He leans in, forehead resting against mine, breath warm and steady. For a second, the world narrows to this—smoke and sunlight, fear and relief, the quiet hum of something being reclaimed.
Then he pulls back, just enough to smile at me with that crooked, infuriating charm.
“Looks like your studio’s got a guard dog now.”
I laugh shakily. “You don’t bark.”
“No,” he says. “I bite.”
The spark between us flares—not destructive, not consuming. Alive.
Chapter Thirteen
Boone
The garage still smells like smoke when the sun drops behind Devil’s Peak. The tape flutters in the evening wind, bright and ugly against the quiet. Saxon said the official report would take time. I said fine. I already know what I need to know. So far it looks like a prank pulled by some teenagers, but that won’t make Ember feel any better.
I cross the yard with a limp I pretend isn’t there, boots crunching over gravel. Ember’s studio windows glow warm—lamps on, paint drying, the low hum of music I don’t recognize but somehow already know belongs to her. Color lives in there. Breath. Noise.
I hesitate at the door.
Fear still knows my name. It wraps around my chest, squeezes just enough to remind me how easy it would be to retreat—to go back to the quiet, to engines and shadows, to the version of me that keeps his head down and his heart boarded up.
But fire doesn’t just burn.
It exposes.
I knock once and don’t wait for an answer.
Ember looks up from a table splattered in blues and rusted oranges, paint on her fingers, hair loose like she forgot to tame it after the chaos of the day. She freezes when she sees me, then her shoulders drop.
“Hey,” she says softly.
“Hey, Firefly.”
She sets the brush down carefully, like the moment deserves it. “You okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “You?”
She studies my face, eyes sharp in that way she has—seeing past the words. “I was going to ask you the same thing.”
I shut the door behind me. The click sounds louder than it should.
“I need to talk,” I say.
Her smile fades, replaced by attention. Real attention. She nods and gestures to the couch—the terrible one we laughed about yesterday, stiff and awkward and somehow already ours.
We sit too close. Or maybe not close enough.
Silence stretches, heavy but not uncomfortable. She waits me out. Always does.
“I’ve spent a long time thinking fire was the enemy,” I say finally. “Like it took everything from me. My job. My body. The part of me that knew how to move without thinking.”
She doesn’t interrupt. Just turns her body toward mine, knee brushing mine, warmth bleeding through denim.
“But today,” I continue, “I remembered something.”
“What?” she asks.
