“Oh, you’re the patient type, aren’t you?” Ana teased her.
“I just want the perfect marshmallow,” Evangeline said. “I’m willing to wait.”
“Not me,” Ana said, thrusting hers right into the flames.
It immediately caught on fire, glowing and blackening before their eyes.
“Perfect,” Ana declared, blowing it out and plucking it off the stick right away to place on the chocolate square that waited atop a graham cracker on her plate.
Mrs. Gutierrez laughed, but Evangeline stayed oddly quiet. Grayson turned to find her searching his face.
She’s worried about me being around the fire,he realized.
He gave her a gentle smile to let her know he was just fine—more than fine, actually—and grateful that she knew him well enough to think about every aspect of his comfort.
A moment later, her hand touched his knee and she squeezed so lightly that he almost could have imagined it.
He wanted to grab her hand and hold it, but his cell phone was buzzing again. If someone wanted to talk to him this much, maybe it was important. His thoughts went instantly to his parents, and he hoped everything was okay with them.
“Can you hold this for me?” he asked Evangeline, holding out his marshmallow stick.
“Of course,” she said, taking it. “Do you want me to take Leo?”
“That’s okay. He’s sleeping,” he said, standing. “But someone keeps calling me. Excuse me for a moment, ladies.”
He strode a few paces away and pulled out his phone.
Levi Williams - 3 missed calls
Heart pounding, he started to pull up Levi’s contact, but the phone was already buzzing again.
He slid his thumb across the screen hastily to answer the call.
“Levi,” he said, willing himself not to panic.
“Where are you?” Levi demanded, without saying hello.
“I’m up at the Christmas Campfire,” Grayson told him. “Do you need me to come to your office?”
“No, I’m coming to you,” Levi said. “Meet me in the parking lot.”
“What’s going on?” Grayson asked.
But Levi had already hung up.
Grayson slid the phone back in his pocket, ice water rushing through his veins.
Leo felt so warm, so solid in his arms, filling Grayson with a sense of meaning, like he was holding his own tender heart outside of his body. The thought that he might have to hand him over to someone else froze him in place.
“Grayson,” Evangeline said softly, her hand on his arm. “What’s going on?”
“Levi is coming,” he heard himself tell her. “He wants me to meet him in the parking lot.”
He had told her about his meeting with Levi, and his fears over losing Leo. It had seemed like such a faraway thing at the time, but now that Levi was on his way, the reality of it was threatening to crush him.
“I’ll walk with you,” Evangeline said. “And I’ll wait with you until he gets here.”
Somehow, her hand on his arm loosened his paralyzed limbs and he walked by her side, past the smiling, fire-lit faces around to the big gravel lot.
