Page 23 of Honeyfires

The flush started at her throat and climbed upward. Her eyes didn't leave mine, but they went a shade darker, that particular darkness I was already learning meant I'd hit something true.

"That's a very confident thing to say," she managed.

"Occupational hazard."

"You're very calm about this."

"One of us should be."

She laughed, a short, undone sound, and pressed two fingers to her lips like she was containing something. Her knee nudged mine again. "And if I have ideas of my own?"

"You can tell me all about them." I let that sit for exactly one second. "And then I'll tell you what we're actually doing."

Her eyes went fully dark. The flush completed its journey to her cheeks. She picked up her sandwich, put it down, and picked it up again.

"You're not what I expected," she said.

"What did you expect?"

"Someone less—" She gestured, vaguely, at me. All of me. "—this."

"That's not an explanation."

"You know exactly what I mean." She finally took a bite of her sandwich, chewed, set it down. "The tattoos suggest a certain—"

"Don't finish that sentence in a direction that ends with you calling me a softie."

"I was going to say intensity." Her eyes were laughing. "But now I'm curious about the softie theory."

"We'll table it."

"We will not." She leaned forward, mirroring me, and dropped her voice to something that matched mine. "Because I think you are, actually. I think underneath the extremely effective, intimidating firefighter exterior, you're someone who's going to take very good care of me." She held my gaze. "And I think that's why you want to be in charge. Not because you want control. Because you want to give something."

I looked at her for a long moment.

She looked back, composed and warm and entirely too perceptive.

"Like I said," I said finally. "Terrifying."

The smile she gave me at that was slow and luminous and went straight through me like a current. "Thank you."

"It wasn't a compliment."

"I'm choosing to take it as one." She stole my untouched water glass, took a sip, and handed it back. "Three and a half hours," she said. "My shift ends at four-thirty."

"That's a monumental eternity."

"Mm." She took another bite of her sandwich. "Whatever will you do with yourself."

"Suffer," I said. "Possibly dramatically."

She considered this. "You could take the long way around the outskirts. The red rock formations are nice in the afternoon light." She looked at me sideways. "I know you must ride when you need to think."

"You've been reading me too closely."

"Library science." Serene. Unrepentant. "We observe."

"I'll be back at four-thirty," I said. "On the dot."