Page 45 of To Catch a Firefly

“What are you doing?” he asks, following me up into the bed of the truck. I already laid out the blanket, and now I’m pulling food out of our plastic grocery bag.

“Picnic,” I grunt, as if it isn’t obvious.

“God, El,” Lucky says quietly, shaking his head. His expression is soft and fond, but then it turns a little mischievous as he eyes the beer. “If we get drunk and neither of us can drive, you’re carrying me home.”

I grin, and before Lucky can react, I pull him off his feet into a fireman’s carry.

He shouts. “Fucking hell, Ellis! What are you—”

He goes silent when I swat his ass, and in the starkly quiet aftermath, my heart starts to pound. I set him down quickly, turning away and fiddling with the beer. My cheeks feel hot. I don’t know what I was thinking.

“You,” Lucky says, a hoarse sort of chuckle in his voice, “are trouble.”

I shake my head, clearing my throat. “That’s you.”

He huffs. “Well, I think you’re catching up.”

“Uh-oh,” I deadpan.

Lucky laughs again, gentler this time, and my tension starts to flee. When we settle side by side on the blanket, it’s only five-thirty, but we start in on our dinner. Lucky pops grapes into his mouth while I make a quick sandwich with a loaf of crusty bread and sliced roast beef. I hand half of it to Lucky, and he passes me an open beer.

“You know, nowhere on Earth smells like this place,” Lucky says.

No?

“No,” he says. “It used to bug me. The way the smell would change over the season. How, no matter what time of year, I couldn’t escape the corn.”

His chuckle is rueful.

“And now,” he goes on, “if I’m not here, I can’t find that smell anywhere. Andthatbugs me.”

I bump his shoulder with mine. “Home,” I say, a simplification of what I mean. This place grew on him. He said so himself the other day.

His swallow is rough, and he chases it with a sip of beer. His eyes flick to me when he says, “Guess so.”

“Luck,” I say, setting down the remnants of my sandwich. “I’m sorry. About…the glass. I…”

Lucky waits while I compose my thoughts into words. The sun sits behind him, lighting the wisps of hair at the front of his face. They look like strands of swirling gold, and for a moment, I get caught up in them.

Finally, I say, “When you’re…gone, you… You share your life. With me. Your adventures and… And your joy.” I set my gaze on the corn as I go on. “It means the world to me, Luck. To be a part of that. I… Please don’t stop just…just because I was…”

Scared, I can’t say. I can’t.

I let out a small breath before continuing. “I don’t ever want to lose…the place I have in your world.”

Lucky looks at me for the longest time. I can feel his gaze on the side of my head, and when I finally meet his eye, he doesn’t look away. “You say so little,” he nearly whispers. “But then, sometimes…”

He grabs my hand, and I swallow, tingles chasing one another up my arm.

“You won’t lose me, El,” he says. “Not ever.”

I nod in a fierce jerk, and Lucky and I finish our meal. We spend a good few hours on the blanket in the back of my truck, swapping stories and watching the sky turn dark. And despite the prior tension, I believe him. He said it before, after all.

“We’ll never be done. Me and you, we don’t have an ending.”

Chapter 16

Lucky

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