Chapter 16
Chapter sixteen
Jay
The storm rumbles in the distance. One minute it’s just a breeze, the next, it’s full-on thunder shaking the floorboards. Rain slashes against the glass in heavy, relentless sheets, and somewhere nearby, a car alarm starts up and dies just as fast, and our impromptu movie night is long forgotten.
Liv’s curled on the window ledge. I’ve never seen her move so fast as when that first thunder echoed. She’s perched with her knees tucked under her chin, watching the storm like it’s a film she’s seen a hundred times and still never gets bored of.
“I love this,” she says, turning to me with that wild glint in her eyes she sometimes gets.
A deafening thunder echoes, but it still sounds miles away. “You love this?”
“So much,” she says, already unfolding her legs and rising to her feet. “The sound, the energy. It makes everything feel alive.” She stretches her arms out to her sides like she’s trying to conduct the electricity in the air, fingers wiggling. “Don’t you feel it?”
I raise an eyebrow. “Most people think ‘alive’ means staying indoors where the lightning can’t turn them into human toast.”
She grins at me, full of teeth, all mischief that I’m learning is just her.
“When I was a kid, every time it stormed, my dad would let me stay up late. Mom hated any weather that wasn’t bikini weather, but not my dad.
We’d sit on the porch with hot chocolate, and he’d tell me stories of where lightning came from.
He said it was sky giants playing tag. That thunder was them laughing too loud, and lightning was the flash of their hands touching.
And when it really cracked? That was one of them falling over. ”
I laugh gently, picturing little Liv wide-eyed and believing every word.
“He told me clouds were just smoke from their campfires made by the giants,” she adds, a smile tugging at her lips. “And if I listened close enough between the thunder, I’d hear them telling secrets of how to find them.”
There’s a moment of silence as the storm rolls above the building, low and rumbling.
“I used to try so hard to catch a secret,” she murmurs, eyes scanning the sky again, her slender fingers leaving imprints on the glass.
“Thought if I stayed up late enough or was quiet enough, I’d hear them telling me where I could find them, and I’d become a princess in a castle.
” She looks at me then, a little flush coloring her cheeks. “I know it’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” I say, before she can retreat into a brush off. I want to say something—anything—but my brain’s still trying to catch up. Because I’ve never seen this version of Liv, either. Nostalgic and unguarded. Open without that armor she wears so easily.
“I want to go out,” she says suddenly.
“Is that a good idea?”
“Come on,” she pleads, stepping toward me, barefoot and dripping with anticipation. “Just for a minute. It’s not even dangerous.”
I stare at her chest and how it heaves harder than usual, then let my gaze move to her collarbones, where her pulse thrashes.
Before I can protest, her fingers are wrapped around mine in an instant, and she’s already dragging me toward the front door, like I was never going to say no. And maybe I wasn’t. Not sure I could to this girl.
“You’re completely insane,” I mutter, pulling on my hoodie and sneakers as she does the same, then yanks the door open.
“And you’re not,” she shoots back with a laugh. “So we balance each other out.”
Outside, the air hits us like a slap. The wind is cold, wet, and charged. The rain threatens to soak through my hoodie in seconds. But Liv doesn’t falter once.
She steps into the storm like she belongs to it, head tipped back, arms wide, letting it wash over her.
Her hair clings to her cheeks in dark, wet strands.
Her shirt is already plastered to her skin.
Her eyes are shut, mouth open in a grin that’s somehow brighter than the lightning that cracks overhead a second later.
And then she laughs, bright and breathless, reckless and full, and I swear it’s louder than the storm.
I stop on the steps and just watch her. Even though I know she wanted me to watch the storm, I can’t tear my eyes from her.
There’s an air of magic about her tonight.
A shimmer beneath the surface. A little wisp of something that seems to cling to her skin as she looks up to the sky, like the storm called her name and she’s answering.
She’s scanning the clouds with this restless sort of energy, waiting for something only she can see. Something that might arrive on the next thunderclap. Her eyes dart around with every rumble, completely undeterred by the rain soaking every inch of her.
It’s not just that she loves the storm. It’s that she looks like she belongs to it.
Like she’s made of the same volatile, electric stuff.
And I don’t know if she even realizes it, but watching her like this, where she’s lit by lightning, wind whipping around her like it wants to take her with it—it makes something shift deep in my chest.
It’s the first time I realize that maybe all the boldness, the flirting, the noise… it’s not a mask. It’s just her. She can be both, loud and soft. Lightning and stillness. All of it a juxtaposing storm that is her.
And maybe I’ve only been seeing half the picture.
Until now.
She isn’t just the bold, loud girl who crashed into my life with chaos. She’s also the one who holds onto memories like they’re anchors. Who believes storms are sky giants playing above us. Who laughs like it might be the last time. Who dares the sky to come at her and always stands tall.
She turns to me, water dripping off her nose, lips parted. “Worth it, right?” she calls, breath fogging the air between us.
And yeah. It is.