Total pages in book: 31
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 161(@200wpm)___ 129(@250wpm)___ 107(@300wpm)
“I told you from the start,” he says, voice rough, “this wasn’t real.”
“It is to me.”
That softens something for a second.
Just a second.
Then he shakes his head. “That’s not my fault.”
“Really? Because you’re the one making it feel real.”
“You’re the one letting it.”
“Because you’re confusing me!” I blurt. “You kiss me and touch me and wrap me in your flannel and tell the whole town I’m yours, then come in here and say it’s pretend. Which is it?”
He exhales hard, like he wants to tear his own hair out. “I’m trying to make sure you get what you need.”
“What I need,” I say quietly, “might be you.”
His eyes slam shut for one second.
Then open, harder.
“That’s exactly why I gotta go,” he says.
“Unbelievable.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re running.”
“I’m leaving before I do something we can’t walk back from.”
“Like what,” I demand, stepping into him, chin tilted. “Like touch me? Like take me to bed? Like admit you actually give a damn?”
His gaze drops. Lingers at my mouth.
For a second—just one—I think he’s going to do it.
I want him to do it.
Instead, he lets my wrist go. Steps back.
“Not like this,” he says, low. “Not angry.”
“Not angry?” I laugh, bitter. “I am angry.”
“I know.”
“Because you made me feel—”
“I know.”
“Clay!”
He heads for the door.
I follow. “So that’s it? You’re just gonna walk out?”
“If I stay, I’ll put you against that wall,” he throws over his shoulder, voice gone ragged, “and we both know neither of us is ready for that.”
My breath punches out.
He stops with his hand on the knob. Looks back.
For a heartbeat, everything is open. Raw. Him. Me. This thing sparking between us like live wires.
“Don’t look at me like that again in public,” he says, voice rough. “It makes me forget we’re pretending.”
“Maybe we should,” I whisper.
He swallows.
Then he opens the door.
Cold night air rushes in.
“Lock up, firecracker,” he says without turning. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then he’s gone.
Door shuts.
And I’m left in my kitchen, lips still tingling, heart still pounding, wanting a man who keeps insisting he’s only a placeholder.
Except no placeholder has ever kissed me like that.
No placeholder ever left like that.
And I know, bone-deep and furious:
The rules?
Yeah.
They’re not just bending anymore.
They’re burning.
Chapter Six
Clay
Gabe doesn’t mean to tell her.
I can hear it in the way his voice goes careful in the firehouse bay, in the way he rubs the back of his neck like he’s working a knot that never loosens. She’s perched on the tailboard of Engine 2 in paint-smeared overalls, ankles crossed, listening like she does everything—eyes bright, heart wide open, no shield anywhere.
“Clay’s not…” Gabe searches for the word as I come in from inventory, boots scuffing concrete. He spots me, too late to shut the door on the story. “He’s not good at… birthdays.”
Ember smiles at him like she knows it already. “Neither am I. Mine’s always a disaster.”
“It’s not that,” Gabe says, and now he won’t look at me. “His started going bad the year Dani—”
“Gabe.” My voice clips hard.
He flinches. Ember’s gaze cuts to mine, sharp. “Dani?” she asks softly.
Gabe exhales like he’s stepping into a room on fire. “His high school sweetheart. There was a house fire, years back. Clay was first on scene. He—” Gabe stops, shakes his head once. “He had to wait for backup. It took too long.”
The station is suddenly too loud—coffee machine hiss, radio chatter, hose couplers clinking—everything turning into that high-pitched whine I get sometimes when memory bites bone.
Ember doesn’t speak. Doesn’t fill the space with apologies or pity. She just slides off the tailboard, thanks Gabe, and walks straight for me like she’s decided forward is the only direction left.
“Clay,” she says.
I move past her. “Drill at fifteen hundred, Quinn. Don’t be in the way.”
“Hey,” she says, catching my sleeve. “Look at me.”
I do. And I hate that it matters—her eyes on me like cool water, steady hands on a man who forgot what steady felt like.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says.
The words scrape. I ease my arm out of her hold. “Go home, Ember.”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “That I heard it from him.”
“Doesn’t matter who said it.” I pull open the bay door to let the wind cut the heat out of me. “Doesn’t change a damn thing.”
I don’t mean to show up at her rental.
I tell myself I’m there because the night is dropping below twenty and the text she sent said heater out again with an ice cube emoji. I tell myself it’s easier to fix it than read the town Facebook group arguing over whether my “fiancée” needs space heaters or a miracle, because apparently she posted in there too. I tell myself it’s my duty.
It’s a lie.
I show up because she heard holy ground and didn’t run.
I rap twice on the cabin door, knuckles against cheap wood, and the door swings open on a rush of cold and citrus. Ember’s hair is twisted up, loose strands curling near her collarbone, and she’s swimming in a sweater the color of old smoke. Bare legs. Wool socks. Bare legs.