Ember doesn’t speak. Doesn’t fill the space with apologies or pity. She just slides off the tailboard, thanks Gabe, and walks straight for me like she’s decided forward is the only direction left.
“Clay,” she says.
I move past her. “Drill at fifteen hundred, Quinn. Don’t be in the way.”
“Hey,” she says, catching my sleeve. “Look at me.”
I do. And I hate that it matters—her eyes on me like cool water, steady hands on a man who forgot what steady felt like.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says.
The words scrape. I ease my arm out of her hold. “Go home, Ember.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That I heard it from him.”
“Doesn’t matter who said it.” I pull open the bay door to let the wind cut the heat out of me. “Doesn’t change a damn thing.”
I don’t mean to show up at her rental.
I tell myself I’m there because the night is dropping below twenty and the text she sent saidheater out againwith an ice cube emoji. I tell myself it’s easier to fix it than read the town Facebook group arguing over whether my “fiancée” needs space heaters or a miracle, because apparently she posted in there too. I tell myself it’s my duty.
It’s a lie.
I show up because she heard holy ground and didn’t run.
I rap twice on the cabin door, knuckles against cheap wood, and the door swings open on a rush of cold and citrus. Ember’s hair is twisted up, loose strands curling near her collarbone, and she’s swimming in a sweater the color of old smoke. Bare legs. Wool socks. Bare legs.
“Clay.” She steps back to let me in. “You didn’t have to come.”
“I’d never leave you out in the cold,” I say before I can stop myself.
Her mouth tips. It’s not a smile; it’s something softer, something that says she heard what I didn’t mean to give away and she’s putting it in her pocket for later. “The thermostat clicks,” she says. “But the heater just coughs like a dying dragon and then gives me the middle finger.”
I follow her down the basement stairs. The little rental is a patchwork—found rugs, a chipped table, a clay wind chime that sings when the door opens and freezes when it shuts. Ember in a house is like a candle in a jar: everything takes on the warmth, whether it deserves it or not.
The furnace sulks against cinderblock. I kill the power, pop the panel, and crouch. Dirty flame sensor, easy fix. I pull a rag from my back pocket and rub the carbon off, hands working on muscle memory while my mind keeps playing that tailboard scene on repeat.
Dani, I can hear Gabe say again. And the waiting.
“Will it live?” Ember asks from the stairs, hugging her arms like she’s not sure if she’s cold or just braced.
“It’ll try,” I say, slotting the sensor back and tightening the screw. “Filters are in the coat closet. Behind the avalanche of coats. Bring me one.”
She pads off, socks silent. I stand, listen to the quiet of a house that doesn’t know us yet. The kind that will, if we’re stupid enough to let it.
She returns with a filter and a breath that fogs. I take both.
“I’m sorry,” she says while I slide metal into metal. “About earlier.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“It felt wrong. Hearing your story like that. I wanted you to tell me. Or not tell me. But get to decide.”
I snap the panel closed. “Gabe doesn’t always think before he shares.”
“Sounds familiar.” The corner of her mouth lifts. “I do that too.”
“You do it louder,” I say, hitting the power. The furnace hesitates, then wakes with a low hum. The flame catches, steady. “There we go.”
