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But there’s also Orlie.
He’s focused very intently on the book he’s reading. And each time he turns the page, he has to lick his fingers, making an ugly slick sound that grates down my spine.
I try to ignore it, but I just can’t. “Do you have to do that?”
Orlie lifts his eyes. His face is as apathetic as it always has been. Until I started catching his smiles. Some part of me still craves one of those smiles, even though I’m one hundred and ten percent done with whatever Orlie and I were for the past week. “Do what?”
“The licking your fingers thing. It’s…annoying.”
“I need to be able to turn the page.”
“Normal people turn the page without licking their fingers.”
“When have you ever considered me a normal person, Kira?” The tone of his voice as he asks that question causes a shiver down my spine, this time not from my body temperature. “And besides, you’re the one there crunching on chips with your mouth open.”
I gape. “I do not chew with my mouth open!”
“You were just a minute ago.”
I look down at my half-eaten plate and put it on the coffee table as if it’s diseased. “I don’t.”
“You did.”
“Oh my god, you’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“An obvious only child.”
He rolls his eyes and returns to his book.
I go grab the radio from the kitchen. It has a hand crank to generate power, good in an emergency such as this. I start to turn the crank, desperate to hear a voice other than Orlie’s even if just for a minute.
“What are you doing?”
“Want updates on the storm.”
“Newsflash: It’s still raining.”
I growl, throwing the radio down on the couch, and heading to the window to look out at the property. The acreage is already swamped. We can’t take much more of this.
“Kira, stay away from the windows, alright?”
“Don’t tell me what to –”
A major flash of lightning followed immediately by thunder sends the windows shaking harder than they have all day. I leap back, letting out a terrified squeal, and land right in Orlie’s arms.
He pulls me into his chest for a prolonged moment. My body melts as if nothing happened last night. As if we never got into an argument to begin with. His embrace feels like home.
“I told you, stay away from the windows,” he murmurs.
I push him off abruptly. He can’t let a nice thing be nice for one fucking second. “I told you, don’t tell me what to do.”
“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t being so difficult,” he says and reaches for my wrist to pull me away from the window.
“Don’t touch me!”
Orlie raises his hands in the air and glares to the side. “God, why are you being like this?”
