Page 53 of A Surefire Love
“I’m doing one cup per day until I can quit altogether.” Lines bracketed her mouth, and light from the window above the sink glinted on her dainty gold necklace. Tendons shifted in her slender neck as she moved.
He could study her all day, but that was a bad strategy for connecting with her. “Despite asking everyone I could think of, no one knows how or why anyone is getting into the youth room. But the stash changed, so someone is.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Set up a motion-activated camera. I don’t think they’re too pricey, and I need to find out what’s going on so I can help if it’s one of the students.”
“Good.” She shifted and assessed him without giving him the satisfaction of eye contact. She could leave, but instead she stuffed one hand in her pocket and settled her hip against the counter. “It’s good, you know?” She spoke soft and slow.
“What is?”
She rubbed her thumbnail along the seam where the sink met the countertop. “That the kids have someone looking out for them. Invested in how they’re doing.”
“Because you didn’t?”
She frowned and something flashed in her eyes.
Her stories waited beneath the surface, but he hadn’t earned her trust yet.
“I’ve thought about that night when I didn’t give you a ride home. I’ve always been a black-and-white thinker. Sometimes, like with Mercy and that bathroom situation, I get carried away with it.” An example of how his head got him in trouble sometimes. Giving more sway to his heart might not be all bad. “Back when we were in high school, I was a lot worse. I apologized the other night, but I’m not sure you understood how much I meant it. I’m sorry I left you in the cold that night.”
“Thank you.” She hugged her arm across herself. “If itmakes you feel any better, it wasn’t the first or the worst time someone did that.”
“Made you walk home?”
“Left me in the cold.” Her beautiful voice shivered.
How much had she been through? “Why would that make me feel better?”
She swallowed.
“But I do want to know.”
Her lips parted, then sealed. After a long inhale, she said, “It’s how I got the name.”
When she bowed her head, he risked a guess. “Because you were cold, you started a fire. The one that burned the garage.”
She returned to picking at the caulk around the sink. “I knew you’d heard the story.”
“Not from anyone qualified to tell it. They left out the part about you starting the fire for warmth. And probably a lot more.”
She didn’t continue the story.
He understood the hesitance. He’d never laid out his story for someone so early in a deepening friendship either, but Blaze was unlike anyone he’d grown close to before. “My offer stands. If you’ll trust me with your story, I’ll tell you mine.”
She assessed him and nodded. The deal was made. His soaring satisfaction set off ripples of concern that he’d promised too much. His story likely carried similar weight to the one he’d asked of her, but what if it changed how she saw him?
She hooked her hand behind her neck, eyes trained on the sink. “During Christmas break, I called a friend and invitedher over. I listened as she asked her mom for permission, and her mom said she couldn’t come because my mom drank so much. Until then, I didn’t realize how different our family was or the connection between Mom’s drinking and her behavior. I was so upset, I poured all her alcohol down the drain.
“When she found out, she was livid. Locked me out of the house. It was just me and my … My kitten sweater had this big, black-and-white cat on it and a ball of yarn.” She motioned over her torso. “I loved that thing, so I wore it even when it was way too hot. But that day, when I had nothing else against the cold …” Pink shaded the whites of her eyes and the crests of her cheeks.
“A kitten sweater? You were young.”
“First grade.”
Little Blaze, huddled in her kitten sweater against the cold, not only abandoned, but pushed away by the person who was supposed to love her most in the world. His heart shattered at the image, and his arms ached to crush her in a hug.
She stared at her hands. “I banged on the door for a while, but it turns out I didn’t getallthe alcohol. While she was consoling herself inside, I found newspapers in the bushes by our front door and a lighter in the garage. My fingers were so numb, I could barely pull the trigger. But once I got it, I got it.”
