“I want to understand my role better.”
I grin at that, because it’s easy to feel at ease around him, despite my heart rate picking up pace. “You make a decent Hawkeye. You have that whole quiet, broody, acts of service thing going for you.”
“I’ll take that.”
We fall into a stretch of silence as the movie starts. Outside, the light shifts midway through the movie. It’s gradual at first, but halfway through the scene where Loki shows up and steals the Tesseract, I notice the shadows moving differently across the room.
Jay notices it too. “Is it getting darker?”
I glance toward the window. Thick grey clouds are rolling in fast, swallowing the daylight in heavy layers. Wind rattles one of the frames, and then the first low rumble of thunder rolls through the air, and electrocutes every single hair on my skin.
Jay leans forward, muting the TV for a second. “Was that—?”
“Thunder,” I breathe, already sitting up straighter, a wild energy beating in my chest.
Another rumble follows, closer this time. And then the sky opens.
Chapter sixteen
Jay
Thestormrumblesinthe distance. One minute it’s just a breeze, the next, it’s full-on thunder shaking the floorboards. Rain slashes against the glass in heavy, relentless sheets, and somewhere nearby, a car alarm starts up and dies just as fast, and our impromptu movie night is long forgotten.
Liv’s curled on the window ledge. I’ve never seen her move so fast as when that first thunder echoed. She’s perched with her knees tucked under her chin, watching the storm like it’s a film she’s seen a hundred times and still never gets bored of.
“I love this,” she says, turning to me with that wild glint in her eyes she sometimes gets.
A deafening thunder echoes, but it still sounds miles away. “You love this?”
“So much,” she says, already unfolding her legs and rising to her feet. “The sound, the energy. It makes everything feel alive.” She stretches her arms out to her sides like she’s trying to conduct the electricity in the air, fingers wiggling. “Don’t you feel it?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Most people think ‘alive’ means staying indoors where the lightning can’t turn them into human toast.”
She grins at me, full of teeth, all mischief that I’m learning is just her. “When I was a kid, every time it stormed, my dad would let me stay up late. Mom hated any weather that wasn’t bikini weather, but not my dad. We’d sit on the porch with hot chocolate, and he’d tell me stories of where lightning came from. He said it was sky giants playing tag. That thunder was them laughing too loud, and lightning was the flash of their hands touching. And when it really cracked? That was one of them falling over.”
I laugh gently, picturing little Liv wide-eyed and believing every word.
“He told me clouds were just smoke from their campfires made by the giants,” she adds, a smile tugging at her lips. “And if I listened close enough between the thunder, I’d hear them telling secrets of how to find them.”
There’s a moment of silence as the storm rolls above the building, low and rumbling.
“I used to try so hard to catch a secret,” she murmurs, eyes scanning the sky again, her slender fingers leaving imprints on the glass. “Thought if I stayed up late enough or was quiet enough, I’d hear them telling me where I could find them, and I’d become a princess in a castle.” She looks at me then, a little flush coloring her cheeks. “I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” I say, before she can retreat into a brush off. I want to say something—anything—but my brain’s still trying to catch up. Because I’ve never seen this version of Liv, either. Nostalgic and unguarded. Open without that armor she wears so easily.
“I want to go out,” she says suddenly.
“Is that a good idea?”
“Come on,” she pleads, stepping toward me, barefoot and dripping with anticipation. “Just for a minute. It’s not even dangerous.”
I stare at her chest and how it heaves harder than usual, then let my gaze move to her collarbones, where her pulse thrashes.
Before I can protest, her fingers are wrapped around mine in an instant, and she’s already dragging me toward the front door, like I was never going to say no. And maybe I wasn’t. Not sure I could to this girl.
“You’re completely insane,” I mutter, pulling on my hoodie and sneakers as she does the same, then yanks the door open.
“And you’re not,” she shoots back with a laugh. “So we balance each other out.”
