And not about medicine.
I could get used to this.
10
LIZZIE
“Did you know that light pollution is one of the top ways that our lightning bug population is dying? It’s why I love the fact that our compound is out in the middle of nowhere on the outskirts of Redd Valley. No light pollution means that our compound serves as a pseudo-safe breeding ground for them during mating season. And when they start mating? If you pay attention long enough, you can see that each bug has their own blinking patterns with their tails. Almost like morse-code mating calls. It’s fascinating, really.”
Listening to him prattle on felt like heaven. The bugs twinkled all around us as he took his time escorting me down the concrete pathway toward the swimming pool. It was still, save for a few ripples as the wind kicked up and rustled the trees all around us. The reflection of the half moon danced on top of the water and saw the steam wafting into my vision.
Only to look over and realize that he had a hot tub combined in with his swimming pool.
“Did you also know,” he said as he pulled out my chair for me at the dinner table, “that despite the fact that we call them lightning bugs or fireflies, that they’re neither a bug—here, let me help.”
I smiled when he held out his hand just as I was about to sit. I took it in kind. “Thank you.”
“Of course, Miss Elizabeth,” he said as he tucked me back toward the table. “Where was I? Oh, yes. They’re neither flies nor bugs. They’re technically beetles.”
That took me by surprise. “Wait, really?”
“Yes, really,” he said as he walked around to the other side of the table and sat, beaming a smile I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen on his face before. “We do that with a lot of things in this world, actually. Tomatoes are technically fruits, though we lump them in with vegetables because they are savory.”
“I don’t know,” I said as I reached for my drink. “Cherry tomatoes are pretty sweet.”
He pushed a couple pieces of garlic bread toward me. “It’s actually more common for tomatoes to be sweet than savory. Our genetic engineering of our foods has also restructured many of their tastes as well. For instance, bananas. All of our bananas that we consume are genetically engineered, and because of some of the things we’ve done to them, they’re actually sweeter than they should be.”
I furrowed my brow. “Wait, all bananas?”
He nodded as he picked up his spoon. “All of them. It’s why I try not to chuckle around people who come into Ghost’s bar or Wrecker’s ice cream joint talking about healthy foods and eating clean and adding more of these things or those things to their diets. Because at the end of the day, science is the reason why we can feed the kind of population that we have. Genetically engineered food is how this country isn’t dying off, one by one.”
As I continued listening to him, I couldn’t help but notice the moonlight reflected in his gray eyes. He actually had a bit of yellow swirling around in there, of all things, and the moonlight accented those little specks perfectly. His eyes shimmered whilehe spoke, and I dipped my spoon into the soup with what looked like tortellini in it.
And to think I was worried that I was overdressed.
Though he didn’t really compliment me on my?—
“Here,” Doc said.
“Whoo,” I said softly as I found him fussing over me instead of sitting in his chair.
How long did I space out?
“You dribbled some soup into your lap, Miss Elizabeth,” he said as he picked up my napkin and fluffed it into my lap.
“Uh, um… thanks,” I said as I looked down at the napkin in my lap before I looked back up at him. “To be honest, I didn’t even notice.”
He stood there, towering over me with the moonlight backdropping his slender, royal features. How could a man be so beautiful? It was unfair, to be honest. He could’ve enrolled into a goddamn beauty pageant and wiped the floor with the other women.
“You look lovely tonight, Miss Elizabeth.”
I should’ve been angry at the formality. At the fact that he still insisted on addressing me differently than he addressed everyone else. But as he gazed down at me with those twinkling eyes and that beautiful little smile that still sat on his lips, I couldn’t help but smile back up at him.
“Thanks. I wasn’t sure what kind of dinner this was, so I figured if I had a chance to get cleaned up a bit, I figured I should take it.”
His eyes roamed over my body, and he didn’t even attempt to hide it.
My cheeks warmed.
