“You’re unbelievable.”
“Thank you.” Her smirk is wicked. “Now shut up and take the damn headphones, Grumpy, and dance with me.”
Fleetwood Mac hums low in my ear, all smoky and nostalgic.Dreams. It’s a song I’ve heard a thousand times, but right now, standing in the middle of her chaos, soaked and breathless, it’s different. She sways like she doesn’t have a care in the world—hips and arms loose, with rain dripping off her hair. Before I can come up with a half-decent excuse, she grabs my hand to pull me in. Reflex takes over. I catch her wrist instead and spin her under my arm.
She twirls through the rain like she’s done this a thousand times, her laughter cutting clean through the storm, and fuck me if it doesn’t make my heart skip a beat. Just for a moment, everything slows… Her, the rain, the music. It’s allher.
“See?” she breathes, grinning. “Not so bad.”
Not so bad? It’s fucking dangerous. My pulse is all over the place. The space between us vanishes, and the way she’s looking up at me… Christ. I used to believe control was easy. Turns out, it’s a myth when you’ve got Olivia Mitchell in your arms.
“Didn’t think you could dance, Daniels,” she teases, her voice smug and sweet.
“There’s a lot you don’t know about me, Trouble,” I mutter, and my thumb finds her hip before I can stop it. Just a slow drag across the soaked denim that makes her suck in a breath. The music thrums low through the single shared earbud, and then she starts to sing—soft, husky, just a little off-key. Her voice threads through the deluge, the lyrics about thunder and rain. I almost laugh at the irony because we’re literally standing in the middle of a downpour, soaked to the skin. Olivia’s fingers trail down my forearm, torturously slow, tracing the veins like she’s studying me. Every muscle of mine coils tight at the contact, instincts screaming at me to move, to do something, but I can’t.
The rain is relentless now. We’re drenched. Shirts stuck to skin, hair plastered down, but she doesn’t even flinch, until lightning cracks too close for comfort.
Olivia jumps a little, blinking up at the sky. “Alright!” she shouts, laughing as the thunder rolls. “Guess the universe thinks that’s enough dancing for one day!”
“Finally, something we agree on.”
I snatch my shirt off the fence and sling it over my shoulder. She smacks my arm on the way past, that damn grin still lighting up her face.
“C’mon,” she calls over her shoulder. “Before we both drown.”
20
Olivia
A Change is Gonna Come - I Am Roze
The rain only comes down harder.
Fat droplets hammer against my shoulders as we sprint across the paddock. We duck into the nearest shelter—a weathered old shed with a battered tin roof and the faint scent of hay and motor oil. The quad’s parked against the back wall, tarp half-pulled over it. Spare troughs are stacked in the corner. A bale of hay creaks beneath Sebastian’s weight as he drops down, soaked to the skin.
The storm slams into the roof, the force making the whole shed hum. It’s loud. So loud, it presses against my ribs, each beat of rain vibrating like it’s trying to shake something loose.
I shake my hair out with a laugh, flinging water everywhere. “Guess this is what we get for ignoring the forecast.”
Sebastian looks around the space. “That came on quick.”
He runs a hand through his hair, pushing the wet strands back, and I swear—I swear—my brain short-circuits for a second. Becauseholy hell.Water drips down the curve of his throat, sliding over muscle, catching on the small tattoo inked just under his collarbone. His T-shirt clings to every line of him—broad shoulders, biceps flexed beneath the soaked cotton, his stomach tight beneath the curve of his ribs. It’s almost criminal, the way he looks when he’s not trying.
I glance down at the Weather app, its blue radar swirl drifting right over Wattle Creek. “Says it’s supposed to pass soon,” I murmur, even though I’m not really looking at it anymore.
So much for a warm spring day. Thunder cracks again, and I flinch this time as the tin roof rattles loudly. A gust of wind pushes rain through the open sides, the air thick and electric and humming with more than just the storm.
For a short while, neither of us speaks. He sits back on a stack of hay bales, soaked through. The cotton of his shirt moves with every slow inhale, clinging to muscle and skin.
His eyes track the storm outside, but I feel them on me too. Or maybe I justwantto feel them. I can’t tell the difference anymore. I swallow hard, pulse thrumming at the base of my throat. My shirt clings to me in all the wrong ways, but I don’t care. I don’t want to break whatever this is—this moment stretched tight between us.
Great. Fantastic. Where the hell are the boys? My brother?
Please, God, don’t let them have seen that. Us. Dancing like a pair of idiots in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Then again… screw it. It was harmless. Fun.
Except now that harmless fun is pulsing between us, thick and charged, impossible to ignore.
