Page 9 of Sparks with the Firefighter

"I want—" I laugh, and it comes out shaky. "I don't know what I want. That was a lot."

"It was."

"Everyone in that arena thinks—" I shake my head at the thought.

"I know what they think. Let them."

I glance at him. He looks back, steady as the wall behind him, and he does not fill the silence. That's the thing about him. Thoran doesn't fill silences. I spent years with a man who filled every single one, who talked over the top of every hard thing until the hard thing gave up and went away.

He deserves to know what he’s getting into with me no matter how short lived our arrangement is, so this time, I fill the silence.

"I’ve only been divorced for about a year. Drew's dad lives in Peony Pointe. So he goes back and forth quite a bit," I say.

Thoran doesn't move.

"Two hours out. Or two hours back, depending on which direction you think I'm facing." I fold my arms. "It's the bigger town. Better schools and actual grocery stores, a vet who isn't also a taxidermist. Everybody up here says it like it's a place people move to."

"Some do, but I’ve been and I’m not impressed."

"I was one of them." I pick at a chip in the block wall with my thumbnail. "I married him at twenty-four. I did the books for his shop. I did the calls, the invoices, the ordering, all of it really. For nine years, I was the groomer and none of it had my name on it anywhere." I shrug. "That was fine. I told myself it was fine, because it was ours."

"And then it wasn't." There’s no judgement in his tone, just a genuine need to understand.

"And then it wasn't." I look up. "He didn't do anything dramatic, if that's what you're waiting for. There's no big story. He never wanted to be a dad. I think I thought he’d change his mind over time. Instead he just got smaller and smaller about me. Little corrections. Little jokes with an edge on them. And then one day I heard myself apologize for the way I laughed, and I thought, huh."

Thoran's jaw does something. But whatever it is, he keeps it there.

"He sees Drew when it's convenient," I say. "It's not often convenient."

"Drew told me that. First day, in about six words. Around the time I watched you put up the sign at your shop.”

"Yeah, well." My eyes sting and I blink it back. "My son is nothing if not efficient."

For a while there's nothing but the hum of the arena and a truck downshifting somewhere out on Main.

"You know the first sign I ever made?" I say, laughing at myself. "I found a piece of barn wood and pulled it out of a burn pile. I painted it by hand, at the kitchen table, at eleven at night, because that was the only time I had. Vivien's Grooming."

"How'd it turn out?"

"It was ugly, crooked." I'm smiling now and I can't stop. "But I loved it at the time. I thought it was good, was proud of it even. I did a whole photo shoot of it like I would be some kind of social media star. It was silly when I think back."

"Where's it hang now?"

And there it is. Thoran put his finger on the crux of my entire first marriage in one simple question.

"It doesn't." I have to look at the pallets. "He said it looked homemade. Said it made him look like he couldn't afford to get his wife a real sign. He put it back in the burn pile and I—" My throat closes. "I let him. That's the part. Nobody took it from me, I handed it right over."

The words come out with more in them than I meant to put there. I hear the change in the light before I hear him move. He pushes off the wall, and then he's in front of me. He’s close enough that I have to tip my chin up. Thoran doesn't touch me. He puts one hand on the wall by my shoulder and leaves it there.

"You still got the picture?" he asks.

I blink. "What picture?"

"You said you took pictures of it." His voice is low and even. "You still got it?"

"I… probably yes. Somewhere. On an old phone maybe.”

"Then it's not gone."