Page 16 of To Catch a Firefly

“No.”

“No?”

I shake my head roughly.

“It’s not your choice, El,” he says. “It’s mine.”

And you’ve always wanted to go.

“I can get my degree anywhere.”

But you don’t want to do it here.

“It’s my choice,” he repeats, sounding more stubbornly determined than I’ve ever heard him.

“Go,” I tell him.

“No.”

“Go.”

“No.”

I let my head rest back against the silo and blink up at the sky. It’s fully dark now, and a few fireflies are out, winking in front of the rows of corn. They look almost green tonight, haunted. When one flashes right beside my head, I lift my palm, holding it beneath the flicker of light, my hand cupped in invitation.

The firefly moves farther off, and I let my hand drop.

“You should go,” I husk out.

Lucky doesn’t respond, and we spend the next hour listening to the crickets sing. In the morning, I drive to my mom’s employer and apply for a job.

Chapter 6

Ellis

I was twenty-one when I got drunk with Lucky.

“Come on, Ellis,” Lucky urges. “It’s a rite of passage. Go ahead.”

I pick up the pack of beer, feeling all sorts of wrong. But it’s my twenty-first birthday, which means I can buy it legally now.

Lucky follows me to the counter. The cashier checks my ID, mumbling an unenthusiastichappy birthday, and then Lucky and I are on the sidewalk, heading toward his dorm at University of Nebraska Omaha. He’s holding a pint of Jack Daniel’s.

“Are you excited?” he asks, grinning.

I raise an eyebrow.

“Yeah, yeah, you’ve had beer before,” he says, bumping me with his elbow. “But you’ve never been drunk.”

I cut him a sharp glance, and Lucky rolls his eyes.

“Comeon, El. Let loose this once. You’re staying the night anyway, so just…drink a little. Have fun. Maybe find a sweet girl to kiss?”

The last suggestion is given with an eyebrow waggle, but I shake my head. I have no interest in girls, sweet or otherwise. No interest in anyone, really. Except…

I cut Lucky another glance as he tells me about his friends that are coming to my unofficial birthday party tonight. His hair is long, like usual, the wild curls hitting his shoulders and spilling free around his hoodie. His lips are turned in a smile as he talks, and his cheekbones cut a sharp line across his profile. He catches my eye for a second before walking around someone on the sidewalk, and yet again, I wonder at the blue. Lapis?

I’ve always thought Lucky looks ethereal, like he was cut from glass and smoothed to a polish. But somewhere along the way, what was fascination for color and form became…something else entirely. I don’t know when it happened, exactly. When I started dreaming about his lips and how they felt against my own. When I startedwonderingevery time Lucky would talk about blowjobs and the men he found here at college. When I started wishing those other men would simply disappear because Lucky is supposed to be mine—myfriend,myperson—and don’t they know that? Doesn’t he?

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