Page 43 of The Fireman and the Flirt

“I’m gonna go back inside. I’m freezing. Is it cold up by you?” Derek asked.

“It’s incredibly frigid.” The weather meant nothing to me at that moment. I existed on a plane outside of mother nature.

“Stay warm. See you on Monday.” Derek flashed me one more grin, and I noticed how earnest it was, that underneath the jock, bear, and daddy-capable-of-wrecking layers was just a levelheaded, kind, shy man trying to do the best he could like the rest of us.

I watched the screen go black when he hung up, already nostalgic for our conversation.

“Everything okay?” Maudrey slid the patio door open but didn’t dare join me. Harold hung behind her, cookie in hand.

Hmmm…was everything okay? I was doing something I promised myself after gearhead I’d never do again: falling for a guy.

“Remember when we were younger and we used to raid your parents’ liquor cabinet?” I glanced at my cousins. “Could we do that again? Like right now?”

Over the Thanksgiving holiday,I focused on not lusting or longing for my client. I was full of turkey. I didn’t need to stuff myself with heartbreak and fresh rounds of mortification, too.

I spent the weekend running an open house for one of my elderly clients. She refused to make updates to her house before selling, and because of that, interest had been hard to come by. Had she updated her house, it would sell in a heartbeat, and I’d be one step closer to beating the Morris brothers. But forcing clients to do something they didn’t want to wasn’t my style. I respected her choice, and while it would be more difficult to get an offer, I saw it as a fun challenge. I used Saturday to clean up and restage her house, and the Sunday open house miraculously got some attention, also thanks to a price drop. We ended the afternoon with potential bites.

Derek and I hadn’t spoken since that nighttime chat where he came out to me. It was a shame since I’d instantly gotten hooked on staring into his eyes via FaceTime. He was busy at the firehouse, sliding up and down the pole, doing a calendar shoot, or whatever firemen did all day. Still, I’d texted him twice on Sunday: one was a picture of my Caroline’s to-go cup, the other was a more businesslike confirmation of our Monday meetup. I received responses to neither. We hadn’t been texting for that long, yet that seemed out of character for him. I fought my anxiety tooth and nail not to let myself spiral.

I texted Derek early Monday morning to make sure our Eden Falls walkthrough was still on for today. Rather than the text thread devolving into our usual banter, he only replied with a thumbs up.

He was probably busy, I told myself. Putting out fires and stuff.

I tried hard to not think that something was up, but my brain was hardwired to cultivate drama from the tiniest scraps.

Eden Falls was on a former field, saplings growing along the sidewalk. I arrived at the home early to make sure everything was in order. It was a cozy, ranch house with all the modern amenities. An open layout, spacious kitchen with island, hardwood laminate floors. Perfect for Derek and Jolene.

My heart sped up as the front door clicked open.

“Greetings! Welcome to your potential new home! Wait until you check out the view from the living room.”

Derek didn’t move from the front door, though. He stared at me, his face betraying nothing.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying to stay upbeat as a sinking feeling washed over me.

He pulled an envelope from his jacket pocket and held it up, the faded edges making my stomach slide into a panicked freefall.

“I found your letter.”

13

DEREK

Iwasn’t actively trying to find the letter.

On Sunday, despite being wiped from my latest shift, I kept my promise to Jolene to take her to the storage locker. She wanted that Disney sweatshirt of Paula’s. I knew how much it would make her happy, even though I made a note to buy her one for Christmas.

In the storage locker, we worked our way through piles of boxes. We made a game of it, our twisted version of Christmas morning, because we never knew what we would find. I realized I hadn’t properly labeled any of our boxes, so opening each one was a surprise. Kitchen items were found in clothing-labeled boxes. Socks and blankets were found in boxes meant to hold pictures. It was such a mad dash to pack everything up in time that my label strategy had quickly gone out the window.

Jolene and I happily walked down memory lane with each opened box, recalling memories attached to random items. The waffle maker that we only used once but swore we’d use more often in Sourwood. The coffee mug Jolene made in an art class with the chipped handle.

Eventually, we found Paula’s sweatshirt in a box labeled books, but by that time, we were having too much fun to stop. There was a whole other side of the storage locker filled with stuff Cal had kept from our parents’ old house.

We took the scenic route down memory lane.

Mom and Dad, and by extension Cal, had saved everything. I found old permission slips from field trips, a pre-9/11 history textbook I somehow hadn’t returned at the end of the year, a puka shell necklace I’d worn everyday of junior year, my old see-through phone that I had in my room. Yes, I had my own phone line in my bedroom that I paid for, and I was damn proud of it. It was like a history lesson for my daughter. Once upon a time, there were no smartphones. If you wanted to speak to your friends, unless they were baller enough to have their own phone line, you had to call their house and make awkward conversation with their parents first.

At the bottom of one box was an assorted mix of worn school supplies and notebooks. I grabbed a purple three-subject notebook where I’d doodled the Stussy chain logo down the edge of the cover. Just as I was about to flip through the pages to show Jolene that my terrible handwriting had been in place for decades, an envelope fell out somewhere from the second subject section.

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