Peony stops by later to drop off the printed invitations for the Fireman’s Ball. “Why are you all grin-y?”
“No. What? Nothing. Just—” I pause.
Her gaze follows mine to the office across the hall and her eyebrow quirks.
I hide my face in my hands.
She lets out a gleeful squeal and then I tell her everything. Well, not all the details, but the highlights.
As the afternoon bleeds into evening, sirens sound outside. I watch the fire engine, followed by the command unit, pull out, lights flashing, and my stomach clenches with worry.
Is he safe? Will he come back?
This is what it means to care about a firefighter. This constant low-level fear. But as the truck disappears around the corner, a thought slowly follows. Patton is worth the fear.
I stay late, still caught in a flurry of catch-up work after the storm, and no sooner do I leave to go home does guilt join me for the ride. While I was obsessing and indulging what might be the start of something special with Patton, I wasn’t figuring out my family’s business problems.
I hold it together through dinner, but when I’m still awakeafter ten p.m., trying to fix a broken shelf, Grandma Joyce finds me elbow-deep in the pantry.
“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?”
While sorting canned goods and finding items from the last century, I fall apart.
“Everything. The restaurant. The bet. I kissed Patton and now I don’t know what we’re doing and I feel terrible because I’m so happy even just thinking about the possibilities, but my family and?—”
She pulls me into a hug, and then the tears come. I let myself cry.
When I slow to a sniffle, she grips my upper arms and looks me over. “Vincenza, did anyone ever tell you that you don’t have to be perfect?”
The sobs return, flooding the emptiness from always coming up short.
She rubs my back. “You don’t have to fix everything.”
“Yes, I do. If I don’t, who will?” I say through a watery blubber.
“Maybe that’s not your job, sweetheart. Maybe people need to learn to save themselves sometimes.”
“But what if they can’t?”
“Then they ask for help. Like you should be doing.”
I pull back, wiping my eyes. “I’m fine?—”
“You’re fixing the shelf in the pantry at ten o’clock at night. A shelf that has been broken for ten years. I trust that we’ll survive another ten without it. You’re not fine.”
A long breath rolls through me as she draws me back into the kitchen, where my phone buzzes on the counter.
Patton: Thinking about you. Are you okay?
Warmth and alarm flood throughme in equal measure. Does he care about me and what does it mean if he does?
Me: Yeah. Long day.
Patton: Do you want to talk about it?
Me: Tomorrow?
Patton: Now.
