“Turn back around,” he said, the smoky and severe tone returned. I jumped in my skin, and turned quickly, holding my shirt against my body.Īxel hovered over me. I looked for a place to put down my shirt so I wouldn’t get soda on some notebook or his other clothes.Ī hand touched briefly at my shoulder blade. I inspected my bra, checking for wet spots but didn’t see any so thought I could keep it on. I bent over a little, slipping the white tank top off. If he could parade naked in front of me, I wasn’t going to pretend to be that modest about him seeing my back and butt. I was wearing a pretty modest bra and panties. ![]() He started threading his arms through the sleeves. This should be long enough.” He passed the shirt to me and then snatched another one in a deep green color, and stepped out of the closet, turning around. “Will you stop being nosy for a minute?” He yanked a black button up shirt off of one of the hangers. “Is that a diving suit? What’s that shotgun for?” Shirts and jeans and other clothes hung up along the two racks on either side, but I got distracted by some of the equipment in the back. There were boxes along the floor on either side and cartons of notebooks and folders and more textbooks on the shelves. His closet was as big as the tiny bathroom we had at the hotel. “Come here and find a shirt you can wear. “No shit.” He moved back to the closet, flicking the light on. “If you’re that smart, why the hell are you picking pockets?” Those don’t glow on their own naturally, do they? Or is it a new breed?”Ī dark eyebrow shifted. Are they supposed to do that? No, that has to be a genetic manipulation. It looked like a couple of your fish started to do it, too, while the light was out. “Scorpions glow all weird under a black light. Axel’s face carried a softer, interested smile. There was a movement and the light flicked back on again. “And the frogs? You’re studying glowing animals? “Is that why you’ve got the scorpion?” I asked. I stopped the movement of my hand, letting the light fade in the tank. Most girls I’ve met usually hate it when I talk about science.” “They let me take my GED early so I could get out and take care of my younger brother after my mom died,” I said. “I thought you dropped out of school,” he said. I wondered if it was because I interrupted him. “Defense mechanism? That’s why you have to shake them up to see it?”Īxel studied me quietly. “Bioluminescence,” I said, excited by the idea he had this in his bedroom. The tiny creatures in that tank get that glow effect from. “Certain creatures have unusual reactions to different environments. If I stared hard enough, I thought I could see the little things clustering against the rocks, illuminating together. I did, feeling the smoothness of the water passing by my fingers, and playing with the level of the glow depending on how quickly my hand moved. “Holy crow,” I breathed, as if speaking out loud would stop the reaction. The more violently he shook our hands, the brighter the glow became. It was faint, like glow-in-the-dark stickers, but it was there. He moved our hands together, shaking up the water.Ī glow emanated from the water. ![]() He stopped when both of our hands were inside. With that, he lowered our joined hands into the coolness of the water in the seemingly empty tank.Ī shiver went through my spine, but it wasn’t totally from the chill of the water. ![]() “Here,” he said, his voice as quiet and as calm as ever. He held my arm out with his to hover over the tank, and then as if reconsidering, moved to take my hand in his, his palm to the back of my hand, intertwining our fingers. If my heart could quiver and then stop and relax at the same time, that’s exactly how he made me feel. His thumb trailed over the underside, right below my palm, in a reassuring motion. Health Insurance in the United States for Unemployed Citizens
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