Page 68 of To Catch a Firefly

“Morning,” I return, stepping her way.

She gives me a smile. “Ellis says you two are dating now.”

I almost bark a laugh. Leave it to Ellis to jump forward without worrying about what people would think. He never really has.

The thought makes me smile.

“Yeah,” I tell her. “I guess we are.”

She hums, nodding as she types out an answer on her puzzle.

“You don’t seem surprised,” I note.

“No,” she says simply. “When do you leave?”

My stomach sinks. “Tomorrow. I, uh… I know it’s not ideal. My job, I mean. I travel a lot, and I live in New York, but we’ll figure it out. I—”

“Lucky, hon,” Mrs. Cole says, cutting me off gently. She sets her tablet aside, hand shaking slightly. Her eyes, unlike Ellis’s, are hazel, and they appraise me kindly. “I’m not worried about that. You two have been circling each other for years. I can’t imagine you’ll let something like distance stop you now that you’ve finally caught one another.”

I don’t know what to say to that. Were we really that obvious except to each other?

“Come here,” she says, opening her arms. “Give me a hug, and then go spend the day with my son like I know you want to.”

I accept her invitation, bending down as Mrs. Cole wraps her arms around me from her chair. My chest feels tight—a mixture of acceptance, love, relief, and worry. When we part, she tweaks my cheek the way she did when I was a child. I can’t help but chuckle.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cole,” I tell her, hoping she understands.

She gives me a nod. “You’ll always be family, Lucky. Don’t forget that.”

With a lump in my throat, I leave Mrs. Cole to her crossword and head outside, closing the slider door behind me. Instinctually, I check the skyline, but the storms have passed, leaving only blue sky. Even so, a shiver runs down my spine that has nothing to do with the cooling autumn temperatures.

Taking the stairs, I make my way toward the silo. It sits like a towering beacon around the edge of the field, the structure old and weathered but still standing strong. I used to think it lookedhaunted, but now, the silo is a place of warmth and comfort. I have no doubt that’s Ellis’s doing.

The door is open when I get there, the interior dim. It only takes a moment for my eyes to adjust, and once they do, I seek out Ellis. I stumble a little when I spot him, and then I come to a stop.

Ellis is in front of the brick oven, his back to me. He’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. His back is soaked in sweat—a sight that has no right to be as sexy as it is—and a heavy-duty apron is tied around his front. He’s not wearing gloves, and I wonder if it’s because they’d be a hindrance for such precise work, but the heat from the oven looks immense. An orange glow emanates from within the small window in the brick, and now that I’m looking, I realize there’s a ventilation shaft running to the wall, directing excess heat and smoke out of the silo.

I can’t believe he did all this.

Instead of alerting Ellis that I’m here, I watch. There’s a metal table beside the oven, much smaller than the big wooden workbench in the middle of the room. Ellis turns to it, rolling what appears to be hot, melted glass over its surface. The malleable substance is orange, like the fire, and stuck to the end of a long, metal rod. Ellis lifts it off the table before blowing into the rod, and the glass inflates. He rolls it on top of another instrument I’m unfamiliar with that looks like a metal frame atop a bench, and then he returns it to the heat.

I watch for what feels like an hour, but I’m sure it’s far less than that. I can’t seem to look away from the steady repetition of the process. I have no clue what Ellis is doing, but he appears to know the steps by heart. He uses tools, too—pliers, smaller rods, and other things I don’t know the name of. Before long, he taps the object off the end of the metal rod. I flinch, sure it’s going to break, but it doesn’t. It sits unharmed, beautifully colored nowthat the glass has cooled. It’s a decorative orb, perfectly round with swirling shades of purple and gold.

When Ellis starts taking off his apron, he notices me. He goes still for just a moment, eyes connecting with mine, and then he sets the apron on a hook. He wipes his forehead before pushing his sleeves up to his elbows.

“Hi,” I breathe.

Ellis walks up to me, pinching my chin and moving my head back and forth. I have no clue what he’s looking for, but he brushes my hair aside before drifting his thumb across my bottom lip.

“What is it?” I ask.

The softness in his gaze floors me, as does his answer. “Looking.”

“You’ve seen me a million times,” I point out, heart pounding.

His expression manages to convey how much of an idiot I am, while also weakening my knees. “Never enough.”

Fucking hell.

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