“Hold your horses! Where’s the fire!” She found a Cleveland FD T-shirt to put on over her bra and pajama pants.
Turning on her light, she wondered who it was. With her luck, it would be a stabbing victim. A stabbing victim trapped in a car that was also on fire. Couldn’t they pick the door of an actual doctor? Angela Whatever might be home next door.
She flung open the door. “What?!”
Noah stood on her front steps in a tux. He looked too fucking perfect. She needed to throw something on him and ruin his perfect everything.
Paint, bleach, her naked body.
No, who cared how he looked? She didn’t.
Since she didn’t care, she used her best brittle cold voice. “Are you lost, Chief?”
“Can I… may I come in?” he asked in a tone she wasn’t familiar with.
She still didn’t care at all. If she wanted to be childish, she could. “Why not?”
“You didn’t come to the Ball,” Noah said.
“Why would I? I don’t even own a dress.” Erin kicked her door closed behind him.
He didn’t speak; his eyes didn’t meet hers.
No time like the present to lash out. “Why are you here?”
He didn’t answer her directly. “Your team’s table was by mine. They were laughing, having a good time, even Jacen. Whether or not there is or isn’t a Firehouse 15, they’ll be fine.”
“I’m glad it’s working out for them. Please leave.” His mere presence was cutting her to pieces, and she pinched her eyes closed.
“I kept expecting to see your eyes roll during my boring speech. There was a space where you should have been, but you weren’t there. Why didn’t you come?”
Erin opened her eyes; each admission was worse than the next. “Because I can’t pretend I don’t care. I have this fantasy where I showed up in the perfect dress. You saw me, we danced, and by the stroke of midnight, we fixed it all.”
“I won’t reopen Firehouse 15 for you.”
“And you shouldn’t. You’re the Chief. The department comes first.” Erin started to walk away.
Uninvited, he grabbed her elbow, his eyes a bright electric blue. “I can’t reopen it for you, but I will reopen 15 because it’s the right thing to do. I’m not heartless. I’m not unfeeling. Every one of these choices—they hurt. I always accepted the pain because it’s been for the greater good. And believe me, I do have things I regret. Mistakes I made that I wish I could change.”
“Like me? Am I one of those mistakes?”
Noah’s eyes were bleak, and his words even worse. “No. Never you… Jacen Williams slit his wrists after his wife’s funeral. I found him, stopped the bleeding, but I didn’t report it to the department. I didn’t force him to get help when I should have. He’s never forgiven me, but I could live with it because he was alive, and I made sure I always got help for my firefighters after that.”
“Aiden,” Erin whispered.
“There are others,’’ he said. “Many others.”
“Thank you for caring for them.” She swiped her cheek. “And thank you for telling me that my firehouse isn’t closing, Chief. If that’s everything you need to tell me, the door’s over there.”
“I can live with all of that, but I don’t know if I want to live without you. I can’t hide how I feel about you. I can’t shut it out. I can’t turn it off. I can’t use logic.” He came closer and lifted her face to his. “Erin, I love—”
“Stop. You have to stop.” She placed her hand over his mouth. “I can’t. I can’t do this. You can’t say that to me. If you do, we can’t go back.”
Noah pulled her hand downward to cover his heart. “Was there ever any going back?”
“It’s too much too soon.” She took back her hand but let him follow and put his arms around her. “We don’t know each other well enough. We have to figure stuff out with us, the job, the future. If you say those words, it will kill me if we can’t make it work.”
“What are you saying? That you want to be with me?”
