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if you like piña coladas, and getting caught in the rain // and the feel of the ocean, and the taste of champagne // if you like making love at midnight…
Escape – Rupert Holmes
“It’s really coming down outside.”
Randolph shook out the raincoat in the entryway. The extra layer had been a fruitless attempt to stay dry, but he had no idea the storm would’ve gotten this bad before he’d made it home from work. Decades of living in Atlanta had made him accustom to driving in such a downpour, but torrential would certainly be his adjective of choice to describe the storm that taken hold over the city.
His shoes were soaked, as were his socks and jeans and part of his shirt from under the coat, and after hearing her acknowledgement of the weather and his arrival, Randolph quickly retreated to the bathroom to wash the day away and change into something dry.
Just after he had worked the shampoo into his hair, the bathroom went dark.
Not only dark— dark dark. He swore under his breath and spent a few extra seconds working the lather into his hair and piecing together how he would be able to navigate the room without risking injury.
“Are you alright in there, darling?” Kit called out.
The forecast of severe storms had not been wrong, and now the power had gone out.
“Yeah!” He lied. Muscle memory would be enough to get him out of the shower and probably enough to make it to his phone.
The same phone that was at 20% battery when he last checked, and in the outside pocket of his briefcase. Three rooms away. Where had the flashlights ended up in the move?
They’re probably with the camping supplies, he mused, definitely not the master bathroom, Bell.
“Is the whole house out?” He shouted.
“Yes.” Kit’s voice was no longer yelling from down the hall, it was coming from much closer. “The entire street appears to be without power.” Two knocks preceded her entrance to the bathroom as a courtesy and she said, “I brought you this.”
Peeking out from behind the curtain, he was met with a soft glow from a single candle on the vanity, flickering and illuminating everything in the bathroom, including her. It was beginning to smell vaguely of Christmastime and he smiled through the soapy water. Admittedly, he preferred the other instances in which he had seen her only in candlelight, when she was also wearing as few clothes as he was, but this would suffice for now.
Kit added some clean clothes next to it and said, “It looks like we’ll be improvising for dinner tonight. Finish up in here and double check the windows; I’m going to go make sure we don’t have any water in the basement.”
The lack of light complicated the ending of the shower, but he made it work. After a cursory sweep of the west side of the house, latching the windows and turning off all the lights, he and the single pine-scented candle meandered down the hallway to the kitchen. It was significantly brighter than the rooms he had come from, with an array of small candles positioned around the counters and in the living room.
“It’s a good thing we bought the 100-pack of these things.” Randolph picked up one of the tiny tealights, using the flame from another to light the one in his hand.
She smiled. “They’re small, but we probably have enough to last a few hours.”
“That’s all we’ll need,” he murmured. The scent of his shampoo and fresh laundry filled her senses when he kissed her cheek and calmly assumed a position beside her at the counter.
Randolph leaned over the board of cheese and fruit, a no-cook dinner fit for an evening like this, and stole one of the cubes closest to him. “Aren’t you supposed to leave the fridge closed?”
“I am not letting these go to waste in the unlikely event that the power isn’t restored soon.” She swatted his hand away from the rest of the board and added, “And more importantly, I am not having peanut butter sandwiches to commemorate our first power outage in our house.”
His heart skipped at the second use of ‘our’, in reference to their home and their future, but it was her use of another word that really had him thinking. He detoured away from the cabinet with the crackers in it and to another, retrieving two tall flutes from among the glassware.
Kit eyed him suspiciously but he did not allow it to distract him from the quick trip to the fridge for the bottle of champagne chilling in the door.
“Randolph, that’s for…”
“We’ll buy another bottle,” he shrugged, waving off the interruption. She crossed her arms and narrowed her stare but the warning had no effect. Raising his eyebrows, he slowly loosened the cork and said, “You were the one to use the word ‘commemorate’.”
The pop of the cork punctuated his sentence and soon the bottle was nestled in one palm while two flutes balanced between his fingers. She rolled her eyes and carried the makeshift picnic to the coffee table where a few placemats had already been laid down. The candles from the kitchen now lit up living room and soon their backs were against the couch, legs outstretched onto the floor below the table, and Randolph was passing her a glass of bubbling alcohol.
It was not the date night she had envisioned when she bought the champagne, but it would do. There were no rules to say they couldn’t celebrate an anniversary four days early as well as on the day itself.
She curled into his side and his hand covered the knee closest to his own, his thumb rubbing small circles over the loose fabric. Kit raised her glass and paused before clinking it to his.
“What are we toasting to? Rolling blackouts? Severe thunderstorm warnings? Many more evenings of wondering whether our brand new backyard will flood into the basement?”
He hummed and spread his hand wider over her knee. There was nothing worthy of a toast other than the reason the champagne had been bought in the first place.
“To us,” he said softly.
“Us? That’s it?”
“What else is there?” He turned to meet her eyes and the corner of his mouth curled upwards. “Nothing’s more important than you.”
Kit cupped his jaw and returned the smile. A swell of warmth that had nothing to do with the candles swept through her and she followed the lines around his eyes. “I knew there was a reason I fell in love with you.”
“My charm.”
She shrugged. “And your taste in champagne.”
“Ah. Of course,” he laughed.
She leaned into his side again and Randolph pulled her close, taking a long swig of the dry champagne that was her favorite before it was his. Soft curls fell over his hand on her shoulder and her forehead rested against his cheek, ignoring the champagne in favor of being wrapped up by him. The candles flickered around her and the only sound was that of the rain pounding down outside and the steadiness of his breathing. She wagered that she could stay like this her entire life and never feel more at peace.
Her stomach eventually protested and Kit reached for a cracker, toying with one of the candles on the table while his fingers traced a pattern over her spine.
“The candles are going to go out soon,” she said.
“We won’t need them for later.”
Her skin ran hot at the suggestion that was on her mind as well. “It’s a shame. I like to see you when I make love to you. And the way the light from the candles makes you glow…”
Kit swirled the wax in the candle, staring towards it and ignoring his reaction. His hand continued its path over her back and came to rest on her shoulder. Randolph was unsure if she even knew what she was saying, the force of her admission striking low in his core and leaving him no choice but to pull her close again.
“There are more in the closet,” he whispered, kissing the side of her head and twirling a few strands of hair around his thumb. “And we don’t need a power outage to make that happen.”
“Candlelit sex loses some of the magic when it’s on purpose.”
“Then why waste the magic now?” One hand crept high over her thigh and the other roamed over her ribs, nimble fingers brushing the side of her breast until she squirmed against him. A breathy sigh escaped when he kissed her neck and continued, “I’d rather have you for dinner, anyway.”
“You always want that.”
“I always will.”
She tilted her head to meet the whisper that fell from his lips but just before she could make contact, his hands were off her back and he was standing up, leaving her alone on the floor with a heat in her veins and her mouth still slightly agape. Randolph collected the champagne and glasses in one hand and balanced two candles in the other. It was almost too dark to see the twinkle in his eye, until a wink lit up his entire face and he craned his neck towards the bedroom.
“The power’s not going to stay off forever, sweetheart. Come to bed.”
The food that was going to spoil anyway lay forgotten on the coffee table and Kit followed closely behind, stopping at the closet to collect enough candles to light the bedroom and everyone inside it.