And somehow it was an hour later. Zoe's light had been off for twenty minutes. I was still on the couch, phone warm in my hand, smiling at a screen like someone I didn't recognize.
This is a bad idea, the voice in my head whispered. I tried to remind myself that famous firefightersdon'tdate exhausted single mom teachers from Queens. This is a kindness. Maybe boredom. A slow night and a phone in his hand.
Some people got fairy tales. They got the meet-cute and the grand gesture and the happy ending wrapped up in a bow.
I got reality. A bruised temple, a stack of ungraded papers, and a daughter who needed me to stop dreaming and start functioning.
I'd learned a long time ago not to want things I couldn't have. Not to hope for things that weren't meant for people like me.
Shane Briggs was kind. He was charming. He was a good man who'd done a good deed.
That was all this was. That was all it could be.
I turned off the lights and went to bed.
CHAPTER 5
Shane
I couldn't stop thinkingabout her.
It had been two weeks since the hospital, and I still didn't fully understand what had happened in that teacher's lounge.
I'd been dropping off fire safety materials. Routine stuff. Posters for the hallways, a smoke detector for the demonstration, and the usual packet of information for teachers. I wasn't even supposed to be inside that long. I just had to sign in at the front office, drop the box, and leave.
But then I'd heard the commotion from down the hall. Voices rising, someone shouting "Oh my god," the scrape of chairs being pushed back. The kind of sounds that make you move before you think.
By the time I got to the lounge, she was already on the floor. Dark hair spilling out of its bun. Eyes fluttering, unfocused. A bruise was already forming on her temple, angry and red.
When Maya opened her eyes and looked up at me, there was nothing in her expression except confusion. I ran through my concussion checks, asked her name, the date, and the president. She'd answered everything correctly, her voice hoarse but steady.
And then that other teacher had laughed.
‘That's probably the closest she's been to a man since her divorce.’
I'd watched Maya flinch. Shame flooded her face, and I felt her try to make herself smaller in my arms as the other teachers smirked and whispered, enjoying the show.
Something in me snapped.
I didn't plan what came out of my mouth, didn't think about consequences or how it would look or whether it was appropriate at all. I just saw a woman being kicked while she was down, literally, and I wanted to make it stop.
‘Are we still on for dinner tonight at seven, Ms. Cummins?’
The room went silent. The smirks froze. And Maya had looked up at me with those tired brown eyes.
‘Seven?’
I still didn't know why I'd done it. Or why I followed the ambulance to the hospital. Or why I'd stayed for six hours, pretending to be her boyfriend, making small talk, watching her hold her entire life together with one phone and sheer determination.
She wasn't my type. I had a pattern: beautiful women who wanted the calendar firefighter, who laughed too hard at my jokes and touched my arm at bars and didn't care who I actually was underneath the headlines. Women who spent hours on their appearance expected me to notice.
Maya wasn't like that.
Her hair had been falling out of its bun, dark strands escaping around her face. Her clothes were practical, forgettable. She hadn't been trying to impress anyone.
But there was something about her.
The brown eyes that held exhaustion and something fiercer underneath. The olive skin, warm even under the harsh fluorescent lights. The curve of her neck when she'd tilted herhead back against the hospital pillow, trusting me enough to close her eyes.
