Page 39 of Smoke and Fire
Sione sighed. “It wasn’t right, Dahlia. You know that. The two of you were . . . you just weren’t the right fit, no matter how much you tried to force it. You were roomates, not lovers. You were hardly even friends toward the end. Would you really want to marry a guy like that? Believe it or not, marriage binds you together forever.” He tapped his heart. “It happens in here. I’m glad you didn’t marry him. He wasn’t the one.”
That was Sione, a giant, utter romantic to the end.
Unable to deny the truth, I leaned back against the wall. Jakob had been an easy escape. Bright and brilliant and sparkling at first, our relationship had eventually faded into something benign and formulaic.
We lived easily with each other, but maybe not happily. It bothered me that I’d been willing to live a mostlyblehway of life for so long. The only reason I’d snapped out of it was because Jakob brought it up.
Would I have stayed that way forever?
Unbidden, Bastian came to mind. He shared no similarities with Jakob. Happy, energetic Jakob. Jakob had always been the life of the party. The originator of the excitement. Karaoke. Stage plays. Saturday game nights. People flowed to Jakob. In some ways, Jakob and I had been too similar. Clones of the same personality, just represented in different genders.
Bastian, on the other hand, appeared recalcitrant in comparison. Brooding, sharp, and quiet. He carried responsibility like a superpower instead of a burden. His gaze could set me on fire in a second.
No, there was nothing similar.
My lips tingled at the merethoughtof Bastian. He hadn’t even kissed me yet, but the intimacy of scenes from his book made me feel like he had. If he could describe a kiss in words that made my heart flutter, what would his actual touch do to me? I’d fall apart at the seams.
“You there?”
I blinked out of my thoughts. Sione had smacked my knee with the back of his hand. I shook my head.
“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.
