Page 5 of Under the Weatherman
That made me snort-laugh like the dork I kept locked up deep down. “No, don’t ruin bacon for me. I’ll stick to conversing with clouds.”
“Clouds, huh?” She still sounded suspicious “So…weatherman? How does that happen?”
Good question. When I was younger, I’d hidden my science nerd tendencies behind sports in a failed attempt to seem cool. “You should have seen the telescope in my bedroom.”
She bit back a smile. “Oh, yeah?”
Warmth crept up my neck. “I’ve just always loved studying the atmosphere—heat waves, electrical storms.”
I sounded as cheesy as Bas, but thankfully her doe eyes softened, and she whispered, “The spark of lightning?”
Was she flirting with me? My breath caught, and I realized I was playing with a firestorm. It all felt too easy, suspiciously so.
And just like that, my walls went up. “It’s funny,” I said, testing the waters, watching her for any reaction. “I saw Kyan King earlier tonight.”
Her nose scrunched slightly. “You’re friends with Kyan King?”
Friendswould be overstating it. Kyan had, aptly, been the king of the school, the center of every party. I’d entered his inner orbit briefly, but catastrophically. “He didn’t put you up to this, did he?”
“Up to what?” she asked, innocently enough, her smile fading.
Maybe it was just a coincidence I’d run into both of them tonight, but I wasn’t taking a chance. “He didn’t send you over here to mess with me?”
Her mouth twisted. “Nobody put me up to this.”
I could only imagine how insane I sounded, but I’d been the target of too many vicious pranks, and I really didn’t want to play the fool yet again.
Her head tilted. “Did he putyouup to this?”
“Touché.” I had to laugh at my own paranoia. “No. I was never cool enough to be in on the joke.”
“Well,” she said. “Me neither.”
Hearing her say that felt like an antidote to the toxicity of my teen years.
She let out a shaky breath and suddenly, a memory unlocked, clear as day, of one chilly November morning at the apple orchard up on Carter’s Mountain. The two of us sat atop a picnic table, eating cinnamon doughnuts and drinking hot cider, while we overlooked the expanse of the Blue Ridge Mountains spreading out before us. We must have been there for the band, or maybe our parents had taken us. A feeling hit me, like a long forgotten scent or the snippets of a song I once knew. I’d likedher, too. I’d never gotten up my nerve to tell her.
And then I became a douchebag.
I worked up the courage to confess it now, but before I could speak, Chelsea blurted out, “You might say I have commitment issues.”
I couldn’t help but gawk. Bas was looking at her like a puzzle to be solved. “What’ve you got against relationships?”
Chelsea shot a glance at Lizzy. “I had a mean dad.”
Bas frowned. “That’s. Uh.”
Chelsea barreled on. “One therapist told me I don’t feel like I’m worthy of love and won’t trust anyone who wants to be with me.”
I averted my eyes, shocked at hearing someone so openly spill a secret that I understood too well. Maybe if I led with all my issues, I’d find someone who’d accept me forme. But I’d most likely just scare everyone away.
Chelsea wasn’t done. “Another told me I’m rebelling against my mother’s life choices. But I think I’m possibly a sociopath, incapable of mixing sex with emotion.”
Concern furrowed Basil’s dark eyebrows, and he gently said, “You’ve done a lot of work, huh? I find that admirable. Are you always so candid?”
“Actually, no.” The warble of her voice made me hope she’d stop oversharing. That woman was a walking red flag. Sadly, Bas was a bull with no sense of self-preservation. The guy ran at love over and over, and every time he failed, he got back up, his faith in romance intact.
“No?” Bas finally sounded fazed.
