And I was starting to wish he wouldn't.
CHAPTER 7
Shane
The friendship thingwasn’t working anymore.
Not because Maya was difficult or distant or any of the things I'd braced for. It was quite the opposite. She was letting me in, slowly, carefully, the way you open a door you’re not sure is safe. And every inch she gave me made me want more.
Three weeks of showing up, fixing things, bringing coffee, texting good morning—and not expecting anything back. I was doing exactly what I'd promised: being her friend. No pressure. No expectations. No moves that would make her regret trusting me.
The problem was that every time I saw her, the wanting sharpened.
The way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she was grading, a pen caught between her teeth, completely absorbed in some fourth grader's essay about their favorite family tradition. The way she laughed like it surprised her, like joy was something she'd forgotten she was allowed to feel. The way she looked at Zoe with a fierceness that made my chest ache, love, fear, and determination all tangled together in her eyes.
I’d said just friends.
I didn’t know how much longer I could keep pretending.
Last Saturday night, I brought groceries, made stir fry in her tiny kitchen while she graded papers at the table, and watched Zoe warm up enough to help me chop vegetables, laugh when the onions made me cry, and look at me like maybe I wasn’t a threat after all.
When I left, Maya walked me to the door. She stood close enough that I could smell her shampoo on my skin. Her eyes had dropped to my hands, lingered there for a moment too long, and when she looked back up, there was something in her expression that made my pulse kick.
I almost kissed her.
Almost closed the distance and cupped her face and showed her exactly how much "just friends" was killing me.
But I didn't. Because she'd asked for friendship, and that's what I was going to give her, even if it destroyed me in the process.
I drove home through streets I'd known my whole life, her face burned into my mind like an afterimage.
I was in so much trouble.
Engine 295 was in chaos that morning.
Truck maintenance. Equipment checks. The endless rotation of duties that kept a firehouse running between calls. I threw myself into it, hoping physical work would quiet my mind.
It didn't.
Brian found me in the apparatus bay, halfway through inspecting hose couplings I'd already inspected twice.
"You're smiling."
I looked up. "What?"
"You’re smiling. At hose couplings." He crossed his arms, leaning against the truck. "It's weird, man. You're freaking me out."
"I'm not smiling."
"You were. I saw it. This dopey little grin, like you were thinking about something that wasn't hose couplings." He narrowed his eyes. "Or someone."
I went back to the inspection. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Nope. Finished my checks. Now I'm doing my other job, which is figuring out what orwhohas got my best friend smiling like that." Brian dropped onto the bumper beside me. "It's the teacher, isn't it?"
I didn't answer.
"The one you brought coffee to. The one you've been texting constantly. The one you keep disappearing to visit on your days off."
