The wind was still pushing hard against the house. She was confident the place was solid enough to take it, but for how long? Even with the lantern on, dark shadows made the old basement look scarier than usual. She was glad she wasn’t hiding down here alone. “Thanks for coming, Mike.”

His eyebrows lowered, sending angled shadows across his cheeks. “That’s what friends do.”

She couldn’t help thinking that she had plenty of friends, but Mike was the only one who’d shown up in the face of hurricane-strength winds.

“You’re hiding in my basement with me, which kinda goes above and beyond the call of friend duty.”

Mike was looking up, listening to the groans of the old house in the wind. “Well, maybe we’re beyond being just friends.”

He went still, as if realizing what he’d said. Their eyes met, and Zoey cleared her throat. “Umm...maybe you’re right. You’re already the best friend I have, so... I mean, we’re more than casual friends...” She was babbling.

“We’re definitely more than casual,” Mike agreed. “And yeah, I guess you could say we’re besties. I can talk to you about anything. You make me laugh like no one else can. And we...”

“We show up for each other?” She took a step forward and rested her hand on his arm. Was it the shadows from the lantern light, or did his eyes just go dark with intensity?

“We show up for each other.” He rested his hand over hers, still on his forearm. “And lately, it feels like something else might be happening, but Zoey...”

“It scares you?” She rushed on. “I know, it scares me, too.”

There was a long pause where the only sound was that of the wind whistling past the basement windows.

“What if...” Mike hesitated again. “What if we’re making this more than it is? You know what they say—people always want what they can’t have. Maybe this...obsession we have is just that. One of those things that feels bigger the more we try to ignore it.”

“So...” she started. “If we gave in to temptation, the feeling might just...go away?” She seriously doubted it, but temptation was just that—tempting. Powerful. Hard to ignore.

He started to answer, but was interrupted by a brand-new sound from outside. A horrible ripping sound, then a loud, solid thump that made the house shudder. Mike slid his arm around her waist. “Pretty sure that was a tree coming down. Or at least part of one.”

“Damn it. I love my trees.” It came from the front of the house, so it had to be one of the beautiful maples or the big ash.

“The good news is I don’t think it hit the house. I didn’t hear anything breaking up there.”

They both listened, carefully avoiding going any further with that tiptoeing-toward-temptation conversation before the crash.