Chapter 20 #2
Then she reached for my hand again, threading her fingers through mine. Her skin was warm now, slightly callused at the base of her fingers from work. I brushed my thumb slowly across her knuckles, feeling the fine bones beneath.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said.
She nodded, then—almost without deciding—leaned forward and rested her forehead against my chest. I felt the silk of her hair against my chin, smelled the faint lavender in it, and felt the steady rhythm of her breathing sync slowly with mine.
After a while, she eased back just enough to look up. “I’m starving,” she said, a small, genuine smile breaking through. “Have you eaten?”
“Not since lunch. My stomach’s been growling for the last hour. I’m surprised you didn’t hear it.”
“Same.” She glanced toward the tiny kitchenette. “I’ve got nothing here worth cooking. But Joe’s still delivers. Feel like a pizza?”
I grinned, already knowing. “Pineapple and jalapenos?”
Her eyes lit with mischief. “Extra jalapenos. Harper and Jude always acted like we were trying to poison them.”
“Harper literally gagged once,” I said, laughing under my breath. “Jude just kept muttering ‘crime against pizza’ and left the room.”
“Remember when they tried to stage an intervention?” she added, voice lighter now. “Told us we were ‘traumatizing them.’”
We both laughed softly, the sound small and shared, easing the last of the evening’s heaviness.
We ordered one large pizza with pineapple and jalapenos.
While we waited, she moved around the small space with quiet purpose—lighting a second candle so twin flames danced on the walls, dimming the overhead light until the room felt cocooned in gold.
The air grew warmer, sweeter with candle wax and anticipation.
I leaned against the counter and watched her—the graceful line of her neck when she reached up, the way her sweatshirt slipped off one shoulder for a second before she tugged it back.
When the delivery arrived, the scent of the pizza and the rush of cool night air came with it.
We carried it to the fold-down table, knees brushing beneath the wood.
Steam rose, carrying the sharp tang of jalapenos and the bright sweetness of pineapple.
She flipped the box open; the cheese stretched in long golden threads as she pulled a slice free.
She handed me the first piece without a word. We ate quietly at first, the river murmuring outside, the occasional pop of a candle wick.
After a couple of bites, she looked up. “I used to picture this.”
“I paused. “What?”
“Us. Like this. Eating our questionable pizza together. Talking without the world pressing in. Friends like we used to be.”
I set my slice down. “I pictured it too. More nights than I want to admit. Like a memory mixed up with hope for the future.”
She reached across the small table, brushing her fingertips across the back of my hand. “I’m glad you’re here.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
She pulled her hand back slowly, tucking it around her glass, and looked at me with the expression she got when she was genuinely curious about something and had decided to just ask it. “How was poker night?”
“Asher won the first hand and hasn’t stopped talking about it since.” I shook my head. “You’d think he’d won a professional tournament.”
She smiled at that, leaning her chin on her hand. “How much did you lose?”
I picked up my glass. “Enough that I’m not going to say the number out loud.”
“That bad?” She pressed her lips together, trying not to laugh and not quite managing it.
“It was a difficult evening,” I said, with as much dignity as the situation allowed.
“Cade cleaned us all out by the end, which somehow made Asher’s victory feel less significant, so there was some justice in it.
” I reached for another slice. “Jude brought pretzels as his contribution to the evening and ate most of them himself.”
She laughed then, properly, tipping her head back slightly. “That’s so Jude. Were they—” she paused, and something flickered briefly across her face, careful and then gone. “Were they okay? About the trailer situation?”
“They were fine,” I said. “Concerned. You know how they are.”
She nodded slowly, reading what I hadn’t said in that, and let it settle without pushing further. “And work?” she said, after a moment. “How was your day before all of this happened?”
I thought about it. “Quiet morning. We had a call mid-afternoon, nothing serious—a barn fire out on Route 9, contained fast. But there was a moment when we first pulled up where it looked like it might go a different way, and that stays with you a little.” I paused.
“The waiting-to-know part. Before you can see the full picture.”
She was watching me carefully. “Does that happen a lot? That feeling?”
“Often enough that you learn to manage it,” I said. “You get good at staying in the present moment. Focusing on what’s in front of you rather than what might be.” I looked at her. “It’s actually not bad practice for life in general.”
She held my gaze for a beat, something warm moving through her expression. “I never really asked you much about the job,” she said quietly. “What it actually felt like from the inside. I’m sorry for that.”
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I want to know,” she said simply. “I mean that. Not just tonight. I want to actually know what your life looks like. Now. I know all about—before. You know, when we were closer.” She said it directly, without hedging, and it landed somewhere important.
“What does a regular shift feel like for you?”
So I told her. Not the dramatic version, not the highlights reel, but the actual texture of it—the long slow hours of maintenance and routine, the way the station had its own rhythm and its own quiet, the way a call changed the air in a way that was impossible to describe to someone who hadn’t felt it, the strange intimacy of working that closely with people over that much time.
She listened without interrupting, her chin resting on her hand, her eyes on my face, and it occurred to me somewhere in the middle of it that she wasn’t just being polite.
She was actually there, actually listening, and that was something I hadn’t let myself want for long enough that I’d almost forgotten what it felt like.
“Your parents must be proud,” she said, when I’d wound down.
“They are,” I said. “They don’t say it in so many words. But they are.”
She smiled at that, soft and certain. “I’m proud of you, too,” she said. “For what it’s worth.”
It was worth quite a lot. I didn’t say that.
She reached across the small table again, brushing her fingertips across the back of my hand, lighter this time, like she wasn’t sure she was going to do it until she already had. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said.
We talked more after that, the conversation finding its own current, the way it had started to again lately, easy and unforced, moving from his parents to hers to the town and back again.
The pizza disappeared gradually. We cleared the table together, shoulders brushing in the narrow space.
Her arm grazed mine and lingered a second longer than necessary.
When the empty box was folded and set aside, she turned to me.
“Stay with me tonight,” she said simply. “Please.”
“Okay. I’ll go to my trailer and change. Be right back.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”
We met at her bed a few minutes later. The mattress dipped under our weight.
She lay on her side facing me, and I stretched out on my back.
The sheets were cool at first, then warmed quickly where our bodies lay.
We didn’t rush to close the gap. We simply existed there in the dark, breathing the same air, listening to each other settle.
After a while, her hand found mine beneath the blanket. Her fingers were warm. Her pinky hooked around mine. I closed my eyes. My heart thudded hard and steady. I was sure she could feel the rhythm through our joined hands.
Tonight we’d talked. Tomorrow we’ll keep talking.
And somewhere between the shared weird pizza and the quiet promise of a hooked finger, I realized I wasn’t scared I’d push her away anymore. I was exactly where I belonged. I stayed awake for a while, listening to her breathing slow down. When it did, I let myself sleep too.