“Not even close.”
She pushes off the bench and slips out from under my arm, all fast, slippery fox. Grabs her bag. Looks back.
“Enjoy your mug, Fireman,” she says, eyes flicking to the red glaze. “It’s heat-safe. Like you.”
“Ember—”
But she’s already walking backward, grin too big for this building. “Don’t break it,” she sings. “Or my heart. They’re kind of a matching set.”
Then she spins and leaves, boots clacking on the bay floor like she belongs here.
The door rolls down behind her.
Silence rushes in.
I look at the mug.
FIREPROOF HEART.
My thumb runs over it again.
I don’t smile.
I don’t.
But I feel something ease that hasn’t eased in a long fucking time.
I make it about four hours before I cave and use the thing.
I tell myself it’s because my old mug is chipped.
I tell myself it’s because Ember will 100% ask me about it later and I don’t wanna have to say it sat in a cupboard.
Truth?
I want her hands on my hands.
I rinse it, fill it with black coffee, and stand at the bay door watching late afternoon bleed over Copper Mountain, mug warm in my palm. The guys rag me about it, of course.
“Cute cup, Walker.”
“Aw, did your fiancée make you a love potion?”
“Where’s ours?”
I tell them all to shut up.
They don’t.
They never do.
But they stop when the Gazette article drops.
My phone pings around five. Then again. Then again. Then again.
I pull it from my pocket, thumb over the screen, and there it is:
LOVE FROM THE ASHES: COPPER MOUNTAIN FIREFIGHTER SAVES HIS BRIDE
