Page 53 of Into the Fire: Before

Not a cancelation. A request for a night in with takeout.

Sold!

Sunday night was quiet, calm. Brea, Taryn, Lin, and me on the roof with takeout and Lin’s dad’s moonshine. (Caine, true to nature, begged off.) We talked, we laughed. Taryn showed us sketches of a character named Bean-jamin she planned to pitch to her boss. Brea mentioned her daily crossword subscription, thereby elevating her cool quotient in my book as we discussed that day’s tricky puzzle. Taryn then threatened to dump us both for cooler lovers, and to hear the wordloverstrip off her tongue was like drizzly warm syrup over the perfect warm brownie.

Everyone was smiling, and safe, and calm. Utter perfection.

Brea

IwasmadatLin. I was also trapped in a car with him, so that was awkward.

Taryn had spent nearly two weeks since Heath’s tantrum taking it easy at home. I hadn’t even needled Brooks into offering his medical advice that she should rest and recuperate from her concussion. I had a sneaking suspicion he wanted to wrap her up in bubble wrap and stick her in a bank vault as much as I did.

Finally, though, she’d had enough of her convalescing, and had texted Jennie to add her back onto the schedule at work. Which sent me through the damn roof, because ifIwasn’t ready for her to go back out into the real world, how the hell could she be?

We’d fought. I’d cried. And she’d stomped all the way up to the fourth floor and banged on the guys’ door and, when Lin answered, demanded he pick a side—hers, or mine.

He picked Taryn’s. I almost slapped him.

I didn’t answer his texts for a day. When he texted two days later offering to drive me to my campus office—normally a nearly ninety-minute choreography of buses that could be cut more than in half with direct transpo—I wasn’t dumb enough to decline, even if I kind of wanted him to slip on a banana peel.

Taryn didn’t deserve to be jailed in our apartment because of my fears. I knew this. So much of her identity was wrapped up in doing exactly what haters wanted hernotto do, I was lucky she’d humored me as long as she did. Still, the last two days of her back at work, without me or one of the guys nearby, had Human Brea and Alpha Brea equally on edge.

When Lin finally pulled up in front of my office building, I didn’t get out immediately. I kept telling my hand to reach for the door and pull the lever and open it and stand up and walk away, but my rebellious fingers just fidgeted in my lap.

If Taryn didn’t deserve to be locked up to assuage my own fears, Lin certainly didn’t deserve my ire for confirming as much.

“Brea?”

I swallowed but didn’t look up. Couldn’t speak if I met his gaze. “I don’t think I had any light in me before Taryn,” I admitted quietly. “Any light I have, she gave to me.”

“No.” He reached for my hand, and I let him grasp it. “Maybe she gave you the strength to find your light, to let others see it. But it’syours. Undoubtedly.”

I shot him a quick, small smile before averting my gaze again. He couldn’t understand. He’d never known the me that existed before Taryn. The cold candle that had never been lit, wax pristine, who’d had no hope she ever would be.

Taryn had burned through matchbook after matchbook to keep my wick burning. From the moment we’d first met to this very day, she’d never once let my candle go dark again. She was my light, my warmth, my hope.

We sat in quiet for a moment, Lin’s gaze like the whisper of a touch against my skin. “I can’t lose her,” I whispered, eyes burning. “I can’t go back to living in the dark.”

Overly acidic blackberry and honey overtook the car, like your favorite jam gone bad. His grasp on my hand tightened, almost painful with his strength. He opened his mouth, then cleared his throat and paused. When he finally did speak, his words were thick, voice broken.

“Taryn is a firework. Big and bright and joyful.” He pulled his hand from mine, only to tuck my hair behind my ear and cup my cheek, forcing me to look up at him. “But you…” He gave a slow shake of his head, his face awestruck. “You, Brea, arelightning.Power and passion. Impossible to ignore. And even though you could absolutely destroy me with one strike, I’d still get on my knees and beg you to end me.”

The lightning he spoke of coursed through my chest, the shock of it leaving my skin tingling. It crackled through my head and burned behind my eyes. His thumb brushed so softly against my cheek. The car, his face, it all blurred as the tears that had been lurking unshed for days finally overtook me.

“Her light comes from her, and it’s beautiful. But yours…light like yours doesn’t come from someone else, Brea. It isyours,and it ismagnificent.”

He kissed me gently. So differently than the hedonism and dominance of the kisses from our first date. This was solace. It was support. It was peace.

We were so far from evaluating a pair of heat partners. We hadn’t meant to catch feelings. Yet these men—all of them—had somehow settled into our life like dandelion seeds weighed down with wishes.

I pulled Lin toward me and kissed him again. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You were right to side with Taryn.”

“Forgiven,” he replied before planting another couple quick kisses on my lips. “You’re going to be late, though.”

A shy smile curled up my lips, and I finally reached for the door handle and stepped out into the sunlight. Before shutting the door, though, I leaned down and smiled at Lin. “Keep an eye on your mailbox tomorrow.”

I didn’t wait for him to respond or ask questions before shutting the door and heading inside to do my work.

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