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“Come in,” Danica took a step back to allow him access to her home.

“You got it smelling good as hell in here, girl,” Tucker commented, waiting for her to take the lead and show him wherever it was that he was supposed to be.

“Thank you.” She smiled proudly. “And shoes off, please. Excuse the house, I’m still getting settled in”

Holding his hands in the air, Tucker shot her a crooked grin, kicking his Air Maxes off at the door.

“The kitchen is this way,” Danica called over her shoulder, trying not to admire the way his thigh muscles easily bulged out of the joggers he was wearing. She also noticed the emblem on his t-shirt represented his firehouse, despite him being off duty.

Forever the firefighter. She thought, smiling internally.

“Would you like something to drink?” Danica questioned, popping the refrigerator open. “I haven’t been here that long so all I have is beer, wine and water.”

“I’ll take a beer, depending on which brand you have.”

“Stout is the only way to go,” she announced, pulling two of the fridge.

“Yeah, you’re definitely my kind of girl,” Tucker reaffirmed as she popped the top and handed one to him.

Danica’s heart thumped in her chest as his declaration, but she took a swig of her drink to force herself to calm down.

“You having a beer is okay, right? You don’t have to go back to the station or anything?”

“Nah, I have the next two days off, so I’m good.” He assured her, taking a gulp.

“How’d you manage that?”

“I work twenty four hour shifts, so I work all day and have the following two off.”

“That doesn’t sound healthy at all.”

“Dani, I run into burning buildings for a living. Ain’t a damn thing about my job healthy.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.” Danica conceded, opening the cabinet to grab a couple of plates.

“What do you do?” Tucker questioned as she went to work on plating their food.

“I was--am,” she quickly corrected herself. “A middle school music teacher. I’ve been trying to line up a job here for the past couple of weeks, but it hasn’t panned out the way I want it to.”

“That just means that wherever you’ve been applying isn’t where you’re meant to be, that’s all.” He shrugged, taking the plate she extended to him and taking a seat at the table. “Don’t let it discourage you. Something will fall into place for you.”

“Well, if it doesn’t fall into place by the end of the summer, then I might have a problem.” She chuckled, sitting across from him. “Do you house the homeless at the station by chance?”

“Not usually, but I think I might be able to pull some strings and make something happen for you.” Tucker played along with her joke before saying grace and digging into his food. Danica was surprised how easily conversation flowed between them. From the time they started dinner, to finishing up, to Tucker insisting on washing dishes, to moving their night into the living room, their conversation had been seamless.

They discussed everything, from their childhood, to their teenage years, and he’d even made her so comfortable, that she was openly discussing Amad without breaking into a thousand pieces.

“When you first start dating someone,” Danica stared off at nothing, tucking her legs underneath her on the couch. “You think they’re going to be around forever, you know? Life is so great that you don’t stop to think about the possibility of how things would be if that person wasn’t around anymore.”

From his place next to her, Tucker nodded slowly.

“He spent six months chasing me before I gave in and decided to take a chance on him. Things moved kind of quickly after that, but I didn’t think too much about it, because it felt right. We’d been dating for seven months when I started noticing little things about him were off. His hands would be unsteady at times, he was becoming forgetful.” A rush of emotions took over, and she paused to try and keep herself together. “I asked him to go to the doctor sooner, and maybe if he had then…” Breaking off, Danica bit her bottom lip to compose herself before continuing.

“Anyway, when we finally found out that he was sick, Amad’s doctor told us about an experimental surgery that might help. The risks were too high for me, so I was against it, but he was willing to try anything. He didn’t make it through it.”

Bending her index finger, she swiped her knuckle beneath her eye to catch the tear before it fell.

Bringing his hand to the back of her neck, Tucker gave her a comforting squeeze. “You know that no matter how much arguing, screaming, or crying, that you would have done, he would have still gone through with the procedure, right?”