I wait.
Ten minutes later, the truck passes again.
I don’t even pretend to read after that. The mug is halfway to my mouth when I set it down, grab my jacket, and step outside into breath-stinging air.
The sky is a deep cobalt, the kind that makes the snow glow. The porch boards are cold through my socks—stupid, I know—but I’m moving before sense can catch up. I hit the top step just as the truck slows for a third pass and pulls to the shoulder.
The driver’s door opens.
Axel climbs out like gravity was built for him and him alone. Big. Quiet. Shoulders filling out a navy jacket, collar raised against the wind. Snow decides to soften around him, apparently charmed, which is irritating. His breath shows in long, controlled streams. He sees me on the porch and goes very, very still.
“Evening,” I say, voice light in a way that’s not natural for me, not anymore. “Patrol’s late in this neighborhood.”
He looks like he’d prefer a two-alarm fire to this conversation. “Power lines,” he says. “After the storm.”
I lean on the porch post and deliberately glance up at the steady, non-flickering lines. “Mm. They look very… liney.”
He huffs, the closest thing to a laugh. “Sometimes they don’t look wrong until they’re wrong.”
“Is that a technical term, Captain?”
“I’m not a captain,” he mutters.
“To me you are.” I smile, and his jaw tightens like I tugged a string attached to his pulse.
His gaze drags over my socks—pink with little snowflakes—and then up my bare shins to the hem of my sleep shorts, lingering there a fraction too long before he jerks his focus to my face like he’s punishing himself.
“It’s twenty-four degrees,” he says, somehow making it sound like a sin. “Where are your boots?”
“Inside,” I say. “Where boots go.”
He stares, deadpan. “Put them on, Snowflake.”
“You can’t order me around on my own porch, Ramirez.”
He takes a slow step to the base of my stairs and tips his head up. “You going to come down here, or do I need to drag you into the house and make you put real clothes on?”
Heat flashes through me so fast my breath fogs twice as hard. I raise a brow. “Threatening a paramedic. Bold choice.”
“Observation,” he says, too calm. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
“I’m—” A full-body shiver picks that exact moment to rattle me. I scowl. He doesn’t smile, but his eyes heat in a way that says he wants to.
“Fine,” I say, trying not to curl my toes against the cold boards. “Neighborhood Watch, hm? Are you going to write me a citation for improper sock usage?”
“Thinking about it.” Another step. He’s one tread away now, looking up at me like we’ve rewound ten years and we’re arguing about who gets the river rope swing. Except nothing about this feels young.
He shields his eyes from the porch light with two fingers, scanning the eaves, the lines, the street. He’s not faking it, I notice. He actually checks the transformer down the road, the connections at the pole, the icicles hanging in dagger rows off my roofline.
“You really came to check the power lines?” I ask, softer.
He shrugs one shoulder. “Storm hit a couple of weak spots on my street. Figured I’d look.” A beat. “And drive by.”
“Twice.”
