Jackson
I was always learning something new about my wife. I knew she loved the rain. I knew she got excited by lightning and thunder. I just thought she was a fan of thunderstorms.
Then I experienced Marley in her native habitat and realized that there was a whole part of my wife that I didn't know at all.
Because I'd never experienced a proper thunderstorm in the dead of summer. It was impossible to know this fundamental part of Marley, this essential strand of DNA, until I did.
All it took was her sister, Elora, getting married at home on Calusa Key.
"Are you sure we aren't going to die?" I asked for the fifth or sixth time.
"We're fine," Marley laughed.
Laughed! In the middle of a torrential thunderstorm. While we were mostly exposed inside an elementary school baseball dugout. Lightning sizzled the air all around us, raining down like Zeus was seriously pissed at this island for existing.
I jumped each time thunder rattled the air, which was pretty constantly. It was loud. I covered my ears. I had never experienced anything like this. Lightning lit up the sky in different patterns. One second it arced through the clouds, the next bolts struck the ground, repeating and dazzling my eyes. The thunder was so deep it rattled my chest. I was often reminded that Mother Nature was powerful.
Never like this.
But Marley just sat there on the bench, her legs swinging as she grinned up at the light show. "Welcome, Jackson. You've finally met my home. She's been polite for you up until now."
I flinched again as lighting streaked across the sky. "So this is the real Florida?"
"Yup. Afternoon thunderstorms are the norm."
"But," I waved a hand at the sky and thought better of it. Best not to tempt Zeus. "This is intense!" I could feel the electricity dancing on my skin.
She shrugged. "Normal. It's," she grabbed my wrist and checked my watch, "4:37pm. Right on time."
I blinked at her several times. "On time?" I yelled. "You knew this was going to happen? Why didn't we go back to the resort earlier?"
She just laughed and shook her head. "Oh Jackson. It can rain at any point in the afternoon. Just depends on the heat and humidity. Maybe the sea breeze that day. What are we supposed to do? Sit at home all day?"
"Yes!"
She patted the bench beside her. The metal bench. "Jackson. Honey. I knew it was about to rain. That's why I pulled us in here. We could have stayed in the car but then you wouldn't get the full experience."
I scowled up at the black clouds. Just before she suggested we pop into the dugout, the sky had been blue. "But how did you know it was going to rain?"
"I'm psychic. The daughter of Poseidon." She rolled her eyes. "How do you know all the stuff you know about the mountains?"
Okay, she had me there. "I grew up with it," I grumbled, knowing she was right and I needed to calm down and let her be my guide for a change.
"Exactly. I could feel the air changing and looked up."
At the clouds? "The sky was blue."
"No, it was blue over there. It was black behind us."
My mouth opened and closed a few times. "But...that makes no damn sense."
"It's how weather works down here. It can be raining cats and dogs on one side of the street and sunny on the other. It will rain and throw lightning down and rattle the air and twenty minutes later there won't be a cloud in the sky."
I hated how she sounded exactly like me, but saying words that didn't make sense to me. "If you tell me there are a dozen different kinds of rainstorms, I'm out."
"But the lightning is still too close by."
Fuck, did that mean there were a dozen different kinds of rainstorms? "All right, Ranger Marley. You win." I wrapped an arm around her and settled the fuck down.
She snuggled into my side, wrapping her arms around my waist. "This is a normal afternoon storm. Powerful. Electric. Like a mini hurricane."
It was incredible how you could feel the energy in the air. So much potential in one small area. Like a weather bomb ready to detonate. And then when it did, chaos.
The fronds on the palm trees whipped in the wind and their tall, long trunks waved back and forth. I could barely even see the palmettos through the torrential rain. I hoped all those ospreys Marley pointed out to me were okay up in that nest.
"There are larger storm systems that aren't quite so powerful and they rain down on us for hours. Sometimes days. And all of that is totally different from the storms you've experienced in the winter. That's our dry season."
Now I understood why Marley said they only had two seasons down here: wet and dry. The temperature changes were negligible. There was no changing of the leaves. No animals leaving for the winter. It was always the same, except for the amount of rain they got.
"I understand why you're a rain aficionado now." I thought I knew. I was naïve. Uneducated. I felt bad that I hadn't pushed for us to spend more time here in the summer. ODX had taken up so much of my brain space that I had let it consume me. "We should take a vacation here every summer. Not just for a wedding."
She sat up with a frown. "But it's your busiest season."
"And this is part of you. Marley, you're shivering. And it's not because you're cold. It's because that electricity," I pointed at the sky, "is in your blood. You need this time to reconnect with it."
The storm was already moving off, just like she predicted. The lightning wasn't on top of us anymore but she still had a full body reaction when it lit up the sky. Everything about her relaxed when the thunder rolled in. "Maybe you have a point. I love it when it rains all day back home and I can sit on our deck and just be one with it, but I do miss the thunderstorms."
I kissed the top of her head. "It's good for me to take time away from ODX."
"Eric certainly doesn't mind."
Her brother might love ODX as much as Travis and I did. "Too bad he couldn't take over this week."
"That just gives us an excuse to slip away another time." She ran her fingers over my stomach and I suddenly wished we were back at our bungalow.
"I definitely need to take advantage of that more than I do." Sometimes it was hard to separate work from life since my work was what I loved doing.
Other than being with Marley, of course.
"Well then I will happily accept an annual dose of proper Florida weather."
I kissed her. Hands in her hair, breasts pushed up against me, hips wiggling to straddle me. "Eric can play around at ODX and annoy Travis."
"Perfect." She took my face in her hands and kissed me deeper. "Do you remember how we celebrated our wedding?"
"You mean how I made sure you could feel me all day long?" I smoothed my hands over her ass and gave it a good, firm squeeze.
"I think it's probably best if we do that again. For luck and all. Elora is going to need it."
Spending a few hours naked with my wife? The things we sacrifice for love. "If we must, we must."
She hopped off my lap, as beautiful as ever, but a little different. More...mischievous. "Take me to bed, Cowboy."
I tipped my invisible hat. "Anytime, anywhere, anyway."
"Jackson," she sighed.
"Marley," I teased.
She smacked my ass. "Get in the car before I jump you right here."
"I will happily get arrested for indecent exposure if it's what you want."
She looked up at me, a mix of amused and aroused and annoyed. "I want you in bed. Now."
I picked her up and raced to the waiting car.
We were only a little late to the wedding.
©2026 by Alexis Sykes
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