I haul the wood up beside the inn and, out of habit, pull up my parents’ text thread.Hey, minor wildfire, minor evacuation, no big?—
I delete every word. Pawpaw spent his nineties pretending everything was “no big deal” while the debt piled up. One man lying about the future was enough for our family.
Kael hunched in the dirt outside the inn flashes through my mind, palms frantic against the ground until he found that ridiculous painted rock. Dodging a text to my mom makes me feel grateful and ungrateful in the same breath.
I hitch the wood higher in my arms and go back in. Kael’s waiting with a box of matches and a dimpled smile.
“Over here,” he says.
“Thank you, Ash,” I squeak in a falsetto. “So nice of you to go out in the cold for firewood.”
“Yeah, yeah. Put some in there. I think this’ll work.”
He shoves crumpled paper under the wood and strikes a match. Flame licks up the kindling as he latches the firebox shut.
“You’re surprisingly handy,” I admit.
He wipes dust off his hands and points up. “Assuming there’s not a dead animal blocking the chimney.”
“Or a ghost.”
Kael rolls his eyes, and the firelight flickers in his glasses. We both watch, holding our breath as the paper burns out and… the branches catch. Light pours across the Inskip Inn.
Kael punches the air.
“Kind of charming,” I say, and whip my head toward the room. “The inn, I mean.”
“If you like haunted, dust-covered decay.”
“Charming,” I repeat. “Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t do anything like this. Hiking to an abandoned cabin? Lighting up an old furnace?”
“Under normal circumstances, you’d go the wrong direction and stab yourself with this.”
Firelight licks over him as he taps the knife at his belt. He kneels in front of the furnace, pulls his blanket over his shoulders, and warms his hands.
In the glow, his handsomeness is impossible to ignore. The tousled blond hair. The way he knows what he loves and just… does it. Those glasses. The fucking sweatshirt, hiding more than it shows. My chest stays tightly braced against a chill, except it’s warmer in here, and I know I’m clenching to keep from reaching out.
Heat slides up my neck when he catches me staring. Instead of a snide remark, he lifts one side of his blanket in invitation.
It’s too cold to say no, and something in his eyes makes me want to say yes to more than warmth. I drop my backpack and kneel beside him to slide under the blanket until our arms touch.The soft brush of fabric sends a spark straight through me. The fire’s nothing compared to the heat under my skin.
“Thanks,” I whisper.
Branches crackle. I angle my head away so it doesn’t tip onto his shoulder.
“My mom didn’t die,” he says.
“You don’t have to explain. I didn’t know, and now I feel like an asshole.”
Kael sets his pet rock on the floor between us. “I know it’s silly to keep this.”
“Hold on.” I dig into my backpack and pull out Pawpaw’s debt collection letter, its creases soft from years of handling. “This is why I’ve saved two million dollars. So silly isn’t all bad.” I hover my hand over the rock. “Can I?”
He nods. The painted white dots in oversized black circles make it look like Rocky’s staring straight at me.
“Rocky Balboa,” Kael says. “My mom’s favorite movie. She left when I was ten.”
“What about your dad?”
