Page 152 of Smoke and Fire
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Lofa just said Jakob asked about you, but it didn’t sound crazy.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t think about him as much anymore.”
Thankfully, very true.
My thoughts felt heavy in the wake of such honesty. I really didn’t think of Jakob as much now that Bastian occupied so much of my mind. Besides, blaming Jakob for my broken heart was the easy path, but not necessarily the fair one. It may have been Jakob’s idea to part ways, but I’d agreed to it, then retreated to lick my wounds.
Sione reached over, a big paw of a hand on my knee. For such a large man, he was gentleness personified.
“You’re in a good place, Dahlia. I’ve got you. The family has got you. You may have lost your fiancé and your work as a secretary and your path, but sometimes the best things come when everything is turned upside down.”
In another moment of blatant honesty I murmured, “I’m tired of being upside down. Of not knowing what’s next or what I want. Deciding is hard. There’s a lot of pressure to be right this time.”
“Then take the pressure off. Let yourself be fixed. Don’t sit in it, okay? There’s no badges for suffering here.”
The words sank all the way into my heart.Let yourself be fixed.He was right. I’d started to wear my frustration and grief over what Jakob and I lost like a protective sleeve over my heart.
Time to let it go.
My life was my own now. I didn’t work for Jakob’s father anymore. Didn’t live in Jakob’s apartment or wash Jakob’s laundry or attend Jakob’s parties.
My life wasmine.
Tears rose to my eyes. I nodded and blinked them back. No more tears. Not for Jakob. I’d already shed plenty over him. Any tears now would be for some other purpose.
“Thank you, Sione.”
He nodded once, a quick acknowledgment without the mushiness of emotions, even though Sione had always been warm, affectionate, and touch-driven. He tilted his head to the door.
“There’s a little fire out there, you see it?”
I laughed at such an obnoxiously down-played question. “Is there anyone thathasn’tseen it?” I asked. That ‘little fire’ had more than doubled overnight, burning acreage so fast that firefighters had been retreating to stay safe. The updates sent my heart into a worried spiral, so I eventually had to turn them off. Easier not to know.
We glanced through the window to the column of smoke outside. It had also doubled in thickness, but for all I knew, that was expected. Still, gettingbiggerdidn’t seem like a great thing. I’d been too far buried in work and Jess’s novels to think much about it today. Except for my obsession with Bastian’s safety up there, of course.
Sione scowled, his upper lip curled. “Ugly thing. Mark is tracking it. He said that it’s several canyons west of the camp. Obviously, it would have to cross the highway and cross a river to hit Adventura, but still too close for comfort.”
“Can a fire do that?”
“Probably? Dunno.”
“How far away is it from Adventura?”
Sione shrugged. “A few miles, I think. Mark says the topography isn’t in Adventura’s favor. He hiked up one of the mountains behind Adventura with Megan and Justin the other day. They could see the smoke clearly from there. Justin thinks that if the fire made a run with the right wind conditions, it could hit the camp.”
My eyes widened. “Do you have to close down?”
“Only if they issue an evacuation order. For now, we’re watching.”
I relaxed a little. “Stay safe, please?”
He waved that off.
“Always. We’d have plenty of time to get out, and Stella checks for notices obsessively. They said the Pineville hotshot crew went up there yesterday. That’s good. I’m grateful for intense people that do crazy jobs.”
The text messages with Bastian still rang through my head now, setting me off-kilter.Intense people that do crazy jobs.Yeah, that made sense. Bastian seemed like the dive-into-danger type of guy.
