“Well then…” I pull him close for another kiss, and then a door opens down the hall. I freeze up. So does Aiden.
Small footsteps pad across the floor, hesitant and sleepy. Aiden’s bedroom door opens, and we separate fast. But then I see the button I must have undone on his shirt and reach out to fix it quick.
But I’m too slow. Mason opens the door, and I’m still touching Aiden. “Mama?” I try to think of an excuse, but my son yawns and blinks at us. He smiles sleepily at Aiden, relief coming over his tiny face. “You kept your promise.”
AIDEN
Standing in my kitchen the morning after the damn car fire with coffee going cold in my hand and the weight of last night still sitting heavy in my chest, I come to a conclusion. I should invite Mason and Harper to the firehouse. I tell myself I’m doing it for him, because the kid deserves something fun after everything he’s been through.
It’s only a distraction. A way to burn off nervous energy. A way to put distance between Harper and me before I say something else I can’t take back.
The truth is uglier. I need somewhere I can function without thinking about how badly I’ve screwed this up.
The firehouse has always been that place. Order. Routine. A place where I know who I am and what’s expected of me. Where mistakes have consequences, yes, but they’re concrete ones. You fix them or you don’t. You save someone or you don’t. None of this gray, emotional wreckage I keep leaving in my wake. Black and white are more my speed.
Harper rounds the corner into the kitchen, her eyes on me, then the coffee. “Morning.”
“Good morning. By the look you just gave the coffeemaker, should I be jealous?”
She doesn’t answer right away, opting instead to pour herself a mug. “Too early to be clever. I had to stay up all night worrying about someone.”
“You didn’t have to?—”
“You think I could have slept while I was worried?” She dresses and sips her coffee with reverence, closing her dark brown eyes and sighing. “That’s better.”
“I’m sorry you worried about me. It wasn’t all that bad… in fact, how would you like to feel better about my job?”
Her frown makes something in the middle of my chest flutter. “Huh?”
“I was thinking about giving you and Mason a tour of the firehouse today. That way, you’ll know who has my back, and?—”
“I don’t know?—”
“Mommy, we gotta go!” Mason practically shouts as he enters the kitchen. “Please? Please?” He’s bouncing on his heels as he begs.
She smiles and sighs. “Well then, I guess we gotta go.”
“Yay!” he shouts, then fires off questions about sirens and ladders and whether firefighters really slide down poles. His excitement hits me somewhere low and uncomfortable, because I caused part of the fear he’s trying to outrun, and I don’t deserve how easily he trusts me.
The drive over is quiet in a way that feels intentional. Harper watches Mason in the rearview mirror more than she watches the road. I keep my eyes forward, jaw tight, replaying last night in fragments I can’t seem to shut off. Her voice. Her honesty. The way I almost kissed her before her kid walked in and saved me from myself.
I should be better at this by now.
The firehouse doors are open when we pull in, the bay already alive with movement. Engines gleam under fluorescent lights. The smell of diesel and coffee and something faintlymetallic settles into my lungs like muscle memory. This place knows me. It always has.
Mason’s reaction is immediate and explosive. “Whoa,” he breathes, climbing out of the car like he’s stepping into a theme park built specifically for him.
I let myself focus on that. On him. On the way his eyes go wide as the engine rolls forward for inspection, the way he looks up at me like I personally built all of this. I show him where to stand, what not to touch, how the truck works. I hand him a spare helmet, too big for his head, and adjust it until it doesn’t completely squash his head.
He grins like I just handed him the keys to the universe.
The crew keeps their distance for only a breath.
Then, I feel it before anyone says a word—the pause, the sharp looks, the sudden interest that has nothing to do with the kid sitting in the truck. Lizzie’s arched brow and smirk combination when she looks at Harper.
Garrett is the first one to break, because of course he is. “So this is her?” he says loudly, eyes bouncing between Harper and me. “Sloan, you’ve been moping over this woman for six years? Chief, you owe me twenty bucks!”
Harper freezes.
