Sonny grabs my hand and we catch the bus back into Maple Crossing.
The bus justhasto take the scenic route, passing under pine trees that take me right back to the hikes Caleb and I used to take. We used to drive for miles in his rented truck…
He looks at me sideways while driving, and flashes me a smoldering smile, both panty-wetting and restorative. I’ve never felt this comfortable in someone’s presence before.
He sees me.
Trees surround us in every direction as we drive through a nature reserve of natural beauty. There’s so much to look at.
And still he chooses to only look at me.
I grab Sonny’s hand as we exit the bus. It drives off, leaving a cloud of smoke from the exhausts in its wake. It’s enough to make me short of breath.
It feels wrong to enter my place of work not dressed in uniform, and with my son on my arm. Jess zips toward us instantly and embraces the pair of us in a hug warm enough to almost make me forget about the disaster.
About how I caused the fire.
And how I’m now gonna have to lie to those I love in order to successfully play this off as an accident.
“Oh my god, you poor things.” Jess releases me and shoves two overflowing bags of clothes into my hands. I’m weak still from the night spent at the hospital. Sonny and I were on oxygen therapy all night to flush out the dangerous levels of carbon monoxide we both inhaled.
The bags drag my wrists immediately down to the floor.
But her kindness is the real killer.
I pick up a few of the items and see brand-new clothes for Sonny. No holes. No ruined stitching. The inside label is Sonny’s size.
And here come the waterworks.
Jess rubs a reassuring hand up my arm and tells me it’s no bother.
But it is. Because I realize now that I could’ve just asked Jess plain and simple for some clothes that would fit Sonny without needing to set fire to my house.
“This is more than enough. Seriously.”
“You take care,” she says. “And hey. My place is only one bed but I can make up the two couches. Stay with me for the time being. I know it’s small, but it’ll be comfortable. You’ll have some time to work out insurance logistics.”
“Are you sure you wanna?—?”
“That really won’t be necessary,” interjects another voice.
I whip around and hope I’m just hearing things, still high from the oxygen.
Nope.
How dare he enter my place of work looking likethis?
Seeing Caleb in uniform for the first time burned me almost as much as the shock of seeing him again now.
Time has done quite the number on him. His cheekbones are now rendered harder, even more so than yesterday, now that he’s not doused in soot-slick sweat. He shadows the entire coffee shop with his height and earns the attention of every single female in the room.
I don’t blame them for pausing their conversations to gawp at him. Anyone with a vagina and a pulsewould.
The silver streaks in his hair are new. I have the passing of time to thank for that. The gray roots give him a mature, to-die-for look that has me forgetting all about the fire.
He folds giant arms over his even more giant chest, and looks down at me with a curious gaze.
I can’t yet bring myself to look into his eyes. I’m still on the biceps, feeling my jaw lower closer to the floor as I work out how the muscles got that big. His job is very physically demanding,I get it. But even the outline of the bulge in his pants appears bigger than before, and he’s sure as hell not using that weapon to put out fires.
