Page 57 of To Catch a Firefly

“Do you think,” he goes on, foot bumping mine as his hand lands on my abdomen, “that I would fly halfway around the world and drive into town during a tornado watch just to kiss you if it meantnothing?”

My pulse is feathering so quickly I can feel it in my neck.

“Well?” he asks, leaning close. His eyes drop to my lips, and I can hardly control my breathing. “Do you?”

I shake my head slowly. When he puts it that way, no, I don’t think he would do that. But I’ve spent years, since the moment we first kissed, really, assuming my longing was fruitless, and I’m having a hard time reconciling that this is real. That Lucky is in front of me, somehow telling me he wants me, too.

Since when?

“No,” Lucky says, hand curling against my jaw. “No, I wouldn’t do that. You’re notnothing, El. You’re the person I know most inthis world. This”—he presses his lips softly to the corner of mine—“isn’t meaningless.”

I don’t move. Can’t, apart from the shaking of my body.

“You want me,” he whispers, hand twisting in my shirt as his other cradles my face.

“Yes,” I croak.

“Only. Me.”

A nod.

His exhale is near tortured. “Then kiss me, Ellis.”

I’m scared. So goddamn scared.

This is Lucky.Lucky.I’ve kept my feelings for him carefully leashed for so very long, afraid of the potential fallout. It’s ingrained in me to push those thoughts away. To deny those urges. How do I come to terms with the fact that I’m not alone in them? What if this ruins us? There are countless ways it could go wrong. What if I lose him? What if—

“Ellis,” Lucky practically growls. The light flickers above us, the radio crackling. “I didn’t see it before, but I do now. And I’m here. I’m here, okay? So kiss me. Kiss me,please, or I swear to God—”

As a tornado rages somewhere overhead, that leash around my heart snaps, and I give in to the thing I want above all else.

I lunge forward and kiss my best friend.

Chapter 20

Lucky

If pressed to come up with a single word to describe the onslaught that hits me the moment Ellis’s lips crash into mine, I would picklandslide.

Have you ever seen a mountain give way? Seen the rock face sheer off in the force of nature’s demand, trees and dirt and tons of once-steady terrain rushing toward the ground, unable to fight the tide of gravity?

That would describe this moment. Sweeping. Earth-shattering. Destructive in the best possible way.

Unstoppable.

Ellis’s teeth snag my bottom lip as he kisses me hungrily. My back hits the wall, and he follows me into it, his weight securing me in place. I nearly laugh, nearly shout with joy, but no sound escapes except a moan.

Ellis.

MyEllis is kissing me. And this isn’t a seventeen-year-old’s tentative first time. It’s urgent and consuming and filled with intent. The type of intent that has my mind spinning because part of me wasn’t convinced I got it right. Even though I knew—Iknew—there was still a niggle of doubt telling me I was wrong.

But then I remembered the waterfall. The looks Ellis would give the guys I was with. The easy affection and nervous blushes. The way he wasbrokenthat day I got the job at the magazine, even though he tried so hard to hide it. How sad he was when I finally left town. Howhappyhe always is to hear from me, same as I am with him. The parrotfish. The glass sailboat.Fuck, the picnics in the back of his truck. Nights under the stars. Our windmill.

I remembered our history in a series of snapshots, but I saw it under a different lens. And Iknew.

And now, here with Ellis’s lips pressed against mine, there’s no question or doubt—he wants me. He hasfeelingsfor me that extend beyond the bounds of our friendship.

I feel like an idiot that it took me this long to see it. But I’m not about to waste any more time away from the one person who has always felt like my port. The person I return to, time and time again. The one I come home to.

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