Thunderstorms don’t usually rattle me.
But everything since we got back in the car after getting gas has rattled me, to include the part where this isn’t a nice distant summer thunderstorm.
It’s a squall directly on top of us while we’re huddled inside a metal frame.
Lightning crashes on top of us again.
I stifle a shriek.
Oliver twists his neck to look at me.
His smile is dopey but so happy it’s charming, showing off his white teeth against his dark stubble. His hazel eyes are flickering with warmth and something else.
Something that looks like happiness.
Like he’s thrilled that I’m freaking out over a thunderstorm.
“You look like I felt after Kurt wrecked his dad’s Maserati,” he muses, still chuckling.
“That’s not fucking funny, Oliver.”
Please note, lightning and thunder don’t attempt to murder us whenhe’sbeing an asshole, comparing our being stuck in a thunderstorm to the accident that led to him driving himself nowhere, ever, until now.
It’s probably karma.
“Hey.” He shifts in his seat, a giant mass of muscle and intelligence and boring predictability, but there’s nothing boringorpredictable about him squeezing my thigh. “We’re fine. Just a storm. It’ll pass.”
I squint at him.
Is he being literal or is he talking about us fighting too?
I should call Bea and ask her to send someone to pick me up.
Not that I’m usinganyelectronics until this storm has passed.
“Daphne.”
“What?”
His hand is still on my thigh. Bare skin to bare skin.
Check that.
His bare palm to my goosebumps.
“We’re okay,” he says.
Lightning streaks through the car again, but the thunder isn’t immediate this time.
As if Oliver’s declaration that we’re okay is enough to chase the storm away.
“Define okay,” I tell him.
The man’s still smiling.
Smiling and squeezing my thigh and brushing his thumb over my skin. “We’re not dead, and we’re almost not annoying the shit out of each other by breathing, and we have food, and our parents aren’t here.”
“Ourparents aren’t here?” I repeat.
