Page 11 of Faron
She stopped, fork mid-air.
“Yeah,” she said. “Me too.”
She gestured to the chaos around her—the fluorescent buzz, the cheap coffee, the streak of dried blood on her shirt from a patient earlier.
“This is my life, Faron. It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s nonstop. I can’t promise anything.”
I nodded. “No promises.”
“But…” Her voice dropped to something quieter. Something private. “If you want to come home with me tonight… I won’t stop you.”
Heat curled low in my gut. Seven years apart, and she still knew how to undo me with ten words.
“You got a bed now, or should I lay you out on that clinic table again?”
She smirked. “Bed. Lock on the door. Big progress.”
I reached across the table, brushed her wrist like I had in the cave. Her pulse jumped.
“Then let’s get the hell out of here, Blue Davis. Before I change my mind and make another speech.”
She threw a twenty on the table and grabbed her keys.
This wasn’t love. Not yet.
But it was a start.
And I’d take it.
12
Faron
Blue’s place wasn’t what I expected.
Not sterile. Not chaotic. Just a tiny bungalow tucked behind the clinic, half-covered in jasmine vines. A cracked walkway. One porch light buzzing with moths. It smelled like sage and lavender and rain-warped wood.
Home, in a way only she could make it.
She unlocked the door, tossed her keys onto a chipped side table, and kicked her boots into a pile near the wall.
“Bear, stay. Be good.”
He padded in behind us and flopped onto a rug with a grunt of satisfaction. Like he already owned the joint.
Blue turned, crossing her arms again—her favorite armor.
“This doesn’t mean—”
I kissed her before she could finish.
My hands slid into her hair, mouth claiming hers like I was making up for every lost minute. She tasted like black coffee, stubbornness, and the years I spent aching for this exact moment.
She bit my bottom lip when I pulled away.
“Shut up, Lightfoot.”
“Wasn’t gonna say a word.”
