Page 45 of Kissing the Beach Town Fire Chief
With Aunt Maggie still standing beside me, her hand finally slipping from mine, I know this moment is bigger than just politics. It’s about mending fences, about seeing a shared future for Seabrook.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s about the way Ethan’s hand finds mine again before we head down the steps—like he’s not letting go anytime soon.
Chapter twenty-five
Ami
Election day, better called Re-Election Day, feels like the whole town is breathing in and forgetting how to exhale.
I wake before my alarm, nerves already tapping at my ribs, and watch the white winter light creep across my ceiling. Outside, gulls shout over the harbor, and from somewhere farther inland comes the low, constant hum of tires on pavement. Ethan texts me to tell me he’ll meet me at headquarters in10. Then he adds thatwe’ve got this.
I believe him. I also don’t. I’m made entirely of hope and static.
At the campaign office, people are already buzzing. Coffee cups clatter, printers spit, tape guns whir. Volunteers cluster around folding tables, and there are only two or three of the cinnamon rolls Mrs. Connelly dropped off, They are glazed, still slightly warm, and, according to the note, “powered by butter and belief.”
Ethan’s by the whiteboard, his smile soft around the edges the moment he spots me. He crosses the room like there’s no one else in it and kisses my cheek, brief and steadying.
“Hi,” he says, and somehow, it’s a whole paragraph.
“Hi,” I echo. My hand finds his without thinking.
We fan out across Seabrook with our volunteers. By nine a.m., I’ve climbed more porch steps than I care to count. A golden retriever insists on bringing me a damp tennis ball like I’m the morning entertainment. A woman in a floral robe leans out to whisper that she voted early and is making clam chowder “for after you win, honey.” A teenager with blue hair tells me she started a ‘zine because of the reenactment show and asks if the academy will have screen-printing. I say it will. I want it to.
At a tidy little farmhouse on Maple Street, a man in suspenders points to the road and launches into a full-throated complaint about potholes. I promise we’ve heard him. Two blocks later, a woman with dirt under her nails complains about stray cats treating her vegetable beds like a spa.
Ethan bumps my shoulder with his. “Potholes and feral felines. The backbone of democracy.”
I try to smother a laugh and fail. The sound sticks with me when we pause outside the hardware store and share a paper cup of too-hot coffee. It’s bitter and perfect. He blows on the surface and then presses it into my hands like a pledge.
“This is going to be okay,” he says, not loudly but with the same conviction that steadied me onstage. “No matter what happens, we did what we said we’d do. We told the truth and built something.”
I nod. I want to tell him I’ve never seen anyone earn trust the way he has, that his kind of leadership is quiet and stubborn and exactly what this place needs. But the words pile up behind my ribs, and all that comes out is, “You’re good. You know that?”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Only because you keep telling me.”
By late morning, the booths at the community center are open and humming. The gym smells like pencil shavings and floor polish. Volunteers guide people to the right tables, comparing names to lists and pointing to privacy screens. There are kids in hand embellished tee shirts, older folks in their good clothes, and teenagers trying to look nonchalant about doing something helpful.
I spend hours doing the small things: handing out pens, fetching a new roll of tape, unjamming a printer like my life depends on it. Occasionally, I catch Ethan’s voice across the room—patient, even, never showy—answering questions, thanking people for coming.
He finds me near the bleachers when the noon rush thins. “Stolen minute?” he asks. I nod and follow him down a side corridor where the noise softens. It’s just a short hallway with a dusty trophy case and a soda machine humming, but the quiet feels like a secret.
He leans against the wall, tilts his head. “Hi again.”
I grin. “You look devastatingly normal.”
“Tragic,” he says solemnly. “Think anyone would notice if I ducked out and got a haircut?”
“There’s a foam-finger kid in the lobby. He would absolutely notice.”
He groans. “Of course there’s a foam-finger kid.”
I step closer without meaning to. The fluorescent lights overhead are unflattering, but it doesn’t matter. He looks like everything steady. My fingers curl on the edge of his jacket. His hand finds my waist the way it has every day in my head lately, like it belongs there.
“What if we lose?” I whisper, because it’s safer to say it here than to let it skitter around my skull.
He studies my face like it’s part of the map he’s trying to carry in his head. “Then we do what we said we’d do anyway. We build the academy. We keep pushing the council. We make the town better because that’s the work, not the title.” His thumb skims the hem of my sweater, a tiny reassurance. “And we stay us.”
My throat tightens. I nod, and then I kiss him. Not dramatic. Not cinematic. Just the kind of kiss you can tuck into your pocket and take back out when you need to remember what you’re doing this for.
