Page 4 of To Catch a Firefly

I shrug, but she looks pleased.

“Don’t forget to wash up before bed,” she says, walking inside. She leaves the door open for me, and I follow her in.

What kind of name is Lucky?

I go to sleep wondering about my new friend. In the morning, I remember the firefly I left out on the deck. I race outside, picking up the glass, but I don’t get a chance to see whether or not it still blinks in the sun.

The firefly is dead.

Chapter 2

Ellis

I was thirteen when Lucky stared down a tornado.

“Ellis, you in here?”

I grunt, setting down the blue mason jar I’d been examining. It looks nice next to the lavender one I found last week.

Lucky comes through the ground-level access door of the silo, blinking as his eyes adjust to the darkness.

“You weren’t on the bus,” he accuses.

I had a dentist appointment, so my mom pulled me out of school early. I forgot to tell Lucky.

“What’re you doing?” he asks, setting his backpack down against the curved side of the silo. That’s when I notice the tear in his shirt.

I point, and Lucky sighs.

“It’s nothing,” he says.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

Lucky raises an eyebrow. “Four whole words. Maybe I should get injured more often.”

I scowl, but Lucky only laughs.

“It’s nothing,” he repeats.

Lucky starts lining up some of the old, cracked jars we’ve collected. They’re not the pretty ones he knows not to mess with. They’re the simple kind people use for canning. Once he has them arranged almost like bowling pins, he reaches for the marbles, but I snag them before he can. At my insistent stare, his shoulders drop.

“Just some guys at school,” he says. “They don’t like me.”

That brings me up short. Why not? I thought everyone liked Lucky.

“You know,” he says, waving his hand through the air, as if that explains it.

I don’t know.

Lucky expels a big breath. “Because I’m gay, Ellis.”

I don’t move a muscle, stunned more by the fact that anyone would treat him differently for that than by the news itself. Lucky pushes his hair off his face as I blink at him. The blonde curls wing every which way, wild and long like a lion’s mane. His blue eyes drop to the marbles in my hand, and I realize he’s waiting on me.

“Assholes,” I finally manage.

His eyes widen in surprise, and he huffs a laugh. “Damn. You’re full of it today.”

I breathe a little easier.

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