So instead I tell her, “You should get some sleep,” and hand her car keys back to her. “Try, at least.”
“Hayes?”
“Yeah?”
Her smile is faint, tired. But real. “You always take care of me. Remember when I fell off the sled when we were in middle school? You carried me home in the snow. When my prom date bailed, you picked me up and let me tag along with you so I ‘wouldn’t miss the good songs.’ And when my dad got sick, you were the one who kept showing up with soup and doing little things, like taking out the trash, and you thought we didn’t notice. You’ve been taking care of me my whole life.”
I swallow hard. “And I always will.”
Emmy’s cheeks flush before she turns and opens her front door. She pauses and turns back around, wide-eyed. “Uh, I just thought of something.”
“Yeah?”
“How are you going to get back to the fire house?”
I chuckle and glance over my shoulder just as Chief Burns pulls up in his department issued SUV. “That’s my ride.”
“Oh my God. Hayes. You could have just taken my car and I could have had Emmy drive me to the shop tomorrow.”
I shrug. “Don’t worry about it Em.”
She nods and opens the front door. “Goodnight,” she whispers, before stepping inside.
“Goodnight, Em.”
When the door clicks shut behind her, I stand on her porch for longer than I should, letting the cold bite at my cheeks, grounding me.
If tonight taught me anything, it’s that I’m already…or maybe still…too far gone where Emmy Alder is concerned.
If I’m not careful, one spark is all it’ll take to burn my whole world down.
Chief Burns doesn’t say a word until I’m buckled in and he’s pulled away from the curb, tires crunching over a thin layer of fresh snow.
He never rushes anything. Not decisions. Not conversations. Not judgments.
Which is why the silence is worse than being yelled at.
After a full block he grunts, “You good?”
“Fine.”
It’s a lie. A damn neon-lit lie.
His eyes flick over to me. “You sure? Because you were staring at that girl’s house like someone stole your puppy.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and sigh. “It’s not like that, Chief. Nothing happened.”
“I didn’t say something happened.” He pauses. “But something almost did.”
I glare out the passenger window like the answer’s written in the snowbanks. “She had a scare. Anyone would’ve done the same.”
“Uh-huh.” Chief makes a low sound. “Except most firefighters don’t look like they aged ten years in two minutes when they’re called out to a burning building with entrapment. Smoke eaters like you and me, we thrive under the pressure. We stay calm and level headed. But tonight, when you walked out of that bakery, I saw the pure fear written all over your face. And I saw the wayalmostrelaxed when you locked eyes with Emmy and saw she was okay.”
My jaw clenches. “The whole building wasn’t burning. It was a towel. And she wasn’t trapped.”
He’s not wrong. And that’s the problem.
The thought of Emmy being trapped in the bakery that filled me with fear and made bile rise in my throat.
