Like she’d figured out in half a minute what I was still refusing to admit to myself.
I glance sideways at Jonah. He’s got the radar tablet propped on one knee, completely lost in whatever the atmosphere over Texas is doing.
Completely unbothered by the fact that he apparently reduced me to a jealous spiral over a woman in an outdoor store whose name I already wish I didn’t know.
The thought that’s been circling since we left keeps coming back around. Amber had been so obvious about it. Laughing too loud, touching his arm, angling herself toward him like a sunflower toward light. And he’d just stood there blinking at her like she was a phenomenon he couldn’t quite classify.
What if Jonah isn’t into women?
It would track. Most men don’t respond to being flirted with like they’ve been handed an unexploded device. I sneak another look at his profile. There’s no reason it should matter. We’re colleagues. Whatever he does or doesn’t want is none of my business.
I should definitely stop thinking about this. I’m the one who made the lightning-strike story up. I’m the one who told that poor woman we were married. I’m the one who voluntarily cuddled up against him and called him honey.
So why did watching that Amber girl lay it on so thick actually irritate me?
I turn onto the highway, both hands on the wheel, eyes fixed on the road ahead like it holds answers. It doesn’t. It’s just asphalt and paint lines and billboards for Jesus.
Maybe he’s gay. That would make sense. It would explain the absolute catastrophe of a response to being flirted with, the way he stared at that girl like she’d handed him a live grenade instead of a phone number.
Then my treacherous memory decides to rewind to the truck yesterday—Jonah wedged between me and Lucas on that bench seat, his thigh pressed tight against mine, and the unmistakable evidence that he was absolutely, without question, stone cold straight. A man does not have that kind of reaction while sitting between two people unless one of those people is doing something to his wiring, and I can say with 100% certainty it wasn’t Lucas.
Because there is simply no planet in any solar system where anyone finds Lucas Bennett charming. Not one. Not unless it’s a planet where the entire species shares exactly one brain cell and they take turns passing it around in a bucket.
“You're staring,” he says without looking up from his screen. “Is there something on my face?”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. “Just making sure you're not getting carsick from staring at that screen.”
“I never get motion sickness,” he replies matter-of-factly. “Though approximately twenty-five to forty percent of the population experiences some form of?—”
“If you quote statistics at me for the next hundred miles, I'm going to drive us straight into a ditch.”
He turns his head and stares at me with horror etched onto his face. Almost as if he is analyzing me to see if I am serious. I am. “Noted.”
“Care to share with the class what you’ve been working on over there?”
“I was just checking the latest model runs. The system is developing faster than originally predicted.”
“I've been feeling it,” I reply, tapping the steering wheel. “The air's getting heavier. We'll hit the convergence zone about an hour before the NWS timeline.”
Jonah gives me a curious look. “You can feel atmospheric changes?”
“Not literally. But after enough years chasing, you develop a sense for it. Like how farmers can smell rain coming.”
He considers this for a moment, his brow furrowing in that way it does when he's processing new information. “Interesting. Sensory pattern recognition based on accumulated experience rather than conscious data analysis.”
“Or maybe I'm just psychic,” I say with a straight face.
His eyes widen before he catches my smirk. “You're joking.”
“Am I?” I raise an eyebrow dramatically before laughing. “Yes, Professor, I'm joking. Though there are days when I swear storms call to me like they're alive.”
Something shifts in his expression—not dismissal, but curiosity. “My grandmother used to say something similar. She grew up in Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl era. She always claimed she could feel the storms in her bones before they arrived.”
I glance at him, surprised. He hasn’t once offered personal details. “Did you believe her?”
“I did,” he admits, closing his laptop . “She was right too often for it to be coincidence. Though I’ve always suspected it had more to do with subtle barometric pressure changes affecting her joints than any supernatural connection.”
I hum thoughtfully. “Way to take the magic out of it, Professor.”
