Work Text:
The firmament spirals, a dark threat above you. Storm clouds, almost formed to completion, are ready to crack at any moment. It’s supposed to rain all day, at least that’s what the weatherman said on the news this morning. The caption at the bottom of your TV read: Summertime storms roll through Midwest. You hadn’t paid it much thought at the time.
Now, looking up at the sky while you bring your bike to a stop in the nearly empty parking lot of Family Video, the bag you packed on your back swinging slightly as your motion slows, you wonder if you ought to have brought an umbrella. You balance precariously on your bike, toes barely finding solid ground as you lean your weight back onto the seat—you’d raised the seat too high one day only to find it stuck, unable to lower it to a more fitting height—to get a better look at the sky.
A single fat raindrop falls from the clouds, landing heavy on the space just above your eyes and splattering against your face. You reel backwards from the unexpected impact, the shift in weight nearly causing you to tumble, bike and all.
More raindrops begin to fall around you, not too many, but they’re all just as heavy as the first, excessively large but not unusual for the season. The threat of more rain to follow forces you to stumble off your bike and wheel it to the portico, the overhang offering protection for the sidewalk in front of Family Video and the surrounding stores in the strip mall.
You lean your bike against the windows of the store. The green borders and various movie posters hanging on the glass are likely to make it impossible to see anything but the handlebars from the inside, but it’s not the first time you’ve left your bike here and it won’t be the last.
It’s then that the rain finally comes, a tremendous downpour, loud and weighty. The rushing hiss of rain hitting the pavement drowns out any other noise and blurs your view of the empty asphalt, streaking everything in the parking lot into shades of grey and splotches of green. There are only a handful of cars in the lot, all of them likely belonging to employees in the plaza, but Steve’s is the only one you recognize—the only one that hasn’t lost all form in your sight line from the torrent of rain. The stream of rushing water shrinks your world until nothing exists beyond the downpour and the store behind you.
You can’t help but edge your way towards the downpour, sticking your hand beyond the protection of the roof above you until the rushing rainfall catches on your skin. Drops splatter against your hand and the pavement below you, smaller droplets sinking into the tops of your shoes, but you hardly notice.
Behind you, the door chimes, signaling an end to your muffled solitude.
“Well, if it isn’t my best girl. Did you come to rent a movie?” Steve stands in the open entryway of Family Video, leaning back against the glass door to keep it propped open, an easy smile resting on his lips. His words make your heart flutter, they always do, and you can’t help but smile back, stepping towards him as though some magnetic pull is tugging you in his direction.
“I came to see you,” you chirp, too happy to mind how ridiculously lovesick he makes you.
Steve settles against the door, crossing his arms and shifting his weight. He’s not allowed to leave the store, not when he’s the only one working at the video rental for the day, even if it’s unlikely that, between the already slow weekdays and the threat of storms all day, there will be any customers. But he can linger just on the edge, as close to where you currently stand as possible. The magnetism, it seems, pulls both ways.
“Are you coming in? You’ll catch a cold from the rain,” he urges, warm, brown eyes taking in the state of your slowly dampening clothes, slightly darker dots marking where the water splashed up against you.
“It’s a warm shower today,” you state, holding up your now wet hand to prove that you would know, you’ve felt it. But the rain is cooling the air down, and you don’t really want to be wet when you finally enter the air conditioned video rental.
You walk towards Steve, wiping your still rain-wet hand on your shirt as you do, leaving even more marks behind on the fabric.
As soon as you’re through the door, Steve throws his arm over your shoulder, pulling you in close to his side to provide you some warmth, at least you think that’s what he’d claim if you asked him about it. You both know that he just wants you close.
He brings you around the counter even though the space is meant to be for employees only, so he can stand by the phone and register, just in case someone does decide to call. Then he helps you up to your usual perch on the countertop.
It’s dark in Family Video today, the store’s old lights buzzing overhead, working far harder than they should to emit such a small amount of light. The store relies mostly on natural lighting, something which doesn’t exist today, the storm casting a deep grey across everything in its reach.
The rain outside shows no signs of stopping anytime soon.
In the near silence you can hear the sharp clatter as the shower falls in sheets against the roof. The darkness, the sound of the storm, and the comfort of Steve leaning so close to you all come together to bring hints of sleep back to the edges of your eyes.
It reminds you of the bag you brought, still settled on your back to survive the bike ride over to Steve’s work.
“I brought you something,” you exclaim, pulling the bag from your back and placing it down beside you so that you can dig through it. The bag clunks as the contents inside make contact with the countertop.
“Yeah? What is it?” Steve asks, but you ignore his question.
You pull out two mismatched mugs, setting them down before reaching back in the bag to pull out a dented thermos. A puff of steam floats up from the metal container when you open it, carrying with it the scent of hot coffee. You pour some into both mugs before putting the lid back on the thermos, setting it aside so Steve can have more later if he wants it.
You each grab a mug and take a sip. The coffee is nothing special, cheap grinds turned to liquid fuel in your family’s coffee maker, but you made it to Steve’s taste rather than your own, and he seems pleased.
“You're an angel,” he practically moans. He crowds in between your legs, bringing his free hand up to your cheek to hold you steady while he places a gentle kiss just above your eyes—right where that first raindrop landed.
You can’t help the peel of giggles that pass between your lips at the reminder. Steve doesn’t question it, just smiles at you softly before pressing another kiss to your cheek. You’re impossible to kiss properly like this, something your boyfriend has learned by now, so he settles for whatever skin he can reach.
Three more kisses against your cheeks leave you grinning like a fool when Steve finally pulls away from you.
He takes one more sip of his slowly cooling coffee, before turning his attention to the various items placed on the counter, meant to tempt the nonexistent customers to spend more money. He grabs a small bag of cookies, halfway to stale, from one of the little snack racks set up on the counter. The packaging crinkles as he rips it open, sounding much too loud in the empty video store, before popping one in his mouth.
“Are you allowed to do that?” you practically whisper, as if drawing the attention of the universe to yourselves could get you in trouble, as if the rushing water against the roof and the low buzzing lights and Steve himself aren’t the only things there to witness you. The storm has made sure of that. Steve merely shrugs.
“As long as you don’t tell, I won’t,” he says around a mouthful of crumbs, a cheeky, closed lip smile growing as he chews. He washes it down with another sip of coffee. Steve holds the bag up to you and you grab one of the cookies, popping it in your mouth. The texture isn’t great, too old to be considered fresh, even with the preservatives, but the sweet taste is pleasant.
You take another.