I freeze for half a heartbeat. Then, I carefully rest my hands on her back, grounding myself.
“Thank you,” she says into my jacket, muffled and sincere.
Abby watches the whole thing, her expression unreadable to the average person. But I’m not the average person. Even after more than a decade, I know this woman better than I know myself. Which is how I see it in her eyes. This isn’t just about a school project.
It’s about whether she can trust me to stay.
FIVE
ABBY
The fire station looks nothing like I imagined.
I don’t know what I expected. Maybe something darker and grittier. Intimidating.
Instead it’s clean and warm and strangely comforting. There are photos on the walls. Old ones, new ones. Firefighters grinning with soot-smudged faces. Kids sitting on the engine with helmets too big for their heads. Holiday decorations taped up slightly crooked.
Community lives here.
That realization unsettles me more than it should.
Daisy practically vibrates beside me as Brendon leads us inside, her fingers hooked tightly through mine like she’s afraid I might disappear if she lets go.
“This is where you work?” she asks, eyes wide.
“Part of the time,” Brendon says. “I’m a volunteer.”
“What do you do the other part?” she asks.
He glances at me before answering, like he’s checking whether this is okay.
“I run wilderness survival courses. Winter navigation, avalanche safety, that kind of thing.”
Daisy gasps. “Like a mountain man?”
Brendon laughs, the sound low and genuine. “Something like that.”
I watch him as he talks, the way his shoulders loosen in this space, the way he knows where everything is without thinking. This isn’t a costume he puts on. This is who he is now. He’s grounded and capable.
It makes my chest ache in a way that feels both familiar and frightening.
He gives Daisy a full tour. The engine. The lockers. The heavy jackets. He lets her try on a helmet, steadies it with careful hands when it slides too far over her eyes.
I hover nearby, pretending to read a bulletin board while actually tracking every interaction like my heart depends on it.
Because maybe it does.
When Daisy finally settles at one of the tables to start writing, Brendon brings over three cups of hot chocolate from the communal kitchen.
“For bravery,” he says solemnly, handing Daisy hers first.
She beams.
“For supervision,” he adds, offering one to me.
Our fingers brush.
The contact is brief. Electric. My stomach flips in a way that has nothing to do with sugar or caffeine.
