Page 14 of Hearts of Fairlake

I had laughed when he asked and then laughed again when I realized he was serious. It would end all agreements with my family, but that deal had been made out of pure spite in the first place. If my family wouldn't accept me, they would pay good money to keep me quiet. And now I was being asked to go up on stage, with my incredibly shy and private husband in tow, and shatter that agreement. My father's worst fears would be shown to the town,neighboring towns, anyone visiting, and probably the entire internet if Bennett's social media presence had anything to say about it.

Should I do it? I'd be lying if I claimed there wasn't a bitter pleasure at the idea of finally breaking a deal that had never been on paper, and so couldn't bite me in the ass. It wasn't like I was hurting for money. Over the years, my father had paid me a lot to keep quiet, and most of it had gone unspent because I didn't need much, and extravagance had never been my thing. Between what was saved and what I earned, along with Julian's income, I could survive quite comfortably and spit in my father's face in the worst 'betrayal' imaginable.

Should I make that kind of decision, which had been requested from a place of kindness and warmth, out of sheer spite and hate?

Just when I was starting to feel morose and sorry for myself, I heard something below me. Frowning, I leaned forward to gaze down at the street and the sidewalk in front of the fire station. All I could see was the light from the front of the building and the large moths flying around the bulbs in erratic, panicked circles. There wasn't another living thing around?—

THUNK.

I jumped as I felt the vibration of something hitting the building. For a moment, I was night blind from gazing down into the lights and couldn’t understand what I saw. Only as my eyes adjusted did I realize the two narrow things I was seeing starting to shake were the ends of a ladder.

A welcome face came slowly into view, followed by the broadest set of shoulders I'd ever laid eyes on. I could hear the soft clink of a wedding ring as it hit the metal rungs, and Julian finally stopped at the top.

"Gonna come join me?" I asked with a wicked grin,knowing full well what the answer would be. We were firefighters; we could and would put ourselves into danger to help other people, but that didn't mean he was much of a climber...or a fan of heights. It was amusing how people always assumed I knew everything about Julian there was to know when, in reality, even with me, he could be quite private. Only last year, I discovered he’d always been nervous about heights.

"Chief has been talking too much about needing to get the roof fixed for me to get my butt up there," he said, leaning forward to rest his arms on the top rung.

Julian definitely wasn't fat, but he was easily the biggest person I'd ever met, let alone in Fairlake. Not that you'd know it from how he moved and he was ever so careful around other people. He was a man who’d grown larger than the rest of the world, but to abuse it had never occurred to him, and he had always shown care to the smaller denizens of the world.

"You're supposed to be sleeping," I told him.

"So are you."

"Okay, but you were already sleeping. I never fell asleep."

At that, he smiled but didn't say anything else; he was just watching me carefully. Not that he needed to say a whole lot...nor would he. From the first day I'd met him, Julian struck me as a man who said very little, which had been true for the most part. He also struck me as someone who hated my guts, which wasn't so true if the smile on his face and the ring on my finger were any indication.

He had told me before that I’d been the first person, man or woman, friend or lover, who had tried to understand him without demanding that he always talk. Of course, that had come with the caveat that he did need to talk more, if only to tell me what he needed and what was bothering him. Butotherwise? I liked to think I was pretty good at knowing what was going on in that head of his.

And right now? Right now, he was worried about me. Not because he thought I was overwhelmed or extremely pissed, but because he knew if I wasn't sleeping and had found a high place, it meant I wanted to think.

"I'm okay," I told him, holding onto the pipe to stretch my legs without falling off.

"Okay," he said, that small smile still on his face.

I looked sidelong at him. "I was just?—"

"I know."

"I love you."

His eyes crinkled at the corners. "And I love you."

That right there was enough to push the moroseness from my thoughts. My husband loved me, was worried about me, and though he hadn't outright said it, he was waiting for me to join him on solid ground. Whether or not he would get me to lay down and go to sleep was entirely different, but I was sure he knew that.

"I'm coming down," I said with a chuckle, waving him off. "Get your two feet on Ol' Mother Earth."

Once again, he only smiled, clambering down the ladder faster than he'd climbed up. Whether that was because he was relieved to have his feet on solid ground again or because he'd successfully made me feel better. I even laughed when I watched the ladder disappear, Julian knowing full well I wasn't going to take the easy way down.

Swinging my legs around the pipe, I tested the friction of the roof tiles before letting myself slide down to the next lower part of the roof. My feet hit, and I popped up carefully, staying upright but not letting my momentum fling me forward. I walked toward the back of the fire station and to the furthest corner. There, the brickwork allowed me toswing around and use it like a ladder, moving my way down to the ground, where I dropped the last few feet and groaned, pressing into my back.

"I think I'm getting old," I told Julian as he returned, watching me in amusement as I stretched and bent. "Used to be I could sit up there forever. I've only been up there an hour."

"I can massage it if you want," he said, putting his hand on my lower back and curling his fingers as if trying to grab me.

Between the offer and the touch, I could feel a familiar, different tingle dancing up my back. "Why, Mr. Ender! What sort of man do you think I am? That sounds like an indecent proposal."

"It is," he said, leaning forward to kiss my temple and then nibble the top of my ear for good measure. "We're the only ones on shift tonight, remember?"

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