Page 43 of To Catch a Firefly

He doesn’t turn around, so I remove my hat, slipping it in my back pocket, and, taking a chance, I step forward. Lucky’s arms are around his stomach, and I wrap mine slowly over his, bending my head and resting my forehead against his hair. He smells faintly of oranges, and I wonder if he uses the same shampoo he used to.

“I’m sorry,” I tell him.For lying. For keeping pieces of myself from you. For whatever it is making you hurt.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks again.

“Which?” I ask.The glass or Gabby?

“Either,” he answers. “Both.”

I blow out a slow breath, burying my nose in his hair. “This…the glass…was supposed to be…” I shrug a little, my arms brushing his shoulders. “Mine.”

My way to keep Lucky close. My way to keep him here with me, even when he was in New York or halfway around the world. It was—is—my coping mechanism.

But it’s more than that, too. It’s my heart. A love letter I was too afraid to show Lucky. It was safer, keeping it to myself. Just like all those emails littering my drafts folder.

Self-preservation is a strong motivator.

“And…” he says, swallowing. “The girl?”

“Gabby,” I tell him. He shudders a little. “New.”

His nod is small, a brush of hair against my face. When he steps away, I let go, even as I hate it. Lucky wipes at his face before turning around, but even then, he barely meets my eye. His gaze swings around the silo, seeing the glass on the shelves or who knows what else.

“You knew about Dani,” he says.

I nod. Of course I knew they were fucking. I figured he didn’t say anything because it wasmore. The start of something, maybe. And truthfully, I didn’t want to know.

I don’t think it’s that now, not having seen them together. But for whatever reason, Lucky kept it from me. Just like I’ve kept things from him.

“What the fuck happened?” he asks, looking at me then, asking for answers I’m not sure I have.

We grew up? Grew apart, just a little, in the years since he’s been gone? We moved forward, but we did it in different places?

“Life,” I answer.

Lucky looks up, blinking several times. He goes still when he sees the lights overhead, and then his head is on a swivel. “El…”

Taking a few steps away, I flick on the power. The electricity is new since Lucky was last in here. He gasps when the glass fireflies light up, two dozen of them hanging suspended thirty feet above our heads. Each is the size of a baseball—but they look smaller than that from down here—and they glow a gentle yellowwith the LED lighting that’s piped into their center. It took me a long time to position them just so, but now, they appear to be floating without strings. Flying. If you hold up your hand, it’s almost as if you could touch them.

Lucky’s gaze lowers to me slowly. “They’re beautiful.”

They’re you. The closest I could ever come to capturing you.

He doesn’t say anything for the longest time, his blue eyes blinking at me in the soft light. I don’t know what’s running through his head, have no idea if he’s mad at me or if I’ve been forgiven by default, but I can’t bring myself to ask.

Finally, he looks away. “I should get back,” he says, voice rough around the edges. “I left Dani alone.”

I nod, even as my insides tremble. Even as I want to remind him it was supposed to beustonight. Lucky takes a step, but I can’t…

“Luck.”

He stops, looking back.

“Okay?” I ask.

He nods slowly, but his eyes are sad. “Yeah, El. We’ll always be okay.”

With that, he goes, and I can’t help but feel like my world has cracked just a little, sending us further apart.

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