Lightning Kissed by Lila Felix

answering, he hopped down from
the counter and began gathering his things. Theo’s foot was tapping
involuntarily.
    “Let’s go,” I prompted. His attitude toward
Collin was grating on my last nerve. It wasn’t in Theo’s
personality to not show appreciation. It also wasn’t like him to be
so bitter all the time. I counted on him for those things. He was
encouraging and mindful of good manners where I was jaded and
bitter.
    I didn’t like the shift of paradigm.
    Not one bit.
    Maybe it was my fault. I’d made him like
this—as much as one person can alter another’s personality.
    His glare bore down on me as I contemplated
how to get him back to his normal self. Probably more feelings and
emotional vomiting and shit.
    Theo handed me my bag. He took my hand,
showed me a quick visual, and offered a playful smile. “Wanna try
it together?”
    “No!” I wretched from his grasp. What was he
thinking? His hurt expression told me he thought it would be some
kind of bonus to this whole ordeal.
    I may have overreacted.
    Just a little.
    He flashed without me and before I followed,
I was enveloped by his wake, the tones displaying the emotions I
could already read by his sorrowful eyes and lips thinned in
disappointment. The colors were dark, muddy greens, murky like his
thoughts, no doubt.
    We arrived in the middle of the picture he’d
shown me. My landing feet tapped on the teakwood floors. I groped
Theo’s shoulders for balance, nearly toppling us both over. It
wasn’t the most graceful of landings. Certainly not one for the
books.
    “Sorry,” I shifted, regaining my
footing.
    “Don’t ever apologize for using me to steady
yourself,” he said in a faint whisper.
    There was too much meaning between our words
lately. Everything was a double entendre.
    “So this is Tibet.” I made a three sixty.
The home was sparse but beautiful. Everything was built of the same
teakwood. I gave myself a tour of the place while Theo stood on the
porch which overlooked the landscape of peaks and valleys. The
further into the house I went, the cooler it got. And when I
reached the very back wall of the home, I realized why. The wall
wasn’t a wall at all. It was a solid sheet of mountainous rock. The
home wasn’t built on the side of a mountain as I’d first guessed.
It was built into the mountain.
    The house boasted three large bedrooms and
one bathroom that rivaled some modern ones in the States.
    I crossed through the living room and went
through the sliding doors. Theo hadn’t moved from his previous
position. I sidled up to him and made a childish attempt to make
conversation by pushing his shoulder with mine.
    “If it’s not okay, we can find somewhere
else,” he said imperviously.
    “Come on. I’m not that bad, am I?”
    His lack of answer was my answer.
    “I am not high maintenance.”
    He cut me a look that argued otherwise.
    “Name one thing that makes me high
maintenance.”
    Theo turned in my direction and began to
tick off reasons on his fingers. “The soap, the Slush Puppies, the
dresses, the bikinis, the shoes, the shampoo, the fingernails,
the…”
    “Okay, okay.” Maybe he had a point.
    Doubt crawled into my heart. This wasn’t
exactly the kind of mission for a newly discovered fickle girl like
me. Did he need some stealthy woman with highly attuned senses and
at least decent manners?
    “I’ll try not to be,” I swore the oath to
myself more than him.
    He squeezed my waist and drew me in closer.
“You’re…particular. There’s nothing wrong with that. You know what
you want.”
    Again with the two-headed meanings.
    Everything became clouded in his presence. I
inhaled his exhales as if I survived on them. Had I mentioned how
divine his lips were? A freckle lay directly in the middle of his
bottom lip, and it beckoned me to relish once again in the feel of
his mouth and the things it did to me.
    “You can’t do this to me,” he begged.
    “Do what?”
    “Always making me wonder where we