Page 22 of Uxpectedly Ever After

"Kitchen drawer, the one right next to the sink. And there should be a flashlight in the hall closet."

I can hear him moving through my dark apartment with surprising confidence, especially considering he's only been crashing here for two weeks. My eyes slowly start to adjust to the minimal light filtering in with the occasional flashes of lightning through the windows. It's just enough to make out vague shapes but not any real details.

"Found 'em," Banks calls out from the direction of the kitchen. The distinct scratch of a match breaks the silence and the darkness, followed by the warm, flickering glow of candlelight. He reappears in the living room with several lit candles balanced precariously on small plates, setting them down on various surfaces around the room.

The flickering light casts dramatic shadows across his face, emphasizing the sharp angles of his cheekbones and the fullness of his lower lip. He looks like every single bad decision I'veever wanted to make, all wrapped up in romantic firelight. I am officially in so much trouble.

"You okay, Freckles?" he asks, catching me staring.

"Yeah, fine. Just…" I scramble for literally anything to say that won't end with me throwing myself at him. "I'm not exactly a huge fan of thunderstorms."

He watches me for a long moment in the flickering light before finally nodding slowly. "I'll grab that flashlight then."

By the time he comes back, I've already scurried around and collected every single candle I own from my bedroom and bathroom, desperately needing to keep my hands busy with something other than reaching for him. The storm continues to pound against the building, which pretty much mirrors the chaotic riot currently happening in my head. My phone chimes with a notification, saving me from having to come up with any more awkward conversation.

"The power company says it could be awhile," I report, glancing down at the notification on my phone. "Apparently, a transformer blew a few blocks over after it got a direct hit from lightning."

"Good thing you’re so prepared." Banks tosses the flashlight onto the coffee table with a soft thud and then sinks back onto the couch, patting the empty spot right next to him. "Come here, Freckles. You're shivering."

Am I? I glance down at my arms, and sure enough, there's a fine layer of goosebumps all over my skin. But it's definitely not from the cold.

I hesitate for all of maybe two seconds before another loud boom of thunder makes the decision for me. I drop down onto the couch next to him, trying my best to maintain at least a sliver of distance between us. Fat chance when he takes up half of the couch—our thighs bump, sending a shock through me that has absolutely nothing to do with the raging storm outside.

"We're getting pretty good at this," Banks says, his voice dropping low enough that it vibrates through where our bodies are pressed together.

"At what? Surviving power outages?"

"Talking. Being real with each other for once." The flickering candlelight turns his eyes into this liquid gold color, and I have to force myself to look away before I do something incredibly stupid. "Two weeks ago, you were scaling the walls to avoid being alone in the same room with me. Now look at us."

He's right. Everything has shifted since that night outside Ember when he backed me against that wall and confessed all those dirty thoughts he's been having about me. Since I watched him walk confidently through that gas leak evacuation. Since I felt him standing behind me at the bar, his chest pressed against my back while I showed him how to make an Old Fashioned.

"Don't get used to it," I say, trying for flippant but landing somewhere closer to turned on. "This is just temporary insanity. Blame the storm and the fact that I'm currently trapped here with you."

He lets out a low laugh. "Sure thing, Freckles. Whatever helps you sleep at night."

We fall quiet, listening to the relentless assault of rain against my windows. His thigh is radiating heat against mine, and without meaning to, I find myself leaning just a little closer to him. The worst part is how right it feels, how my body instantly relaxes against his solid frame like it's been waiting for some kind of permission to finally let go.

"So, when did the whole color-coded bookshelf thing start?" he asks out of nowhere, his voice a low rumble that's almost drowned out by the storm.

I blink at him. "What?"

"Your books." He gestures with his head toward my rainbow-arranged shelves. "You've got them organized by color. I was just curious when that whole system began."

I could totally lie, make some lame joke about Pinterest or aesthetic Instagram feeds, but the darkness and the steady, comforting warmth of his body right next to mine somehow make the truth just… slip out easier. "After my mom died. Her books were just everywhere, no organization whatsoever." I swallow hard, the familiar ache in my throat making an unwelcome reappearance. "I spent pretty much the entire week of the funeral just sorting them while Kasen dealt with all the actual important stuff. It just… gave me something I could control, you know?"

Banks just nods, not offering some canned sympathy line or a bunch of probing questions, which I appreciate more than he probably knows. "What about the plants then? You know, your little green babies." He smirks at me, and I have to shift because I can feel that dirty grin all the way down to my damn toes. "With their cocktail-themed names. White Russian is my favorite, by the way."

I laugh because of course he’d love the struggling Monstera. It needs the most care and I’ve learned that Banks has a total hero complex. "It started in college." A sudden crack of lightning illuminates the entire room for a split second, making me jump. Banks's hand lands on my shoulder, and I try not to focus on how big and warm it feels through my t-shirt. "My dorm room felt like some kind of sterile hospital—with white walls, white furniture, absolutely zero personality. I got this sad little ivy plant my first week and just named it Manhattan after the first drink I ever successfully made. Having something alive in there made it feel a little less like I was sleeping in a morgue."

Thunder booms outside, rattling the windows again as the rain continues to pelt against the glass.

"It makes sense that you'd name them after cocktails," he says, his fingers now absently tracing slow circles on the back of my neck. But every tiny movement, every point of contact, sends little jolts of electricity dancing across my skin. "It's very… you."

"What about you, Priestly?" I shift slightly to face him, which is probably a mistake because now we're close enough that I can make out the tiny flecks of gold in his eyes. "Got any weird organizational quirks I should know about before you start rearranging more of my stuff?"

His laugh rumbles low over the sound of the storm. "Nothing too neurotic, I promise. Though I do have a pretty specific system for my turnout gear back at the station." He's still tracing those damn circles on my neck, and I wonder if he even realizes he's doing it. "Everything has its exact place so I can get dressed in under thirty seconds when the alarm goes off. It's life or death, you know?"

I try to picture Banks at his locker back at the station, meticulously placing each piece of his gear, knowing that someday those precious seconds he saves might be the only difference between walking out alive and not coming home at all.

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