10. Jonah #2
“You good?” Lila asks, breaking the silence between us.
“I’m processing,” I say after a long moment.
“Which part?”
“All of it,” I admit. “I’ve seen damage before, but not like that.”
I stare at the rain-streaked windshield, the wipers creating a rhythm that matches Max's increasingly thunderous snores from the backseat. Each rumbling exhale sounds almost comically loud for a dog his size.
“That’s the part photos in a presentation don’t teach,” Lila says quietly, her focus fixed on the road ahead.
“The human cost. What it’s like to stand in what used to be someone’s kitchen, or bedroom, or nursery, and it’s just gone.
Today, you saw the other side of it. The best-case scenario. They’re not always that lucky.”
“Have you…”
Her grip tightens on the steering wheel.
“I was first on scene after an F4 hit a small community in western Kansas. The ambulance was forty minutes out. There was this old man pinned under a support beam…” She swallows.
“Sometimes all you can do is hold someone’s hand and tell them it’s okay to let go. ”
“How do you do it? Keep going back after seeing things like that?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Her attention stays on the rain-slick road. When she finally speaks, her tone is softer than I’ve ever heard it.
“Because the alternative is worse,” she says. “Because every warning that gets people to shelter in time means one less hand I have to hold while they die.”
“Proving my models can help with that,” I offer.
Lila nods, some of the tension easing from her shoulders. “That's why, despite all your stuffiness, I agreed to this partnership.”
I smile at that, recognizing the teasing for what it is—her way of pulling us back from the edge of too much vulnerability.
“I'm not stuffy,” I protest mildly.
She shoots me a look that’s equal parts amusement and disbelief.
“You’re right,” I admit with a quiet laugh. “I’m incredibly stuffy. Lucas likes to remind me that I once organized my bookshelf by the Dewey Decimal System. For fun.”
Lila’s laughter bursts through the truck cab, bright and genuine and completely unrestrained. I’ve heard her laugh before—short little huffs of amusement when she’s teasing me, low chuckles when Lucas said something ridiculous—but not like this. This is different. Full-bodied. Warm. Real.
And God, it does something catastrophic to me.
The sound fills the small space between us. I catch myself staring at her before I can stop it.
The way her eyes crinkle at the corners. The way she tips her head back when she laughs hard enough. The flash of teeth behind a grin that looks entirely too good aimed in my direction.
It hits me suddenly that I would probably spend an embarrassing amount of effort trying to make her laugh like that again.
“Please tell me you’re joking,” she says, glancing away from the road just long enough to catch my eye.
The smile lingering on her mouth almost knocks coherent thought clean out of me.
“I wish I were.”
“Oh my God.” She laughs again, softer this time. “You really are a giant nerd.”
“I prefer ‘academic.’”
“No, no.” She shakes her head, smiling. “Academic was gone the second you admitted you reorganized books recreationally.”
“It was objectively more efficient.”
“You say things like that and then wonder why I call you Professor.”
I grin despite myself. “You say that like it’s an insult.”
“It’s not.” Her voice shifts , quieter now. “Honestly, it’s kind of…”
She trails off.
I look over at her. “Kind of what?”
Lila keeps her eyes on the road for a second too long before answering.
“Cute,” she mutters finally, like the word physically pains her to say.
Heat blooms instantly beneath my ribs. Lila notices immediately.
“Oh my God,” she says, delighted. “You’re blushing again.”
“I am not.”
“Jonah, your entire face just changed color.”
I drag a hand down my face while she grins triumphantly beside me.
This should not feel this good. Getting teased by her should not make me feel like my bloodstream has been replaced with static electricity.
And yet every time she looks at me like this—warm and amused and just a little too aware of me—I feel something inside me loosen that’s been locked down for years.
Lila glances at me again, smile softening .
“You know,” she says quietly, “I think I like you better when you stop trying so hard to sound composed all the time.”
The confession lands harder than flirting somehow. Because the way she says it feels honest. Like she’s not talking about the jokes anymore. Before I can figure out what to do with that, she smirks suddenly and adds, “Still judging the Dewey Decimal thing, though.”
I laugh helplessly, shaking my head.
And the sound of her joining in again feels a little too much like danger in the best possible way.
Max lets out another thunderous snore from the backseat, as if adding his opinion to our conversation. The sound reminds me of the responsibility I've just taken on—a living, breathing creature that depends on me now, however temporarily.
“You were right earlier. I have no idea what I'm doing with him,” I confess, gesturing toward the sleeping dog. “I don't even know what he eats.”
“So you’ve really never owned a pet before?”
“Correct.”
“Not even a hamster?”
“No.”
“A cactus?”
“I killed a succulent once. It was a gift from a student who said she thought I was lonely and needed a friend.”
She exhales slowly. “Incredible. Truly. And yet you saw an abandoned tornado dog and thought, Yes. I, a man with no track record of keeping anything alive, should assume responsibility.”
“When you say it like that, it sounds crazy.”
“If the, hey let’s take in a stray dog after a tornado, boot fits…”
Max snores loudly from the backseat, completely oblivious to the fact that he currently smells like wet fur, dust, and gas station beef jerky.
I glance back at him sprawled across the seat, one oversized paw twitching in his sleep. “In my defense,” I say, “he looked like he needed someone.”
Lila studies me for a second before shaking her head slowly, fighting a smile.
“You are absolutely in over your head.”
Something about the way she says it makes warmth creep up the back of my neck, because I’m suddenly not entirely convinced she’s talking about the dog anymore.
I glance sideways at her. Sunlight cuts through the windshield in shifting bands, catching loose strands of dark hair the wind has pulled free around her face. She looks more relaxed than usual, one hand loose on the steering wheel, the corner of her mouth curved faintly upward from laughing at me.
“You know what your problem is?” she asks, glancing over at me briefly.
“I suspect you’re going to tell me regardless.”
“You spend so much time inside your own head that anything spontaneous completely wrecks you.”
“That feels harsh.”
“It’s accurate.” Her grin widens . “You adopted a stray dog in the middle of storm season.”
“He was limping.”
“And now you’re emotionally attached.”
I glance back at Max again. Unfortunately…she’s not wrong.
“He needed help and he followed me,” I mutter weakly.
“Oh, so that’s your weakness.” Lila smirks. “Big brown eyes and abandonment issues.”
I should not enjoy talking to her this much. That’s becoming increasingly clear. Because every conversation somehow slips into this rhythm between us—teasing and easy and charged underneath in ways I’m trying very hard not to examine too closely.
“You realize,” I say carefully, “you’re being remarkably judgmental for someone who named a drone after a porn star.”
Lila gasps softly. “First of all, Stormy Daniels is an icon.”
“In what field exactly?”
“The arts.”
I laugh despite myself, and her eyes flick toward me immediately like she likes hearing it. That realization lands harder than it should.
“You laugh more now,” she says quietly.
I blink. “What?”
She shakes her head, smiling to herself before looking back at the road. And for one dangerous second, watching her smile feels strangely domestic. Like this—her driving, me beside her, the dog snoring in the backseat—is something we’ve been doing together a lot longer than we actually have.
The thought hits me hard enough to steal my breath for a second.
Because I could get used to this far too easily.