Eye of the Sh*t Storm by Jackson Ford (most romantic novels .txt) 📕

wasn’t the right decision. That kid doesn’t deserve to get locked up in a facility, like I was. He doesn’t deserve any of it.”

“I get that,” he says. “But it didn’t have to be that simple. We could have found a way to hand him over and keep him safe. Tanner’s not above the law, and—”

A frustrated groan hisses out of me. “You still don’t get it.”

“Oh, come on. If—”

“No.” I talk over him. The tears are on my face now, warm against my skin. “You’re so convinced you’re right that you don’t even consider the possibility that you might not be. You say you’re sorry for what went down at the stadium, but I don’t think you really get it. It’s like after the quake, when you told me I was selfish for not helping out.”

“Teags, I apologised for that.”

“You’re sorry for how you said it, sure. But deep down, you still think you were right. Don’t you?”

He’s about to protest – his leg muscles actually tense, like he’s about to leap to his feet. But then he subsides, looking away. Hands knotted in his lap.

Lucille returns, Leo at her side. Annie must still be doing her thing. Nic flashes him a questioning thumbs-up, which Leo returns with a grin. “I saw a ’gator!” he says.

“Lizard.” Lucille rolls her eyes.

“But it was a really big one.”

She and Leo shuffle over to the fire, both of them arguing good-naturedly. Nic stares at Leo’s back, his jaw clenched.

He sighs, tilting his head back and massaging his neck. As he does so, the light from the fire catches his face, highlighting it.

I’m not big on nostalgia. There’s a lot I miss about my life pre-Tanner – I miss riding with my sister, talking with my brother, eating my dad’s cooking and getting hugged by my mom – but I don’t spend all my time missing it, if that makes sense. It could never last, and I think I knew that, even before the government scooped me up. Those memories are like keepsakes on a shelf. I can take them down whenever I want them, turn them over in my hands, put them back knowing they’ll always be there.

What I do miss – and I didn’t really understand it, not until this second – is Nic.

I miss getting dinner with him, both of us diving headlong into whatever weird Cambodian or Peruvian or Japanese dish gets put in front of us. I miss his laugh. I miss how he looked at me, before he knew about my ability: the contentment in his eyes, because I was his friend and he was mine.

And I want us to be more than that. I always have.

The Zigzag Man keeps making me see Jonas Schmidt. I don’t fully understand how his ability works – it’s as if he reaches into your mind, and makes you envision your innermost thoughts. Let’s not sugar-coat this: clearly, I have major feelings for Jonas. But I have major feelings for Nic, too. And when you get down to it, really get down to it, he’s the one I want to spend my life with.

There’s so much that’s happened between us. It’s piled up and piled up, stacking a mile high between us, all of the shit we’ve been through and all of the shit we’ve said to each other. We have both acted like douche-nozzles.

Well, no more. I’m tearing that fucking pile down. I’m setting it on fire, then bulldozing it into the Pacific. As a rapper wiser than me once said, you don’t try to find the needle in a haystack; you burn the haystack down and pick the needle from the ground.

And shit, wasn’t that whole song about leaving the past behind? Seth Sentry. Langolier’s Banquet.

I never played it for Nic. Maybe I should. I think he’d understand.

“Let’s start over,” I tell him.

“Huh?”

“When this is done.” I nod to Leo. “When he’s… when he gets to where he needs to go. Let’s just start from scratch.”

“What does that even mean?”

“Dinner. You and me. Somewhere with really good food – like, really good food.”

“Is there even anywhere left in LA for—?”

“And we take everything that’s happened with us, and we just pretend it never did. Like we’re meeting for the first time.”

“How would we even do that?” he says, laughing.

I hold out my hand. “Hi. My name’s Teagan. I can move shit with my mind, but I like eating, and listening to rap music, and… and lying in bed on the weekends with a cup of coffee. I drive a shitty old Jeep and I love living in LA, even though the traffic sucks ass. What’s your name?”

“Come on, man. Start from scratch? I don’t even… How would it work if…?”

I don’t say anything. I don’t know how it would work, not really. But it feels like the right decision.

He looks down at my hand – and suddenly, I’m not sure I’ve done the right thing.

Because I can guess what he’s thinking. He’s looking at all the things I’m trying to draw a line under. All the shit we’ve been through together. The horrible things we’ve said to each other. The wrecked apartments and gunfights. The text messages that were never answered, the calls that weren’t picked up.

He’s thinking: can we really pretend all of that never happened? Is this person genuinely suggesting we just ignore it?

My hand hangs in the air, trembling.

His eyes meet mine. Hold my gaze.

And then, slowly, his fingers wrap around mine.

“Hey, Teagan,” he says, still kind of laughing, like he can’t believe we’re doing this. “I’m Nic. Nic Delacourt. It’s nice to meet you.”

I squeeze his hand. He squeezes back.

And neither of us let go.

FORTY-ONEReggie

The cab drops Reggie at the dead end of San Carlos Street, just south of Rosecrans. There’s not much there. A few sad-looking houses, some of them boarded up and lifeless. A pick-up parked at the end of the street, dusty with disuse. Beyond the cul-de-sac, there’s