Page 85 of Frosting and Flames

“Nick…”

My palm goes sweaty, expecting her to let go of my hand. To tell me I’m trying too hard.

“I love how thoughtful you are. Thank you.”

Warmth unfurls in my chest at her appreciation. “Of course.”

“Now what about Orion’s Belt?” she asks. “That’s the one with three stars in a row, right?”

“Ah. I found out that’s a winter constellation. It’s only out during the day now, so you can’t see it.”

“Hmm. I guess we’ll have to come back out here in the winter, then.”

I like the sound of that. Something to look forward to for the future.

Our future.

“It’s a date,” I tell her, and I’m rewarded with a squeeze of my hand.

I show her a few more constellations I learned, like Cassiopeia and the Summer Triangle, and then pull up the astronomy app I downloaded on my phone to search for others. I love being here in our own private world, and as the night goes on, she snuggles into the blankets I brought, the conversation shifting to our days.

“Jae came in the bakery today,” she says, still looking up at the sky. “She showed me that article in the paper about the fire last week.”

“Oh.” The only reason I know about it is because Chief read it out loud to all of us at the station during the shift change. It’d been mortifying when it mentioned me and everyone looked my way.

“Why didn’t you tell me how dangerous it was?”

My stomach flips, as if I’m guilty of something. “I’m a firefighter. Sometimes stuff like that happens, but it’s part of the job.”

She moves to her side, facing me. “It said a roof collapsed on you.”

I’ve seen fire spread across a roofline faster than I can blink. Flames eat up walls and floors. Smoke swallow a building whole. I know danger.

But those things hadn’t made my chest feel as tight as it does now with Rachel looking at me like that, worry etched on her face.

“I know what I’m doing out there,” I tell her, stroking a hand down her arm in comfort. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

She huffs out a shaky breath, but the concern is still there. Fear, too. Funny how I can read her so easily now. “I keep thinking about what might have happened.”

As much as I hate it, maybe it’s good to have this conversation now, when things are still new between us. “You can’t play what-if games. You’ll drive yourself crazy.”

She nods, swallowing hard. “I know you’ve probably faced situations like that before, and I can’t ask you to stop doing what you love. I wouldn’t want you to. But I also can’t pretend like it doesn’t scare me.”

My hand moves to her back, rubbing up and down, trying to comfort her as I search for the right words. A way to make this easier for her. I don’t think there is an easy way, though.

“Every time that alarm goes off, there’s a chance it could go south,” I tell her. “That’s the job. But I take every precautionI can. I can’t guarantee nothing bad will happen, but I can promise I don’t take unnecessary risks.”

She nods, her gaze searching mine. “I just don’t want to lose you. Not right when I’ve finally found you.”

Something in my chest cracks open at her small confession. No, it’s not a declaration of love. Nowhere close to it. But with the way it makes my heart pound, you’d think it was. Like we’re edging closer to it.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I whisper, leaning in to kiss her.

She meets me halfway and stargazing is quickly forgotten as my lips move over hers. Her hand strokes my jaw, fingers curling around the nape of my neck, and something about the action feels like possession to me. As if I’m hers.

I want so badly to be hers.

We haven’t defined what this is we’re doing yet with labels or who we are to each other, but there’s no doubt in my mind about what she means to me. I don’t want to scare her off, though. Not when she was so hesitant to let me in even this far.

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