Rory
Morning comes quietly in the firehouse. Pale sunlight filters through frosted windows, dusting the concrete floors in gold flecks. The storm has burned itself out, leaving the world hushed and white and deceptively innocent.
I wake curled against Dax’s chest, my cheek tucked into the worn cotton of his T-shirt, his arm heavy and warm around my waist. For a split second, panic flares—but then I remember I’m right where I belong.
His thumb moves, slow and deliberate, brushing the bare skin at my hip like it’s been doing that for years.
I don’t move. I don’t breathe.
I just feel.
Last night doesn’t crash back into me—it settles. The careful touches. The way he looked at me like I was something precious and inevitable all at once. The way he stayed. The way I slept without fear for the first time in years.
“Morning, Red,” he murmurs, voice low and rough with sleep.
I smile before I can stop myself. “You’re awake.”
“Been awake a while.” His lips graze my hair. “Didn’t want to move.”
My heart stumbles. “Good reason?”
“Plenty.”
I shift just enough to look up at him. His eyes are soft, unguarded, the kind of look he never wears in daylight. Firefighter Dax is confident and commanding. This version—this one is the man who stayed. The man who cherishes me.
We lie there, snowlight climbing the walls, neither of us in a hurry to name anything.
Then the firehouse doors roll open.
Metal grinds. Voices echo. Boots stomp snow loose.
Dax stiffens beneath me.
“Oh no,” I whisper.
He exhales through his nose. “Give it three seconds.”
“Morning!” someone calls too loudly. “Hey—who’s in the spare bunk room?”
Another beat. Then—“Well I’ll be damned.”
I squeeze my eyes shut as laughter erupts. Loud. Relentless. The kind that echoes off cement and refuses to be ignored.
I sit up too fast, tangling myself in Dax’s arm and the blanket. My hair is a mess. My shirt—his shirt—has ridden up my thigh. I am painfully, mortifyingly aware that every man in the hallway is staring, the door hanging open and a smirk dancing on Ash’s face.
Ash’s grin is feral. Axel’s eyebrows are practically in his hairline. Someone wolf-whistles.
“Well,” Ash drawls, “guess Valentine’s Day worked out after all.”
I feel heat crawl up my neck. “Good morning to you too.”
Axel laughs. “Morning, Rory. Didn’t realize we were hosting sleepovers.”
Dax sits up slowly, deliberately, like he’s choosing his ground. He doesn’t move his arm from around me. Doesn’t try to hide anything.
That’s when I realize something important.
He’s not embarrassed.
