Jonah glances over at me, and there’s that small, genuine smile again. “Science doesn’t eliminate magic, Lila. It just explains the mechanisms behind it.”
“Well,” I say, leaning back in my seat and keeping my eyes mostly on the road, “since we’re talking about bodies detecting things they shouldn’t—what else does yours detect?”
Jonah’s head turns slowly toward me.
“I beg your pardon?”
“The body. Your body.” I shrug one shoulder, casual, like I’m asking about tire pressure. “You said your grandma could feel storms in her bones. You’ve got a whole Ph.D. in this stuff. So what else does yours pick up that your brain hasn’t gotten around to explaining yet?”
He stares at me.
I let the silence hang just long enough to be deliberate.
“Are you asking me that scientifically,” he says, very carefully, “or are you intentionally trying to derail this conversation?”
“That depends. Is the answer going to be boring or interesting?”
“Lila.”
“Professor.”
We hit a seam in the road and the truck bounces. Jonah’s hand flies to the dashboard to steady himself, and the laptop slides sideways on his knee. He catches it just before it topples, and I watch his forearm flex under the rolled sleeve of thehenley. Goddamn that henley. I am starting to kick myself for picking that our for him.
“Because if you’re going to tell me about joint pain and barometric pressure,” I say, “I’ll take the boring version. But if you’re going to tell me you can feel when someone’s looking at you from across a room—that’s the one I want.”
His fingers go freeze on the keyboard.
“You’ve been staring at me for the last forty-five minutes,” he says, almost to himself. “I’ve counted, but to answer your question scientifically the human body can feel pressure changes,” he says. “Humidity shifts. Static buildup before storms.” His eyes flick toward me briefly. “Elevated heart rate in high-stress environments.”
“Mm.” I glance at him sideways. “And what qualifies as a high-stress environment for you?”
The look he gives me is almost suspiciously steady this time. “You, apparently.”
“I see,” I say, sounding impressively casual given that my heart has just launched itself into a solid fifteen beats per minute above my usual resting rate. I grip the wheel a little tighter. “So my presence is scientifically measurable as a stress event.”
“That’s one way to phrase it.”
“And you can feel this. Without instruments.”
“Yes.”
We’re quiet for maybe twenty seconds of highway. I watch a dark, distant thunderhead climbing higher in my side mirror.
“So what’s the hypothesis?” I ask. “About why that happens?”
He closes his laptop entirely now, which feels significant. Sets it on the floorboard at his feet.
“I’m working on that,” he says. His voice has dropped into a register that does something unhelpful to my breathing.
“Still collecting data?”
“That’s usually the first step.”
Outside the windshield, towering clouds are beginning to rise along the horizon, darkening slowly as the atmosphere starts winding itself tighter over the Texas plains.
Finally. Something complicated I actually understand.
“Look there,” I say, nodding toward the developing towers. “See how the anvil's already starting to form?”
