Page 88 of Ashes of Us
“Okay.” I forced a small smile. “I’ll stay out of the way, then.”
“Appreciated,” she said, but there was the tiniest twitch of amusement in her tone. Maybe gratitude, too.
I left her to it.
It was latewhen I finally clocked out.
Most of the station was dark except for the light spilling from my office window… and, weirdly, the hall. The bakery van was still parked out front, its windshield glinting under the streetlight. I stopped halfway through pulling off my jacket. Piper should’ve been long gone by now.
I turned on my heel and made a beeline toward the hall.
When I walked inside, the place was quiet except for the sound of scraping metal. And there she was: Piper, trying to drag a massive warming tray cart across the floor, heels digging in, muttering something that sounded like creative profanity.
“Piper?” I asked, stepping closer. “What are you doing?”
She jumped slightly, then blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Forgot the chafing dishes. Need them for tomorrow’s brunch. Thought I could grab them real quick.”
“By yourself? That thing weighs a hundred pounds.”
She gave a shrug that tried to look casual and failed. “I thought I could do it.”
“Of course you did,” I muttered, moving to take the other side before she could argue. “Here, lift from that end.”
She hesitated but didn’t stop me. Together we hefted the thing out of the hall and into the van, grunting as the metal legs scraped the floor.
When we finally set it down, we both straightened at the same time. We were too close, too breathless. Her hair had come loose again, a strand falling across her cheek, and my hand twitched before I could stop it, like it remembered the right to move it away.
She looked up, eyes meeting mine.
For a heartbeat, the air went still.
Up close like that, the scent of her hit me… flour, sugar, and a trace of vanilla that had nothing to do with the bakery and everything to do with her. Her cheeks were flushed, a strand of hair plastered to her temple, her breath coming quick. God, she looked the same as she had the day I fell in love with her. Messy, determined, too good for me and completely unaware of it.
Her eyes flicked down to my mouth, just for a second. Maybe I imagined it, maybe I didn’t. But I felt it anyway. That electric hum under my skin, the part of me that still remembered the exact shape of her in my arms, the sound she made when she laughed into my neck.
I shouldn’t have been thinking any of that. Not here, not now. But the space between us felt small and dangerous, like one wrong move could set it all off again.
Then she stepped back. “Thanks.”
“Yeah,” I said quietly.
She closed the van doors. “Guess I should actually go home now.”
“Guess you should.” I smiled, trying to play it off, but something in her expression made it impossible to fully let go. There was softness there, a tired kind of warmth that hadn’t been aimed at me in a long time.
We noded at each other, whispered our goodnights, and I watched her climb into the driver’s seat and pull away, the taillights fading down the empty street.
For a long time after, I just stood there under the hum of the parking lot lights, wondering when helping her started feeling like breathing again…
And why that scared the hell out of me.
CHAPTER 35: PIPER
Three days after the charity breakfast, my van died.
The first sign something was wrong was the grinding noise. The second was that sharp and acrid smell, like burning rubber mixed with desperation.
I pulled into the grocery store parking lot and killed the engine, hands tight on the wheel. The van shuddered once, then went silent in that ominous way that meant I was about to spend money I didn't have.
