I chuckle, resting my forehead against hers. “You’re trouble, Juniper Hayes.”
“Good thing you like trouble,” she whispers, her voice teasing and full of promise.
And for the first time, I let myself believe that maybe, just maybe, trouble is exactly what I need.
Chapter Seven
Juniper
“Are you always this broody?” I smirk.
He turns, his brows furrowing. “Are you always this chatty?”
I laugh, shrugging. “Only when I’m stuck in a tower with a moody mountain man. You’re like a bear that got woken up too early from hibernation.”
That earns me the faintest twitch of his lips, but he doesn’t take the bait. Instead, he crosses the room, sitting heavily in the chair opposite me. The tower groans under his weight, the metal beams protesting, but it’s probably just my imagination. Flint seems like the kind of guy who makes the world shift when he moves.
“How long have you been making movies?” he asks.
“For as long as I can remember. Even as a kid we had an old VHS recorder and I carried it with me everywhere. I never considered doing anything else.”
“You didn’t want to make big Hollywood blockbusters?”
“Never. I always wanted to make things that matter,” I admit.
His eyes narrow, and I can tell he’s thinking—really thinking. “And that’s enough for you? Just making people care?”
I hesitate, his question hitting a little too close to the parts of me I try to keep buried. “It’s not just about them. It’s about me too. It gives me… purpose.”
“Purpose,” he echoes, like he’s testing the word on his tongue.
“What about you?” I counter, leaning forward. “Why do you really do this? Risk your life every fire season?”
He runs a hand over his face, the stubble on his jaw rasping against his palm. For a moment, I think he won’t answer. Then, his voice drops, quieter than I’ve ever heard it.
“Because I couldn’t save them.”
The weight of his words settles over the room, pressing against my chest.
“Who?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t look at me, his gaze fixed on some invisible point beyond the walls. “In the military. There was a school... kids inside. Someone strapped a bomb to themselves and walked right in. We didn’t know. By the time we got there, it was chaos.”
I don’t breathe, afraid the wrong move might shatter the fragile moment.
“I went in. There was a little girl, maybe six or seven, hiding under a desk. I got her out, but…” His voice cracks, just for a second. “Not everyone made it.”
“Flint…” I don’t know what to say.
He finally looks at me, his eyes burning with something raw and untamed. “That’s why I do this. Why I’ll spend every damn day fighting fires if it means no one else has to feel that kind of loss. Not on my watch.”
The air between us feels charged, like the static before a lightning strike. I want to reach for him, to close the gap and let him know he’s not alone in this, but I don’t. Not yet.
“What about you?” he asks, his tone softer now. “Why’re you here, really? What are you running from?”
I flinch, caught off guard by how easily he’s turned the spotlight on me. “Who says I’m running?”
He arches a brow. “You’ve got that look. Like someone who’s trying too hard to outrun something they can’t escape.”
