She only has one rule...
[WATTYS SHORTLIST 2022]
A buttoned up bookworm agrees to a fake relationship with a surprisingly literate male model in order to save his career. She only has one condition: No kissing allowed.
***
At age 27, Cora Glass ha...
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Below the balcony, West 93rd street (or the place where West 93rd Street should have been) was underwater. Jamie craned his head to look west toward Riverside Drive. But there was no drive. There was no riverside. By the looks of it, the entire Upper West Side had been submerged.
How much did it rain last night?
He recalled his phone blaring at one point in the night, with the unmistakeable high-pitched shriek of a severe weather warning. He'd been otherwise engaged at that particular moment, and the ear-splitting noise had ceased eventually with the warning left unread.
Jamie stumbled back inside and found his way to the kitchen. He discovered his phone inside his jeans, discarded on the floor. The message waited on his Lock Screen.
National Weather Service Flash flood warning in effect. Expect major flooding in low-lying areas. Do not attempt to travel on flooded streets. Seek high ground. Shelter in place.
He heard a noise behind him and turned to see Cora, yawning and wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. She had her own phone in her hands. "Are you seeing this?" she asked.
"Did you look outside your window?"
She nodded, her eyes still on her phone. Jamie went to stand behind her, looping his arm around her waist as he read over her shoulder.
CNN Millions stranded, city paralyzed by 1,000-year flood in NYC
"Thousand-year flood?" Jamie read aloud. "Does that mean it only happens once in a millennium?"
She shook her head, speaking slowly as she read. "No, it's a probabilistic thing. See here?" She pointed to a line in the article. "A flood that has a one in one-thousand chance of occurring in any given year."
"I've been in and out of Manhattan for over a decade and I've never seen anything like this."
She shook her head, setting down the phone. "No, me neither. And I've lived in New York City my whole life."
He felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck, imagining what might have become of him if Cora hadn't let him in last night. He might've gone wandering the streets to clear his head until the flood waters swept him out to sea. "More bodies of water," he commented dryly, "it seems we can't escape them no matter how we try."
She covered her cheek with her hand, laughing with him at the sheer unlikelihood. The utter absurdity of life.
She went to her living room window and looked out. "Shelter in place. You're not going anywhere right now."
Jamie couldn't pretend to be displeased. He dropped the bedsheet and slipped on his jeans before he went to join her. "I can think of worse places to be stranded," he said. "Do you get the feeling the universe is trying to tell us something?"
