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although they were very specific on how long a person could stay inside the buildings that were still standing. The ones that were standing, but unstable had yet to be cleared. She figured they had received some pressure from the mayor—it was an election year after all and no politician would want to aggravate their constituents. Whatever the reason behind being allowed in to retrieve some personal things, she wouldn’t complain about it. She had gone in with her brothers and packed a bag with some clothes for work, and for a date since she was anticipating having a first date with Adam. She had picked up a few extra necessities including her family photos that she loved, and she managed to get her enlarger and a few other darkroom supplies before the officer in charge told her that her time was up and she needed to leave. There were so many other things that she needed to get, to take with her, but she couldn’t. The important things, most of them anyway, she had managed to grab.
    One of the first things Thomas and Gavin had done before leaving was to make sure she had a steady place to stay—but she couldn’t move in for another week. She had assured her brothers that she was booked into the hotel for the month, and they had assured her that she needed something safer, more steady, and most of all, some place with less people coming and going at all times of night and day. She couldn’t argue with them there. Every time she started to doze off she heard the sound of pattering feet from whomever it was who decided to run up and down the hall all night, going in and out of their room slamming the door in the process. She remembered the hotel being much quieter the last time she stayed there. Then again, it housed mostly people who were in town on business at that time. Besides needing a quieter place, the sooner she checked out, the sooner her sister’s tab could be cut in half. She didn’t have to pay for the nights unused. And since Thomas and Gavin had pooled their resources to get her into a cute little place in the Z section, she couldn’t really complain. She wanted to pay them back, and of course, they both said no. Agreeing to their terms was the only way to get them to go home.
    The only thing left to do was to wait for complete clearance to get the rest of her things out of the apartment. Since her lease was voided the moment her apartment made the “condemned” list, she didn’t have to worry about paying to get out of it.
    The knock on her door pulled her away from thoughts about future living arrangements and back to the present concern—date night. She grabbed her clutch off the counter, checked the peephole to be sure it was indeed Adam standing at her door, and after assuring herself that it was him, she opened the door. He looked great. Dark suit, with a gorgeous powder blue tie, and his shoes were well polished. She smiled just thinking about it. Some of the older women she spent time with said it was very important for a man to keep his shoes nice—something about if he didn’t then a woman should not go out with him. She didn’t fully understand the reasoning then, not even now, but the “old wives” tale stuck in her mental bank anyway.
    “You look great,” they said in unison before laughing.
    “Are your brothers—?”
    “Gone home. Thank God. I love them, but sometimes I love to love them from afar.” He laughed at her. “So, where are we going?”
    “Jacksonville,” he took her hand in his. “The rest of it is a surprise.”
    She didn’t get to Jacksonville often. The trek from Palm Coast to the Jacksonville city limit generally took over an hour to navigate, toss in traffic and it could take much longer.
    She had just closed the room door when Adam’s phone rang. “I’m on reserve tonight,” he shrugged. “Maybe it’s nothing.”
    She knew he was on reserve because he told her when he asked her out that he might have to cancel beforehand if they needed him, but when