To Catch a Firefly

by Emmy Sanders

I was foolish, I think, taking our friendship for granted. Assuming there was nothing I could do that would fuck us up. I assumed I couldn’t hurt you, but I was wrong. I forget, sometimes, that you’re not invincible. That you bleed just like me. You’ve always been larger than life. A force. But your heart is big, and I bruised it, didn’t I?

“How?” I ask, meeting his dark gaze. “I’m honestly asking, Dani, ’cause I don’t know how. I can’t tell him I’m…heartbroken. I can’t tell him I’ve been secretly wishing, all these years, that he and I could… That we could be…”

“Have you ever wanted someone so much,” I say slowly, “that it feels like your atoms are vibrating when you’re away from them? Like you’re half of a whole, and your body knows it. And until you’re in their arms again, every single piece of you is straining toward them because…because they’re your home. They’re part of you. Your beginning and your never-ending. How? How do I move on from that?”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. He doesn’t reply right away, so I keep going. “El, I’m sorry. I know things have been…weird, but it’s not your fault, okay? I’m just… I guess I’ve just been going through some stuff.” “What can I do?” he asks slowly. God. God. “Nothing,” I tell him, voice hoarse. “Just…keep being you. That helps.” “I can do that,” he says, and I huff a small laugh.

“You said… You said you were into her,” I point out. There’s a pause. “Didn’t.” “Then who—” I cut off, chest rising and falling with my heavy breath, a million little pieces tumbling into place. I can practically hear the click of them inside my mind, each one slotting together to make a whole. “Ellis,” I say roughly, clutching the railing in front of me. “What did you mean when you said one person? That there was one person. Who?”

It is him. Lucky. Standing beside a beige car with his arm reaching through the driver’s side door. He stops honking the horn when I step into the clearing, and then he stands up straight. He’s wet, same as me, the rain coming down between us like a blanket of mist.

“What did you mean?” he calls once he’s close enough. My heart thuds. “Who? Who did you mean?” I can’t get my voice to work. Don’t even want to. “Ellis,” he yells, stopping right in front of me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him look so determined.

“How…” I start, waving to him. “Not glad to see me?” he counters, hands on his hips. I glower. “Answer the question,” he says. I know which one he means. “Why?” I say, stalling. “Why are you…”—I huff out a breath—“back so soon?”

Lucky is answering the question. “To do what I should have done the last time I was here.” I don’t have time to unwrap those words before Lucky is going up on his toes, tugging me in by the back of the neck, and pressing his lips to mine. I freeze. For a split second, I freeze, completely caught unawares and unable to make sense of what’s happening. But when Lucky’s mouth urges against my own, demanding something—anything—I snap.

I kiss him back, my hands threading into his hair, my lungs infiltrated with the heady scent of citrus as everything in me sparks to attention like the quick snap of a lightning strike. I almost expect to hear a boom of thunder, but there’s only Lucky’s sound of desperation and the feel of his lips on mine. Like softness. Like surrender. Like every whisper of home I’ve ever heard.

Lucky lets out a little breath, his expression turning serious. He eyes me closely, and my pulse kicks back up. “We’re going to talk about it.” There’s no use asking about what? Lucky pushes off from the wall, taking a step forward. “I kissed you.” I nod, breathing through my nose as he slowly closes the distance between us, stalking me, it would seem. I sure feel like prey.

“Ellis,” he says, less than a foot away now. “You kissed me back.” No denying it. I incline my head again. His eyes slip closed for a breath in time, and then they’re opening, a slow-blossoming smile on his face as he reaches for me.

“You said there was only one person you wanted,” he repeats. I nod, my eyes welling. “Me?” he asks, like he’s suddenly unsure.

But I don’t know what this means for him. And if this is some flippant, passing thing or, hell, a favor to knock sex off my bucket list, I don’t want it. I wouldn’t be able to bear it. I can’t start something with Lucky only to lose him. Not like that. It would destroy me. I nod slowly in answer, my heart in my throat. Yes, you.

“El,” he says, almost in relief. He steps in close again, hand hovering near me but not touching. “Do you really think anything between me and you could be meaningless?” My swallow is heavy. “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 meant nothing?”

“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.

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 fr...

“No,” Lucky says, hand curling against my jaw. “No, I wouldn’t do that. You’re not nothing, El. You’re the person I know most in this 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, han...

His exhale is near tortured. “Then ki...

“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.

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

Ellis. My Ellis 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.

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 was broken that 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. How happy he 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 feel like an idiot that it took me this long to see it.

Because he is. Ellis is home to me.

He kisses me as if he’s trying to memorize me by touch, his lips mapping my own. He kisses as if he wants to consume. He kisses with all the energy I saw that day he punched Brandon square in the nose.

I’m undone. Completely unraveled. And I don’t think I could ever be put back together the same way again. Not after this.

I let him hear every way in which he affects me. I don’t hold a single thing back. I don’t think I could even if I tried. Ellis is quiet, apart from his panting breaths, but his body tells me everything I need to know.

He’s always preferred physical communication anyway, and I’m not about to ask him to change, not when his hands are holding me as if I’m precious cargo.

I should have known kissing Ellis would rearrange my world.

“That’s right. Just like that. It’s okay to let go, baby. Let go for me.”

My desire for him to come is overwhelming. It’s a need, visceral and embedded down to my very bones. I want him to splinter apart in my arms. I want to give him what he needs, want to be what he needs, what he wants, what he craves with every fiber of his being because he’s that for me. He’s not just a crush. He never was.

I bring my hands to Ellis’s cheeks, kissing over his face as he shudders and comes down from his high. It’s the first time he’s come with another person, and I know that might be hitting him hard. But Ellis surprises me. He doesn’t look shaken or remotely self-conscious. He leans back enough for his eyes to find mine, and he watches me intently.

My mountain of a man, breathing me in, his lips pressed lightly to my skin.

I could stay here forever, tucked against Ellis’s chest, him against mine. Just the two of us. Him and me.

Ellis is seducing me. Savoring me.

“Wish you were safe,” I tell him. “I am,” he says. “I’m always safe with you.”

“Ellis.” My throat feels hoarse. “Luck.” “How long?” he asks quietly. I swallow, looking down at his hand tucked between my own. In the end, I shrug because I’m not entirely sure when the turning point was or if I was always on a slow path toward falling in love with Lucky.

“We’re going to date,” he says simply. Bluntly. “We’re not skipping that part.” I nod, pulse jumping. “And we’re going to do that a lot,” he adds, nodding down toward my crotch, where the sticky evidence of my orgasm is hidden away. I can feel my cheeks heat, but Lucky’s smile has my chest warming, too.

“We’ve been such idiots,” he says, head leaned against the stone wall. His eyes sweep over my face, but there’s a softness on his. A gentle sort of happiness, despite his words. His voice, when he speaks again, is a whisper. “I’ve wanted you for such a long time.”

“What do you see?” I ask quietly. I’m not even sure if he’s going to answer me, but he’s been surprisingly open since we kissed. “Gold,” he says, reaching up and twining a piece of my hair around his finger. His touch is gentle, voice soft. “Sands and…sun. Light. Camels.”

“Here,” he says, touching the corner of my eye, his focus absolute. “Ocean. Sky and sea. Smith Falls. Great…Blue Hole.” I snort, and his lips curl into a smile, but his gaze never wavers. His thumb travels down, brushing over my top lip. My breath hitches. “Sails,” he says, tracing the two arches of my lip. “Birds in flight. Palaces and…windmills.”

“And Ellis?” Danil asks, mind going to the same place as mine. “He’s there with you?” “He is.” “Does that mean you two talked?” he asks. “We did.” A pause. “Are you going to make me beg for it?” I refrain from making a joke. “We’re…good,”

“We kissed.” And such. Danil hums. It’s a happy sound. “And now?” A slow smile spreads over my face as I remember the press of Ellis’s lips against mine. “And now… We start something new.”

His face crumples, just a little, and then he’s being pulled into a tight embrace.

Lucky’s dad gives Lucky another hug before begrudgingly letting him go, and much to my surprise, he asks if he can hug me, too.

“I’m sorry,” he says gently, his arm around her shoulders. She shakes her head. “No, it’s not your fault. I’m just… I’m not prepared to lose you. Either of you,” she adds, looking my way. Mr. Buchanan rubs her arm. “We’re just so glad you’re both okay.”

“Ellis and I should get cleaned up, though.” “Of course,” his mom says. “The shower’s all yours.” “Thanks, but I’d rather use the one next door,” Lucky says, standing up and grabbing his bag. “I need a minute alone with Ellis.”

“Get naked, Ellis,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at me. My inhale is sharp, but I do as he says, peeling off my clothing one piece at a time.

He’s gorgeous, every inch of him. I could stare for hours, days, a lifetime, and never get bored. I never thought I’d have the chance