Page 87 of Heat Lightning

It must’ve been my lucky day, though, because this time my patience paid off.

“My mom used to take me to the aquarium where I grew up,” he said, flicking the hair out of my eyes. “Just us two. I don’t know how she’d know, but when I was having a bad day at school, she’d come pick me up and take me to get ice cream and go see the fish.”

He avoided eye contact, but his hands gently cradled me closer. “It was never busy on the weekdays, and everything was so quiet and blue. I could sit and watch the animals swim around the big tanks for hours.”

“Was school hard for you?” I asked quietly.

He chuckled. “Everything was hard when I was a kid. I couldn’t sit still and learn to save my life. I’m not stupid,” he said, tensing up. “But I just didn’t process things the same way other kids did. The aquarium was different, though. I had every plaque memorized and could recite the docent’s speeches word for word.”

I leaned forward and kissed along his collarbone. “No one in their right mind would think you’re stupid. You’re crazy smart. How long have you been a vigilante avoiding the police? That takes a lot of brains and guts. Whoever made you feel that way is the stupid one.”

He held me tighter and nuzzled his nose into mine. It made the butterflies in my stomach take flight.

Suddenly, I remembered something. “I think I read an article the other day about the aquarium here in town. They just finished renovations. Or maybe they added a new tank? Something like that. We could go together!”

His eyes shuttered. “Max…”

The butterflies in my stomach dropped like stones. My heart ached, and I felt sick. All at once, I’d realized how much I didn’t want this to end, and then remembered he’d said it had to. “Sorry. Never mind.”

I rolled off the bed. I couldn’t look at him.

“Wait—”

“No, it’s okay,” I said, fighting to keep my voice from breaking. “I’m going to go clean up.”

Without looking at him, I shut myself in the bathroom and turned on the shower so he wouldn’t hear me cry.

TWENTY-THREE

MAX

As much as I wanted to go back in time or stop it altogether, my slip-up broke the bubble we’d lived in for the past four days.

“I thought you said this movie was about an octopus.”

Curled up on the sofa, I snuggled further into my blanket, wishing it were Atlas’ arms. “It is.”

He looked over at me from the opposite cushion. If he reached out right now to pull me close, I’d give him every last piece of me.

He didn’t.

“It’s about people,” he said, turning back to the television. “Marcellus needs more screen time.”

I huffed. “You sound like the octopus.”

I’d suggested this movie to pass the time, thinking he would like it. And I’d been right. The way he finished all of the octopus facts before the narrator was so fucking cute it might kill me.

But I couldn’t shake my impending sense of dread.

My heat waned quickly. It wouldn’t be long before it was all over; we probably only had one wave left together. The thought of parting from him made my stomach hurt, and not in the way that could be soothed by his knot.

We hadn’t discussed what would happen afterwards. I still wanted to be involved in making Joey pay for what he did to me, but after the last few days, I didn’t think I could handle being near Atlas after the bond fizzled, unclaimed. Not after all we’d shared.

It would be worse to be near him, knowing each other’s deepest secrets and desires, yet unable to tell him the truth of what I felt.

I couldn’t kid myself that it was all heat brain. I wanted sex with him, sure. Lots of it, every day. The thought of anyone else touching me was repulsive.

But I wanted so much more than that, too. With every detail he shared about himself, about his life, I craved more. I wanted to know what slow mornings and shitty Mondays with him were like, and family dinners and picnics outside.