She laughs under her breath, throatier than before. “You’re so obnoxious.”
“You keep showing up.”
“Because we’reengaged, remember?”
“Wrong word.”
“Temporarily engaged.”
“Fake engaged.”
“Semantics.” She waves it away. “Anyway, I brought you that so you remember not everyone burns.”
I go still.
She realizes what she said a half-second too late. I watch it hit her—her bright expression flickers, like she stepped where she didn’t mean to.
“Clay, I didn’t—I just meant?—”
“I know what you meant,” I say, voice lower. “And you’re wrong.”
Her brows knit. “About what?”
“Everything burns.”
For a second, the clowning drops out of her eyes. There’s that look I saw last night at the bonfire, the one she tried to drown in sugar and jokes—loss, deep and familiar. It hits something in me I don’t want hit.
She looks like she wants to argue. She always does.
Instead, she takes a breath. “Then maybe some of us are supposed to,” she says quietly. “Maybe that’s how we get warm.”
Christ.
I have to look away.
Because that line? That’s the kind of soft-hearted, reckless poetry that gets a man killed. Gets him making mistakes. Gets him reaching.
And I don’t reach.
Not anymore.
Before I can redirect, I hear footsteps and a too-amused voice from the doorway. “Well, if it isn’t Firehouse Fiancées,” Gabe calls. “We get donuts or just Clay gets pottery?”
Ember brightens like someone plugged her in. “Hey, Gabe! I brought art.”
Gabe grins. “You bring anything that doesn’t get broken in five minutes?”
“A good time.”
He barks a laugh. “I like her.”
I glare at him. “Don’t you have reports?”
“Already done.”
Ember props her hip against the bench, casual as hell. “Don’t let me keep you from an Important Fireman Meeting.”
“I won’t.”
