Page 24 of To Catch a Firefly

“It’s so good,” I say. “Sweet, almost. They catch it early in the morning and serve it that day. You have to watch out for shell because there’s always shell, but it’s worth it. And it’s so cheap here, it feels like a steal.”

Ellis makes a sound like he’s getting ready to say something, so I wait. The breeze blows through the palm trees on the beach, making the large fronds wave gently, and the water crashing on shore is a constant soundtrack, the repetitive whoosh easy to forget about if you’re not listening for it. I wonder what sky Ellis is looking at right now. I’m an hour behind him in Belize, so he’s probably staring at black night. If he’s outside at all.

“Maisy’s had a clam…special last month,” he says, his words coming out a little stilted with the occasional pause.

“Uh-oh,” I say.

Ellis laughs, andGod, it’s such a good sound. “People got sick.”

I groan. Maisy’s Diner serves great breakfast and lunch food, but I can’t imagine any clams they would have access to would be fresh. The poor people of Nebraska.

“Did you have any?” I ask.

There’s a grunt, which I take to mean yes. Ellis huffs when I start to laugh.

“Sorry,” I croak out.

“Not,” he counters.

He knows me well.

I let out a measured breath, using my foot to push the hammock into motion as I rein in my amusement. “Iamsorry you got sick,” I clarify. Thebut not sorry for laughingpart goes unsaid. It’s what friends do, after all.

Ellis huffs again, but it’s a gentler sound. “Belize?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say, a smile on my face. “I went down the Great Blue Hole with Dani.”

When there’s silence, I stutter out another laugh.

“It’s one of the largest underwater sinkholes in the world,” I explain. “It was…”

How to even describe it? It felt like I was exploring the great unknown. Like I was an interloper into something vast and foreign and beautiful.

“It was blue,” I start with, to which Ellis snorts. I chuckle with him. “No, stay with me. At the top, the water is this stunning Caribbean blue, right? So clear and nearly turquoise. But the sinkhole, it was this big circle of deep, dark blue, like a vacuum of space dropped straight into the sea. And when you get down there, there are these caves. And fish everywhere. Parrotfish, angelfish, reef sharks. It was…” I shake my head a little. “I was just there, in their home, surrounded by endless blue, and it was beautiful.”

“Luck,” he says quietly.

I close my eyes tight, breathing in the sound of my name and letting it cocoon me.

“Yeah,” I say. “You’d like the parrotfish best, I think. Some of them are as bright as a rainbow.”

“Tell me,” he says. So I do.

We talk for hours, like we usually do when I call. And I realize, not for the first time, that my favorite part about all of these adventures is when I get to go back to whatever temporary home I have at the time and share them with Ellis.

It’s nearly midnight when we finally say goodnight, and I cringe a little at how late I kept Ellis up, knowing he rises with the sun. But, like I told him, I have a busy week planned, and I likely won’t have a chance to call again for a while.

After dropping out of the hammock, I head inside, ignoring the quiet sounds I can hear coming from Danil’s open window. I transfer today’s photos to my laptop and send a couple to Ellis that I think he’ll enjoy, and then I strip down and wash off theday. When I sink into my surprisingly comfortable, narrow-as-can-be bed, I think about Ellis doing the same.

It’s dangerous, letting my mind go there, but I can’t drum up the willpower to stop myself tonight. I think of him beside me, those deep, brown eyes of his soft as they gaze my way. I think of his big hands—God, those hands—and the massive breadth of his shoulders. I think of his jaw and his steady heartbeat and his arm slung across my chest.

And with the last of my waking thoughts, I think about going home.

Chapter 9

Ellis

“Oh, this one is lovely,” my mom says.

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