And the one who, despite falling harder for every single day over the past month since the lake, I haven’t uttered the words to yet. But I already know it in my bones.
I know it because I’d stand in the ashes of every bad thing that’s ever happened to me again, if it meant finding Penny still glowing at the end of it.
I pick up the thermos and feel the warmth through the metal, my thumb brushing absent circles against the lid she tightened this morning.
Ghost glances at me over the rim of his own cup. “You’re smiling.”
“I’m not.”
“You are,” Fletch says immediately. “It’s subtle, but it’s there. Like someone who’s regularly getting lai—”
“Don’t,” I cut in.
He grins wider. “—emotionally fulfilled.”
Colt barks a laugh. “Emotionally fulfilled. Jesus.”
Fletch leans forward on his elbows. “I’m just sayin’. You’ve got that look, like a man who’s had his lunch packed and his feelings validated.”
“Shut up,” I mutter, taking another sip and resting back in my chair.
The teasing rolls off easier than it used to, and I don’t feel like I have to guard it as much. I just let them talk.
Morning light filters through the rec room windows, catching dust in the air. Beck’s out front, going over the engine like he doesn’t trust any of us to do it properly, and Ghost’s scrolling something on his phone, only half-listening.
Everything feels calm.
A few months ago, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Waking up with a head full of to-dos, and bracing for more shit and struggles. Counting the ways things could go sideways before breakfast. I don’t wake up like that anymore.
I wake up with the weight of Penny curled into my side, with her hair everywhere and a leg thrown over mine. I wake up to Elle’s footsteps down the hallway and her happy laughter. Music.
The house feels full, and it’s a dangerous kind of comfortable, the kind where I want to suspend everything in time, just as it is. That makes you want to hold it in both hands and refuse to let anything touch it.
I drag my hand over my jaw and force my focus back to the room.
“So, Maplewood Cup’s only a few weeks off,” Colt says. “You playing or pretending your knee still hurts?”
I swing my leg back and forth. “My kneedoesstill hurt.”
“Sure it does.”
“How’d you do that again, Prince?” Fletch asks, waggling his eyebrows. “Was it during a highly competitive athletic maneuver, or during—”
“I swear toGod, Fletcher.”
Ghost smirks faintly. “He’s got better things to do now.”
Yeah, like my girlfriend.
A bell goes, but it’s not an alarm or the tones—it’s the station phone. The old landline on the wall. It doesn’t get used much anymore, not for any kind of emergency at least. But the partners of the firefighters here know it’s a quick way to talk to one of the crew if we’re not on callout, because we’re not always by our cells.
Colt reaches for it first. “Maplewood FD.”
There’s a beat, then his expression shifts, just slightly.
“Whoa, Rem. Slow down. Okay,okay—” He looks at me, then holds out the phone. “Remi.”
I push back from the table and cross the room, taking the receiver from him. Something tightens low in my gut before I even take the phone.
