Page 80 of Finding Storm

Nick looks up as I walk through the door. Our eyes seem to crash into each other’s. It makes me falter a step.

I walk toward the table. Putting down the glass first, I place three bottles on the coasters set around the table, and then I hand Nick’s bottle to him.

Our fingers touch, the barest hint. And I feel that touch everywhere. Like he just ran his hands all over my body.

“Thanks,” he says. His voice sounding lower, deeper, gruffer.

Does he feel it too? The way I feel when we touch?

I can’t be the only one feeling this way.

It’s like nothing I’ve experienced before.

It’s confusing and exhilarating. And absolutely fucking terrifying.

“I’m just gonna go help Gran with the food.” I thumb over my shoulder, taking a few steps back, unable to break eye contact with him.

In the end, I have to force myself to turn; otherwise, I’d have been walking backward the whole way to the kitchen, and that would have looked weird or obvious that I couldn’t take my eyes off the man.

Food is on plates when I go back in the kitchen, so I collect three plates, leaving Gran to carry two—mine and hers.

Gran opens the door with her hip, and I follow her into the dining room.

When we appear, Dad and Beck are seated at the table, chatting with Nick.

I walk over to the table, balancing the plates like a pro. The only problem when you’re carrying three plates is that it’s not easy to put them down gracefully.

When I’m near the table, Dad reaches out and takes one from my hand, putting it down on the table in front of him.

“Thanks, Daddy.”

I put Nick’s plate down in front of him, hand Beck’s over, and then take the only available seat next to Nick.

“This looks amazing,” Nick says to Gran.

She cooked them roast lamb. She’d already checked with Nick earlier to make sure he wasn’t vegetarian like me or had any dietary requirements.

“You’re not having the same?” Nick asks me, nodding down at my plate.

I’ve got a cranberry, feta, and quinoa–stuffed butternut squash instead of lamb.

“I’m vegetarian,” I tell him.

“Ah. So, the cigarette butt lecture makes more sense to me now.”

“Oh Christ. She’s lectured you about that as well?” Beck says, laughing. “After she read that damn article, we all got the lecture. She’s been tryna get me to go to a beach cleanup with her. But if I’m going to the beach, I’m chilling, not cleaning it up.”

“Have fun, lying on a beach surrounded by butts.”

I hear the words back right before Beck laughs and says, “Sounds like a perfect vacation to me, being surrounded by butts.”

Even Gran and Dad laugh. Nick too.

Ugh.

“You’re gross.”

“I’m fucking hilarious,” Beck says.