Page 22 of To Catch a Firefly

“Me and you,” I answer.

Lucky smiles, and, as he turns to go, the morning sun crests the top of the cornfields. For a mere blink in time, he’s set alight, his hair a halo of burnished gold. He stops in front of his house, looking back at me, and then he’s gone.

I was ten years old when I met Lucky. I knew it then, and I know it now. He’s a firefly. Luminous and wild. He was never meant to be trapped. Not here and not with me.

And in a few days, I’ll finally watch him fly away.

Part II: Waning

Chapter 8

Lucky

“Holy shit, that was fantastic!” Danil says, lowering a hand to help me up into the boat.

I pull out my mouthpiece, giving my partner-in-crime a grin as I make room for our scuba guide to climb up the ladder after me. I work on catching my breath as I tug off some of my gear, not because I couldn’t breathe down below the surface, but because diving in the Great Blue Hole was an immense rush, and my body is still buzzing with the high of it.

“Did you get the hammerhead?” Danil asks, grabbing a towel for his face. He tosses one at me, too, which I snag from the air.

“What do you think?” I retort, pulling my diving camera free. I flip through the shots before angling the screen Danil’s way.

He whistles. “Thought it was going to take a bite out of you.”

“They’re not dangerous,” I say of the hammerhead shark.

“Maybe not, but you got right in its face,” he points out.

I shrug. “Had to get the shot.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, as if he isn’t just as big of an adrenaline junkie as me. “Well, I’m just glad I didn’t lose my new partner.”

Danil and I have been working together for five months now. He wasn’t my first partner at the magazine. That was Geoff, and I was paired with him for two-and-a-half years before he retired. Geoff was in his mid-sixties, and the man was an inspiration. After huffing and puffing up the Aconcagua mountain in the Andes while Geoff himself barely broke a sweat, I gained a new idol. He was the journalism half of our photojournalism partnership, and now that position is filled by Danil.

While Geoff was a more professional, calm presence in my life, Danil is a whirlwind. He’s twenty-eight to my twenty-five, has never met a man, woman, or child he couldn’t charm, and is an in-your-face out-and-proud pansexual. We’re a good match.

“Well, lucky for you, no shark bites today,” I tell Danil.

He snorts indelicately. “Lucky for you, too, Lucky-boy.”

I chuck my towel at him, and Danil laughs. He knows I hate that nickname.

As our guide gets the boat ready to bring us back to shore, Danil plops down on the wooden deck beside me. He nods in the other man’s direction.

“I’m meeting up with Tomasz later,” my coworker says quietly. “Come to my room with us?”

I turn my gaze his way slowly. “When did you possibly have time to flirt with our scuba guide?”

Danil gives me a rakish grin, and I shake my head. The guy is something else, but I can’t blame Tomasz for his interest. Danil has that tall, dark, and handsome allure that traps partners like flies. I’ve been trapped once or twice—or half a dozen times—myself.

“Is that a yes?” Danil asks, knocking his leg into mine.

“We should probably stop sleeping together, Dani.”

He looks affronted. “What on Earth for?”

I laugh, and the boat kicks into motion. “You don’t think it’s a bad idea, mixing business with pleasure?”

“Pleasure is never a bad idea,” he practically purrs.

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