The rain came without warning.
One moment, the air was thick with the promise of another Southern night, and the next, the sky split open like a cracked drum, pouring down sheets of summer rain.
Ellie was sitting on the porch swing, notebook on her lap, her bare legs curled under her, the scent of storm-thick air all around her. The lights flickered once, then steadied. Thunder rolled low, distant but drawing closer.
And then she heard it. Tires on gravel.
She rose, heart in her throat.
Out of the curtain of rain came Jack, stepping down from his truck, his white T-shirt soaked through in seconds, clinging to him like second skin. His hair was wet, rain trickling down his temples, and his jaw was clenched like he'd wrestled with the decision to come and lost—gladly.
He didn't say anything as he stepped onto the porch. Neither did she.
For a moment, all Ellie could do was stare. He looked untouchable and undone at once.
"Didn't think you'd come," she whispered.
"I didn't plan to," he said, voice low and rough.
She swallowed. "Why did you?"
Jack's eyes lifted to hers—full of hesitation and heat.
"Because I couldn't stop thinking about you sitting here... alone... writing things I'll never read."
She felt the breath leave her lungs.
He took a small step forward, not touching her. Just... closer.
"I keep trying to forget the way you look at me," he said. "But I can't."
Ellie's throat tightened. "Do you want to forget?"
Jack's silence was answer enough.
The porch creaked as he moved beside her, sitting slowly on the swing. His arm brushed hers. Just barely.
But the warmth of it was enough to make her skin sing.
They sat like that for a while—silent, except for the rain and their breathing.
"I don't know how to be around you," Jack admitted, his voice quieter now. "I don't remember how to want something like this. Something soft."
Ellie turned toward him, her knees drawn up on the swing.
"You don't have to do anything," she said. "Just let it be quiet. Let it be easy."
He looked at her. Really looked. And something inside him bent—not broke, just bent gently toward her, like a tree finally leaning into the sun.
She reached out and touched his hand. Just one finger. A soft press against the back of his knuckles.
He didn't pull away.
"You don't scare me," she whispered.
"I scare myself," he admitted.
Ellie's fingers moved into his palm. He closed his hand slowly around hers, and the world seemed to still, the rain a lullaby now, not a storm.
Their hands rested between them, locked in a soft, trembling kind of prayer.
Then Jack spoke again, barely a breath.
"You make me feel like I could be good again."
Ellie blinked back the burn in her eyes.
"You already are."
Jack didn't kiss her.
Not yet.
But the way his thumb moved over hers—the slow, unspoken tenderness of it—said more than any lips could have.
That night, he stayed on the porch swing until the rain stopped.
He didn't go inside.
He didn't need to.
Because something had already happened—something deeper than skin and louder than silence.
They had touched souls. And nothing would be the same after that