The Lucky Side

My team deserves my thanks. They are, Girlinthemoon, Norafares, Hal, Pixel the Cat and GeorgeAnderson. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. Sbrooks103x also gives me a pre-post read. Thank you, and I love you all. Randi.

*****

I lived on the right side of the street. Not right as in the opposite of left, but right as in the opposite of wrong. There wasn't anything bad about the other side of the street; it was just an unlucky place to live. My side was lucky. I never knew it until May 22nd. I lived in Joplin, Missouri. I was in Tulsa. I was flying home from Austin, and the plane came into Tulsa when I wanted it to, so I drove the two hours to get the flight I wanted. I got my car out of long term parking and popped the trunk. I have a black Charger RT and I'm in love with it. I had a SRT-8 on order but I wasn't going to get rid of the RT. It would be my daily driver. I was playing an album on my phone on the way home and wasn't paying much attention to the rest of the world.

I hadn't listened to Montrose in a long time, but I saw a movie on the flight home that reminded me of Bad Motor Scooter, so I was singing along with Sammy Hagar. No one could hear me and my car wasn't offended. We had an understanding. Sometimes I listen to her and sometimes she listens to me. When I got to Joplin, the first thing I noticed was that the hospital had been destroyed. It looked like a bomb had blown it up. A cop flagged me down and told me I couldn't get through.

"I live here," I told him. "What the hell do you mean I can't get through?"

"A big tornado just came through," he said. "Where do you live?"

I gave him my address and he looked at a map. "You're right where the tornado hit," he said. "You can't go there."

There's no use arguing with the police. I turned around and went around the back way. It was a mess. There was debris everywhere and it took me a long time and several backtracks to get home. One of the trees in the yard on the side of my house had fallen on the kitchen and every window on the south and west was gone, but my house had survived. Everything on the other side of the street was gone. The church across the street was badly damaged and the bell was sitting on some guy's car. All my neighbor's houses, the store on the corner, everything was gone. There was damage on my side of the street but the houses were all there. Some idiot had painted a big orange X on my siding. That was going to be hell to clean off. There were a lot of emergency people around and I snuck past them and went in the back door. I cleaned up all the glass and got black plastic to duct tape over the broken windows. I went out the front door to look at the east side, and there were two girls sitting on my front step. I recognized them right away. They belonged to my neighbors across the street, and their house was gone. They were holding on to each other and crying. They looked up when I opened the door. I tried to remember their names. Kaitlyn and Amber Osborn, I remembered.

"Hey girls, you okay?" I asked.

"Hi, Mr. Chapman," Kaitlyn said. "Yes we're not hurt. We were over at a friend's house three blocks north and we got in their basement. Our house is gone and we can't find Mom and Dad. We're afraid they got hurt." They started to cry harder.

"Well, come in and we'll try to find out," I told them. "I'll get you something to drink and we'll talk to some emergency workers."

"Thanks, Mr. Chapman," Amber said.

"Please, my dad is Mr. Chapman," I told them. "My name is Cedric."

I took them to the refrigerator. The power was out and if we didn't get rid of the perishables pretty quickly they were going to spoil. I sent them to the garage for coolers and ice out of the freezer out there. I got everything that had to stay cold out and we packed it in chests. We drank the milk. That's what they wanted and I drank a glass, too, and we ate some chocolate chip cookies. The milk wouldn't last anyway. I took them outside and immediately, some clown came by and told us we needed to evacuate.

"We live here and we're not going anywhere," I told him. "These girls need to find their parents. Who should we talk to?"

He didn't have a clue but he told us we had to leave again. "No, you're on my property and you need to leave," I told him. "Come on, girls."

We went to the front yard. The maple tree there had the top broken out and it was a mess, but not a priority. We talked to a couple of more emergency people and they told us that people whose homes had been destroyed were at churches and shelters around, but it might take a few days to a week to get everyone found. People who were hurt were in temporary hospitals and the other one that hadn't been destroyed.

The girls were pretty upset about that, but I told them they could stay with me until we found their parents. I tried to keep them busy for a while. The gas had been turned off, but I had an underground propane tank. I changed the orifice and we got the water heater lit. We still had running water. I took them out to the garage and we got the generator running. It wouldn't run the whole house, but we could keep the lights running and some other things. We got a window air conditioner and put it in the living room window. The generator could handle that, and we shut all the doors we could. We dragged three mattresses into the living room and made up beds. I changed the orifices in the range, cooked supper and we took showers upstairs.

I gave them shorts and t-shirts to wear, and that's what I put on, too. They were both tiny little things. Amber was eighteen and Kaitlyn was nineteen. Amber was a senior in high school, and Kaitlyn was a college freshman. We kind of talked and got acquainted. I told them we could turn off the lights and run the TV and PlayStation 4 if they wanted to pick out a movie or play a game. We sat on the sofa in the cool air under the air conditioner and they looked over my movies and picked out a Blu-ray. It was Monty Python and the Holy Grail and we laughed like hyenas. They sat on either side of me and I put my arms around them. They seemed like they were getting very comfortable with me, and I realized I had two very pretty girls staying with me.

Neither one of them had much going on in the development way. They were both very short, maybe five one or two, and slender. Amber had very blonde hair and Kaitlyn had kind of strawberry blonde hair. They both had freckles, but Amber's eyes were baby blue and Kaitlyn had these glowing green eyes. They were very happy girls, and even though they were worried about their parents they seemed like they were okay. We watched one of those stupid vampire romances they picked out and they loved it. I hated it, but I liked them, so I put up with it. I wondered what possessed me to buy that title.

We moved to our beds about halfway through the movie and I fell asleep. When I woke up someone was pounding on the door and the TV was just the PlayStation home screen. The pounding woke the girls up, and they went with me to the door.

"What do you want?" I asked whoever was out there.

"Is everyone okay in there? We're with the fire department!"

"Thanks for checking," I told them. "We're fine."

We went back to bed, but the girls were a little upset. They pulled their mattresses over next to mine and we went back to sleep. That happened four more times. I was getting tired of it. I made a sign and put it on the front door. "We're fine and we're sleeping," it said.

About four in the morning some asshole knocked anyway. "You can't stay here," he said when I answered the door. "This area has been evacuated."

"Go away and leave us alone," Amber shouted.

The next time I woke up it was to the sound of the lock being broken on the back door. I jumped up and grabbed a shotgun out of the closet under the stairs. I heard people moving around and when they came into the dining room I snapped on the light. The sound of a round being jacked into a 12 gauge froze them in their tracks. There were four of them and I think they were looters, but they pretended to be emergency workers. I went along with it but I escorted them back out the door with the shotgun, and I locked the dead bolt that time and propped a chair under the knob. The girls were pretty freaked out, and they came over on my mattress and huddled against me. I let them use me for a pillow and we went back to sleep. It was 10 when I woke up and the girls were already up and making breakfast. We carried it back to the living room and talked while we ate.

We went out in the yard after breakfast and I got out my chainsaw. We cut the fallen tree up and made a woodpile. We worked in the yard all day and asked everyone that came by about the girls' parents. No one knew anything and I told them we'd just have to be patient. As soon as they got the streets clear of trees and power lines, we'd drive around and look for them. We walked over to St. Paul's Church at dinnertime, and they fed us and gave us water, food and some clothes for the girls, just underwear, t-shirts and stuff. FEMA was starting to show up and as soon as it was safe to come in they promised they'd get clean up and rescue crews.

It took three days to get the roads safe, and the girls and I were starting to feel like family. They talked to me constantly. I knew their whole life history. They asked so many questions that I wound up telling them mine. I knew the name of the dog they used to have and their first boyfriends, how Kaitlyn had fallen off the swing and broken her arm when she was 10, and that Amber played guitar. It felt like I had known them all my life and I think they were feeling the same way about me. Most of the time they were the sweetest girls I had ever met, but they had tempers. They fought like hornets, and in five minutes they were best friends again. I could tell the thought of their parents was heavy on their minds, but they just had dazzling personalities and they filled my life with joy. I wondered why I hadn't made the effort to get acquainted with them before. When volunteers started coming into the neighborhood to help with the cleanup, I knew we could get out. There were some centers where displaced people were taking shelter and we checked them all. There wasn't any sign of their parents, and they were starting to get very worried. We checked all over town that day and by the time we got back home they were very sad girls.

"What are we going to do, Cedric?" Amber was crying.

"We're going to keep looking," I told them. They were huddled up against me and I could feel them shaking as they cried. They were breaking my heart. I held them and tried to keep their spirits up as much as I could.

"It may be weeks before they find everyone," I told them. "We'll try churches tomorrow. A lot of people are staying in churches or with friends in other parts of town and even in other towns."

"Why haven't they come looking for us?" Kaitlyn wept.

"Something has happened to them, Cedric. I'm afraid they're hurt or dead. They would have come looking for us if they could." Amber was sobbing into my chest.

"Maybe they don't have any transportation and they can't come. They may be hurt and in a hospital somewhere," I said. "Don't worry about it. That doesn't do any good. We'll find them and if they're hurt we'll help them. I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You can stay with me as long as it takes. I'm not giving up and I don't want you to, either. We're going to be okay."

Kaitlyn peeked up at me with those big emerald eyes. "Thank you Cedric. I don't know what we'd have done without you. You've been so good to us. We love you."

That nearly made me cry. "I love you girls, too," I told them. "We're going to be friends for a long time. I'm just sorry I never got a chance to get to know you before."

"I wanted to talk to you, but I didn't know you were so nice," Amber said. "I didn't think you'd be so much fun or that you'd want to talk to high school girls or be so hot."

I blushed all over. "Well, you're very sweet girls and I hope you won't think I'm too old to be friends with after this is all over," I told them.

"You're not old," Kaitlyn said. "How old are you, Cedric?"

"I'm twenty-eight," I told them.

We watched another movie and went to bed. Their beds were still beside mine, but they might as well have not been there because they only used mine. I was a sandwich between two sleepy girls and I had been for four nights. They still used my arms for pillows and it was a little disturbing. They were very soft and their skin was silky. They smelled good too. I rebuked myself for having impure thoughts when I felt hard little nipples pressed against me through thin t-shirts as they snuggled up against me. They took over my t-shirt supply and with what they had been given at the church, that's all they wore when we were in the house. Well, they wore panties, too, and I saw a lot of them. Their butts were so small that the only things that fit them were little girl panties. There were two incredibly tight, round butts in those panties, though. Both of them just had little bee stings for breasts but they had nipples that seemed to always be hard and trying to tear through that thin cloth.

It took us three days to search the churches and on the fourth day we started the hospitals. We found their mom. She had a broken leg and a broken arm. She had a concussion and she was in the hospital under sedation. Amanda was an older curvier copy of her girls. She was pretty beat up, but she was conscious and when she saw her girls she tried to get up out of the bed. They ran and threw themselves on her. They squeaked and cried and nearly hugged that poor woman to death. When they got around to asking her about their dad I knew something bad had happened. Mandy started to cry and she quickly got hysterical. I got a nurse to come and she gave Mandy something in an IV that calmed her down right away.

We huddled around her bed and she told them that their dad was gone. They had gotten in the bathtub and he was on top of her when the house started coming apart around them. A splintered two by four had come flying through the air and stabbed through his back, into his lungs and heart and he died instantly. Mandy had been trapped under him for nearly an hour, and it had nearly driven her crazy. She was still in a lot of trauma. Kaitlyn stayed with her at the hospital and Amber went home with me. She didn't say anything until we pulled up in the garage and then she just threw herself on me, crying like a baby. She crawled across the console into my lap and I held her while she shook and sobbed like she was dying. I just held her, stroking her hair and kissing the top of her head. She wouldn't stop crying, and finally I just got out and carried her inside. I sat on the sofa and held her while she poured out her grief.

She recovered enough to go and take a shower, and I made her eat some pizza. We went to bed and she lay with her head on my chest as I held her. She told me about her dad and how much she had loved him. He seemed like the perfect father. She was a gymnast, and he had never missed a single competition she'd had. They had had their arguments, just like any father and daughter, but she was his baby and he had devoted his life to his family. He had been a diesel mechanic and worked long hours, but he was never too tired to hear about her day or help her with homework or anything she needed. She talked and cried until she went to sleep, cradled in my arms with her cheek on my chest. She felt so little and precious and innocent that I cried a lot myself.

When I woke up in the morning she was still there. She was awake and watching me with those big blue eyes. When she saw I was awake she stretched like a sleepy kitten and settled back in.

"What are we going to do, Cedric?" she asked.

"About what?" I asked.

"We don't have anywhere to live," she said. "Daddy's gone and Mom doesn't make very much money. She's a waitress. The school is torn up. The town is a mess. What's going to happen to us?"

"You do have somewhere to live," I told her. "You don't like my house?"

"Yes, but I don't think you want three sad girls living with you," she said. "You have your own life."

"You've forgotten something," I said. "Do you love me?"

She blushed a little. "Yes."

"Well, I love you and when you love someone, you do things that make them happy. It makes me feel good inside to do things for you. You can stay here as long as you want to. You can stay forever if you want to. I hope you do. Eventually, your insurance company will pay for your house and you can get another one. I suppose your dad had life insurance. It probably won't be enough for you all to retire, but you can get a fresh start. Don't worry about that stuff, Amber. You're a senior in high school. You just need to be that. You have all your life ahead of you. I know this is a tough time, but you're going to be okay."

She wiggled around, getting more comfortable. "If you could just hold me here forever I'd be happy," she said.

"As much as I'd like that, I'm hungry and I need to visit the restroom," I told her. "We need to go to the hospital and relieve Kaitlyn. I think you should stay with your mother tonight and let Kaitlyn get some rest. Mandy should be able to come home soon. We need to get ready for that."

She scooted up and her gorgeous little face was inches from mine. She looked in my eyes for a minute. She seemed to find something there and she leaned down and kissed me. It lasted for a while, and then she pulled away with a sigh and squeezed me. "Thank you, Cedric," she said. "Thank you for everything. I love you."

"You're welcome," I told her. "I love you, too." She laughed and got up. She went to the bathroom downstairs and I went upstairs. We drove to the hospital and Mandy and Kaitlyn were both asleep. We went to the waiting room and sat on a loveseat in there. I read a magazine and she cuddled up against me. Amber was a very physical girl and she tried touching me all of the time. I wondered if she was like that with everyone. I noticed that the sisters hugged each other all the time, so maybe it was a family thing.

When we went back in, they were both awake. Amber stayed with her mother and I took Kaitlyn home to rest, get cleaned up and get something to eat. It was lunch time and we went to the Red Cross trailer down the street. They gave us food in Styrofoam containers and we took it home. We sat on the sofa and ate. Kaitlyn told me about her night and how her mother was doing. The doctor had come around and said Mandy could go home in the morning.

"We don't have a home to go to, though," she said.

"This is your home as long as you need it," I told her. "We'll bring her here."

Kaitlyn looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "You're so nice to us, Cedric. Thank you. I'll make it up to you somehow."

"No, you won't," I told her. "You don't owe me anything, Kaitlyn. I've only known you a little while, but I love you. I'd do anything for you and you don't have to make anything up to me."

That made her cry even more, and she went to take a shower. She came out with a towel wrapped around her hair and her usual t-shirt and panties on. "I'm very tired," she said. "I'm going to sleep now."

I got out my iPad and I was reading a book while she took a nap. She squirmed around for a while.

"Cedric, I can't sleep. Come down here so I can hold you," she said. "I'm used to having you to snuggle up to."

I laughed and crawled up on the mattress beside her. "That's better," she sighed, scooching up against me. She put her pillow on my arm and draped one leg and arm over me. I hugged her and she was asleep. I fell asleep, too, after a while and when I woke up she was nearly on top of me. All that strawberry blonde hair was covering us and I looked down at her. Her lips were slightly parted and she twitched in her sleep occasionally. I guess she was dreaming. Her leg was over my cock and I was as hard as an iron bar. The crotch of her panties was pressed against my thigh and I swear they felt a little damp against me. I tried to ease out from under her but she moved and hung on, not letting me slip away. I tried again and she opened her eyes.