Hot Southern Nights

Trish Shallowman feels like her life has been put on pause. She has an ex who doesn't grasp the meaning of the word ex, a career that failed before it ever started and a car that breaks down on alternating Wednesdays.

When Trish's mother asks her to temporarily move to Possum Creek and take care of her ailing grandfather, Trish figures that a change of scenery can't make her situation in life any worse.

She wasn't expecting to spend most of her days trying to prevent her grandfather from shooting at the mailman or that her impossibly gorgeous neighbor would decide he wanted to be her first ever one-night-stand. She definitely wasn't expecting that two months in Possum Creek would make her question whether the future she's spent so much time planning is really the future she wants.


EXCERPT:

The trailer was on fire and David couldn't force enough air into his lungs to breathe. The ancient single-wide was going up in a ball of orange and red. Flames were licking their way up the walls in the hallway. The walls burned like they were made of thin paper. Embers flew in all directions. One of the embers caught his chin, burning into his flesh as sharply as a lit cigarette would have.
In a distant part of his mind, David wondered if Addison had come home from work and fallen asleep in bed with a lit cigarette. He wondered if Addison had burned to death in his bed, less than 100 feet away from where David was sitting now, watching the flames approach. The thought of his best friend dying jarred David back to the reality of his own situation. He was going to be a very crispy critter if he didn't move. Now.
David flung the comforter away from him as the edge of it began to smoke. He was never going to make it out the front door of the trailer. The hallway between his bedroom and the door was totally engulfed in flames. The windows would be his best option. Unfortunately, the windows had been stuck shut for a couple of years now. He grabbed hold of the 12 gauge shotgun that he always kept beside the bed. He smashed the butt of the gun into the glass of the window. The window gave with a loud crack. Three more solid strikes and the glass was gone, lying on the ground below like a spiteful booby-trap.
The room was filling with smoke now. Flames were spreading across the carpeting of the room. David tossed his shotgun out the window and then jumped out after it, landing barefoot in the broken glass below. Flames came whooshing out the window behind him a moment later as the curtains caught fire. Somewhere in the distance, sirens were screaming.
Someone grabbed David by the arm and began dragging him back away from the burning building. “Get up. Dammit, David. Get up. I can't-cough- fucking – cough – carry you.”
David looked up at Addison blearily. He felt dazed and disoriented. “You're not dead.”
“Not at the moment, but we will be if the damned propane tank behind the house goes.” Addison yanked David to his feet. He was dragging him backwards, away from the flaming trailer. Pieces of the roof of the trailer were starting to come off in burning chunks. One of the burning shingles landed next to David's foot. Addison stomped on it.
“My truck,” David's eyes fell on the Toyota, which was sitting parked in its usual spot next to the front porch. The hood was engulfed with flames. It burned like a funeral pyre, sending flames 15 feet into the air.
“Too late for the truck,” Addison kept pulling David towards the highway. David wanted to go back to the trailer. He wanted to try and save his truck. Addison wouldn't let him go. “Dammit David, come on.”
There was a strong breeze tonight, David realized. The fire was likely to spread to the woods that surrounded his house. Addison was right. The fire was going to spread to the old, and probably still full, propane tank behind the house.
“The fire is going to spread to the propane tank.” David barely realized he'd said the words out loud.
“No shit,” Addison said. "We should run."
They ran.