Epilogue
Frankie
The first photo comes before I’ve even unpacked since arriving back in Toronto. It’s Mason in the firehouse kitchen, biting into a snickerdoodle I assume Leah baked, a smug look on his stupidly kissable face.
Mason: Hazel says hi, by the way. She wanted a cookie too, and I told her cats can’t have chocolate. She told me to go fuck myself. So here I am eating them all at work.
I grin for two full minutes, and it’s been nonstop.
December 28th
He’s been sending me voice notes from the back lot while snow plows hum in the background, low and raspy and half-laughing.
Voice notes in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. Video calls where he paces his room in low-slung sweats, making sure I can see just how much he misses me.
Texts that are filthy, funny, and so perfectly him, I keep catching myself smiling at my phone like a walking cliché.
I lie in bed, pressing play on a voice note from earlier.
“Missed your mouth this morning. That sounds dirtier than I meant it, but also, it doesn’t.”
I scroll through the photos he’s sent today and pause on a blurry selfie of him and Hazel, with his tongue out and her ears flattened in protest.
His uniform shirt is open at the neck and I want to run my fingers under it.
We’ve barely gone a few hours without talking since the day at the cemetery.
Texts, photos, late-night video calls. And yeah, sexting too. But it’s not anonymous anymore.
Now, when I tell him I miss the sound of his voice, it’s not because it’s a kink. It’s because I do.
December 29th
He’s in bed, shirtless, one hand behind his head, the other holding the phone he’s video calling me on.
I can see the curve of his shoulder, the scruff at his jaw, the softest smile playing on his mouth.
“You still up, babe?”
“You’re the one calling me at eleven.”
“That’s ‘cause I knew you’d be awake.”
“I’m editing a client’s logo and eating leftover pie with a spoon.”
“Hot.”
“Don’t mock me.”
“Never. Just imagining what else you might let me eat pie off of.”
I roll my eyes so hard I see stars, but still, my skin burns. “I don’t share pie.”
He drops his teasing for a second, voice going warm and low.
“Wish I was there, just to sit with you… Even if you don’t share pie.”
“Wish you were here too,” I say quietly.
He nods. “I’ve got one more shift, then I’m down at the lake for New Year’s. We’ve got trucks there all day. Bonfires, fireworks, fire safety patrol.”
“You think Maplewood’s gonna spontaneously combust?”
“I think if I’m not working, I’ll be thinking about not seeing you.”
“Fireboy.”
“Don’t call me that unless you’re going to be naked while saying it.”
“You’re so horny.”
“I’m in love with you.”
“That’s not even remotely fair.”
“Not trying to be fair, just making sure you know.”
He says it like it’s simple and it doesn’t have to change anything. Except, of course, it already has.
I didn’t realize how small my world had become until I let someone else into it. Until someone like Mason walked through the cracks and decided to stay.
Now there’s plans to be made.
Nothing official, nothing overwhelming—just soft, stupid plans.
A visit to Maplewood to stay with him in January. A night with Hazel curled between us on the couch. A fancy dinner somewhere with good steak and better wine.
The kind of plans that make your life feel bigger, not smaller.
I haven’t had plans like that in a while, but I know I want them to include him.
Especially now.
Especially knowing what New Year’s Eve used to mean for him—the night he’d planned to propose, only to walk in and find the woman he thought loved him fucking someone else.
I remember how gently he’d looked at me when I didn’t want to decorate the tree, how he made me laugh, made me feel safe.
Made a new memory to sit beside the ache.
And I want to do that for him.
December 30th
The photo is of Mason in bed, shirtless and sheets low on his hips. His hand’s not in frame, but I can see the tension in his biceps to understand what he's doing. The message comes seconds later.
Mason: Nearly five days since I’ve seen you. Starting to lose my mind.
Me: You need a visual, babe?
The voice note arrives seconds later.
“Don’t even need to look at the screen to picture your mouth. I know the sound you make when you’re about to come, I can hear it. And yeah—I jerked off to that just now and I’m telling you anyway. Because it’s not enough.”
I send him back a video of just my hand, sliding the purple vibrator between my thighs. My voice is breathy but clear.
“I miss your mouth. Miss your cock. Miss the way you say my name right before you come.” A soft moan. “And I miss how you never stop until I beg.”
The responding phone call is immediate, and I answer it on a breathy sigh.
“Fuck, Frankie.” A shaky inhale. “I’m gonna tie you up the second I get my hands on you. Plug in. Legs spread. Slapping that pretty little pussy until you scream.”
I come hard not long after, but it’s not enough, not the same. But I fall asleep smiling, but I want his arms around me, his breath skating out in even beats on the back of my neck.
New Year's Eve
My suitcase is half-packed before I admit what I’m doing.
I stare at the pile of clothes, my laptop, the folder of unfinished design work. I bite my lip. He doesn’t know I’ve booked my train ticket.
By the time I make it into Maplewood, it’s already dusk. Snowflakes drift lazily from the sky, the kind that shimmer under the streetlights.
My breath clouds as I walk, dodging families headed toward the lake, and my stomach is a goddamn mess of nerves and anticipation.
It’s freezing—the kind of cold that bites your cheeks and seeps into your fingertips—but I don’t feel it. Not really. Not when I’m walking toward the lake, not when I know he’s down there.
A crowd’s already gathered. Families, couples, groups of teens flinging snowballs toward the lake’s edge.
Bonfires glow along the perimeter, casting orange embers up into the sky, and the sound system’s playing some kind of retro dance track that thumps beneath the crowd’s laughter.
He’s easy to find. Standing with a couple other firefighters, tossing salt onto a slick patch of the path and laughing at something one of the others said.
He’s in uniform pants, his fire department jacket half-zipped, and a knit beanie pulled low over his ears.
My heart thumps wildly as I cup my hands around my mouth, and yell across the snow-covered clearing.
“Hey, Fireboy! You lose another snowball fight?”
His head whips around, and he freezes for a split second, then he’s moving.
No hesitation, no slow smile or drawn-out reunion. He runs. And when he reaches me, he doesn’t stop, just scoops me right off the ground, hauling me against his chest.
“Fuck me, you’re actually here,” he breathes into my neck. “I thought you couldn’t come.”
“I lied,” I say into his coat, fingers fisting the thick fabric. “And you bought it.”
He pulls back, eyes skating over my face like he’s trying to memorize it all over again. His nose is red from the cold, cheeks flushed, hair slightly wind-tousled under his beanie.
“You’re fucking perfect,” he mutters.
I grin. “Little dramatic.”
“Not even close.”
“You said you’d combust without me,” I shrug. “Figured I’d better prevent a city-wide emergency.”
He just stares at me, then mutters fuck, and drags me in by the coat.
The kiss is fire.
Right there in the middle of Maplewood Lake, with kids screaming and sparklers flashing and snow threatening to fall, he kisses me for everyone to see.
When he pulls back, and I cling to his jacket for a second longer than necessary.
“Wait—” I glance around at the crowd, the tents, the fire truck parked down the back of the lot. “Aren’t you supposed to be working?”
His hand curls around mine. “I’m volunteering. Which means I’m technically on crowd patrol and bonfire duty until midnight.”
I arch a brow. “And does crowd patrol usually involve making out with civilians?”
“Only the really fucking hot ones,” he mutters, tugging at my hand. “Come on, I need to show you something.”
“Don’t say it’s your dick. You should save that for midnight.”
He snorts. “Shut up and follow me.”
We weave through the crowd, Mason leading us toward the far end of the lake where a temporary skate rental station is set up under a tent.
He grabs a pair, glancing at my feet.
“You skating with me or you want me to carry you?”
“Please, I can skate.”
I cannot skate. He knows I can’t skate.
“These should work, then.” He drops to one knee on a bench just outside the tent, patting his thigh. “Foot up, Red.”
My eyebrows lift. “Are you trying to live out some hockey-themed foot fetish fantasy right now?”
“Correct.” He grins up at me. “So let me lace you up.”
I bite my lip as I rest my booted foot on his thigh. His hands move fast, stripping off my boot, fitting the skate, lacing it up tight. Then the other.
His head is bowed, brows furrowed with concentration, hands steady as he pulls the final knot tight. The sight of him like this, with his strong forearms and veined hands, makes heat pool low.
When he looks up again, I know he sees it in my eyes. His smile stretches smugly as he stands and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth.
“Let’s skate before I bend you over the back of the truck right now.”
“Why not both?”
He laughs, tugs me toward the rink. “We’ll start with the skating.”
Ten minutes later, I’ve clung to him like a deranged octopus, nearly taken out a small child, and been laughed at by at least three elderly women Mason probably helped cross the road earlier.
“You’re enjoying this,” I mutter.
“I’m trying not to get a boner,” he replies cheerfully, arm tight around my waist. “You’re wiggling a lot.”
“I’m trying not to die.”
“Mm. Hot.”
I elbow him, but he’s a wall of solid firefighter. He doesn’t budge, but he eventually leads us off the ice and helps me unlace the borrowed skates, steadying me with both hands as I wobble back into my boots.