"No."
That earned a weak smile.
Milan leaned forward. "I think you're scared because you finally stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop."
Johanna froze. The words hit far too close to home.
Milan continued. "For weeks you've been waiting for something to go wrong and nothing happened. He showed up and loves you exactly the way you've been wanting him to."
Johanna stared at her.
"And now Seattle shows up," Milan said softly. "So, your brain immediately goes, ‘See! There it is. There's the disaster.’"
The truth of it stung. Because that was exactly what had happened.
Johanna lowered her eyes. "I finally let myself believe this was safe."
Milan's expression softened immediately. "Oh, Jo." The sympathy almost undid her.
Johanna looked back toward the casino floor before the tears gathering behind her eyes could become visible.
"I don't think I could survive him leaving twice." The admission barely rose above a whisper.
For a moment, neither woman spoke, then Milan pushed back from her desk and crossed the room. A second later, she wrapped her arms around Johanna.
The hug surprised her. Mostly because Milan wasn'tparticularly known for emotional demonstrations. She was known for fixing problems, moving mountains, and making impossible guest requests somehow happen.
But right now, she simply held her.
And for the first time all afternoon, Johanna let herself stop pretending she was okay.
* * *
Later that evening, Blaze sat inside the Sheraton Beach firehouse kitchen while two firefighters stared at him like a live-action soap opera had interrupted their shift. The station smelled like burned coffee, fried food, and smoke permanently soaked into the concrete walls after years of emergency calls, while a basketball game played low from the mounted television near the bay doors.
Normally, the familiar noise grounded him. Tonight, it barely registered.
Ryan leaned back in his chair, crunching chips loud enough to qualify as harassment.
“So…” he drawled carefully. “You get dumped or what?”
Blaze lifted his eyes slowly from the untouched cup of coffee sitting in front of him. “I’m one sentence away from violence.”
Michael pointed immediately across the table. “Definitely got dumped.”
“I did not get dumped.”
Ryan squinted harder at him. “Then why’re you sitting in here looking like a divorced father eating nachos alone at Applebee’s?”
Michael nearly choked laughing from across the kitchen island. Even Darren, a junior firefighter, looked suspiciously close to laughing as he walked by.
Blaze glared at each of them.
Unfortunately, nobody appeared remotely intimidated.
After a long silence, Michael leaned forward, elbows braced against the table. “Seriously. What happened?”
Blaze rubbed one hand slowly across his jaw while exhaustion settled heavier across his shoulders. “She found out about Seattle.”
