’t want to leave the kerosene heater on all night.” Laura said. “If the blankets are piled on, I think we’ll be warm enough.”
JC wasn’t sure if she was implying what he thought. “I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You don’t have to; I don’t mind sharing a bed as long as nothing happens.”
“Are you sure? I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”
“I know and that’s why I’m offering. I trust you.”
JC was amazed. He had a hard time trusting in people and this woman whom he had just met was trusting in him. He had never met someone like Laura before. He had been running from commitment for so long. JC had longed for normalcy since he had become a superstar and now it was staring him in the face. Could this be real? Could this be continued after the snow ended and the real world surfaced again? Did he even want this? He had said repeatedly in interviews that he didn’t ever see himself settling down and getting married, but in this instance, in this farmhouse in Ohio, he longed for it. He longed for love and commitment and marriage and normalcy. Laura didn’t treat him like the superstar. He was free to be JC. He was free to express himself and he trusted that Laura would keep his secrets and not share them with the rest of the world. He felt like he was finally home.
JC was finding it hard to sleep. Laura was softly breathing in her sleep next to him and being close but not touching was very hard on JC. He didn’t know what it was about Laura that affected him so. He had never felt this way before and not being able to get away from her was confusing him. JC groaned softly and rolled over on his back, but as he did the mattress jostled and Laura rolled over in her sleep. She put her right arm across his chest and her leg across both of his, sighing softly as she did so. JC was not going to let this opportunity go. He carefully stretched his arm that was beneath her head and put it around her shoulder, pulling her closer into his chest. His left hand came up and locked their hands together on his chest, right over his heart. Laura’s head nestled closer on his shoulder as he turned his head and gave her a light kiss on her forehead. JC’s breathing deepened as he finally fell into a deep, peaceful, restful sleep.
Kasey whined as she climbed up on the mattress behind Laura. Laura groaned and nestled her head deeper into the pillow.
“5 more minutes, Kasey,” she said in a sleepy voice. I’m too warm and comfortable to get up right now. Laura slowly became aware that her pillow was hard and her hand was trapped. She was putting it altogether when…
“Mmmm…what Laura,” her pillow asked under her ear.
Laura gasped as she sat up quickly, jerking her hand from his. “I’m so sorry! I just made you into my personal body pillow. You should have gotten me up and told me to move. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not,” JC said in a sexy morning voice, fixing his intense blue gaze directly on her. “That’s the best sleep I’ve had in quite a while.” Laura’s face turned red as she tried to get off the mattress before making an even bigger embarrassment of herself.
“I have to let the dogs out, I’ll be back.” Laura said as she finally made it off the mattress and rushed out of the room.
JC stretched his arms above his head and smiled to himself at her flustered tone. He was used to women throwing themselves at him wherever he went. It was very refreshing to find someone who wanted to get to know him and not the superstar and to know that he affected her as much as she did him.
