AFTER THE RAIN (Bonus edition)

16. The most perfectly inopportune moment

It was time to stoke the fire, add some fuel to it and see if it would smoke...

Marcus suddenly felt the car shudder, and a large puff of white smoke came billowing out of the bonnet, accompanied by an incredibly disturbing sound that was reminiscent of cats wailing at night.

"Oh no, what's wrong with Sammy?" Stormy looked genuinely concerned for the car's wellbeing.

"Old piece of junk, that's what's wrong," Marcus muttered.

"Hey," Stormy turned to Marcus and started whispering. "You can't speak like that in front of her."

"That's ridiculous! A car doesn't have feelings!"

"No, but negative thoughts can be very destructive. It's been proven scientifically. If you shout angrily at water, the water molecules actually look ugly." Marcus turned and raised a brow. "I swear. Google it. It's true," Stormy cut off his response, predicting his usual skepticism.

"I will." And he absolutely intended to.

The smoke and sounds got even worse and the car started spluttering and shuddering. Marcus glanced at the dashboard and saw that the internal dials reflected dramatic overheating. Smoke was now pouring out of all the car's orifices, and Marcus was forced to slow down to a crawl.

"You're fucking kidding me," Marcus exclaimed loudly, banging the steering wheel as the car finally came to a very loud and shuddery stop. "Crap! This is just what we need." He looked at his watch – time was not on their side. They needed to be in Mombasa tonight so that they could leave on the only flight for Dubai first thing the next morning, and from there catch another plane to Prague if they were going to make the rehearsal dinner and the bachelor and bachelorette parties. At this rate, they weren't even going to make it to the wedding, especially since they were clearly in the middle of nowhere. He'd hardly seen a car pass them since the start of their journey, and a tow truck would probably take hours to reach them. They were completely stuck, by the look of it, and he did not have much faith in Sammy's spontaneous healing abilities.

"Hey, stop hitting Sammy!" Stormy pulled his hands off the steering wheel angrily. Marcus swung around, feeling highly irritated – he hated it when things didn't go according to plan, and having a car break down on them was definitely not part of his plan right now. "Seriously, Stormy! Seriously!"

He climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him, and walked over to the bonnet feeling pissed off as hell. He tried to open the bonnet, but it was too hot and the smoke almost choked him. "What a piece of shit!" he cursed in between coughs.

Stormy jumped out of the car. "I told you. Negative energy. That's why she's broken down."

"No Stormy, 'Sammy'," he gestured inverted commas around the name sarcastically, "has broken down because it's an old, crappy piece of crap from last century that probably hasn't had a service in years, or hasn't had its oil changed since the turn of the millennium."

Stormy gasped. She actually gasped as though she was really, truly shocked that he was saying this in front of the car. "He doesn't mean it, Sammy," she crooned, glancing over at the car and patting its roof. "Just give her a few minutes to cool down and she'll be okay again," she said, turning back to him.

Suddenly her upbeat positivity was irritating him. Her glass half-full attitude was rubbing him up the wrong way. "No, it won't. The engine has completely overheated and that smoke there is not a good sign. I actually know a thing or two about cars. Sammy is going nowhere anytime soon."

"You don't know she won't start again."

"No, Stormy, I do. Trust me. See that, smoke is even coming from underneath the car!" He bent down to look and coughed a few more times.

"Do you have to be so negative? Why don't we look on the bright side?" she berated him.

"Bright side? We're stuck on the side of an almost-deserted road with no traffic passing by, in the full blazing sun, and we are about to miss my cousin and your step-sister's wedding preparations and maybe even the actual wedding if we don't get going." Marcus wanted her to understand that some situations were just crap, and no amount of looking on the bright rainbow sunshine side of things would change that.

Stormy walked up to Marcus boldly and poked him in the chest with her finger. "That kind of attitude is going to get us nowhere. The rehearsal dinner isn't until tomorrow evening, and the wedding is the day after. We have time to figure this out. We'll make it."

"I hope so. Because we'll be cutting it very fine, especially if one more thing goes wrong. Which it probably will, considering the recent chain of events," Marcus said angrily.

"You stress way too much."

"And you stress way too little. Or stress about the wrong things – like cows having feelings and shit like that." Marcus was getting worked up now, and they had both taken a step closer to each other. Tension was building. So was something else.

"Your stressing is going to cause your chakras to –"

"If you say 'chakra' once more on this trip, I swear I'm going to, going to... I'm going to –"

"What?" You're going to what, Marcus?" Stormy had stepped all the way forward now and was waggling her angry little finger at him and that was all he needed –

He kissed her.

He just kissed her. He couldn't help it. He grabbed her by the waist and walked her backwards until she was pressed up against the side of the car. He shoved her back into it, hard. His mouth moved down her neck and Stormy threw her head back and let out a moan as he pushed her legs apart and collapsed between them. He grabbed one of her legs by the knee and pulled it up; she wrapped it around the back of him and dug her nails into his back. He went back up to her mouth and grabbed her behind the head with such force. With his free hand, he started pushing up her skirt and his fingers moved all the way up the inside of her thigh and then...

He stopped. He turned and walked away. As fast as he could.

***

Stormy's back was pressed up against the car and she was gasping for air as Marcus stopped and just walked away. Why was he walking away from her? What had just happened? What had she done wrong?

And then she realized: he was probably lying about that picture. He had been looking at his ex. He'd probably been thinking about her this whole time as he shoved her against the car, possibly even last night in the lift and against the bathroom wall too, and when he realized it wasn't her, he stopped. There was no other explanation for his behavior.

Well, screw him. Why did she even care? He was such a doofus. Stormy climbed back into the car and slammed the door hard. "Sorry, Sammy. I didn't mean to," she apologized, absently patting the dashboard. She adjusted the rearview mirror, and saw that Marcus had picked up his pace and was walking even further away. And even though he was far away, she could see that he was talking on his phone. She knew exactly who he was talking to.

Stormy didn't feel so good.